Last week we learned how to plot wrong. That was fun! Now we all know how to do it so nobody will ever be interested and our stories will never get published, much less read.
So this week let’s talk about how to handle character wrong. Because this one is trickier—character is a trickier element of fiction while, at the same time, an even more essential one than plot. It’s possible to get by on pretty darn thin plot, providing your characters are fascinating. But any kind of plot with boring characters is shlock.
Don’t write that stuff.
Give your protagonist only one need
This one happens a lot. I’ve done it a lot. Everyone’s always telling you, “Your protagonist needs a goal, your protagonist needs to be fighting for something.”
They need their beloved to fall in love with them
They need to survive a deadly plague from outer space
They need to not get killed by the bad guys
Which is all well and good. . .but why can’t they get it?
So you add a lot of complications—interfering ex’s, domineering relatives, cruel bosses, nosy neighbors, malicious space aliens, fickle and faint-hearted gods of doom who victimize your characters until you find yourself weeping into your keyboard. All very poignant and meaningful to you.
But when you show it to readers, they say, “You’re a perfectly good writer. But why do I care?” And when you show it to agents, they don’t even respond.
We don’t care about victims. We care about strong people fighting against themselves. This requires more than one overwhelming need: internal conflict.
Make your protagonist’s needs weak or trivial
And this leads to the the next issue, which is giving your protagonist two conflicting needs but making them so minor the reader can’t work up any interest.
They need to clean the house and they need to get Jeb back from the barn
They need to watch the game with their pals and they need their to prove they know the most about it
They need to win the popularity contest and they need not to chip their nails
Once again, it all seems terribly powerful and gripping to you, your readers like it, and when you show it to agents they say, “You’re a good enough writer, but somehow I couldn’t get into this particular story. It just didn’t speak to me.”
You know tension is important, and you’re wondering how to ratchet the tension on basically boring stuff. So you add complexities, other people’s agendas. And once again, you get the shake of the head, more final this time, and the slightly-crisp suggestion, “Maybe you should try another story.”
We don’t care about trivial conflicts. We have plenty of those of our own, which bore even us. We want stories about scary crap that affects lives.
Never force your protagonist to choose between their conflicting needs
So you think, ‘Aha! I know what’s wrong. Those two needs don’t matter enough.’ And you’re intensely pleased with yourself, because—you know what? You’re right.
So you give your protagonist two big, overwhelming, dastardly, fabulous needs, and you make them in stark opposition to each other.
They need to save the home they inherited from their tragically-dead parents that’s all they own and they need to survive a tornado/avalanche/desert island/inner-city gang war.
They need to save their boss’s reputation for the sake of their own career and they need to get their ex back from that boss.
They need to disable a covert operation aimed at world domination before all they hold dear is violated and they need to survive the bad guys’ ruthless efforts to thwart them.
Wonderful stuff! Gripping, intriguing, conflicting. Such an exciting story to write! Even your readers are cheering you on every step of the way. “I can’t put it down! Write faster.”
But in the end it’s still—just—a—flop.
And the agent who loved the premise, loved the story, loved you for coming up with the whole thing—stops taking your calls.
Because although your protagonist has those powerful conflicting internal needs (pride and survival, career and love, integrity and life) and even though those needs are huge and easy for even the most simple-minded reader to identify with, and even though you’re a perfectly good writer. . .your protagonist never has to choose.
They get out of it the easy way: by you letting them.
Sigh.
Make your characters fight themselves, make it important and painful, make ‘em choose. There is no other formula.
I confess, in my current manuscript, I’ve recently realized that I’ve given one of my characters many small conflicts without focusing on the biggest internal one for her. This post really helped clarify that I need to go back and minimize some of her needs, while expanding and intensifying the most important conflict for her storyline.
So thanks for the timely advice. Also, I’ve just recieved my copy of Mystery and Manners and I’m looking forward to digging into it! I love O’Connor and I can’t wait to read her thoughts on writing. Thanks for the recomendation.
Oh, have fun with the O’Connor. You really have to mull her stuff over and read it repeatedly to understand how deep and true her grasp of fiction was. She approached it from a position of both great knowledge and great integrity. Although Patricia Highsmith ridiculed her for claiming to see the face of Jesus in a porch floorboard at Yaddo when they were both there (and you’ve got to admit, Highsmith had a point), Highsmith’s own book on writing simply cannot compare.
