Dynamic Characters- How to create personalities that keep readers captivated

by Nancy Kress

  The husband, meanwhile, has his own deep fears. He's afraid of not being in control. This is, in fact, why he married such an accommodating wife. His fear leads him to react by insisting on his own choice of names. First name and middle name.

  Do you see a story shaping up here full of conflict over issues of family, identity and power? It could, in fact, be quite a good story. And all generated by fear.

  Note that it doesn't really matter why the wife is afraid of being abandoned or the husband is afraid of being not in control. If you want to, you can invent childhoods for each to account for the persons they became. But you don't need to do this. You only need to understand what buried fears drive them. Nor do you ever need to name the fears in the story itself. In fact, you probably shouldn't. A story is not the same as a psychological case study. It's enough that you yourself understand your character's way of reacting to fear, and that you show it to us in convincing action and dialogue.

  FEAR AND REACTION IN SCOTLAND YARD

  ''That's all right for quiet, subtle, character-driven fiction, you may say. But I write mysteries. Or science fiction. Or techno-thrillers. Or romance. Deeply buried fears aren't necessary for my characters. What I need is an exciting plot.''

  Deeply buried fears can help generate exciting plots.

  Consider a few examples from the best-seller list. Granted, I don't know how Michael Crichton or Terry McMillan or P.D. James think up their plots. But I can easily imagine arriving at the plots of Jurassic Park, Waiting to Exhale, or Devices and Desires through thinking about what the characters fear and what they do to quell those fears.

  Start with John Hammond, Jurassic Park's billionaire founder. What might he fear? Aging, dying. How does he react? By building a monument to himself, a stupendous theme park in which he, like God, has (re-)created an entire species. And he won't let anything convince him to limit the park, this proof of his God-like immortality—not warnings from scientists or technical danger signs or even an escaped Tyranno-saurus Rex. From Hammond's megalomaniac drive spring all the plot events of the novel.

  McMillan's Waiting to Exhale reflects its characters' fears in the very title. All four protagonists are holding their breath until they can find someone to love. They are afraid of being unloved, alone—even though some of them do learn during the course of the novel how to do that.

  Adam Dalgliesh, P.D. James's detective, at first glance does not seem like a very fearful man. But consider. Detectives are driven— some of them maniacally—to solve crimes and catch criminals. Why? Many of them fear not being in control. Others fear authority, and so deal with it by becoming the authority (this is especially true of those detectives who are in constant conflict with their own superiors). Others fear failure, and so are driven to test themselves against a problem—a juicy murder—over and over. How would such a character react to frustration by a wily killer? Perhaps with a sense of personal anger, carefully controlled—or not.

  What does your character fear, in the deepest level of his soul? How does he deal with his fear—through avoidance, compulsion, acting out, anger, depression, desire to cling to someone stronger? Is his way of dealing with deep fears constructive (catching criminals, fighting disease, raising children) or destructive (beating his wife, shoplifting, spending money he doesn't have to impress others)? And can his characteristic way of handling fear be used to generate plot ideas?

  I'm betting that it can.

  LOVE: I'D DO ANYTHING FOR YOU

  So can love.

  The reasoning here is the same as for fear. Human beings are a social species. We're hardwired to form attachments to others. This can be expressed constructively: loving a partner, being loyal to a friend, sacrificing gladly for our children. Furthermore, the attachment drive can be elaborated in labyrinthine ways. We can love a country; an idea; a pet; a stamp collection; an object that, to us, symbolizes something else we love. Just yesterday, for example, I saw a newspaper article about a man who ran back into a burning house to try to save his grandmother's Bible. In fact, said essayist Charles Lamb two hundred years ago, the human mind is capable of falling in love with anything at all.

  And what we love, we act to gain or keep. (Witness all those newspaper ads: LOST: School Ring. Great sentimental value. Reward.) This can generate all kinds of plot ideas.

