Somehow, I Love You

In the comments of Monday's post, Melissa brought up the point that Malfoy does have lovable qualities as the series progresses. This is true. As the series progressed, I definitely felt some love for Malfoy. Besides that, I've definitely seen some fanfiction writers (yes, I do read that on occasion), who've made him and a few of the more dastardly characters very lovable without sacrificing much of the back story and basic personality of the characters. Thus, we have proof, it can be done.

Even the most unlovable seeming character can garner the love and sympathy of the reader. Here's how: Give the reader something to love.

That sounds simplistic, but it's true. In the midst of all the bad and wicked, give the reader a nice quality, a good trait, a relatable aspect, something for the reader to grasp on to.

Think of it this way: Most people in the world are not wholly good or wholly evil. You know how good guys have those nice things called flaws and weaknesses that make them human? Well bad guys have these nice things called redeeming qualities that do basically the same thing.

Redeeming qualities can be a lot of things. Maybe your villain has a habit of killing off the henchmen who fail to serve him badly. That's not lovable. But maybe he also loves dogs and has a habit of taking care of any strays he finds. People love people who loves dogs. Or maybe your anti-hero loves his mother and visits her every weekend. It's a lot harder to hate a guy who's nice to his mama.

The Obligatory Harry Potter Reference (Because the bit about Malfoy earlier was simply not sufficient): Snape. In a large way, it would be easy very to hate on Snape. After all, in the beginning of the first book, he picks on Harry just because Harry's James's kid. In the second book, Snape desperately tries to get Harry and Ron expelled after the Wamping Willow thing, and then he tries to get Harry kicked off the Quidditch team. Really, you could go on and on. Or, if you don't want to think too hard, just listen to what Harry and Ron say about him for most of the series. If the heroes don't like him, he must be evil, right?

But, alternatively, Snape was really in love with Lily Evans, even after she married the guy who used to beat him up in school. In the first book, Snape saved Harry's life. In the second book, Snape brewed the Mandrake Restorative that revived Hermione. When you look at Snape in that light, it's a lot harder to hate him. Don't you love him just a little bit? I do.

Have there ever been characters you hated even though everyone loved them? Why'd you like 'em so much?

Character Roots

As I hop down from my censorship soapbox, I jumped on the bandwagon and doing a post today about writing compelling characters.

I think most people will agree with me when I say that compelling characters must be fully realized, rounded out characters. They have to be, otherwise there'd be nothing in them to relate to, and then no one would care about what happens to them. If you've ever read a book/watched a movie/seen a play/listened to a radio show where the characters are really just cardboard cutouts chilling in the story while the plot does its thing, then you know that can get old fast. After all, what's the point of watching people you don't care about do stuff, since you won't care if they succeed?

One thing that most fully realized and rounded out characters have are personality traits. You know, they have likes and dislikes, favorite things, things that scare them so much they scream like little girls as the sight/sound/taste of them.

Now, here's the kicker about personality traits: they can't be completely random.

Why? They'll make no sense, and they'll look like you put them there to make the character appear rounded out, and the audience will be able to smell it.

Story time: A while ago, Captain Film Major and I were discussing an old kid's movie, and he pointed out that the MC, a girl of about nine, I believe, had a big thing for Elvis. Captain Film Major's response to this was something along the lines of (and I'm paraphrasing, dude, so if you see this, chill), "It would've been great if they'd explained that at all, instead of just chucking it out there so that it made no sense." (Okay, so, I paraphrased a lot. Probably should've written the exact wording down. Note for next time.)

Much as it pains me to admit that Captain Film Major might have point about a movie, he had a point. Most nine-year-olds I've met aren't Elvis fans. Most probably couldn't tell you who The King is. So how did this character know? They don't say. They just say she likes Elvis. Now, if she'd said, "He was my dad's favorite... before he died. He used to sing along to the CDs when he did the dishes... drove Mom crazy," it would have had meaning. Because now we know how she developed this knowledge and interest, and we know a bit more about her character as a result.

