Tag: Characters

Posted in Character

Characters: When Do You Listen & When Do You Give a Little Push?

Posted on by beckylevine

I’ve got this protagonist.

Well, actually, I don’t yet. She’s a good kid, she’s trying to be active, and, overall, I think she’s a likeable hero. The thing is, she isn’t coming onto the page–YET!–as I want her to.

She’s a little young. And a little naive. Which might be okay, if I were writing a middle-grade novel. Okay, the naive still wouldn’t be okay, not for me, but she could be a little less aware at the start of the story, a little less–yes, I’ll say the word: edgy. But I’m writing YA: She’s sixteen years old, and she’s not feeling like the sixteen-year-old I want to see on the page.

The key words in that last sentence are, I think, “I want.”

I have a vision for this story. It’s changed since I started the book. In my first first draft (yes, I consider that I’m on my second first draft, and you don’t want to argue with me), I pictured my hero, at the end of the book, really coming into her own–eyes being forced open and taking a huge step into growth and commitment. Then, when I realized I was working on two books, and that I had to pick the one I wanted to tell now, that hero changed for me. At least in my head. She became someone who was already more used to living a certain way, in a world that had constraints for her–constraints she’d learned to work around, constraints she’d developed a pattern to deal with. She became someone for whom–because of a big event at the start of those books–the constraints tightened, to the degree that she couldn’t work around them anymore, to the point where she and the constraints are headed for a big confrontation.

I think this hero is who my character, not just me, wants to be. But she hasn’t yet come through and told me that, or talked to me about how that makes her act, what choices it makes her face and take, what voice (and that’s the biggie) she should be telling her story in.

And, frankly, I’ve gotten a bit tired of waiting for her to do that. I think it’s time for me to do a little bit of forcing my vision onto the character.

This goes against a lot of what we hear writers talking about–those exploratory drafts in which the characters (hopefully, ideally) talk themselves onto the page in fits and spurts, those brainstorming sessions where we sit with a clean sheet of paper and listen to our characters, to what they have to say about themselves. It goes against that really hard thing to be: patient.

And yet. Maybe we have to give our characters some help. I swear, every now & then, I do hear the voice of this older, more aware hero in my head. I see her in glimpses–with a bit more attitude in her shoulders, a bit more tension in her face, a bit more of that here-we-go-again feeling in her heart. Maybe it’s not her. Maybe it’s that the work to bring her out, to let her out, is a new skill for me, one I haven’t yet developed as strongly as I need to. In my last book, the hero pretty much rolled onto the page–it was a lighter book, with humor, and my hero’s flip, impatient, cocky words came easily. Okay, maybe not easily, but compared to this book? Oh, yeah.

So maybe this is a craft thing for me. Maybe the hero of this WIP is in there, for real, just waiting for me to find the key and open things up. Maybe she wants me to push.

Well, I think she’s going to get it.

I’m working this week on letters to my protagonist and my antagonist, a la Susan Taylor Brown’s technique. I’m also going to just take some notes on attitude, on voice, on the “normal” world that both these characters are living in when the book opens. I don’t know how much of this will get into the draft I’m working on, but I’m hoping doing this work will at least get rid of the floundering feeling I’m having as I write –that sensation that, sure, I’m writing structured scenes with some setting and conflict, but that I have no clue what their base is, where they fit into the bigger world I’m creating.

How much do you listen and how much do you direct, or choreograph, your characters? When do they talk freely, and what do you do when they’re closed down and incommunicado? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Posted in Character

Dear Character: With a Bow to Janni Simner*

Posted on by beckylevine

*Janni Simner talks to her characters a lot. I’m pretty sure they talk back. Anyway, if you haven’t eavesdropped on the conversations yet, check out her blog Desert Dispatches.

And if you want to read my total theft of her posts and technique, read on.

Dear Character Who Told Me You Had this REALLY BIG PROBLEM in your life:

I’m thinking it’s not quite that big. Not just because I know nothing about how that REALLY BIG PROBLEM would feel. Not just because it makes me cringe to even think about reading and researching that REALLY BIG PROBLEM. Not just because you haven’t shown me one instance of that REALLY BIG PROBLEM anywhere in the first 3/4 of this draft. Not just because if I listen to you about having this REALLY BIG PROBLEM, it’s going to make another character–my hero–look like a total wimp and failure. Which she so isn’t.

Really it’s because, if I give you this REALLY BIG PROBLEM, it will take over the entire book. It will become the problem of the book. And this story has another problem to tell. Honest.

