Meeting Your Characters

When I sit down to write a story, admittedly one of the hardest things I have to deal with is my characters. I personally find it difficult to give each character a voice or, in other words, to make them sound different from the others. Some are easier than others, like if I have a belligerent character or if I have one who is very sarcastic. Not only that, but it's difficult to make characters consistent, to make sure that they say and do things that aren't out of character for them; an example would be like making sure that a character who has a tendency to panic doesn't suddenly act calm when a situation goes bad or before a big event takes place.

This week, I went camping with my large, crazy family. When we weren't hiking, sitting around the campfire talking, or swimming in the lake, I began working on developing some important characters in my urban fantasy novel. I used the form on the following website:

http://www.elfwood.com/farp/thewriting/crissychar/crissychar.html

Even though the form seems more geared towards fantasy, it actually works for any genre. It asks pretty detailed questions about your characters, stuff like their relationship with their family, what their soft spots are, and how they perceive themselves.

I've found the form to be very helpful, as it as aided me in finding my characters' motives and what separates them from the others. In short, it helps me understand them better and give me a better picture of what they act and look like. If you're having trouble developing your characters, I suggest you give this form a shot.

Starting a Work

About four years ago this week (or next week, I don't have a precise date) I was goofing off with my new laptop and thinking of a new fantasy story to write. I didn't have anything particular in mind when I opened the chapter with a description of a forest at night, but the story drew me in and I went on, not knowing exactly what I was doing. About a month or two later, I had completed a first draft of a fantasy story, a story that has stuck with me for four whirlwind years.

Each writer varies, but at least each one has some form of a plan when they sit down to write the next literary masterpiece. Some people like to plan down to the tiny details of the plot, the characters, and whatnot, and some people just like to dive in. There's no one right way to plan a work in preparation for writing, as each writer is different, but I'll share what I often do.

For me personally, I discover that if I do minimum planning, then my story has a greater chance of surviving until the very end. It's what happened with my fantasy work-in-progress, and it's also what happened with my 2010 Nanowrimo story and with the urban fantasy/ superhero story that I started a few weeks ago. In the case of my 4 year WIP, I was trying to rewrite a previous fantasy story (which had taken over twenty forms in the period of five years); I started off thinking of one of the forms, but I unexpectedly deviated into a different form that became unique from the original failed idea. In that case, I knew who and what the protagonist knew, but I had absolutely no idea of what was going on in his world or what the plot would be. Without really thinking, I just wrote, and the details came to me. I discovered that he was a military captain, the son of a deposed king, and that his homeland was being conquered by a foreign people. The same thing happened when I did my most recent nanowrimo. I knew it would be a murder-mystery, and I had a few ideas for scenes in my head, but I did minimal planning for it, outside of drastically altering the beginning of the story, which I had previously written. Much to my surprise, the story just developed itself, and I reached my 50 K goal early.

I can't explain why my creative part functions better without details, but when I start, I try to keep such things to a minimum. I may have a few scenes and probably the ending in mind, and I occasionally may define one aspect of a character's personality (for example, for nanowrimo 2010, I knew that my protagonist would be a sarcastic skeptic, but I knew nothing else about what she was like). Otherwise, I largely dive into a story blind and let it develop on its own. I personally find that characters, their back stories, and sometimes even the plot just appear on their own without me doing any extensive planning. Besides, I think it also helps me to have a bare skeleton, which allows me to add and alter details much later, filling up the story over time.

But, as I said, not everyone can function that way. We all plan and begin our stories in different ways. But, ultimately it's not how we begin writing a story; what matters is how we complete it, what our finished product looks like.

Basic Work

Today, I was sitting in my Advanced Composition class when the teacher returned graded essays to the students. This sparked an interesting discussion about grammatical and spelling errors. Despite this class being a 3000-level for a few sophomores, juniors, and seniors, the teacher was a bit irritated that people still make mistakes with comma splices, spelling, fragment sentences, and other errors more common in middle schoolers than college students.

It got me thinking about grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Even though writing stories is largely about creating a story, the writing style is just as important as maintaining a plot and characters. You could have an amazing and unique story concept that could be the next greatest piece of literature, but if you have horrible spelling or grammar problems, they will spell problems for you. I once looked over a story for an acquaintance, and the grammar and spelling errors were so glaring that I was more focused on them then on what was going on in the story. Granted, we all have problems in certain areas (I admit that mine is spelling sometimes), and that means we just need to work more on those issues.