Here's the deal: If you're character is anything like just about every human being I've ever met (and I've met a fair number of human beings), likes, dislikes, favorites, and phobias come about for some reason. There's often something in someone's background that led to that reaction.

Story time: I love Irish music. I listen to it all the time. Captain Film Major hates it. He listens to it never. He blames his dislike on having to listen to it all them time when we were kids. I blame my love on having to listen to it all the time when we were kids. Both of our responses to that music are not random but the result of things in our past.

Obligatory Harry Potter reference: (Contains SPOILERS!) (And, seriously, if you haven't read all 7 Harry Potter books, stop reading this post now and get on it.) (No, I'm not kidding. It's much more important. Go.) Severus Snape considered himself the Half Blood Prince, because he preferred to associate himself with his mother's side of the family, because he didn't like his Muggle father, because his dad beat his mom. See how that relates to his life. Snape wasn't a fan of really any Muggles, because his dad beat his mom, which is how he could so easily fall in with Death Eaters. Severus Snape loved Lily Evans (later Lily Potter), so he betrayed the Death Eaters, joined the Order of the Phoenix, fought against Voldemort, and did everything he could to keep Harry alive. See how that relates to his history?

(Okay, so that was several Harry Potter references, but I think I made my point.)

To create compelling characters, they have to be fully formed individuals, and they aren't going to be fully formed by being hashed together bits of randomness. Follow the random to the history that made them who they are, and follow the history you have to the everyday things that will present themselves in your character's life.

Have you ever come across a character seemingly composed of unrelated bits? How did you feel about that? Could you still relate to the character? How much time do you put into your characters' histories? Have you ever learned something about a character by looking for the cause of a seemingly random aspect of their personality?

What's My Motivation?

A while ago, I was watching a movie with My Twin Formerly Known As The Other One, and when the villain was on the urge of admitting that they were the Vile Betrayer, my sister said, "It'd be great if that character had reasons and motivations, instead of just being a bitch."

After about half a moment's consideration, I realized she had a point. We were watching a character betray everything they were supposed to value and stand for, and they never actually explained why. No one even so much as implied that he'd been offered vast sums of wealth in exchange for his efforts in this villainous plot.

Now, I don't know about most people, but I feel I'd certainly need a reason to suddenly start working for the powers of evil and darkness. In fact, generally speaking, I like to have a reason for pretty much anything I do. And while I won't cast myself as an expert on the human race, I'm going to go out on a limb there and say most people are the same way.

People have motivations. Characters, as mirrors of people, should have motivations as well. Tempting as it might be to have characters charge blindly in a certain direction simply for the entertainment value (and, I know, sometimes it's tempting), characters need to do things for a reason, otherwise your reader's going to be sitting there wondering, "I don't understand. If she has awesome control of the universe, why didn't she just cause the chocolate to appear before her, instead of going on a magical quest to Hershey, PA?" And then your reader's going to have a point. (I know, dashed inconvenient, isn't that?)

Plus, motivations keep your characters interesting. A well-motivated character will be able to do interesting things with impunity, because they'll make sense. And a well-motivated character is usually more interesting, because motivations derive from important events in a character's life, and these events flesh out the character.

Motivations are the whys of characters and their actions, and understanding these whys helps the reader understand a character's actions and you understand your character.

In my WIP, Cordamant's Heir, my MC, Amira, has to flee the country to escape murder charges. She flees west (the direction of my plot), instead of north. Why? Because she's got slight issues with, well, the entire country to the north. Why? That country instigated a war that led directly to her father's death. So she's not exactly interested in moving there for an indefinite period of time. Does she know this prejudice is unfair? Yes. Does she know this isn't the time to let her thinking be influenced by irrationality? Yes. Does she let herself be influenced anyway? Yes. Why? Because this is too deeply ingrained an emotion to be combated by simple logic alone. She's heading west, and she's doing it for her own reasons.