If I promise to keep my ears and heart open to the possibility of writing this REALLY BIG PROBLEM into another book someday, will you still play with me here and share what’s happening to you now?

Hopefully yours,

Me

Posted in Character, First Drafts

First Draft: Peopling the World or Who ARE These Characters?

Posted on by beckylevine

WARNING: You’ll be getting a lot of posts about first drafts in the next few months. But don’t worry, those revision posts will be coming along after that!

My friend Jana McBurney-Lin talks about a character in her book My Half of the Sky who came out of nowhere. I think, if I remember right, it’s the woman who tells fortunes in the park and who becomes a central part of the main character, Li Hui’s, life. Jana talks about how this woman started out as a small, secondary character and then grew–of her own accord, pretty much–into someone critical to the story and to Li Hui’s character arc.

Yesterday, as I wrote, four new characters stepped into my story’s pages. Without even so much of an “Excuse me.” The words kept flowing from and around them, so I was kind of like, what the… as I typed their dialogue and actions. I didn’t argue with them, I didn’t try to push them away, I just sort of let them tell me what they were doing there and what they wanted to say.

Jacob, Goldie, Sonia, and Mary, where the heck did you come from? (I’m having a lot of fun naming my secondary characters after some of the gazillion great-aunts and great-uncles I had, some of whom I knew, some of whom I never met, but who definitely seem to have been given the right names for this era!)

Okay, it wasn’t quite all that muse-driven. I did stop typing. I did look at these characters for a minute and try to figure out where and how they fit into the story I had already plotted without them. I thought about the fact that these people might not stay in the book (I mean, I already have two love-interests planned for Caro; what in the world is she doing flirting with this new guy?), and I thought about how these characters might take my story in directions I haven’t foreseen. And I realized that, at this point, either of those factors could turn into a bad or a good thing.

Now is not the time to make that decision.

Now is the time when there do need to be more people in my MC’s life, more people who are just part of who she is, part of the world through which she moves on a daily basis. The scenes I was writing yesterday mostly take place at Caro’s school (let’s not even get started on how little I know about public schools in 1913 yet!), and that school will be a big part of the choices she makes along her path. There have to be students in that school, and there have to be friends and acquaintances and apparently at least one boy with whom she has an ongoing competition to be the best math student. (???!!)

So for now, these folk stay. It’ll hurt, I know, to get rid of any of them, because they came into my brain and into the scenes, if not fully-fledged, with habits and personality traits that I’m already hooked on.  And it’ll be tricky, challenging, even frustrating to build them into something stronger than they are now, if they do need to stay, if they convince me they truly have a role in this story.

But it’s the first draft. It’s the time to scatter ideas and characters onto the page and see where they fall and what they want to do. Yes, I question them. Yes, I stop for a minute to really look at them and ask them, “What are you doing here?” Hello, I’m Becky, and I’m a control freak. I’m getting better, though, at letting go, at keeping my mind open and trusting that these people have something to tell me, something to add to the story.

Of course, if they’re fibbing, I can always—ouch!—bring out that red pen and kill off a few darlings. 😦

Posted in Character

Valentine’s Day: Why I Love My Main Character

Posted on by beckylevine

I got back into writing a new scene for my WIP this week, and fell in love all over again with my MC. For a quick, semi-random Valentine’s Day post, here’s why:

1. She is totally antsy. If she isn’t doing something, she’s not happy–she gets impatient and frustrated and just starts looking for something to dig into. This is SO different from me–I’m just happy finding another book to read. 🙂

2. She has power. She takes steps to be in charge of her own life and, frankly, she’s not against being in charge of other people’s lives, if she thinks they need her. She acts.

4. She’s smart. Probably academics-smart, too, but in the important way–clever. She can see what needs to be done and find a way to do it, even if she has to be sneakily cunning to get there. I LOVE her being sneaky.

4. She loves busy-ness and energy and crowds and noise. Again, me–I’d rather just curl up away from it all, with that book.

5. She loves her family. She wants to take care of them. She’s going to have to learn to take care of herself, though.

6. She’s got some BIG control issues. So does her mother. Can you just see the crash coming?

7. Most of all, what I love about her this week? Well, I’ve found that the best way for me to write a scene these days is to identify my MC’s goal and then look for obstacles to that goal. Well, she has such definite goals, that the obstacles are just popping out at me–in fact, she creates a good many of them herself. Does she back away from those obstacles? No, she does not. She’s strong, and she’s a fighter.

Little does she know how big the fight is going to get.