Here are a few tips I would recommend for working to improve problem areas in basic writing.

1) If you have spelling problems, do not be afraid to use a dictionary. I myself like using Microsoft Word to correct spelling issues, but use what suits you best and what is the most reliable.

2) For grammar and punctuation, I've found Williams' "Style" to be helpful, even though I personally think some of the rules are a bit odd and should not be used.

3) For further grammatical issues, either take a closer glance at your English textbook. Or, don't be afraid to look up the rules on the internet from an official source if you are still confused.

4) Don't be afraid to ask for help from someone you know has a better grasp of grammar, punctuation, or spelling. Whether it be a parent, a friend with mad spelling skills, or someone much wiser than you, ask for help. There's absolutely nothing wrong with asking for help, and in the end it'll be much more beneficial to you than just ignoring the rules or making them up as you go along. Besides, it is also helpful to have someone look over your writing, as they may catch grammatical or spelling mistakes that you've missed.

Those are just some tips, but everyone functions differently. Nonetheless, it is important that all writers have a grasp of proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation because, in the end, those things make you look more professional and more like you know what you are doing. It is a sign that you take your writing seriously, which is always a plus if you want to publish your work or to take your mad writing skills to the next level.

A Bit of Research

At the moment and on a very sporadic basis, I'm trying to help a young teenager with story set sometime during the Middle Ages. Even though we've barely gotten past the first chapter and we have very little communication for various reasons, it got me thinking about historical fiction or fiction set in the real world.

Because of the communication issue, I've yet to bring this up with the girl I'm helping, but there is one thing that I'd like to tell her. She started her historical fiction with a basic story with a basic enemy but no clear indication of the story's setting or anything of the sort. The problem is that she should have done some research on the issue first because, depending on the year and location, it may have a huge impact on the story.

The Middle Ages are commonly used in fantasy and in other genras, and it has, to me, been overdone. However, part of the problem is that the Medieval worlds people create for their stories are not well-researched and come across as very flat. Most commonly think of that time in history as having kinds, knights, lords, the prominent church, and chivalrous acts, but they do not stop to look into that period of time more deeply. They often neglect looking into things like the following: what was housing like back in those days, how was society organized, what were towns and cities like, and other detailed glances. This will help your story seem more realistic, which is a good thing in regards to historical fiction.

Another thing for any form of a historical story is to get a detailed look at the history for the time period. The Middle Ages, depending on what year the story's based in, was a very tempestuous period with frequent wars and tensions between countries. In the early years, you have the Vikings running around all over Europe and wrecking havoc there; then you have wars between England and France; and then you have different invasions such as the Normans invading the British isles and taking over. Things like those need to be taken into consideration because it will help define the world that your story is set in and may also help you create a plot for the story.

So, in conclusion, if you are setting your story in the real world in any time period, do some fairly extensive research for that time. It will help your story seem more accurate, and it should help prevent you from creating a story that seems too modern.

More on Mary Sues

I follow the livejournal anti-shur'tugal, which I enjoy because it often makes me think of writing topics and of ways to improve my own writing. Someone on a forum I frequent posted the following article about Mary Sues and what they really look like; the author verbalizes the issue better than I did, so I suggest you take a look at it.

http://anti-shurtugal.andontie.net/2010/08/14/ironwings-mary-sue-discourse/

The Story's Hero

In fantasy or epic stories, one thing that bugs me is how the hero is practically the same in every single one. I've noticed that the following have become very popular but also very overdone:

1) The hero starts off on a farm. There's nothing wrong with someone having farming origins, but there are plenty of other occupations that could be used instead. Your hero could come from a background in fishing, in hunting (though this one would depend on what kind of society you use, and it wouldn't really work in a Medieval-esque world... unless the family is poaching illegally), in mining, in forestry, or a number of other occupations.

2) The hero has obscure origins. In "The Inheritance Cycle", you have Eragon having an unknown father and a mother who was absent completely from his life. In "The Wheel of Time", the protagonist supposedly has parents but is revealed to have been adopted. It's rare to find a hero who has both parents still alive and who is living with them when the story begins.

3) The hero comes from a more remote region of the kingdom/empire/ civilization. I can't think of a recent hero that comes from a city or a more populated region. Granted, it does make for interesting interactions between a country boy and the big city, but it has been overused, in my opinion.

