NaNo Need-to-Knows: Your Characters

As part of my NaNo Need-to-Knows series, I'm sharing advice on the things you need in order to get through NaNoWriMo. (Click here for a list of links for the ongoing series.)

For the rest of October, the blog part of this series will deal with some writing technique things you need to know in order to create a strong NaNoWriMo Novel.

Since I'm more of a character-driven writer, I'm starting with characterization, but you can sort out the plot-related aspects first, if that's what you want. (I'll be starting with those on Monday.)

But what does one have to figure out with regards to characterization? And why is it important?

Who Is Your Main Character?

Do they have a name? What do they do? What do they want? What are their hopes, dreams and aspirations? What are they willing to do in order to achieve those? What are their worst fears? What are they willing to do to avoid those?

Yes, the way a character looks can be important for description purposes, but when it comes to creating a strong story, you need to go deeper than the superficial. 

Why? 

Because knowing your character means you know what your character will do in a given situation, which in turn can help you drive the plot forward as you write. 

Is your character prone to keeping grudges? Then having something happen to make them want to avenge themselves will be a great way to set a strong story goal. AND your character will want to go after that goal. 

Want means there are now personal stakes to achieving the goal, which is one of the best ways to maintain tension in a story. 

So make sure you get to know your character before you start, or that you create enough opportunities in your writing during NaNoWriMo to explore your characterization. 

Some ways to do this exploration before NaNoWriMo: 

• Spend time to create detailed notes as you build your character. I've heard the snowflake method is particularly good for this. (As with most plotting-related activities.) 
• Or you can take my approach of assuming a character to be a real person that you need to get to know. This approach might be out there, but I find that, if I treat characters like real people, they tend to feel more real in my writing too. Often, I simply do this by letting them live and make their own decisions in a story as I write, but if I want to prepare ahead, I do interviews with my characters. Yes, I literally act like I'm drinking coffee with a character. I'll ask them all kinds of stuff, having some real, deep conversations with them, and then I'll note down their answers. Not only does doing this help you understand a character, but it also helps you nail down the rhythms and cadences of their voice. (Which does come in handy later.) 

What Motivates Your Characters? 

In simple terms, character motivation is the reason behind the reason behind the reason behind the reason why a character does something. Think of it like peeling an onion. There's the skin at the surface, but under that is another layer, and another, and another. The deeper you go, the closer to the heart you get. 

And if you can get to the heart of any situation with a character, you can use that to strengthen the impact of what's going on. You'll also instantly know when a scene doesn't make sense, if it goes against the character's motivation. 

For example. You have a character (let's call her Sally), who gives a bitchy response to a snarky comment from another character (Dan).

Sally could theoretically have hundreds of choices about how she's going to respond to Dan's sass, and she goes for being nasty. Why? Why didn't she walk away instead? Or play sweet? 

Because she sees every sassy comment as an attack on her person and feels the need to retaliate. Why? 

Because she feels like the whole world is out to get her and she needs to fight to survive. Why? 

Because she's seen the hard side of the world and has been in survival mode her entire life. 

Why?

....

And this can go on forever, really. The deeper you go, the more information you have to mine. Just three why's in and we have a very tantalizing clue about Sally's backstory that can help fill her out as a character. And the deeper you go, the more info you'll have. So keep asking why.

Another benefit to knowing your characters' motivations is that you can create some incredibly compelling conflict just by having two characters' motivations and the resulting desires they have oppose each other. 

Characters wanting things are nice. But I frequently want to eat a chocolate. What do they need? What is the thing they would do anything to get because that need comes from the depths of their souls? Those are the truly important things, and if Sally needs something to happen, and Dan equally needs that same thing not to occur, you have instant fireworks. So take the time to learn your characters' motivations, and then figure out if you can put them in opposition to each other. 

It just livens up every scene containing those characters, because now every moment between them matters. 

Thanks for reading! How do you approach characterization? Any further characterization advice? 

Next week, I'll be talking about story goals and inciting incidents, and why they're important. And on my vlog on Friday, I'll be sharing tips on how to choose between story ideas for NaNo. If you're a Patreon patron for as little as $1 a month, you'll be able to watch my vlog post on Thursday instead. 

Camp NaNoWriMo Progress Update: Nooooooooo!

Still ahead of schedule... Just.

I know that second weeks of NaNoWriMo months are harsh. They're kinda notorious for being as difficult to get through as swimming through molasses. That's why all of the encouragement we get from the organizers in week two features some version of "Hey it's okay to struggle. You're far from the only one, so just keep chipping away and things will get easier." 