In Harry Potter (because life is also improved with a Harry Potter reference, and because I feel reasonably sure I can make it and be understood -- ooh, look, I have motivations), character motivations are very important. There's a running issue throughout the series based on Professor Snape's motivations for saving Harry in book 1, because Harry thinks Snape's motives are one thing, is told they were another, realizes he was in error about the other, and in the final book realizes he was just dead wrong about all the reasoning. But without Snape's being motivated to keep Harry alive, Harry would have died in book 1, and there'd be no other books, and wouldn't that be sad for all of us? Oh, and Snape's motivations for keeping Harry alive were also his reasons for being in the Order in the first place, and for teaching at the school, and for hating James, and for serving Dumbledore so faithfully. Gosh those motives were integral.

Motives are useful. They explain your character and their actions to both the reader and the writer. They create the internal logic of the story, so that things don't seem to be happening willy-nilly. They are the answer to the ever present "why?".

Do you ever find yourself reading/watching/listening/observing a situation in which a character has no distinct or readily apparent motivation but instead seems to be acting at random? How does this make you feel? How far are you willing to follow a character of no apparent motivation?

Please Don't Slap Me In The Face.

Some of you who've been here a very long time (and if you have, I do really appreciate it, and if you haven't, that's okay, this'll just feel fresher for you), will know that I have expressed this sentiment before.

Last time I experienced this, it was a YA-Contemporary book that did a 180 in the middle of the text and suddenly became a book about vampires. All I could think was, "Umm... what the what?" because I felt like that had been sprung on me from out of nowhere.

This time, it occurred in an Adult Contemporary book that shall remain nameless because I'm about to give away the end. See, about five pages before this book, which had been uniquely told but definitely a solid contemporary clearly grounded in modern day Paris with absolutely no funny business going on, all of a sudden, this character, who'd been there the entire time, turned out to be dead. Yep, he'd been alive in the beginning, but he'd died halfway through the book, and the MC had just been hallucinating him this entire rest of the time.

I would probably have chucked the book against the wall at that point except I was reading the book on my laptop and Jessica (yes, she has a name) is just too precious to me to be tossed around like that. Seriously, though, I felt like the author had slapped me in the face with that ending, and a large part of me wanted to return the favor.

There's a reason I take umbrage with this sort of ending. It's not what you think. It's not even about my strong feelings about needing a good ending (which I've made so apparent, I don't even think I need to bother linking to them anymore).

I object because I think this sort of storytelling is both lazy and unfair to the reader.

It's lazy, because, to me, slamming a reader in the face like that just makes me feel like the author couldn't be bothered to at least drop in subtle clues along the way. If the author leaves a trail of inconsequential seeming bread crumbs, then when the big turn about comes, the reader can have the satisfaction of feeling all the pieces fall into place and seeing a bigger picture they hadn't even noticed. If the writer just whacks you with something, it makes me feel like they didn't make the effort to put the picture together.

It also strikes me as unfair to the reader, not only because they made the effort to read the book, so it's nice to make the effort to make it a good book, but because you left the reader out entirely. Reading is active process wherein the reader is in a give and take with the author. The author puts out clues, and the reader picks them up. The reader makes guesses, and the author either confirms them or not. If you do a 180, slam in the face, pull the rug out from under you routine, you haven't been letting the reader play along. They'll be sitting there wondering, "But... wait... where were my bread crumbs...." And then they'll feel sad and left out, and they'll go cry in a corner. (At least, that's what the imaginary reader in my head is doing, but she just doesn't like not being included in things. Maybe your imaginary reader has more spine and just gets very, very mad.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking plot twists. I love them. I love being surprised by a book. I'm just saying it should be done well. If you look at a truly great twist, it's never a 180. It's more like a 105. Some things are reverting from what you previously expected, but the rules of the game have not changed, and if you think about it, there were all those signs, you just didn't notice them.

In Harry Potter, for example, when you find out that it's really Quirrel and not Snape who is in league with Voldemort/The Dark Lord/He Who Must Not Be Named, you're really surprised. Then you fall to the ground, groan, and say, "Oh, how did I miss that? There were so many signs?" Because it's not a 180 there. It's a 105.

How do you feel about 180s? Ever felt like you got slapped in the face by an author? How did that make you feel?