The issue of character need and internal conflict is talked about a lot in current popular books on writing, and with good reason. But I have yet to see anyone out there identify the extraordinary interdependence of conflicting needs that drives inevitability in storytelling.
You put it very well. In the best stories, it seems like the characters’ internal conflicts drive the external, creating an inevitablity that gives the story internal, as well as external motion. Unless the internal and external are woven, the characters needs seem like unnecessary angst, instead of genuine motivation or turmoil.
We don’t want to see protagonists making stupid mistakes, flopping around feeling sorry for themselves. That’s not helpful to us. And, truly, all we’re interested in when we read is us.
We want to see protagonists fighting the current all the way. We want to know how to do it if and when it ever happens to us. And we want to know how that fits into our own personalities.
Jeffrey Russell Reply: June 14th, 2011 at 9:43 am
Are there good stories where external events are what first brings to light, then drives and fuels the protagonist’s inner conflicts?
With a first draft I made mistake #1 – one of my main characters (whose role was to save the protagonist) had only one ‘need.’ With the second draft I fixed that, but in so doing I ended up making mistake #2 – I gave her weak and trivial ‘needs.’ In the third draft I improved things somewhat, but nevertheless made mistake #3 – she never faced a choice.
I’ve put that book aside for now, until I can re-think the premise and plot, lest I make a new, previously undiscovered 4th mistake!
Victoria Reply: June 13th, 2011 at 4:55 pm
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I’m holding my breath for that mysterious 4th mistake, Jeffrey. I can’t wait to see where your creative drive takes you.
I went directly from this post to my draft/outline to make big all caps notes at the crucial moment of my character making her choice. This post made me realize I had all the pieces there, and even had resolved it in the “correct” way (she does make a choice) but, I didn’t KNOW what I was doing, and so I wasn’t playing up the drama of her making this choice in a clear way at all. So excited to write this part now, though I’m far from the end.
Victoria Reply: June 16th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
Aaaaaaaah! Maria!
This is why I do this work—for moments exactly like this.
Thank you for letting us know! And now you have to come back and give us an update later.
Okay, I check in here once in awhile and often pick up helpful bits of advice, but I have to say that I think this post just helped me out a lot.
I just finished a first draft of a novel and yet there’s something about the climax of the book that just wasn’t quite there….and then I read this.
Choice. Things escalate toward the end of the book and as things go from bad to worse for my mc, I never even give her a fleeting thought about just giving up. I just realized that having her pause and consider that and chose to continue would help her to own the upcoming outcome rather than making it look like something that was done to her.
Thanks for this! Melissa recently posted..melancholy and two lists of five
Victoria Reply: June 20th, 2011 at 9:34 am
Absolutely, Melissa. If she’s a powerful babe determined to get what she needs, that makes her a fabulous protagonist to follow through a story. But that also makes her worst nightmare. . .having to face the possibility of giving up.
And that’s your real premise, for which her entire story is just the groundwork.
Excellent writer food for thought. I’m new to your site, but I’ll definitely come back for more. I really loved the “How to Plot Wrong” article too. I seriously wrote my first novel exactly like you said and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at your insight. Yes, fun for us, the writer, until we’re ‘killing our darlings’ to the extent of 50,000 (unnecessary) words. Uh, yeah. Consider me cured. I. Am. No. Longer. A. Pantser. Kimberly Krey recently posted..A Thanks To My Fellow Bloggers
Victoria Reply: June 27th, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Oh, Kimberly, we all write our first novels like that. I’ve written several. That’s how come I know how to do it so well!
Pfft. I never was a panster and I still ended up cutting 50,000 words from my bloated first draft. Being a plotter is no guarantee.
-o-
I needed this reminder right now. Could you post this again every month or two for the next year?
Victoria Reply: July 1st, 2011 at 4:13 pm
I’ll give it a shot, Joe.
No, being a plotter is no guarantee. There are no guarantees to this craft. Except the one, fundamental one that if you love to do this work, you will love spending your life doing it.
I used to design video games, I still do a little moonlighting now and then. But now at my age I’m more adept at slot machine design .. really, I have a couple of video poker patents.
