Tag: fiction

Writing Characters You Don’t Agree With

Writing characters require us to dive into their heads and figure out their backstories, beliefs, and personalities. It’s a fun diversion in and of itself to discover a character, much less to incorporate those discoveries into a greater narrative. Learning more about our protagonists can make us as attached to them as we hope our readers will be.

But what about writing people who are … less than agreeable? Or worse, who don’t share our values and principles? What about writing those whose motivations and beliefs are diametrically opposed to our own? What is it like to dig around in the head of someone who we don’t agree with?

It can feel almost like a betrayal of ourselves. He can’t say that, I don’t believe in it! She can’t do this, it’s not part of who I am! But putting yourself into your writing doesn’t necessarily mean you are your writing. You are creating a world with words, and that world will be filled with a motley mix of individuals who all possess their own strong personalities.

This can apply to antagonists and villains, but really, it includes any character you write. They play roles in a story, and sometimes those roles require them to be someone drastically different from yourself. Can that be awkward? Sure. Maybe there’s the nagging feeling in the back of your head that writing a character who deviates from your own worldview is somehow condoning things you don’t agree with. But if the story demands it and it develops your world, then it must be done. It’s not betrayal, it’s the mark of a maturing writer. I write people who do and say things I don’t personally find tasteful, but which do fit their own personality. I’m not that person. They’re a work of fiction, after all.

Besides, characters who disagree with you are likely to disagree with other characters, and that creates conflict. And conflict is how you keep a story going.

Even if you don’t agree with a character, they’re still yours and serve a purpose in the story. So, roll up your sleeves and figure out what to do with them. The first thing is to put yourself into their shoes. Think like them for a bit, practice seeing the world through different eyes. How do they feel about this thing or that other individual? How do they feel about your protagonist? Why?

Learning a bit of empathy and a bit about other worldviews certainly helps, as does reading good literature and learning from example how other authors write. It’s valuable to learn how to write characters whose voice and opinions don’t echo your own. Why? Because it is too easy to put yourself into every character and have everyone essentially act and believe as you do. And that makes a story boring and predictable.

And besides, for all that characters have a habit of taking on a life of their own, you are ultimately the final authority here. Like a director herding meddlesome actors, you learn to work with your cast and guide them toward your vision.

Ultimately, story is king. It comes first, and we do what we must to tell it. It’s all part of growing as writers.

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Writing Jerks

Why do jerks seem worse than villains? Villains are grand and powerful and fierce and evil. They deserve our disdain. But jerks are just plain petty. What’s worse? A dictator bent on conquering a nation, or a man who keys your car because you bumped him in the parking lot? Well, the former, obviously, but the latter certainly seems to steam people a heck of a lot more.

But I’m not here today to talk about “why’s,” but rather “how’s.” Namely: How do you write a jerk protagonist so that he’s likeable?

Think about it for a moment, writers. There are plenty of villains that people like. I’ve even written about it in a previous post. Mass murderers? Evil tyrants? Amoral thieves? They’ve all got fans. They’ve all got that special something called charisma. People will forgive a lot if you have charisma.

But jerks? They’re personal to the audience. We may never have met a murderer or a dictator (hopefully), but we all know a few knuckleheads with attitudes who stoop to the lowliest of cheap shots. Spend a week in customer service and you’ll meet jerks on the regular. They come in all flavors, but they all have something in common.

THEY AREN’T LIKEABLE.

Thus, going back to my first question, is there a way to write a protagonist who is unpleasant, rude, and otherwise just plain mean, and still make that character someone the audience can enjoy? Well, yes and no. The main thing about writing jerks is that if you keep them that way from start to finish, chances are you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

Consider a classic example of jerkdom in literature: A Christmas Carol’s Ebenezer Scrooge. A miserly, heartless, soulless businessman who has no mercy or pity for the poor. He’s on the up-and-up – he’s an honest man in the original story, believe it or not – but he has no redeeming traits. At first. The entire story is about Scrooge’s character development into a better person. And that’s the key to writing jerks: They shouldn’t still be jerks by the end of the story.