4) The hero falls for a princess or someone high up on the food chain. Eragon falls for Arya, Joraeim from "Beyond the Summerland" falls for Princess Wylla, and others do the same. I can't recall a hero who loves a girl from his hometown and returns to her at the end of everything; that, to me, is more romantic.

5) Another one is that the hero is somehow a descendant of a king or royalty or to whoever's ruling the place, which harkens back to his often-obscure origins. This too has been overdone, and I'd like to see a hero who is just an ordinary person with no connections to a ruling person.

These are just a few examples, but I find it sad that these five have been used so much in stories when there is greater potential for heroes and their background.

Book for Writers

This semester, I am taking my first college writing class called "advanced composition". One of our books is "Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace" by Joseph Williams, and my class has begun to read it. Even though we have not gotten very far, I recommend this book for writers, both fiction and non-fiction. The book tells you how to avoid dense sentences that leave your readers scratching their heads and basically how to write clearly yet to have style. It also has some helpful tips on grammatical rules (like which ones are real and when you can bend or break them at times). The book is clearly written and presents the concepts in a simple way, and the rules and such in them are true for all writers. I recommend that aspiring writers look into it for tips on improving their prose and their writing style.

For Appearance's Sake

One thing that I have noticed in fantasy stories regarding the appearances of the characters is often how perfect they are. They may have perfectly straight teeth that look like they were made of pearls, the women often have long silky hair that gleams in the sunlight, or the females may often have a scent about them (like in "Inheritance Cycle" where Arya constantly smells of pine- at least, I believe it is pine needles. I haven't read the series in a while, so you'll have to forgive me). Normally this is not an issue considering our modern day and age where hygiene is very important, but this becomes a problem if your setting is in a Medieval-esque world or in an earlier time period.

Let me put it this way: hygiene did not become a major issue until about a hundred years ago. Unless you were Japanese, who were a very clean people, you did not take a bath that often, and, if you did, it only happened every month or so. For this reason, people wore lots of perfume and makeup to cover up their dirtiness. It was particularly worse in more rural regions where farmers and such were constantly working, and so they would come home covered in mud and who knows what. In these more rural areas, you not bathe very frequently and then, it was most likely only before attending important events. This form of hygiene would probably make us retch if we lived during those times, but keep in mind that no one else noticed the smell or your dirtiness that much unless you move from one area to another or between different cultures.

Not only were people dirty, but they were not concerned with their hair very much either. Soap was not common, and conditioner and hair dryers had not yet been invented yet. Not to mention the lice and other living things that could live in one's hair, especially a woman's. And women, unless they were more of the barbaric stock, probably ran a comb through their hair in the morning and put it up for the rest of the day. So, one would imagine that their hair was very unkempt and greasy from lack of washing.

And now, on to teeth. Dentists and orthodontists did not exist back then, and people did not brush their teeth. So finding someone with perfectly straight white teeth was probably a diamond in the rough and very rare.

My point in saying this is that most stories today, ones that are set in pre-modern eras, tend to have some character that has excellent hygiene along the lines of what we would see today. Your story may be a Medieval fantasy, but keep in mind that appearances back then were very different. You're not going to see perfect people in their appearances or in regards to hygiene. Particularly if your story has a lot of traveling in it, I doubt people in the traveling party are going to look well-groomed for very long. This may seem something odd to talk about writing, but I believe it is the details which can often make your world seem more real and down-to earth, no matter what genre or time period it is set in.

Book Series

It is quite common nowadays particularly for fantasy writers to plan more than one book to tell their story. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this (I may have another post to talk about this later), problems can arise if you plan the whole series, write and publish the first book, and then finish the series one book at a time.

One problem is consistency. In the early life of your story, you are not going to think up entire situations, back stories, or whatnot until some time later. If you write and publish only one book at a time, while continuing the story, you may discover some secret history between two of the characters or some new side plot that would make the story... except the problem is that the previous book as been published and cannot be altered. So thus you are forced to introduce something new rather suddenly and which could require character personalities or histories to be changed, but which cannot be altered drastically without coming across as inconsistent. I have seen this myself as my own work in progress has changed over the three and one-half years of its existence where the story largely remains the same but where characters and back stories evolve into something originally different.