  Who, or what, does your character love? What is she willing to do to gain or keep it? What are the limits (if any) to how far she'll go? How does she react if something interferes with her gaining or keeping the thing she loves? (Consider the movie Fatal Attraction.) Plot galore.

  Not to mention characterization that touches readers in a vulnerable spot—their own attachment to whatever it is that they love.

  FEAR AND LOVE: THE TWISTED SKEIN

  Finally, love and fear can be tightly intertwined emotions. When you love something, you fear you'll lose it. A mother, for instance, may go to enormous lengths to safeguard her children—lengths that ultimately may interfere with their ability to function well in the world without her. Is the mother driven by love of the kids, or by fear of being left alone?

  Another example: A doctor goes to tremendous, heroic lengths to save a patient's life, expending great amounts of time, energy and ingenuity. Is the doctor driven by love of humanity or by fear of personal failure in not saving a life? Or both?

  Out of these kinds of questions can come some truly complex characterization, and some very interesting fiction. So the next time you're trying to turn an idea into a plot—or are stuck in the middle of a story—ask yourself some questions. What does this character really fear, deep down? What does he love? In what ways, direct or indirect, does he behave to assuage his fear, express his love? Do these habitual behaviors intensify under stress? How? What kind of stress can you give him? What is he likely to do then?

  "When I have fears that I may cease to be,'' wrote John Keats, ''then on the shore/Of the wide world I stand alone, and think.'' Well, that's one way of reacting to fear. What does your character do?

  SUMMARY: FROM CONCEPT TO CHARACTER TO PLOT

  • A story can begin with anything: idea, image, character, setting, problem, technological breakthrough, natural disaster, etc.

  • Go from the beginning point to the character by choosing someone with a stake in the action.

  • Think about, feel your way into, fill out a dossier about this character until you understand him.

  • Figure out what he would consider a conflict, how he would react to it, how he would affect the resolution and how he would feel about the events after they're over.

  • Base this figuring-out on his deepest drives, such as fear and/or love.

  Sex and violence.

  Got your attention, didn't I? It seems that everyone, from the president to my grandmother, has an opinion on these two burgeoning aspects of modern storytelling. Not, of course, the same opinion. One subset of critics maintains that sex and violence should not be coupled together in the same debate. Sex and violence, goes this reasoning, are entirely different things, and one of them (take your pick) isn't even a problem at all.

  There is one way, however, in which sex and violence definitely do belong in the same discussion. They're both natural outgrowths of those two conflict producers we examined in the last chapter, fear and love. Violence, especially, is implicit in many plots. Conflict escalates until it turns physical. And so Tybalt stabs Mercutio, Bill Sykes bludgeons Nancy, Costa Rica bombs Jurassic Park.

  How much violence should your story's conflict lead to? That depends on the story. One critic famously remarked that there are ''no brutalities in Jane Austen's novels—except the verbal,'' and that those are quite enough. In her context, they are. You, however, may need more physical fighting.

  If so, what makes a fight scene work? Five things: necessity, detail, accuracy, plausibility and surprise.

  NECESSITY: IS THIS VIOLENCE GRATUITOUS?

  The big complaint about violence in storytelling of all kinds is that it is '
'gratuitous.'' The complaint is often true. Writers of novels, TV shows and movies throw in fight scenes to ''keep things lively'' and ''increase tension.'' The results may be lively in that the audience follows the fight without falling asleep, but they're not necessarily involved. To feel genuinely involved with a fight scene, the reader needs more than flashy descriptions of attacks and counterattacks. Reader involvement comes from two things that happen well before the fight: motivation and timing.

  Motivation means that both opponents have been provided with a reason to fight. (The intertwining of plot and character, yet again.) And not just any reason. Something must be at stake that matters not only to the characters but to the reader. This requires careful preparation. We must have had dramatized for us what the protagonist cares about, why he cares about it and why this particular fight is necessary to gain or keep it. Otherwise, even the most spectacular kick-boxing will feel mechanical.