Side characters can stay jerks. Antagonists, of course, can remain jerks. But the protagonist should not remain static at the best of times. They evolve and mature. And if they start out as jerks and bullies, then they should show some sort of marked improvement by story’s end. Less of a jerk, kinder, more patient. Like Scrooge, they should learn something. There is nothing stopping you from writing a protagonist who remains the same come the conclusion, but if they were nasty and unlikeable to begin with, you risk leaving your audience with a sour last impression.

On the other hand, maybe the jerk not changing is the point. Maybe this is a more cynical piece, an introspective look into what makes a meanie tick – or maybe it’s just a comedy. Well, there is a way to make the audience side with the jerk, and that’s to introduce an even bigger jerk to square off against. Have a protagonist who’s belligerent and petty? Bring in someone else who’s even more so. It worked for British sitcom Fawlty Towers. Basil Fawlty is a Class-A Jerk through and through, but he frequently dances with people even worse than he is. See for yourself.

We like someone to root for, you see. If we’re given two flavors of unpleasantness, we’re naturally going to compare them. And if one is slightly less bad than the other, we’ll favor that one and despise the other. The lesser of two jerks, if you will.

There are those rare occasions where your story doesn’t require that the protagonist change for the better, or circumstances dictate that there isn’t a worse character to compare against. So, what to do? Well, you can make the jerk empathetic. That’s not saying you give the protagonist the capacity for empathy, but rather that you give them traits the audience can relate to. Humanize them a bit, just a little, so that they’re a tad more understandable. Maybe they are the way they are because of a bad childhood, or ill health, or they’re just plain unlucky.

Let us consider the case of Disney’s Donald Duck. He’s … not the most pleasant individual, especially in his 1930s and 1940s cartoon shorts. But oh, boy, does he have bad luck at every turn. Nothing turns out right for him. No wonder he has such a chip on his shoulder. If we had the rotten fortune that Donald does, we’d be short-tempered, irritable scoundrels, too.

So, there you have it. My two cents on writing jerk protagonists. It can be done. It has been done. You can do it, too.

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Blank Spaces of the Mind: How Do You Tell A Story Without Having to Tell Everything?

I like movies. I’m a visual person, and I enjoy seeing things portrayed on the screen. Little details are the most fun. Characters’ tics and interesting events happening in the background. Sometimes, I envy filmmakers. Creating their worlds are a little bit easier, because they can convey in a minute what can take a writer four or five paragraphs to communicate. ESPECIALLY when they are able to tell the story without a single word being said.

We writers, of course, don’t have that luxury. Books are nothing but words, which got me thinking: How do you show the reality of a story, that is, communicate character traits and worldbuilding details, when you can’t really show anything at all?

It’s a different game from simply describing a scene or a character. That’s to be expected. But where to stop? Where’s the line between “This is what Joe looks like and how he acts” and “This is Joe’s personality and character, let me tell you without ever referring to it again and thus making this paragraph pointless.”

So, I’ve thought about it, and here’s what I’ve come up with so far.

Stories are best told when the writer doesn’t need to explain everything. A good story unfurls through action, whether visual or written. Actions define a character, a group of characters, even a location. The way a person carries himself, dresses, talks – these all express relevant elements without the need for a mountain of exposition.

And they can be brief. For example: A wizard appears in the story. He dresses in fancy clothes and has clean, well-groomed hair. He talks formally with a condescending tone. He casually refers to esoteric subjects. He sniffs loudly whenever he disapproves of the other characters’ comments. He kills a wolf with a single, well-timed spell. Short, succinct statements that tell us what we need to know – and give us the freedom to paint a picture of the character in our minds. We don’t always have to go into detail about hair color, eye color, body type, or a detailed analysis of clothing. Heck, just the word “wizard” probably had you paint half the picture from a single word, didn’t it?

But then, another character brings in the Artifact of Doom for the wizard to identify. The wizard immediately panics and backs away, demanding that the object not be brought near him. Well, that tells us immediately that the Artifact of Doom is really bad news. If Mr. High-and-Mighty is scared, it just might be a serious problem for everyone.

