What if the cabdriver is the type who won't stop talking? Your hero is desperately trying to get to the other side of town to stop a nuclear device from going off, and the cabdriver wants to drive and chat leisurely about the Jamaican bobsled team. This irritation adds to the suspense.
A little thought will unveil innumerable plot possibilities.
Sound and Sight
Individualize each of your minor characters by giving them distinct audiovisual markers.
Audio is how characters sound, and each character should speak a little differently from the others.
In David Copperfield, Barkis comes to life through a single phrase that is now part of the lexicon. He asks David to deliver a marriage proposal to Peggotty. "Barkis is willin'," he says. Endearingly unique.
Distinctive audio markers come from really hearing the characters in your head. Give them voices and syntax. We know all we need to about Tommy Erbter from his language (Scooby Doo, where are you? Hey, ol' fart-face!).
The visuals—physical appearance, dress, mannerisms, tics, eccentricities, and so forth—also set a character apart. And because there is an infinite variety of visuals, you can give each minor character his due. In Tripwire, Lee Child describes a private investigator who has come to Key West to find Child's hero, Jack Reacher.
He was old. Maybe sixty, medium height, bulky. A doctor would have called him overweight, but Reacher just saw a fit man some way down the wrong side of the hill. A man yielding gracefully to the passage of time without getting all stirred up about it. He was dressed like a northern city guy on a short-notice trip to somewhere hot. Light gray pants, wide at the top, narrow at the bottom, a thin crumpled beige jacket, a white shirt with the collar spread wide open, blue-white skin showing at his throat, dark socks, city shoes.
This character talks to Reacher for a couple of pages, then disappears. Later, he turns up dead. That's it for him.
So why give him a whole paragraph of specific description? First, it adds to the reality of the scene. But second, it gives us some spice—primarily, a sympathy factor. Here's a private investigator about to retire. When he's murdered, Reacher feels somewhat responsible. And that helps explain why Reacher tries to find out what's going on.
Audio-visual markers help you avoid the biggest mistake writers make with minor characters—the dreaded cliche, like our bartender, or the macho truck driver, the tough-talking waitress, the mousy accountant. So each time you have to come up with a minor character, ask:
• What is his purpose in the story?
• What audio-visual markers can I attach to him?
• How can I make each marker more unique or memorable?
• How am I avoiding cliche?
• What plot possibilities—a twist, a revelation of my protagonist, a setup, a premonition, a mood—does the character offer?
• How can the character irritate my protagonist? Or help him in a unique fashion?
Let's go back to our bartender, the big guy who polishes a glass. Instead of that, why not a petite woman? Rather than cleaning a glass, maybe she's juggling limes, or playing with a knife.
And she is in no mood to give anyone any information. Suddenly, our story seems fresher. Delicious plot possibilities arise. This is what the spice of fiction can do for your novel. Apply liberally.
OPPOSITION CHARACTERS
Fiction readers thrive on danger. They want to see your protagonist challenged, threatened, uneasy. Sure, there's pleasure in vivid prose. But sooner or later (preferably sooner) your protagonist must be opposed or the story starts to drag.
Without a strong opponent, most novels lack that crucial emotional experience for the reader: worry. If it seems the hero can take care of his problems easily, why bother to read on?
Not every story needs a bad guy opponent, of course. An opposition character can be someone who merely holds a position contrary to the protagonist's. In the film The Fugitive, Harrison Ford's wrongly convicted doctor is chased by the dedicated lawman, played by Tommy Lee Jones. Both are on the side of "right," but the letter of the law makes them opponents.
Most times, though, your opponent is going to be one who operates from a negative set of values. If so, make sure he's a fully realized, well-rounded character.
What Makes Bad Guys Run
The great temptation in creating bad guys is to make them evil through and through. You might think that will make the audience root harder for your hero. More likely, you're just going to give your book a melodramatic feel. To avoid this, get to know all sides of your bad guy, including the positives.
Ruthless Hollywood player Sammy Glick is described by the narrator of Budd Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run? like this:
Nine times out of ten I wouldn't have even looked up, but there was something about the kid's voice that got me. It must have been charged with a couple of thousand volts.
The raw energy of this kid, all of sixteen years old, attracts awe, if not affection:
I never saw a guy work so hard for twelve bucks a week in my life. You had to hand it to him. He might not have been the most lovable little child in the world, but you knew he must have something. I used to stop right in the middle of a sentence and watch him go.
When the narrator, newspaper veteran Al Manheim, offers to guide Sammy into a cub reporter's job, we're struck by Sammy's direct response:
"Thanks, Mr. Manheim," he said, "but don't do me any favors. I know this newspaper racket. Couple of years at cub reporter? Twenty bucks. Then another stretch as a district man. Thirty-five. And finally you're a great big reporter and get forty-five for the rest of your life. No thanks."