A related issue is a greater amount of world-building that will inevitably take place the further you go into a story. It depends on the author, but you may develop more of the history, the languages, or an endless list of side aspects to the story; if you use magic in the story, you may deepen it and expand the rules. However, if you write-publish one book at a time, you will run into further problems of consistency. An example would be Christopher Paolini's "Inheritance Cycle". Because the books were all written at different times (in other words, he planned out the series but wrote each book one at a time), his explanation for magic and related magical events are different for each book, and thus his magic does not make sense at all.

Another problem of writing one book at a time is you may lose steam. I myself have gone through the stage of fantasy writing where I write one book and plan for others but by the time I finish at least the first part of the story, I have to put an end to the series for whatever reason there is, whether it be because of a bizarre plot or because I got bored with it. If you have already published one book, your readers will be expecting more of the story and so you will have to force yourself to finish it, which will result in bad writing. Or, in the cases of authors like George R. R. Martin, you take forever to finish it for whatever reason and so incur the wrath of your impatient readers, which may also cause you to lose your audience.

In the end, if you want to write a book series, it is best if you write it all out at once over a period of time and develop the story. This will help you develop the story itself but will also tell you if you really want to stick with it for a while. Sure, it may take years for you to finish the story completely to the point where you are happy with it, but remember my earlier post: the longer you sit on your story and develop it, the better it will turn out.

Villains

Most villains in stories today are not well-written. Despite being supposedly evil and intelligent, they often come across as complete idiots who are more likely to make the reader laugh instead of quake in his boots. I will give a few examples of bad villains.

1) They often become evil because of either an abusive past or because of some traumatic event in their lives; an example would be Galbatorix from "The Inheritance Cycle" who turned to evil because his dragon got killed. While this can offer one reason for a villain's motives, this has been overused. And, also, not every person who was abused as a child or had something bad happen to them turns to "the dark side". For a point in case, look at some of the following characters from "Lord of the Rings": Frodo's parents drowned when he was a child, Faramir was passed over by his father in favor of his brother, Aragorn's father was killed by orcs when he was a child, and Galadriel has been exiled from Valinor for centuries and forbidden to return; these are examples from only one book, but all of these have had traumatic experiences in some form or another in their lifetime and none of them became evil.

2) They are often considered insane or not in their right mind. Galbatorix is another example of this, but I am sure there are others as well. An issue with this is that who would follow a mad leader? Let me play devil's advocate here; say that a former warrior who had a nervous breakdown during a war escapes from the asylum where he has been living and starts proclaiming himself to be king. Even if he kills a few people, do you honestly think that people would believe him? Even if the man somehow managed to get into power, how would he be able to maintain it? How would he get the military to his side to support him in his position? When considering an insane ruler, keep these questions in mind. You could, however, use this if either the ruler goes crazy while he is already in power or if someone else is in the true power seat and is merely using the king as a puppet.

3) They wear black. In most stories, the villains always wear black and walk around with a swish of their cloaks or their robes. Unless your villain has OCD or some other mental problem (which, see above), they will not stick to one color. So add a little more color to their clothing.

4) The villains more often then not send their worst servants and underlings to do the dirty work; but the hero (or heroine) always manages to escape, and then the villain send out someone only a little better than the last guy, and he too will fail. If your villain is rational and truly as intelligent as he seems to be (because if he is not, then how will he maintain support or even get into power in the first place?), then he will send his best servants, assassins, trackers, or whatnot to do the job right the first time.

5) The villains almost somehow always reveal their "grand, evil scheme" or something of that nature to the hero, which usually will aid him in defeating the evil. This is not rational thinking: to reveal everything just because you've captured the hero and are going to kill him (though you'll fail in that too) is stupid. If your villain is intelligent, he will keep his plans to himself. Having the hero or one of the "good guys" to figure out the villain's motives or his ultimate plan without him actually telling it out loud would be much more interesting, in my opinion.

6) They often sit inside their grand palaces and on their thrones, waiting for whatever news they want or need. In reality, villains, whether kings or not, do not sit around and let everyone else do the work. If they truly want their plans to succeed, they will be far more active in making sure their purposes are fulfilled. Sure, they may not leave their place of residence, but keep them truly busy.

7) They are not evil for the right reasons. If you want your villain to be truly evil, then he has to act that way. And it has to be more than "he killed the last king", "he has high taxes", or "he forces people into his army". In this case, you have to show it rather then tell it.

I am sure I could think of other examples, but sadly my brain needs time to recuperate from this difficult college semester. In the end, however, I hope these tips will help you think more about your villains and how to make them truly evil instead of relying on stereotypes.