  Consider, for example, a fight from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Conrad Richter's novel The Sea of Grass. This fight is very brief, but the reasons for it are as complicated as the nineteenth-century West that Richter evokes so well. Two small boys, brothers, are having a routine fistfight. They are egged on by idle grown men, one of whom calls out: ''I'm a-bettin' on the Chamberlain young 'un.'' But there is no Chamberlain young 'un. Both boys are sons of the protagonist Hal's uncle, the fiercely proud Colonel Brewton, and his mercurial wife Lutie, whom Hal has secretly loved for years. At the suggestion that Lutie has committed adultery—and with his uncle's political enemy—Hal loses it:

  For a split fraction of a second as his meaning broke over me, I saw Lutie Brewton clear and beautiful as I had ever seen her in the life. And when the nester turned and grinned toward a sand-box, it was almost as if he had spat in her face. I was aware of the grave silence of the cowmen and of a curious wild hate sweeping over me like prairie fire. I had thought myself a medical student soon to go out in the world and save human lives. Now I found that the thin veneer of Eastern schools had cracked and I was only a savage young Brewton from an untamed sea of grass, moving through the little gate where customers' rifles and pistols stood or lay in their accustomed places on the back bar. I was aware of the cowmen backing out of range and of the bar-keeper ducking. And then I almost wanted to kill Dr. Reid, too, one of whose white hands had with surprising force suddenly thrown up my barrel so that oil from a brass hanging lamp started to pour on the walnut bar.

  Brief action—but layers and layers of motivation. Hal acts violently, which is uncharacteristic for him, out of jealousy, anger, family pride, shame and unfulfilled longing. The fight is a truly dramatic moment— even though only one shot is fired, and nobody is injured, and the violence lasts only a few seconds.

  Timing also counts. This fight has dramatic impact partly because it occurs four-fifths of the way through the book, after we've had plenty of time to get to know all the characters' values. Thus, an affront to those values has meaning for us. Contrast this with the fight-as-opening-scene ploy (fantasy is especially guilty of this), which so often fails because we don't know either side well enough to understand them. What is it they're fighting over? Who's supposed to be the good guy? Does it matter that the short guy got killed? Who cares?

  Save your fight scenes until the story is well launched.

  DETAIL: TELL ME MORE

  In general, you should describe fight scenes in more detail than you think you need. Why is this?

  Because the fight, as we've already established, must be important to the characters. That, plus the fact that it's full of action, gives it the character of a miniclimax. Something important is being decided, by physical force. And a climactic scene shouldn't be rushed, because in written storytelling, one way you give a scene importance is to spend enough words on it. Verbiage is a flag to the reader: This counts.

  So give us details. Don't write: ''I pushed her, and she fell, hit her head on the cement birdbath, and slumped unconscious,'' even if that's all that actually happened. Give us detail, external or internal. Describe how she looked going down: the surprised expression on her face, the slow-motion way she fell. Or describe how he felt as his palm connected with her cheek, his emotions as he realized what he did. Or describe in detail the reactions of everyone watching. Make the moment last.

  In the above excerpt from The Sea of Grass, for instance, Richter draws out a single ineffective gunshot by dwelling on Hal's heightened awareness: of the moment, of the past, of his own reactions. Detail gives the fight its dramatic weight.

  One exception to this: It's sometimes effective to use a single summary sentence of a crucial fight as the ending of a chapter. In that case, the lack of detail is balanced by the fact that whatever comes at a chapter's end automatically has climactic drama.

  ACCURACY AND PLAUSIBILITY: GETTING IT RIGHT

  In order for a fight scene to be successful, readers must believe it is actually happening to the characters. This is true of the entire story, of course, but often scenes of violence put a particular strain on the suspension of disbelief. This happens in two ways: wrong details, or superhuman reactions.

  Accuracy refers to correct details of weapons and fighting techniques. Many, many readers are knowledgeable about such things, and mistakes will bounce them right out of your story. What's more, they will write you about it, with great indignation. (This is especially true of gun aficionados.) So if you don't know the number of rounds in a Smith & Wesson Model 439 9mm, or the correct place to drive a knife into the chest, or how silent a revolver silencer actually is, find out. Ask an expert. Delve the Internet. Read a reference book. (Writer's Digest Books publishes the Howdunit series, which ably addresses these issues. Each book is written by a forensics expert.) However you get the information, get it right.