Sammy is a kid on the way up, ambitious and, we sense, able to get what he wants. We usually like, or at least admire, such traits.
A bad guy ought to be competent. He gets results. If he doesn't, he's not threatening. Sammy Glick rises to the top through his ability to use people and situations. He's a shark in the Hollywood pool and eats those in his way.
A dose of charm makes the opponent even more dangerous. This can be the hyper, turned-on allure of a Sammy Glick, or the deadly, spider-to-the-fly magnetism of Dr. Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. In both cases, another level of dread is added to the plot.
The Sympathy Factor
Dean Koontz, who's given us many a chilling villain, once said, "The best villains are those that evoke pity and sometimes even genuine sympathy as well as terror. Think of the pathetic aspect of the Frankenstein monster. Think of the poor werewolf, hating what he becomes in the light of the full moon, but incapable of resisting the lycanthropic tides in his own cells."
Koontz proves his own point in rendering one of his creepiest creations, Thomas Shadduck in Midnight. Shadduck is the evil genius behind horrible biological experiments performed on the people of a small town.
When we first meet Shadduck, he's floating in a sensory deprivation chamber in the grip of a weird vision: his desire to meld man and machine into cybernetic organisms. It's literally an erotic experience for him.
So Koontz doesn't give us a mustache-twirling villain of pure evil. Shadduck's motivation is visionary—perverse though it may be.
Well into the book, Koontz gives us an extensive flashback that explains how Shadduck came to be the twisted villain he is. As a young boy he fell under the spell of Don Runningdeer, an employee of his father's. The mental manipulation Shadduck suffered creates sympathy, even though his acts in the book remain evil. A truly remarkable villain is the result.
You can provide the same for your novel if you'll spend some time doing the following. First, catch a glimpse of your bad guy in visual form. Let your imagination create the physical impression for you. Chances are you'll come up with rather standard image, but that's okay. This is just the raw clay.
Now, start molding. Ask what her objective is. Just as a good lead character must want something in order to drive him through the story, the opposition character must want an objective that is opposed
. The old rule about a good plot is "two dogs and one bone."
But don't stop there. Dig into her motivation. Why does she want, to the point of obsession, her objective? Why must she have it?
Next, create a background for your villain that generates some sympathy. I like to create a major turning point from childhood for my opposition, often a powerful secret that can emerge later in the book. Even if it doesn't, I get to know my villains a lot better because of it.
Digging Deeper
Here are deepening questions you can a ask about your opposition character.
• What is he good at? How does this help him get what he wants?
• What admirable qualities does he possess?
• What do other characters think of him?
• Why might people be drawn to him, or at least be fascinated by him?
Your hard work will be rewarded when your readers keep turning pages to find out just how your hero will overcome this complex, memorable villain.
KEY POINTS
• Lead characters must be active, not passive. No wimps!
• Grit, wit, and "it" make dynamic Leads.
• Strong Leads have a distinct attitude about what's going on, and they always surprise us.
• Unselfishness and honor are two very sympathetic traits.
• Remember to show us the inner life of the Lead.
• Minor characters must serve a purpose. Are they allies or irritants?
• Give as much attention to your opposition as you do your Lead.
• Sympathy for a villain deepens a story.
Write an obituary for your Lead, as if the character has died in the middle of your story. No more than 300 words or so, just as you might find it in a newspaper.
We know people best by watching what they do. It follows that the sooner I see my story people doing things, the sooner I get to know them. That's why I let my imagination create a movie for me to catch the characters in action. Follow these steps:
• Close your eyes and "watch" your character. See the character in rich detail and describe what you see. Be a journalist—record this information as if for a distant reading audience.
• Place your character in a scene, any scene, and once again watch. Let the action happen. Watch other characters and events pop up on your inner movie screen. Let all manner of tough conflict take place and see what your character does.
• Create another character to describe the first character. One of the ways we get to know people is to listen to what others say about them. Get to know each of your own characters this way. You'll "hear" some surprising things.
• Conceive your characters as extremes first, and only later "pull back" to the point where they fit their role. This will keep your characters from being "drab." Let them have their passions and obsessions. What do they reveal to you?
Note that none of this has to have ANYTHING to do with the story you want to write. In fact, it's better if it doesn't. The only point of the exercises is to get to know your character so when you place her in your story you'll know who you're writing about.
Another key to these exercises is this: Let as much of this happen without judgment or criticism. Only later, with lots of rich material, will you make editorial decisions.
Figure out the year your character was born. Write down that year and place Born next to it.
Put down key years for the character. Elementary school, high school, college, first job, military service.
Research those years. What was happening? The main stories, the hit TV shows, songs, and movies. Whatever it is from popular culture that the character would have been aware of. These incidents can often come into play, as memories or influences, in the story.
[ PLOT & STRUCTURE ]
Plot is simply the stuff that happens to your characters. It is the record of the incidents that challenge the well-being of your Lead.