Your post is very relevant to video game deign. The story-line in a video game is surprisingly almost all about character. Most people think video games are plot driven – but if you think about characters like Mario and Zelda you can see that it’s critical the player identify with the main character, because he/she is controlling it.
In a video game you’re creating the foundation of what motivates the character, then the player is filling in the rest with their own personality. What you chose to leave out is almost more important that what you put in.
It’s because of this link between player and character that I think your three points are even more important in video games. So – great job as usual – I think I’m going to send this post to my friends in the industry. Kmuzu recently posted..Friday Picture Day – episode #2
Victoria Reply: July 6th, 2011 at 8:46 am
This is fascinating, Kmuzu. Yes—I can see how the games are about creating a story out of that character’s needs mixed with your own. Giving the character two conflicting needs creates that mythical space between them for the reader/player to fully engage with their own similar needs. And the increasing layers of difficulty in a game of course mirror exactly the increase in tension necessary throughout a story to keep the reader/player addicted to the hope that it will all turn out great.
So when you reach the most difficult level of all, you’re playing against yourself. And that’s where we all meet our nemesis.
Very cool. My number three is the first to get close to this (and not surprisingly, the book I enjoyed writing the most). In the final stages of first draft of number 4 and will hark back to this during revision time.
Frequently.
Victoria Reply: July 13th, 2011 at 5:20 pm
Which begs the question, Tony—what did you put into number 4?
Oh, who am I kidding. We all read great books knowing how they’ll end.
But to keep things vague-ish, brother’s trying to work through some bad blood end up on either side on a double murder investigation. The cop brother learns that his brother may have been instrumental in one of the victim’s death, and now working for an organised crime figure at the center of the investigation. Choices need to be made between family and duty, etc., etc., etc.
Short story author Scott Warrender is a Mentoring Program client. I have done full Copy, Line, & Developmental Editing on a number of short stories for him, the first of which was his poignant fictional memoir of Africa, ''The Boy With the Newsprint Kite,'' now published in the Foundling Review.
Clients’ Books
Bhaichand Patel is the author of two nonfiction books: Chasing the Good Life (Penguin Books India, October, 2006), and Happy Hours (Penguin Books India, October, 2009). I edited Patel's debut novel, When the Streets Were Cold and Dark.
I've edited a number of nonfictionessays for my friend Lucia Orth. (Many years ago, my contribution to Baby Jesus Pawn Shop was simply a peer critique and participation in a standing ovation.)
The poet Chris Ryan is the author of The Bible of Animal Feet (Farfalla Press, 2007). He has recent stories in Pank, Anemone Sidecar, and A Cappella Zoo. I edited Ryan's novel The Ishmael Blade and worked with him on his debut novel Heliophobia and WIP Pogue.
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Victoria Reply:
June 13th, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Oh, have fun with the O’Connor. You really have to mull her stuff over and read it repeatedly to understand how deep and true her grasp of fiction was. She approached it from a position of both great knowledge and great integrity. Although Patricia Highsmith ridiculed her for claiming to see the face of Jesus in a porch floorboard at Yaddo when they were both there (and you’ve got to admit, Highsmith had a point), Highsmith’s own book on writing simply cannot compare.
The issue of character need and internal conflict is talked about a lot in current popular books on writing, and with good reason. But I have yet to see anyone out there identify the extraordinary interdependence of conflicting needs that drives inevitability in storytelling.
E. Hunter Reply:
June 14th, 2011 at 9:07 am
You put it very well. In the best stories, it seems like the characters’ internal conflicts drive the external, creating an inevitablity that gives the story internal, as well as external motion. Unless the internal and external are woven, the characters needs seem like unnecessary angst, instead of genuine motivation or turmoil.
E
E. Hunter recently posted..Also …
Victoria Reply:
June 14th, 2011 at 9:16 am
We don’t want to see protagonists making stupid mistakes, flopping around feeling sorry for themselves. That’s not helpful to us. And, truly, all we’re interested in when we read is us.
We want to see protagonists fighting the current all the way. We want to know how to do it if and when it ever happens to us. And we want to know how that fits into our own personalities.
Jeffrey Russell Reply:
June 14th, 2011 at 9:43 am
Are there good stories where external events are what first brings to light, then drives and fuels the protagonist’s inner conflicts?
Victoria Reply:
June 14th, 2011 at 11:21 am
Yes. Absolutely. That’s your Hook.