In View of the Character

In the modern form a fictional writing the development of the character has become paramount to the sucess of a novel, regardless of which genre you are writing in. In Romance if your hero is not engaging then your reader will simply throw your book away and never consider your work ever again.

Regardless of whether or not your character is a vampire, a fairy or even a woman who finds dressing as a man on weekends, all need to have a connection to the person who is reading the words before them.

I often hear talk amoung new writers or less experienced writers that they need time to set up the story, time to develop the character in order to get the story in motion. In realistic terms do you know how long you have to capture a reader with your character? How long you have to create someone so engaging the reader will want to know more? If you are lucky a reader will give you one whole page, some will even give you two pages, but when a reader is standing at that book shelf in the store you might only have the opening paragraph to say; 'read me, you will like me'.

So, how do you create a connecting character so quickly? And is it hard? The idea is to create immediate empathy with as many people as possible - naturally you won't capture every single person who picks up the book or looks at the story, but you want to create the impression this is what you are doing. The character we first see is the character we will see in the final stages of the book, the person we hear about in those opening words is the character we will be following through the story; is the same chracater who will make us laugh, cry and feel frustration for. And yes it is hard.

Let me look at a simple plot of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. I know the main character is Roger and it is his story we are really following, yes, later we meet Sarah, but for now we need to establish a connection with Roger from the outset.

Here is what we don't do:

Roger is a home boy, he loves him mom and enjoys playing football with his friends in the park. He is bored with the same chores about the house and hates putting out the garbage on a Thursday night and the only reason he does is so he can see Sarah, the girl next door who practices her basketball in the drive every Thursday nights with her dad.

I have seen openings exactly like this and whenever I confront the author about just how maddeningly bland this is I am hit with abuse and qualifiers as to why it is important to start the novel and story this way. Yes, it might be well written, yes it might introduce us to Roger and yes you do get an idea of the story, but it is total rubbish.

How to engage immeditaely:

Roger slammed the bedroom door, he didn't care what his mother said, he was asking the girl next door to the prom; he was sixteen he could do what he liked. He dropped on the bed and stared up at the Green Day poster on the wall, he only started listening to them because he knew Sarah liked the band. How was he ever going to ask her out now?

Here we open with angst, the idea of a questionable love and a character who seemed to want to do whatever it took to find his girl. A multiple of small things thrown together to, at the very least, trigger some connection back to a time of forbidden love or even forgotten love. Or if this is a teen novel it is an immediate connection to what the teen is already dealing with. Empathy, the opportunity for emptahy exists in the revised opening.

But why angst? Why not a nice story?

It is time to face the truth about the reader, or us the reader. On the most part the majority of readers don't want nice stories, they want to see tension, conflict and the over coming or failing because of that conflict. If the reader wanted nice they would turn on a documentary on TV. It is wise to understand what the reader actually expects from the book they have just paid good money for - they are wanting to be transported throught the character and put in another place. Yes, the story will do this, and how you tell the story will be a huge advantage to you, but if they cannot connect immediately to the principle character then no amount of good writing and purple prose will save you.

Look at your very first chapter, and then look at the openings of all your chapters, if they are not captivating, empathetic and engaging, every single one of them, then there is work to be done. Get the character connected, that is your real challenge.

Robert N Stephenson
author of Uttuku Novel.

The Art of Layering Your Fiction

Over the years I have read many great authors and studied their works in order to improve mine. I wrote a book about writing -The Writing Soldier (available from www.altair-australia.com)- which does look at some of what I have learned but one of the most interesting aspects of writing is learning how to layer and layer well.

This is a typical short scene:

Jeff walked into the room, the oak door opening to reveal an ornately decorated study with Turkish rugs on the floor, antique European furniture that could have been from the 1700s and a fire buring warmly in the hearth.

"Good morning, Jeffrey." Mrs Witherly said. She sat in a large armchair that almost swallowed her diminutive size.

"Mr's Witherly. Why have you called me here?"

On the most part you could say this is quite a reasonable scene, and on first look it is like any scene as described in any popular book today, but, and this is an interesting but, the scene could be better if it was layered rather than compartmentalised as most modern writing is. This also brings us to the concept of Show V Tell and layering is part of the show doctrine only it isn't as rigid as some may believe. If I were to take this same scene and add some extra skil,l it might read like this:

Jeff's hand touched the warm surety of the oak door, the smooth finish helped him consider the slipperyness of the situation. Easing the door inwards, the hinges groaning under the weight of solid timber he caught the acridness of wood smoke and the too sweet odour of perfume; even with the Turkish rugs and antique European furniture the room was oppressive; he could feel the presence before she actually spoke.

"Good morning, Jeffrey." Mrs Witherly looked up from her book, a shrunken woman in an oversized leather chair. The flaming hearth as a backdrop gave her a demonic appearance.

He took a deep breath, a steadying of his mind and words; the heavy air made him choke and the sound of crackling of burning wood was a indicator as to how dangerous this meeting was. "Why have you called me here?"

The differences are quite slight but enough of a difference to add life, or extra life to a scene and allow it to breath within the reader's chest as they read. Why you do this is so the reader can feel and experience every word, rather than have to simply piece the words together to make an image.

Layering allows you to build the image of the world, the characters and their interactions together in a smoothly flowing stream of prose, where the compartmentalised approach has a tendency to keep these three elements uniquely seperate.

Okay, this is my first observation, I will look more on this later, but consider your words now and how you use them and create scenes that breath rather than just create a static picture of slightly connected elements.