  Plausibility, a fuzzier area, refers to the effects of the fight on the fighters. It's fuzzier because people differ greatly in both their fighting ability and their capacity to absorb physical punishment and keep on fighting. Still, there is a limit, and unless you're writing satire, exceeding that limit will undercut the plausibility of your story. ''Oh, come on!'' the reader will exclaim. ''He's got a broken arm, two cracked ribs and a concussion, and he can still chase the villain across the catwalk after knocking off four of his henchmen? I don't think so!''

  To avoid this reaction, you must convince us of your fighter's general strength, level of training, experience, toughness and/or desperation. The less expected these things are, the more explanation we need, either before or after the fight. If, for instance, a young FBI agent takes out two men, withstanding a few severe blows but no broken bones or internal damage, we'll accept this. If a hundred-pound, seventeen-year-old female baby-sitter does it, you will have to work much harder to convince us that she is able to do what you say she's doing.

  Keep the injury level, fighting expertise and odds against the winner all plausible.

  SURPRISE: OH MY GOD!

  Surprise, perhaps surprisingly, is the least necessary element to a good fight scene. Many fights are not surprising, and shouldn't be. We know the characters well enough to know what they're capable of; we can see the physical conflict coming; we know what weapons are likely. We may even have a good idea who will win. For some types of fiction, that's fine. The point of the violence is not to surprise us, but to dramatize an inevitable confrontation settled in an inevitably direct way.

  In other stories, however, the outcome is not inevitable, and the whole tone of the book has led us to expect a spectacular and breathless confrontation. This often involves unexpected weapons, complicated maneuvers, desperate cunning: real edge-of-the-seat stuff. To pull it off, you must surprise us with some novel way of winning the battle.

  It may be novel weapons. Ian Fleming certainly contributed his share of deadly fountain pens and cigarette lighters in his James Bond series. But more likely, the surprise will be how an overmatched protagonist uses his wits to convert whatever is around him to a weapon, a plan of attack or an
escape route.

  Give this a lot of thought. You are competing with some very inventive writers here. Charles Sheffield, to take just one example, once made his desperate hero use an entire zoo to fight off the villain, in the thriller My Brother's Keeper. What is in the environment, or in your hero's head, that he can use to gain a fighting advantage? How can you surprise the reader with his attack, and still have it seem logical?

  One way is to foreshadow the protagonist's special knowledge. Sheffield's hero's hobby was visiting zoos all around the world. If your character will surprise us by using live steam to win a fight, make him an engineer or maintenance man. If she will surprise us with her amateur cunning in planning a killing, make her a mathematician with a methodical, obsessive mind (Scott Turow did this in Presumed Innocent). Surprises are best when our first reaction (''Oh my God!'') is followed by uncritical acceptance (''But of course!'').

  A FINAL WORD: THE WITTY FIGHT

  For some writers, there is a great temptation to embellish fight scenes with wit. The protagonist hurls the bad guy, whose name is John Cunningham, in front of a rolling roadgrader, under which Cunningham is squashed flat. Our hero dusts off his hands and says, ''One more for the road, Jack!'' The problem with this sort of wisecrack is that it immediately converts the fight from a genuine plot event into a send-up of a plot event. It's not conflict; it's vaudeville.

  You should resist this, if you want us to take both your character and your conflict seriously. Sometimes, however, you don't want that. The whole book may be a send-up of a genre, as Piers Anthony's Xanth books are a send-up of heroic fantasy. Or it may be that the book is serious, but the narrator/protagonist is incapable of taking macho fighting very seriously. In that case, writing a tongue-in-cheek description of a fight will convey that self-satire very nicely. Here is Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, fighting another middle-aged, out-of-shape man for possession of a gun improbably named Chum: