By Max Vonne.
Making sure that readers connect with your main character is a
critical point of focus for your writing. This is an especially tough
challenge for new writers. Thankfully,
there are some great tools available to us.
In my last article, I spoke about CritiqueMatch.com, which I’m
just going to briefly mention here. Getting your work in front of
others and getting their feedback is key to understanding if your main
character is resonating. Other writers will not only tell you if they
like the character but will also make suggestions on how to improve
him/her. I can’t imagine developing my
characters without this process.
While it’s great to get feedback, it’s not your only resource, and
you shouldn’t treat it as such. Don’t expect other writers to do the work
for you. A five-minute revision to your
work and repost is probably not going to help you unless the issues with your
work are incredibly superficial. Typically, the issues are deeper, at
least with the work I’ve seen there. And
I should add, that includes my own.
When I first ran into technical issues with my writing, I asked
around for suggestions for books on technique. And of course, I ran my
search on Amazon. It turns out there are
many inexpensive books available that address specific writing techniques.
Marcy Kennedy has books on point of view, description, dialogue, and
other important topics. She has a
mini-book for Kindle only about writing strong female characters. I
recommend it because the book market is made up of seventy percent women. Even a short book like that has valuable
insights.
My book, Star Faer - The Queen of Zori, deviates from the typical
protagonist/antagonist formula. It’s a multifaceted story with multiple
protagonists. So, I went into her book
with a fair degree of skepticism. I didn't like the idea that fantasy
could be boiled down to a formula because, at that point, it sort of turns into
fast food. I’m not interested in flipping burgers.
Nevertheless, I committed to reading it, and I’m glad I did.
I figured that if I was going to deviate from a formula, I should at
least understand what the formula is.
I ended up being very pleasantly surprised by Deborah Chester’s
structural analysis of scenes, characters, plot, point of view and more.
The book is over 300 pages long. I
ended up buying a paperback copy, just to be able to refer to it more easily.
So, getting back to the title of this article, one of the gems in
Deborah’s book is the section where she talks about the emotional content of the
character. What does the character feel?
How is this expressed? She uses
examples from her own books.
By drawing out the emotions of your main character, you deepen the
experience for the reader. They live vicariously through the thoughts and
actions of your main character. I never
thought of the character’s emotional reactions as being a part of the
character, but that’s changed for me now. I’ve found a character’s
emotional expressions inseparable from the character’s other attributes. How the character feels about what is
happening in a scene helps define that character.
In my book, an eight-year-old girl, Dari, has to live with the
guilt of her mother dying giving birth to her. In my first draft, I would
have written something like:
“Father, are you sorry I was born?”
Dari asked.
Of course not,” her father said.
“Why would you say such a thing?”
Dari looked up at him. “If not
for me, mother would still be alive.”
In this example, the dialogue is doing all the work. It’s
fairly flat.
Here’s the snippet from my current draft:
Dari didn’t want to press him.
They never spoke of her mother.
She could see it made it him sad. But she had to know. “Father . . . are you sorry I was born?”
Her father jerked his head to one side
as if someone had struck him. “Of course not. Why would you say such a thing?”
Dari’s throat tightened and her bottom
lip quivered. Her eyes were stinging.
“If not for me, mother would still be alive.”
By focusing on what Dari was feeling, I was able to add depth and
more life to the character. She doesn’t want to upset her father. It shows she is caring. Her physical sensations in talking about her
mother show that she carries a lot of pain with her. Those are things
that help define character. You can’t
get the character out of this small snippet, but you can clearly see the
difference between the two examples. Dari is more present in the second
example. That presence gives the reader
insight into the character. One little
block alone won’t do it, but a character is made up of hundreds of these little
blocks that aggregate into a greater sense of who the character is.
Deborah Chester’s book also includes a long list of questions you
can use to profile your character in your notes. I was already doing
something like this, but her list is more comprehensive.
She also provides analysis of the different roles that characters
play in a story, how much weight they carry. It’s a little formulaic for
my taste, but I think the idea is sound.
You should know what role characters play in a story and how much weight
to give them. Diagraming it can help you plan your story arcs.
The focus of this article is on character, but Deborah Chester’s
book covers many topics. It’s a worthwhile read for anyone writing fantasy. If you’re not writing fantasy, she has other
books, including “Fiction Formula Plotting.”
One of the great things about writing is the low barrier to entry.
It doesn’t cost much to write. The
investment that you make in technical books is nominal. A good book on
technique is worth its weight in future franchise gold. Cheers.
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Max
Vonne is a sci fi writer who blends science fiction and fantasy. The
Kaedra galaxy is at the heart of his work.
To develop it, he wrote a custom computer program that created thousands
of stars and planets. His books explore stories involving those
worlds. You can visit these worlds at www. StarFaer.com.