Are you in love with your MC? Why? Let’s hear what makes this Valentine’s Day special for you and your characters.

Posted in Character, Conflict

Conflict AND Connection

Posted on by beckylevine

Here’s what I worked on this afternoon.

conflict_connection

Okay, well, I filled it in, too.

Earlier this week, Jenn Hubbard blogged here about reading actor Jeff Griggs’ book Guru. You should read Jenn’s post to see all she got out of the book, but the thing that stuck with me was her realization that our characters need to work together at times, not always be in conflict. 

I started thinking about this as supporting each other, or at least having a connection. And I started asking myself what connection and conflict each of my main characters have with each other.

Enter the chart.

The biggest struggle was, honestly, creating the chart. I am chart-o-phobic. Flow charts are totally beyond me, and even this “simple” one that you see here got me all confused as I started entering info. Had to back out, look at it again, slap myself in the forehead a few times, and restart.

I don’t know if you can read this very well, but the main characters’ names repeat across the top and down the left. Basically, the rows show conflict and the columns show connection. I think. Or maybe a better description is that all the cells UNDER the shaded stairway show connection, while the cells ABOVE the shading show conflict.

To give you a clear (?) example, Nate (formerly known as Love Interest #1) and Gideon (formerly known as Love Interest #2) have the last two rows and last two columns. If you follow Nate’s row all the way across to where he meets Gideon above the shading, you can probably guess their conflict I typed in there—they both want Caro. On the other hand, if you follow Nate’s column all the way down to meet Gideon below the shading, well…you tell me what their connection is. I’m being generous (and wimpy) at this point and saying that they actually do both want Caro to be happy.

I’m not sure where this’ll take me, and I’m pretty sure (I see you nodding) that the info in the cells will change many times during the writing of this story. But for now it’s a reminder that the dynamics of a story work at many levels and that characters, like us, have complicated motives for their actions.

Some of which they’ll actually share with their authors.

Posted in Character

I’m a Wimp. Who’s Going to Grow a Spine.

Posted on by beckylevine

The last few days have been traumatic ones for my WIP, my characters, and me. I’ve been whining (or whinging!) about it on Twitter & FB, and today it’s going to stop. Not the trauma. But definitely the whining.

After this explanation.

It’s not that I don’t want to do the work when I write. It’s that, honestly, I don’t like the pain. That the characters go through. I have this problem often as a reader, with books that really (even necessarily) take their characters through the wringer. Even as I am glued to the page, wanting to find out what happens, loving the story, I’m worrying. Fretting. Wincing. Wiggling around in my chair & wishing I had a magic wand and could make them (and the real people they represent) happy.

Which may be why my first book was a fun, light MG mystery. That kind of problem–a mystery problem–a kid can solve. And while he gets in danger along the way–along with being totally humiliated AND busted by parents–well, I knew he was going to solve the crime, catch the bad guy, AND get to ride the roller coaster. My  mystery MC and I, we have fun together. I love the book and think there are a lot of kid readers out there who would love it, too.

Working on my new WIP is, well…it’s exciting. It’s scary. It’s shocking. And, yes, it’s gut-wrenching.

I’ve been talking to my characters. What with the research trip coming up and summer vacation still going strong, I had stalled out a bit on writing forward. So I thought I’d use my more piecemeal time to get to know these people better (suspecting, too, that NOT knowing them quite well enough might have contributed to the stall).

Wow. Okay, first of all, these people all have BIG troubles. Some in their presents, some in their pasts, but throw it all into the mix, and you get this bubbling, simmering soup of pain, loss, and holes that need to be filled. If they even can. And, of course, everybody’s soup is bumping up against everybody else’s and just making things worse. There are, apparently, no happy people in this story, and everyone’s got a heck of a lot of work to see if they can even make things better by the end.

I know, that’s a GOOD thing.

Here’s what’s been trickiest for me, I think. It’s not just the bad things that are rocking my boat. It’s something about learning all this new stuff at this stage. In my other writing–the mystery and other books I worked on before–I usually made these discoveries during revision. When I could see–yes, with some work–where the new details fit, how they played out in the story. I could weave the changes into my existing story, plant new seeds early in the book, play with resolutions at the other end. This time around, for some reason, I need to know this stuff NOW, before getting very far into the story. Why is the pattern changing now? I have no idea.

I’m going to go with it, though. This is a totally different kind of book for me, so why should the old techniques work? And I was stalled, so maybe this change is a gift from the muse or my pysche, or just from the stage I”m at on my writing path. I’m going to look at it that way–as a gift, a plus, a positive.