Structure is where you place those incidents along the novel's narrative timeline.
You imagine a plot and build a structure.
Structure makes your plot accessible to the reader. While you are free to play with structure, understand that the more you experiment, the harder the reader has to work.
I wrote an entire book called Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure. While a full detailing of all the elements I cover there is beyond the scope of this tome, I do want to summarize the two non-negotiables of plot and structure: The LOCK system and the three acts.
THE LOCK SYSTEM
I came up with the acronym LOCK to help fiction writers grasp the essentials of a strong narrative. If the LOCK elements are in place, the story will be solid, guaranteed. Your job after that is to make the story soar, using your imagination and the techniques you learn to give your novel fresh wings.
Briefly, here are the four essentials:
L Is for Lead
Readers want to bond with a Lead character. That is their access into the story world. There are four main things you can give a Lead to create this bond:
• identification
• sympathy
• likeability
• inner conflict
Identification
This means the Lead is like us. Someone we can relate to on a human level. Not perfect, just as we are not perfect. Someone with flaws and quirks in addition to strengths. Another word for identification that is sometimes used is empathy.
Sympathy
This aspect goes further than identification/empathy. It creates an emotional "rooting interest" in the Lead character. It makes the reader care deeply about the Lead and her challenges.
Four ways to establish sympathy are:
1] Jeopardy. You do this by putting the Lead in a situation where there is imminent trouble, either physical or psychological. Let's say your Lead is a ten-year-old boy. He's new at school. Physical jeopardy could be the bully who targets him that first day. Psychological jeopardy could be that the boy's father, his only living parent, is dying of cancer. Either of those situations creates sympathy right off the bat but can also happen at points well into the story.
2 J Hardship. If the Lead has to face some misfortune in life not of her own making, sympathy abounds. Think of Forrest Gump, who has both mental and physical challenges as a boy.
3] The Underdog. People love rooting for the determined Lead with the odds stacked against him. Like Rocky Balboa. Like several John Grisham protagonists.
4] Vulnerability. Readers worry about a Lead who might be crushed at any time. Stephen King's Lead in Rose Madder is a perfect example. Without real-world experience or skills because her psycho husband has kept her a virtual prisoner for years, Rose must figure out how to survive on her own, get a job, and most of all keep from being found by her policeman husband, who knows how to track.
Likeability
A likeable Lead is, very simply, someone who does likeable things. A person who cares about others, who isn't selfish, who is witty, and who doesn't take himself too seriously. All likable characteristics.
Not all Leads are likeable, of course. When rendering a negative Lead, someone who does things we don't like, substitute power. Characters who
have power over their world and other characters—because of charm, intelligence, or competence in their field—fascinate.
Inner Conflict
A character with an interior, emotional struggle engages our attention. Inner conflict is a fight between two opposing emotions. Many times it is fear on one side, telling the lead not to act; on the other is moral or professional duty, or perhaps self-image.
We don't identify with people or characters who are perfectly balanced inside under moments of great stress. Inner conflict is a strong bonding agent between reader and character.
0 Is for Objective
The objective is crucial because it gives the story forward motion. It gets your Lead into action. It means something is at stake for him. Otherwise, why should a reader bother with reading the book? We don't want a thr
ee-hundred-page character sketch.
An objective is a want. A strong want. A want that is so crucial to the character that he must have it or suffer deep loss.
Objectives can come in two forms: to get something or to get away from something.
Most stories involve the get something type of objective. A cop story is about the cop trying to get the bad guy. A legal thriller is usually about the lawyer trying to get the truth, or get an acquittal for his client.
A romance is about the characters trying to get love. A character-driven novel may be about the Lead trying to get equilibrium in his soul, as in The Catcher in the Rye.
The other type of objective, to get away from something, is a staple of action stories—like the fugitive Dr. Richard Kimble trying to get away from Sam Gerard, the U.S. Marshal (combined with a get objective, to get the real killer).
Prison escape stories, and many caper novels, are obviously getaways. A character may also be trying to get away from her past, or her parents, or anything else holding her back in life.
In light fare, the objective may seem trivial to us, but it must be crucial to the characters. The reason The Odd Couple works is that being a happy slob is almost a life-and-death matter for Oscar. He wants to get away from
Felix, but can't because Felix is suicidal and needs care. Of course, the comedy comes when, in Act III, Oscar is ready to kill Felix himself.
C Is for Confrontation
To get the most out of your story engine, you need opposition to the Lead's objective.
Novels are about confrontation. That's how you obey Hitchcock's axiom and keep the dull parts out.
With confrontation in place, you can construct scenes that have organic unity. They relate to this struggle between the Lead and the opposition.
If your story begins to veer off course or drag, look back at these two elements: objective and confrontation. Make sure they are solidly in place. Write scenes that move the Lead forward into the brick wall of the opposition.
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