Bye, Bye, Bye

So, I've been working on the end of The Thief Book. I've tapped out several scenes. Some are basically old scenes just retouched to fit the new details, others are accomplishing the same objectives as old scenes but are not the some, and one or two are entirely new scenes to blend it all together to fit the new ending.

But, the other day, when I flipped through my old draft to recapture mentally the objective of that scene, I noticed something. The two characters in the scene were Prince Leo (Love Interest Guy/Chief of Police) and Prince Drake (Heir to the kingdom/Leo's elder brother). That's when it hit me, Drake was redundant. See, Leo already has a little brother, Fisk, who is philosophical and special, and who had already been introduced into the story. And, quite frankly, they were filling the same role: sounding board for Leo's ideas/make Leo smarter than he is, because sometimes he's stupid and set in his ways.

Okay, in my mind, Drake and Fisk were not the same guy. Drake is a traditionalist, so he doesn't understand Charlotte (MC girl) either, but he's also highly pragmatic, which sometimes goes against Leo's insistence on obeying the rules no matter the cost. Fisk is philosophical, which makes him more likely to understand Charlotte's perspective, and he's more likely to think Leo's strict adherence to the rules is a bit cracked. So, they both counter Leo in a way I like.

But, they're both countering Leo. They're both achieving the same objective. Which means I don't need both of them. And, since I've already introduce Fisk, and I enjoy his moral flexibility (if I'm not a fan of his name), I'm keeping him.

Sad for Drake.

Okay, I've snipped characters from stories before, from this story in fact. However, this time feels like the first time, to me. Probably because this is the first time I cut a character who played a large part and who I'd actually envisaged in the tale and intentionally wrote in. I'll miss Drake. He was a nice bloke, in his way. Unfortunately, I'm playing Master of the Universe, and I have to be brutal.

This is going to sound a little cold, but characters in books must serve a function. And, it should be a unique function, otherwise they're not just taking up space without adding anything to what's going on.

Now I'm going to draw a comparison to Harry Potter, because I really like Harry Potter, and I've discovered it's an almost universal point of comparison and understanding. Hermione and Ron are both Best Friend characters. However, they don't fulfill the same function, even in that role. Hermione is the smart one who gives Harry wise advice and information that he wouldn't otherwise have but really needs. Ron provides camaraderie, support/back-up, and the male perspective on all issues. And they both, at one point or another (and often at the same time), provide conflict and drama. They fulfill different functions, so they both belong in the text.

Do you guys have much experience cutting characters? How did it make you feel? Have you ever run across characters that you found redundant? How did that make you feel?

What's Your Bag?

A while ago, probably when she realized that I'd given up sleeping to read some semi-addicting fanfiction (yes, I used to read that), my sister (a.k.a. The Other One) informed me that if someone wrote a series, I could be addicted to it.

Much as it generally pains me to admit it, The Other One wasn't wrong. I tend to read books that come in series, and I tend to read the whole series. I've read all of -- The Twilight Saga; Harry Potter; Midnighters; The Pit Dragon Trilogy; The Uglies Trilogy; the Hollow Kingdom Trilogy. I've also read the first three Percy Jackson and the Olympians books, with the fourth and fifth in my To Read stack, and 4/5 of the Wicked Series, which I thought was a tetrology (weird story that).

I think we can establish that that's my 'type,' as it were. Hello, I'm Me, and I am a Series addict. Maybe it's because I don't like to see the characters I loved go. Maybe it's because I can't bear the fact there's a part of the story that I'm missing (I do so hate not to be in the know on things). Either way, I think I've found a real trend here.

How about you? What's your 'type' in the book world? Do you have a 'type' irrespective of genre?

Again, But This Time In Song

One day, a friend told me that if I liked Harry Potter, I absolutely had to watch the Very Potter Musical. (I actually linked to it a while ago on the blog, if you want to watch. I recommend it.)

Well, the Very Potter Musical is a fan musical, but it's certainly not the only musical that's been based on a books. There's, of course, the incredibly famous Wicked which is based, though not too closely, on a book of the same name. There is also Little Women: The Musical, which I have previously mentioned on the blog, not to mention a musical based on Jekyll and Hyde.

While many people have opinions on books becoming movies, most people don't consider the possibility that their book might become a musical.

I'm not sure how I'd take something like that. I'd certainly be flattered to have someone express that sort of interest in anything I wrote, but on the other hand, I'm not sure how I'd react to the changes the creators would doubtless have to make to suit the medium. Though, I won't lie, I'd be interested to see what kind of songs my characters would get.

How would you feel about someone turning your work into a musical? How do you feel about musicals (or, you know, straight up plays) based on books?

Packing Peanuts

This post is also related to the movie Stranger Than Fiction. And, I'm once again going to quote Dustin Hoffman's character, who amused me way too much. "Meeting an insurance agent the day your policy runs out is a coincidence. Getting a letter from the emperor saying he's visiting is plot. Getting your apartment eaten by a wrecking ball is something else entirely."

First of all, I've never had any domicile of mine consumed by any piece of heavy machinery, so I don't know if I'd consider it a plot-esque moment if it happened to me, but I'd probably call it 'something else,' too.

My alpha calls the 'something else' filler. (I do not dispute that there can be other varieties of 'something else,' however, I'm going to discuss the filler aspect only in this post.) Well, filler has never been something I'm super good at, but it's actually much more important than it sounds.

Filler is the stuff that happens in between Big Events. Not everything that happens in the story can be a Big Event. There has to be some lower key things to balance it all out, otherwise your Big Events won't look so big anymore. Also, it smooths things out between Big Events, so it doesn't feel like you're bouncing from Event to Event. It eases the transition.

The filler can be a subplot or a minor story arc created for the purpose of filling the time. As long as it gives the reader something to think about betwixt the more important things you really want their attention on.

One of my favorite examples of filler material is pretty much all of the Quidditch stuff in Harry Potter. (I remember a while ago, someone mentioned in the comments section that they hadn't been able to figure out what the purpose of the Quidditch was. I'm sorry I've misplaced your name in my mind, however I am remembering you as I type this.) They might not be furthering the main plot or any of the major subplots; however, they are interesting to the readers and are something the reader can focus on while time has to pass and things have to stew.

I'm not so good at the filler stuff. I do the bouncy-bouncy thing with my Big Events, probably because it's the Events that come to me. I have to find the fill-in-the-blanks stuff along the way to get from A to B and hopefully all the way to Z eventually. But I know I need to get better at it. Otherwise, I might just leave my reader feeling like I'm racketing them from point to point.

How do you feel about filler? Do you use enough of it/not enough of it? Do you like it in books? If so, what kinds?

How Do You Get There From Here?

Okay, so, today's post doesn't have much to do with the previous three posts. I wish it did, because it would feel so awesome to have a sort of series feel going, but I'm moving on to another topic today. Actually, there was a transition between the two ideas, but I won't waste your time with it. (If your curious, the whole thought process started with Susan R. Mills.)

Today, I'd like to talk about transitions. While there are many types of transitions, I'm thinking, at the moment, mainly of those of time. A while ago, there was a very good post about this at the Literary Lab, which I highly recommend.

When it comes to passage of time, in my current WIP, at least, I seem to favor what Mr. Bailey calls the "Just do it" approach. I tend to have a scene break or a chapter break and then begin by explaining roughly how much time's passed and maybe mention if a few things changed the reader might incidentally care about before jumping right back into the action of the story.

This didn't strike me as a problem. I didn't see a need to kill time until the important and interesting things were occurring. I don't remember Trig homework being interesting to do in high school, and I don't think it'll be so fascinating when my MC does it for three pages when nothing else of interest is occurring in her life. I skip over those days when not much is happening. Concentrating out the useless bits. (I'm tying back to a previous post. This makes me oddly pleased. Anyway...)

One of my betas, however, didn't care for it. In her eyes, it seemed there ought to have been subplots or some other story arc occurring in that time instead of just skimming over it. I believe she means something along the lines of -- in Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone the Quidditch scenes might not be key to furthering the Voldemort (yes, I said the name) plot, but J.K. Rowling shouldn't have just cut them. They're interesting, can serve a good purpose later, and help pass time before Big Events. Without other details, by just skipping around, she says it feels like I'm just bouncing from Big Event to Big Event. She thinks I need more transitions.

Admittedly, there are a few leaps in Miss Snitch. One, I think, is a bit more than a fortnight long. I guess I can see how she'd feel that way. However, it's not in my nature to 'transition' so much, as it were. If feel like my readers get the point that time is passing without needing to see what's happening as it goes on, and I often worry that I'm wasting their time by including things I know don't go into furthering the plot, even if those things might be interesting.

How do you feel about transitions? Do you use them? How do you like to transition between Big Events?

Harry Potter The Musical

Okay, I don't care if it means I'm a complete and total Harry Potter loser (we'll just add this to the long list of other proof), I watched this video. Absolutely hilarious and totally awesome.

Deus Ex Machina de Bois

Once upon a time, my high school drama club put on a production of As You Like It by William Shakespeare. At the end of the play entire conflict is resolved by a new character named Jaques entering the scene and announcing that the combined forces certain to bring around the doom of the main character have halted due to the various oddities of fate. So, all eternal threats were canceled by nothing that anyone got to see. That character became known to cast and crew as Deus Ex Machina de Bois.

Deus Ex Machina is a plot device in which a person or thing appears from nowhere to save the main characters from seemingly impossible odds. The term itself dates back to Ancient Greece. The expression comes from the Ancient Greek practice of lowering the actor playing a god onto the stage with a crane. Euripides used Deus Ex Machina as the end to half of his plays. Yikes.

What's my problem with Deus Ex Machina? It's boring.

Think about it. How interesting would the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone have been if instead of Harry getting stone through the goodness of his heart and fighting Quirrel, instead McGonagal had shown up from nowhere and defeated Quirrel for him while Flitwick retrieved the stone? Not interesting.

The fun of the story is how the MC (you know, the person that the reader actually cares about) works out how to fix the problem/get the girl/save the world. No one wants to watch Deus Ex Machina de Bois do it (Here's a hint: He's new. No one cares about him.)

The only reason Shakespeare pulls it off at all (and just barely) is that the main characters themselves work out all of the personal conflicts that the audience has been watching. Deus Ex Machina, in that case, is only used to resolve that external conflict the audience hasn't been watching. If de Bois had tried to resolve the relationship conflicts at the same time (or worse, if he had actually succeeded in doing it) the audience would probably have thrown down their programs and stormed out.

Let's face it, not even Shakespeare or Euripides could really pull it off. Who wants to spend hours rooting for a character only to have him not resolve the problems on his out?

Midnight Movies

I find myself without a topic to blog about today. For lack of a better excuse, I'm going to blame going out to see Harry Potter 6 at midnight with my beset friend and my sister.

Having been seriously let down by these movies in the past (I don't tend to enjoy book-based movies that make a lot of changes), I didn't expect to get more out of this experience than a few good memories with friends and a few laughs at my sister's commentary (which should, by the way, be recorded and publicly distributed. She adds new layers of humor to the movie, and I feel bad for those who have to miss it.)

Instead, I LOVED it. I enjoyed the symbolism, the actors were still good -- Alan Rickman is wonderful -- and the treatment of the characters were good. They did wonderful things with Draco Malfoy's character, which made me very happy. The girl who plays Luna remains my favorite in terms of grasping the character from the book and bringing it to the screen, and she's in the movie a fair amount.

I was initially concerned about what they would have to cut to make it run a reasonable time (and let's admit it, it was a long book, so there were going to be things cut), but nothing they cut from the books was something that you missed during the film, which in my mind shows a sign of good editing. Actually, some of the places where they joined multiple book scenes into one movie scene reminded me of advice I've heard on the blogosphere about making more interesting and compelling scenes.

I'd give the movie a definite recommendation. Yes, you will likely be tragically deprived of sarcastic commentary, but you can supply your own, and even without it, it's awesome. Kids will enjoy this.

(Cleanness, because people are concerned about that, is a perfect 10 out of 10. No problems.)

Have you ever gone to see a movie at midnight? Did you have fun?