To be honest, though, I thought I'd skip the difficult second week. Not because week one was epic (and it was), but because I'm in the final sixth of my book. These are the final chapters leading up to the climactic point and the last ones to finish the book off. 

They write themselves. 

They always have. 

Usually when I hit the last quarter of a book, I can easily write up to 6k words in a day. (My record is 10k in a single push.) 

But what I didn't count on was that, when I threw a huge curve ball at my characters, they would retaliate with a massive one in return. 

You'd think, after having about six iterations of this same event in my draft novels without much of a dent, nothing would change when I let the same thing happen now. 

Boy, was I wrong. 

Because I hadn't taken into account one major thing: Every time before, the thing happened early in the story. This time, it happened near the end. 

And because of everything that had happened before the event, the characters were now armed with a set of information that pointed to something I hadn't even looked at. 

Et voila. 

Devastation. 

I've been struggling to write even 1000 words a day since Tuesday. The moment I get to scenes around this event, my unwilling fingers slow down to a drag and I want to burst into tears. 

But hey! Drama's good. So I can't complain too much. 

I just have to get over this. 

And hopefully my poor readers will cry just as hard when they hit this scene. I'm not going to say what it was, but... I think you'll know when you see it. 

How are you doing? Have you ever had a character spring a whole new world of pain on you? How did you recover?

Meradeth Houston on Creating an Interesting Antagonist

Hi all! Today I'm welcoming one of my blogging buddies Meradeth Houston to the blog as part of her blog tour. She's awesome, so do go over and say hi. 

Creating an Interesting Antagonist

Thanks so much for hosting me today, Misha! It’s always a treat to be on a fellow author’s blog. I thought I’d talk a little about antagonists and creating a really fun one. Well, maybe ‘fun’ is the right word, but one that gets under a reader’s skin in all the best ways.

So, I’ll admit that I love a good bad guy/gal. Maybe that’s a little twisted, but it makes me a whole lot more invested in a book. Some of my favorites come from Harry Potter. Of course we have Lord Voldemort, who is obviously evil. I mean, we get that. And his back story allows us to understand how he got that way. But while we don’t like the wizard and want him gone, there are some other antagonists that really irk a lot of readers. Let’s be honest, I think anyone was upset with what happened to Dolores Umbridge. Why? I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we’ve all had people like her in our lives. I’ve read some great articles about how people project that mean teacher/boss/whoever that was out to get them on Umbridge. So, what this boils down to is a way to connect personally with the antagonist—that really helps make them leap off the page.

For another Harry Potter character, let’s take Snape. The guy’s got some issues. He’s done some dumb stuff. And to be honest it wasn’t until the last book that I came to terms with the guy. The rest of the time I kind of thought he needed some psychological help (though I had some serious discussions with people who saw the good in Snape from the beginning). Anyhow, what changed my opinion? What made Snape that layered character that would be so incredible? His story. Learning about what got him to the troubled spot he was in, in such heart-rending detail, made me feel sorry for him and understand what drove him. And it wasn’t just hate and bitterness like Voldemort—nope, it was love and having to live through loss. Such a good story. But this boils down to seeing the inner conflict of the antagonist and understanding why they’re that way, to the point that on some level you might want them to succeed. I mean, sure, rooting for the hero might be obvious, but the antagonist has a point, too.

So, the reason I bring this up is because Joan, the antagonist of Travelers, was kind of tricky to write, because all the way through the story I found myself almost wanting her to get her way. She didn’t like the rules she had to live by because it meant her twin died, so she did something about it. And she did an amazing job. But there were consequences that made what she did pretty horrible for Sienna, the story’s hero, which is what plays out in the book. Still, Joan’s attitude had a completely logical foundation, one based on ideas I could understand and sympathize with, so there were a few times when I thought about letting her “win” while writing. The role that Joan plays in the book is one I really enjoyed exploring…probably because I love a good bad guy.

Who’s your favorite antagonist from a book or movie?

About TRAVELERS:

Sienna Crenshaw knows the rules: 1) no time traveling beyond your natural lifetime, 2) no screwing with death, and 3) no changing the past. Ever. Sienna doesn’t love being stuck in the present, but she’s not the type to to break the rules. That is, she wasn’t the type until her best friend broke every one of those rules to keep Henry, her twin brother and Sienna’s ex-boyfriend, alive.

Suddenly, Sienna is caught in an unfamiliar reality. The upside? Henry is still alive. The downside? Sienna’s old life, including the people in it, has been erased. Now, Sienna and Henry must untangle the giant knot in time, or her parents and all the rest of the Travelers, will be lost forever. One problem: the only way to be successful is for Henry to die.

Pick up a copy here!

Bio:

Meradeth's never been a big fan of talking about herself, but if you really want to know, here are some random tidbits about her:

>She's a Northern California girl who now braves the cold winters in Montana.
>When she's not writing, she's sequencing dead people's DNA.

>She’s also an anthropology professor and loves getting people interested in studying humans.
>If she could have a super-power, it would totally be flying. Which is a little strange, because she's terrified of heights.

Find Meradeth Houston online at: www.MeradethHouston.com

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Amazon, Goodreads, and of course her blog!

A to Z of Things Writers Should Know About Writing: Questions

I'm trying to post three times a week, but at the moment, work and life is still going crazy. That said, I'm still determined to see this series through. 

The way I see it, there are lots of new writers out there who are wondering if their writing experience is abnormal in some way, and this series is me saying: Phhhht. What's normal? We're writers, for heaven's sake. 

Going on with this theme, I'm just going to come out and say that it's completely okay to ask your characters questions. 

In fact, I recommend it. Yes, I know some writers create characters similarly to how people create cakes. (As in with a recipe or a set method.) You might be one of them. If you do the creation right, though, there should be some sort of aspect where the characters come alive. If they don't, you're doing it wrong. 

This is where asking questions comes in handy. Often, when characters refuse to play along, it's because you don't know all you need to know yet. The easy way to do this is go: Hey, character (using their actual name), what's going on? 

No, doing this doesn't make you insane. It makes you a writer. 

Or it might make you insane and I'm insane because I do this often. In fact, when I feel like I'm not getting everything I should into my story, I'll sit down and do a character interview. Sometimes, the characters love talking about their hopes and dreams and whether they like cats. Others...not so much. 

But then, even with the sullen ones being sullen, I'm learning about them. I learn how they talk. I learn how they react to people prying. I learn all sorts of lovely things I can torture them with *ahem* use later.

See? All totally sane. 

What about you? Do you talk to your characters? How does it go for you? 

Writing a complex character

Well today I finally get to go back to my roots a little, as a writing blogger. Hmm. Sorry, that's a bit of a terrible way to put it.

I blog about writing. Sometimes I blog about my own writing progress, other times I dig into some aspect of writing for whoever feels the need for advice and/or information. 

So. 

Complex characters. 

If you think about it, complex characters are the Holy Grail of characterization. It's something even some best sellers fail miserably at. Not naming names, but I'm sure you can find a few in your memory where their books had great plot, but almost no character depth. 

I also get the feeling that, if you found this post in a search, you're probably plot-driven writer. There's nothing in the world wrong with that. You'll write page-turners, with your natural sense of plot. 

You also know that flat characters are standing between your novel and brilliance. 

Complexity isn't easy to create, though. Yet it is. Sorry. I know this seems confusing, but bear with me. 

Now I'm going to briefly confuse you more. In my own experience of writing, creating a complex character is about not creating him or her. It's simply about creating a character. 

But you've done that, you might say. 

Yes you have. What you haven't done, is give the reader subtle glimpses of the character's other sides. 

Yes, the baddy is amazingly evil. Why? Did someone hurt him? Is he secretly an idealist? Only you know. If your answer is that the baddy is evil because he's evil, odds are he's flat. 

Same goes for your protagonist. No person is perfect. And flat, perfect guys are boring. I'm not saying you should go and change the character into an anti-hero. Anti-heroes can be flat too. Because they're just assholes who stumble into saving the day. 

Everyone has good characteristics and bad ones. Everyone has things they want and don't want. Everyone has bad moments. Everyone has good moments. 

For an excellent and recent example of what I mean, watch Skyfall. The villain is capable of terrible cruelty. He's smart, ruthless and willing to kill to get what he wants. And what he wants is to destroy M. 

But. He's not all about murder and bloodshed. A significant portion of him is, yes. But there are moments when M makes him cry. He's even capable of being incredibly gentle and caring. When he tries to convince Bond to go rogue, he tries to make it look like it's the sensible thing to do. It honestly feels as if he's doing it because he thinks he'd help Bond. After all, if he didn't give a damn, he could have killed him. On the other hand, it might be because he knows he'd hurt M by turning Bond against her. 

All of that going on with a single villain. 

That's depth. 

Giving the character a chance to show more than one side to their personality. 

Your job is to do it with subtlety. Which is the hard part.  

How do you write complex characters? 

Before I go, I want to let you know that I'm willing to answer any writing and edit-related questions on my blog and by e-mail. If you have one, please contact me at mishagericke(AT)gmail(DOT)com. 

OOH yes! Don't forget to check out my Word Master Challenge. It's a great, fun way to stretch your writing skills and there are prizes to be won.