Characters are critical for stories that resonate. Why? Because characters are the conduit that connects the reader, that vests them in the events.

We can’t empathize with technology, spaceships, magic, or nuclear submarines. Humans can’t bond emotionally to a place (without the characters as the connection).

For instance, we CARE about Lord of the Rings’ Middle Earth because we care about Frodo, Samwise and Gandalf. And, because Frodo, Samwise and Gandalf care deeply for Middle Earth and the Shire…we do as well.

Story is like the wall socket that’s connected a tremendous power source. But, how useful would those wall sockets be if all the gadgets in everyday life didn’t have plugs? How useful would a bunch of dead gadgets be?

We cannot have story without characters and can’t, conversely, have characters (DIMENSIONAL characters) without story.

Readers read stories, but great stories read the readers .

Great Characters are What They DO

One of my mantras in life and in fiction is, ‘Talk is cheap.’ Probably the single largest mistake I see in newbie fiction is the writer insists on telling us a character is this or that instead of showing the character being this or that (then allowing us to be the judge).

Now, I do understand that we cannot write a book that is all showing. We do need some telling lest the book be a half million words long and unreadable. As authors, however, we are wise to hold back a little. Use restraint.

Let the audience do some of the work .

This allows readers to join in the experience, and metaphorically ‘complete the circuit.’

Remember, readers bond to characters via their own baggage and their own worldview. Well-written stories are a different experience for every reader, because we (humans) see the characters through infinitely varied lenses.

Ideally, audiences should see our characters through themselves.

This is how we can have a series like Game of Thrones (or A Song of Ice and Fire if we’re talking about the books) and fans have vastly different opinions about the characters.

Some fans LOVED Daenerys Targaryen. I couldn’t stand her. I actually liked Cersei Lannister, even though plenty of folks hated her.

Suffice to say that, whether it’s Harry Potter, Star Wars, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Friends, Marvel, DC, or Big Bang Theory, success can be largely attributed to fan-devotion to favorite characters.

How can characters hold so much power?

If we (the writer) assign moral judgement and TELL an audience this character is good and this one bad and this one a liar and this one a hero, we close that emotional expanse where imagination and empathy lead to bonding.

Half the POWER the characters wield is their baggage, the other half being the READER’S baggage.

We’re wise to leave room in the story for the audience to park their overpacked emotional U-Hauls.

Readers Imbue Emotional Energy

If we can learn to write characters in a way that they act out of their own wants, desires, wounds, blindspots, and shame, then we open the seam between fiction and reality.

Widen this seam enough, and the audience can fall into our story and become part of our world.

Great characters should have baggage, the more the better. They should also be acting out of this baggage. And, if we (Author God) will refrain from assigning any value judgement (telling) the characters will, as a result, become more complex.

Right now maybe you’re all saying, ‘Great, Kristen! Um, huh?’

When WE (the author) assign a value judgement, we are doing this based off OUR experiences, psychological makeups, wounds, etc. This limits how much the reader can participate by forming their own opinions.

If, however, we can practice restraint, the READERS will formulate their own assessments based off their wholly unique and infinitely varied experiences. In fact, that is a HUGE part of the fun.

It’s why we (fans) take The Sorting Hat Quiz over at Pottermore, or Facebook quizzes to tell us which Avenger we are or which character from Firefly we resemble most.

Back to Game of Thrones, though. Why did I ‘like’ Cersei Lannister despite her being a fairly horrible person?

Because of MY background.

‘Noble’ Qualities’

How audiences loved to hate Cersei. Yet, why did she resonate for me? Why did her character strike such a visceral chord? What made her dimensional and real instead of a paper doll/mustache-twirling caricature?

First, she possessed what I BELIEVED to be noble qualities. Cersei LOVED her family (her brother perhaps a bit too much for my comfort, but whatever).

I’ve always been deeply dedicated to family. Also, as a mother, I understood her motivations. She would do anything for her children. She’d stop at nothing to assist, promote, protect or even AVENGE them.