So, yeah, books aren’t visual, but they can still tell a story without having to tell us everything. In short, leave some space for the reader. Now, I’m not going to say that I’m necessarily good at this as a writer. I’m still learning, but I’ve learned as much from reading as writing. And I get annoyed when books pause everything to describe the POV character’s emotional state or appearance in long, flowery detail. It just seems … excessive.

Maybe it’s just the mark my journalism classes left on me. I like simple and to-the-point. And I like to think that my readers can be trusted to have a little imagination to fill in the blank spaces of the mind that words can’t reach by themselves.

What are your thoughts? How do you think a story can “show, not tell?”

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Image: “New York City Street Scenes – Rainy Night on the Lower East Side” by Steven Pisano; Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

History: The Greatest Source of Inspiration for Any Writer

Fact is stranger than fiction, they say. And it’s true. But have you ever considered the inverse: Fiction is never stranger than fact.

No matter a writer’s imagination, no matter his ability to craft new worlds out of his own mind and populate it with characters who seem as real and unique as anyone you meet on the street, and no matter how engaging, grandiose, bizarre, or heartfelt the events portrayed in his work, he will never be able to surpass the parade of the unexpected that is world history.

History IS story. It’s right there in the word, isn’t it? And it’s real. Just think about that for a moment. Think about all the things you’ve read in the history books. Adventure. Romance. Mystery. Tragedy. War. Friendship. Triumph. Defeat. Despair. Hope. All of it is there, all of it waiting to be discovered by that one author seeking a mote of inspiration.

Where am I going with this? Just to say this: We writers have so much to draw from just by browsing the history section at our local library or bookstore. Heck, just go online. We live in the age of information. The World Wide Web contains everything. Try a quick surf of your hometown’s newspaper archives. Stories aplenty. Ideas in abundance.

And now I’m starting to think that there are so many tales in history that haven’t been given their due. Forgotten stories that need a time to shine. Eras and events that have been lost in the bustle of modern progress. Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon highlighted a time in Native American history that deserves more recognition. A terrible time, but one that should be known.

What else have we misplaced? What battles and victories waiting for their recognition? Unsung heroes waiting for their song to be written? Tragedies yet to be acknowledged? Villains who thought they got away with it?

Apologies, I’m just waxing poetical now. You get the idea. Writers don’t just write stories. We live at the tail end of the longest story ever written. All we have to do is look back a little ways for new tales from that saga to tell. Isn’t that a teensy bit amazing?

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Image: “Early printed vellum leaf” by Provenance Online Project; Licensed under CC0 1.0.

Stories for All Time: Universal Themes in Writing

Image: “Lonely Galaxy Lost in Space” by NASA Goddard Photo and Video, Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Really, this topic is so vast that I could devote an entire week to it. When you consider that stories have been told for as long as humanity has existed, it’s small wonder that certain themes and morals endure the rise and fall of civilizations, and that common threads wind through the evolution of communication technologies.

Quite simply, certain themes in storytelling are universal. I’m sure you’ve thought of some just now. Good versus evil. The hero’s journey. Coming of age. Revenge. Forgiveness. Hope. War and peace. Etc., etc. Why? Because they’re broad. They appeal to everyone, because everyone has, at some point or another, dealt with these issues. They resonate with us, to use a common turn of phrase. Another way of putting it is that they are inherently familiar topics. And it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from, everybody has a concept of the hero or wants a story about hope. Everyone is familiar with war, and also with villainy. You don’t need cultural translation to understand that there are good things in the world and also very bad things.

So, some stories have that universal appeal. How do we know which ones? Well, it takes a bit of patience to find out, doesn’t it? When Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, he didn’t know his novella would be a staple of literature over 150 years later. Neither did the Greek poet Homer know that The Odyssey and The Iliad would still be studied to this very day.

Wait fifty years. Is the story still popular? More importantly, is it still relevant? Do people still care?

For every masterpiece, there must be ten thousand forgotten works. So many stories fade away with time. Sometimes, it’s due to bad luck or happenstance, and some never get a chance to be recognized. And some were a flash in the pan: Their plots were ripped from the headlines, centered around current events. What was hot and fresh that year gave them a brief celebrity. Then the world moved on, and these stories became anachronisms. Their identities were fixed in current events, and without that context they remain curiosities at best.

I won’t give any examples. Maybe you can think of a few yourself.

Universality and timelessness go hand-in-hand. The greatest stories don’t need to be shackled to any one era. They can be retold, again and again, in any age, at any time, because the core of their identity and popularity isn’t the bells and whistles of the current year. It is their basic, broad, foundational themes that reverberate throughout the ages. Sherlock Holmes is Sherlock Holmes, whether he’s in the 19th century or the 21st. Journey to the West has been retold as a post-apocalyptic video game. You can’t count the number of adaptations of Little Red Riding Hood on your hands and feet – you’ll run out of digits.

The very best stories can be told over and over again, and they have something to say to us every time.

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Paperback Version of My Book is Available on Amazon!

Do you like eBooks? I like eBooks. Convenient and affordable. But sometimes I want that tactile sensation of a paperback in my hands and to hear the soft flutter of turning pages. If you like that, too, then I have great news.

A God Walks Up to the Bar is available in paperback form on Amazon.com! Do you want to add a fun novella to your collection? Do you enjoy fantasy and classical mythology? Thrills? Chills? Humor? Gods beating up monsters? Then hop online and order yourself a copy! Or at the very least, do yourself the favor of admiring the lovely cover art.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to like and subscribe to this blog. I’m just getting started!

Why Writers Should Make Their Character Suffer

It is my duty as an author to make my characters suffer. I must put them through the wringer, submit them to the lash, and force them to endure severe physical and psychological torment. Nothing must come easy to them. My characters must endure doubts, confrontations, and existential crises. They must be tested to their utmost, then pushed even further.

Why? Because authors are sadistic monsters Because the testing of a character forces them to grow, and the pleasure of reading a story is to see its heroes overcome the challenges they face. The greater the challenge and the greater the suffering they endure in conquering that challenge, the greater the catharsis of victory for both hero and reader. And there’s also no small amount of pleasure in giving my characters that final victory. I personally like happy endings.

Suffering can bring out the best and worst in people, whether they be real or they be fictional. It’s an interesting experiment to put a written character to the test and see how they react. What happens if I put the protagonist into THIS terrible situation? Or make them confront THAT unpleasant truth? Struggles let us see what makes people tick. Test your mettle and see how strong you are … and grow stronger.

All that being said, it boils down to this: a story is only as interesting as its characters and the situations they find themselves in. If the characters are flawed and have to work through their problems, then great! The readers share in their triumphs and failures, empathize with their foibles, and root for their success. Characters who never struggle and always succeed perfectly in everything they do can have a place in a story, but you might want to think twice about making them the protagonist. In a word: Boring. Invincibility is fine against bullets and blades, but even Superman is weak against kryptonite.

Authors should toss their characters into the furnace every now and again. Let them work for what they want. It’s what readers are paying for after all, and we got to fill those pages somehow.

The gods and beings of ancient myth never went away. They just moved on with the times.

My book, A God Walks up to the Bar, is currently available on Amazon.com. Venture into the world of the Greek god Hermes, a world filled with demigods, vampires, nymphs, ogres, magic, and trickery. It’s a tough job, being a god!

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Villains: Why We Love Such Hateful Scoundrels

Image: Dick Dastardly, doomed to villainy from the day he was named. Wacky Races promotional material, courtesy of Wikipedia, fair use

Last week, I talked about antagonists and their importance to a good story. If you read it, you may have noted that I said antagonists are not necessarily villains. Antagonists are just a roadblock to the hero’s goal.

Today we are going to talk about villains.

What’s the difference? Simple. Villains are EEEEVVVIIILLL. They’re monstrous, greedy, murderous, and rude. They slaughter villages, rob innocents of all their possessions, conquer nations, and say really mean things. We love to hate them. We love villains. Why do we love villains? Why like something so vile?

That question gave me some food for thought, and here’s what I’ve come up with.

1: Villains are charismatic.

Darth Vader knows how to make an entrance. He strides down a hallway littered with corpses, black cape flourishing behind him. His breath is a low mechanical wheeze, and his face is concealed behind a skull-like mask. He casually strangles a rebel while interrogating him, takes charge of every situation, strangles fellow Imperials from a distance while cracking morbidly dry jokes, and in general is a terrifying threat to everyone he meets.

He’s a monster. But he’s a cool monster. He gets the cool armor, the cool lines, every appearance is accompanied by John Williams’s Imperial March, and if he’s not the mascot of the Star Wars franchise, he’s pretty dang close. Why? Because Vader has charisma. He’s memorable, he has stage presence, he has the physical acting of David Prowse and the rumbling baritone of James Earl Jones. Who doesn’t know who Darth Vader is? And how many little kids dress up as this cold-blooded mass murderer every Halloween? Oh, bitter irony! But such is the effect of a charismatic villain.

2. Villains are interesting.

We like to watch or read about interesting people. Ergo, we like to watch or read about interesting villains. Villains with unusual motives, or memorable quirks, or empathetic traits. We like villains who stick out from the mass of mundanity. We like villains who can keep us invested in the plot.

Take old Norman Bates, for example. He’s a psychotic serial killer. Well, nothing new there, fiction loves its depraved killers. But he’s a hotel owner with a split personality, that of his deceased domineering mother, who takes control and kills any woman that Norman expresses an interest in. Well, that’s certainly one form of interesting. What’s more, half the plot of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho follows him as the main character. And we learn that, sick as he is, he is a tad pitiable as well. That makes him, dare I say, quite interesting to watch.

We generally consume fiction for the purpose of being entertained. And a key part of entertainment consists of simply holding our attention. The best villains grab our attention and never let go. We look forward to seeing them onscreen, especially if they end up more endearing than the cardboard heroes.

3. Villains drive the plot.

Maybe, on some unconscious level, we like villains because we recognize how necessary they are. Villains, like all antagonists, drive the story. If they don’t start it, they at the very least keep it going. Conflict is key, and villains by their nature stir up conflict.

Take the Evil Queen from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, for instance. There would be no story if she hadn’t gone up to her magic mirror and asked “Who is the fairest of them all?” And then tried to kill Snow White when she learned the girl was fairer than her. Then Snow White wouldn’t have ended up in the dwarfs’ cabin, and the Evil Queen wouldn’t have pursued her disguised as an old hag, and we wouldn’t have had the dwarfs’ climactic scene chasing her up the cliff during a thunderstorm.

There would be no movie. And we would not be entertained.

The gods and beings of ancient myth never went away. They just moved on with the times.

My book, A God Walks up to the Bar, is currently available on Amazon.com. Venture into the world of the Greek god Hermes, a world filled with demigods, vampires, nymphs, ogres, magic, and trickery. It’s a tough job, being a god!

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Lessons I Learned Writing My First Book, Part 5: Humility

What’s the greatest challenge you face as a writer? The hours of hard work spent crafting your story? Pushing back against writer’s block? Trying to research a key piece of your book that you can’t quite get right? Finding a publisher? Finding the money to publish independently?

After all the effort you put into your book, there comes a point where you crave vindication of your efforts. After everything is said and done, you put it out onto the market and …

Where’s the jubilee? Where’s the praise? It’s MY book, it’s MY effort. Don’t I deserve it?

And here comes a hard truth: No, you actually don’t.       

We should all dream big, because big dreams encourage us to strive for excellence. But dreams alone are not the key to any sort of success. Hard work, diligence, and consistency are far greater allies in that regard. It’s easy to look at examples of literary success and think that somehow, through the mere act of wanting, we not only are able to join them, we deserve to join them. To stand up there with Hugh Howey, Brandon Sanderson, Dan Abnett, Jim Butcher, Ursula K. Le Guin, Terry Pratchett, et al.

Or, going even further, to see ourselves as the next William Faulkner or Charles Dickens or F. Scott Fitzgerald. And then we complete our book, we’re proud of it, and we put in on the market and … it’s another book.

A good book, maybe, but there are no laurels or songs or movie deals. It’s a book. One among hundreds of thousands. Roll up your sleeves if you want to get more notice, because it won’t get noticed by itself. You’re an author. Not THE author, not the greatest author. An author.

Harsh? Maybe. But eating humble pie is a bittersweet affair. Reflecting on my journey to where I am now, I’m darn proud of what I’ve done. I enjoyed writing my book, and I’m enjoying starting my second one. If I wanted glory, I’d pursue a different profession.

It still stings a little, though.

Humility comes in many different forms. Sometimes it whirls in and knocks us off our haughty high ground. Sometimes it’s a series of events that remind us we’re not as self-important as we thought. Sometimes, it’s doing something that others look down on as unimportant. It’s not something that’s enjoyable to learn (a running theme with my past few articles, I’m noticing) but, as I’ve already said before, it’s necessary. Pride and egotism can take a good job and hard-earned goodwill built up with your audience and turn it to ash. We’ve all seen it. Maybe you’ve even been there before.

Keeping ourselves in perspective can, I hope, help us to understand our place in the very big and crowded world of publishing and, rather than discourage us with delusions of insignificance, drive us to work harder toward a successful and fulfilling career. Humility helps us see ourselves clearly and to see the things we can do to make ourselves the best people we can be.

The gods and beings of ancient myth never went away. They just moved on with the times.

My book, A God Walks up to the Bar, is currently available on Amazon.com. Venture into the world of the Greek god Hermes, a world filled with demigods, vampires, nymphs, ogres, magic, and trickery. It’s a tough job, being a god!

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Lessons I Learned Writing My First Book, Part 4: Patience

Waiting, waiting, waiting. All things come to those who wait, or so they say. It’s a bit glib, isn’t it? Besides, waiting is only half the game.

Patience isn’t just about waiting. It’s about focus. It’s about working without complaint. It’s about denying yourself instant gratification in favor of long-term benefits. It’s about enduring the terrible uncertainty of whether your hard work will pay off.

It’s not … fun, per se. It’s useful. And, in the words of knowing parents everywhere, patience “builds character.”

As you may have already gathered from my previous ramblings, writing isn’t a fast process. Therefore, it takes patience. And I learned to be so while writing and publishing my book. But you know what? The writing part wasn’t where patience came into play for me. I LIKE writing, so it never felt dull or slow.

The real test was submitting my work for beta reading and editing. Not because the people I worked with took an unduly long time to respond, mind you. I’ve had the pleasure of working with great people. But it tested ME. Waiting for critiques, I could only think, “What will others think of my book? Is it good enough? Is it bad?” And I couldn’t get instant feedback and sate my desires to know. I had to sit back and wait.

There’s fear in the waiting, sometimes. Patience requires a modicum of courage. The horrible question, “What if?” pervades our minds when we think about what COULD happen. And the longer we wait for something, anything, the more “What if?” needles our minds. What if my book is bad and nobody likes it? What if I don’t get to my child’s rehearsal in time because of this red light? What if I can’t get off work in time because of this one slow customer? And so on and so on.

So, I was tested. I had to wait in inaction for a little while. I didn’t like it, but watcha gonna do? And there is a certain cathartic relief when your patience pays off and the wait is over. Delayed gratification and all that.

Discipline, perseverance, and patience. These qualities are like muscles. They must be exercised on a regular basis to grow strong. My last lesson, however, is the hardest because it is something we can’t directly govern. Life is happy to teach it, and we either learn … or we don’t. I’ll discuss it in more detail in my next post.

The gods and beings of ancient myth never went away. They just moved on with the times.

My book, A God Walks up to the Bar, is currently available on Amazon.com. Venture into the world of the Greek god Hermes, a world filled with demigods, vampires, nymphs, ogres, magic, and trickery. It’s a tough job, being a god!

Enjoying my blog? Don’t want to miss a single post? Subscribe for updates on when I post and follow my writing career, musings on fiction and storytelling, and reflections about life in general!