And I’m going to stop whining. Really. From now on, I’ll be doing the happy dance, waving bright banners, and tossing glitter at all of you out there on FB & Twitter.

With maybe an occasional eeep! of panic.

Posted in Character, First Drafts, Plot, Scenes

Scenes: Writing in Sequence or…Not

Posted on by beckylevine

I’m getting started on another WIP (work in progress). It’s a historical YA, set in Chicago in 1913, just before the suffragette march on Washington, D.C. I’ve been reading and researchng and mulling for a while now, and I’ve even done a bit of basic plot and character work. And I’m thinking about writing.

The question is: Do I plot in more detail, at the scene-by-scene level, so I can write in sequence and develop the connections and transitions as I go? Or do I go at it a bit more randomly, picking a scene that’s calling to me and putting words on pages, a bit more isolated from what may come before or after?

Confession: I already did the second one. I’m developing a critique workshop for the Redwood Writers branch of the California Writers Club, and I needed a writing sample for the participants to critique. I played with just making something up out of the ozone, but a scene from the WIP kept pushing at me. It’s one of the first scenes in the book that I visualized, and it’s one of those crux moments (I think!). So, being as I had eaten too much chocolate that night, I got up out of bed and wrote it.

Whee!

Yes, it felt great. And it started me thinking about the friends I have who write–well, randomly isn’t the right word, but they certainly don’t worry about writing scenes in sequence. Should I? Could I? (Have I mentioned here yet that I’m a bit of a control freak?)

So I’m thinking about the pluses and minuses of both methods. MY pluses and minuses. I really want to hear from all of you–about how you write, WHY you write that way, and what you think are the benefits and problems. Susan Taylor Brown has a post up today about why she chooses to write out of order.

Keep in mind, I believe that you need to have some kind of basic plot developed before you start with either of these methods. I’m also talking about a first draft here, although–if I thought about it–I could probably find applications for revision, also. (Another post, folks!)

Writing Scenes in Sequence

Pluses

  • When you finish a scene, you already know what’s coming next. Given that you’re writing as close to every day as you can, this means you’ve got a roll going and can move on to the next scene without that gaping void of what now? staring at you.
  • You can get a feel for the rising  tension of the story as you write. Yes, you’ll have to go back and tweak it, but you’ll be watching for it and have a sense of where each scene needs to fall in the pattern.
  • You feel the balance, as you write, of when and why various characters are appearing in your story.

Minuses

  • You may (will!) find yourself writing scenes you aren’t interested in at the moment, ignoring another scene that’s really calling to you.
  • You can get yourself pointed too strictly in one direction, a direction that may or may not be the best one for the story.
  • You may focus too tightly on the plot and not see the character that you really need to develop.

Writing Scenes out of Order

Pluses

  • You get the freedom to write whichever scene you’re excited about, which probably increases the joy of your writing.
  • You get more surprises, because you’re writing in less of a constricted “space.” Having less plan means there’s room for more spontaneity. (Okay, just WRITING this bullet makes me anxious!)
  • You will see connections as they appear, rather than trying to assign connections you’ve already decided on.

Minuses

  • When you run out of scenes that you really want to write, you’re still looking at a whole lot of scenes that still need to be written. 
  • You may end up with a bunch of scenes that have no connection, that are episodes, not part of an actual story.
  • You may struggle for ideas about what a scene needs to be doing.

Okay, Confession #2. I honestly thought when I started this post that I’d come down hard on the side of writing in sequence. Um…NOT. I was struggling to think of pluses for that method. Whereas when I got to writing scenes out of order, all of a sudden I was thinking…oh, yeah!

Now, this may be because, honestly, I don’t have 100% of my writing time to dedicate to this WIP right now. I’m over halfway through The Critiquer’s Survival Guide, but still have some serious work to do in the next few months. I’m trying to give as much evening time as I can to the story, but…family time, housework, all the life thingies need their minutes, too. As usual. So it’s very possible that the idea of picking scattered scenes to write just sounds more doable.

I’m also, though, looking back at the revision passes I made on my last book, the one I’m sending around to some agents. I can’t truly say that writing things in sequence gave me anything but the appearance of control (not that that’s a BAD thing!). And I’m seeing that, possibly, writing scenes out of order may actually let the story develop as it needs to, not just in the pattern I’ve decided it should follow.

CONCLUSION: I’m going to try it. I’m going to do a bit more plotting, focused on the most important scenes I can think of right now, and then I’m going to write them.

Until, at least, I go crazy trying. 🙂

What about you?