Literally.

She was fiercely devoted to her children (even a child as terrifying as Joffrey) and heaven help anyone who messed with her cubs. She’d melt you with wildfire…then drop a city on you.

For reals. She did it.

*Cersei drops mic then half of Westeros*

As a mom, I fully appreciate how vulnerable our children can make us. How blinded we can be to the faults of our kids.

Also, Cercei’s personality is a lot like mine. I don’t do anything in half-measures and neither did Cersei Lannister.

She Had a Sympathetic Viewpoint

Because of MY background, I felt Cersie possessed a highly sympathetic viewpoint. She was a woman in a man’s world, overlooked even in her own family.

Of all the Lannister children, SHE was the only one who paid attention, and who outpaced her brothers by a million miles regarding Rule with an Iron Fist/On an Iron Throne 101.

SHE was the Lannister most qualified to rule, but instead, her father handed her off like chattel to marry a fat, sloppy, philandering joke of a leader, King Robert Baratheon who openly disrespected her.

And it was that pervasive powerlessness—generated by the world she had no choice being born into—that pissed her off more than a little (and rightfully so).

I understood her frustrations.

Her one brother, Jaime, had more interest in prancing around the country playing ’emotionally wounded knight’ than protecting the realms, and the other brother, Tyrion–in the beginning at least–was a drunken, hard-partying cad who cared only about himself.

Men more ‘qualified’ to rule from the Iron Throne surrounded her—and by ‘more qualified’ I mean they had man parts.

The lion’s share of Cersei’s insane desire to gain the throne for one of her sons could be largely attributed to the fact that she believed she could rule vicariously through her sons who had the requisite ‘man parts.’

She believed that, if she could secure the Iron Throne, she could maintain the security they’d fought so hard and lost so much to win in the wars against The Mad King.

Of course after Season Six she was there to blow $#!& up and was all out of children. She made the High Sparrow into a smoking crater glowing hotter than a Chernobyl Ferris Wheel.

And that ‘Rule by Man Part Mandate’? She melted that, too…

A Character to Act Out MY Feelings

I knew what it felt like to live in a world where a woman wasn’t supposed to ‘outdo’ the men. I’ve been lectured plenty of times about ‘not knowing my place.’

Male family members constantly insinuated I couldn’t understand business even though I’d earned a degree in International Economics.

When I took the ASVAB for the Air Force, I scored 100% in mechanics and aced anything math-related. I’d just completed Honors Physics, because I had a strong interest in engineering.

Alas, the recruiters laughed when I asked about avionics because, ‘Didn’t I want to be a nurse?’

*sighs*

I spent most of my life in trouble with someone because I didn’t act a certain way. Like Cersei, I didn’t fit in, didn’t say the right things, act the right way, or have the right interests.

I didn’t understand WHY I was supposed to let ‘the men be in charge’ even when ‘the men’ weren’t competent.

That cost me a job…or four.

Characters: Mirror, Mirror on the Page

Great characters will act as a mirror for readers via the story problem(s) and how the characters interact with/respond to the world around them.

All stories are human stories, whether in space or in a magical realm. Characters (should) endure the same trauma and challenges that audiences do in life. This mirroring gives us (readers) a safe place to feel and process our emotions.

Going back to Cersei Lannister.

Cersei mirrored a lot of the frustrations I’d faced throughout my life, and this created a kinship that made me love her and forgive her even though she was utterly horrible.

I KNEW what it was like to be the best qualified person for the job, yet not even considered. I understood how frustrating it was to not be able to simply ASK for what I wanted or needed, to have to hint, suggest and ‘wheedle’ so I didn’t step on toes.

Manipulation is the tool/lever/weapon of those too weak to simply ask for/go after what they want.

I’m a very blunt person.

*shock face*

I know.

What you see is what you get. I suck at taking hints, so I don’t like hinting to others. If you need something? Ask. I’m aging here, and I don’t like wasting time guessing.

If I hurt your feelings? Tell me so I can apologize and make sure not to tromp on you again.

I despise manipulation. Yet, there was a time I had to learn how to ‘suggest’ and ‘hint’ if I wanted to get anything accomplished.

On top of all this? Like Cersie, I, too, have endured terrible consequences due to incompetent leadership, and been powerless to do anything about it for ONE REASON.

I was a female.

Characters & The Audience

This said, plenty of people loathed Cersie from the get-go.

Just as I hated Robert Baratheon from the onset, because he reminded me of people who’ve caused me tremendous pain, Cersei Lannister could remind someone else of some tormentor in their life.

OR, it could be they didn’t share much in common.

THEIR life experiences, baggage, wounds, personalities made them bond to a different character that told ‘their story’ instead.

The skilled writer understands human narcissism. We are a self-absorbed bunch.

That’s why we long for stories where we can see a bit of ourselves reflected back. This is the danger with creating one-dimensional characters.

Newer writers, not yet skilled in the art of mischief and mayhem, tend to gravitate to the extremes. We have super-perfect characters pitted against utterly horrible villains.

Unfortunately, black-and-white is boring and predictable.

Superman Syndrome

Superman, in my POV, is a Mary Sue. He has all these superpowers—strength, speed, he can fly, possesses x-ray vision, etc. Superman is also handsome, noble, kind, wholesome, and dedicated to his family. His ONLY weakness is Kryptonite.

And THIS is why he’s utterly boring.

Perfect characters with no weaknesses aren’t relatable. Conversely, ‘perfect’ villains who are wholly evil—with no redeeming qualities or sympathetic motivations—are caricatures.

Life isn’t black-and-white and neither are people. Good fiction appreciates this reality and understands audiences gravitate to the gray, because that’s where they live.

Black and white, good and bad make for predictable fiction. Audiences LOVE when stories (and characters) surprise them.

When we leave room for a ‘good guy’ to fall from grace, or a ‘bad guy’ to finally do the right thing, it keeps readers vested wondering what will happen next. Adding gray areas is what prevents writing from being ‘formulaic.’

When the audience can’t predict how the characters will act/react, they can’t predict what will happen next in the story, let alone know how it will end.

If you think back to the movies, books and series you’ve loved the most, I promise you’ll see that psychological wiggle room that allowed you to ‘slip into’ the story by forming your own opinions.

If you want to learn how to open that psychological seam, I recommend going back and rereading or rewatching the stories that hooked you the hardest and this time, take notes.

HOW did the writer(s) hook you? When? What drew you in? Read/or watch intentionally. Writing is NOT easy and great writing demands practice, study and TRAINING.

This is why I’m always creating and offering new classes!

And remember, a FREE recording comes with purchase in case you can’t make the live class and also so you can rewatch and study.

In fact, for characters, we have COMPLETELY NEW CLASS COMING UP!

First…

The Art of Character: Writing Characters for a SERIES

OCTOBER 1st! THIS COMING TUESDAY!

How do we create characters that readers will fall in love with, characters strong enough to go the distance? Find out in this THREE-HOUR class that also comes with detailed notes and a character-building template. Use Binge10 for $10 off.

This class dovetails with my previous class, Bring on the Binge: How to Plot and Write a Series (NowON DEMAND). Use Binge10 for $10 off.

Need some help with platform and branding?

Spilling the TEA: Blogging for Authors

THIS MONDAY, September 30th. Blogging is a powerful way to build an author brand and also make a great income doing what we love…writing. Use Tea10 for $10 off.

Branding: WHEN YOUR NAME ALONE Can Sell (ON DEMAND)

Use brand10 for $10 off.

Come join all the nerdy fun! See y’all in class!

The post Characters: Audiences Read Stories, but Great Stories Read the Audience appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Which is more important? Plot or character? Anyone currently doing NaNoWriMo is all, “WORDS! ONLY WORDS MATTER NOW! Get off my case, Blogger Chick. I’ll figure out plot and character later.”

*awkward silence*

To write great fiction, we need both. Plot and characters work together. One arc drives the other much like one cog serves to turn another, thus generating momentum in the overall engine we call “STORY.”

If we goof up plot? Readers/Audiences get confused or call FOUL. Watch the movie Ouija for what I am talking about *shakes head*.

Goof up characters? No one cares about the plot.

New writers are particularly vulnerable to messing up characters. We drift too far to one end of the spectrum or the other—Super-Duper-Perfect versus Too Dumb to Live—and this can make a story fizzle because there is no way to create true dramatic tension.

This leaves us (the frustrated author) to manufacture conflict and what we end up with is drama’s inbred cousin melodrama. 

If characters are too perfect, too goody-goody and too well-adjusted? If they always make noble, good and professional decisions? Snooze fest.

Again. Bad decisions make great fiction.

Of course, the other side of that is what I call The Gilligan Effect. Yes, I am dating myself here and I apologize if I upset any DIE-HARD Gilligan’s Island fans, but I remember being a kid and this show nearly giving me an aneurism (being the highly logical child I was).

After the third time Gilligan botched up the escape off the island? Kristen would have gone Lord of the Flies and Piggy Gilligan would have mysteriously gone “missing.”

I also recall how the stranded party could make everything out of coconuts except a freaking BOAT, and the only reason I kept watching was because it was better than being locked outside to play in heat that shifted asphalt to a plasma state.

Yay, Texas summers!

Yet, I’ve read books with characters that make Gilligan look like a rocket scientist…then been compelled to hurl the book across the room.

This is me after reading certain books *stabbing self*

Flawed vs. Too Dumb to Live

Today we are going to talk about how we can make characters flawed without crossing over into TDTL (Too Dumb To Live) Territory. This commercial never gets old *giggles*

Let’s hide behind the CHAINSAWS!!!! *clutches sides*. Or this one about gals tripping too many times in horror movies. BWA HA HA HA HA HA!

Okay, I’m back *giggles*.

Great stories are filled with characters making bad decisions, and when this is done well, we often don’t really notice it beyond the winding tension in our stomach, the clenching that can only be remedied by pressing forward and seeing if it works out okay.

When characters are properly flawed, the audience remains captured in the fictive dream.

When we (the writer) goof up? The fictive dream is shattered. The audience is no longer part of the world because they’re too busy fuming that anyone could be that stupid. They also now cease to care about the character because, like Gilligan? They kind of want said TDTL character to die.

If this is our protagonist? Extra bad. Our protagonist should make mistakes, just not ones so egregious the reader stops rooting for him/her.

Bad Decisions Birthed from The Flaw

When we create a protagonist, we should remember that all strengths have a complimentary weakness. If a character has never been tested by fire, the protagonist is blind to the weakness.

For instance, great leaders can be control freaks. Loyal people can be overly naive. Compassionate people can be unrealistic. Y’all get the idea.

This dual nature of human strength paired with fallibility is why plot is just as critical.

Plot as Crucible

The plot is the crucible that tests the mettle and reveals and fires out the flaw. The strength ultimately will have to be stronger than the weakness because this is how the protagonist will grow to become a hero by story’s end.

A great example of this is one of my favorite movies, The Edge. Anthony Hopkins plays billionaire Charles Morse. Charles is extremely successful and very much in his own head. Though he’s a genius, he lives the sheltered existence of the uber-wealthy.

What happens when all that “head-knowledge” is what he needs to survive a plane crash in the unforgiving wilderness?

When the plane crashes and he and the other two survivors make it to shore, Morse does the right thing. He knows they need to get dry before they all die from hypothermia. He also realizes Stephen, the photographer, is in full panic.

What is the intelligent thing to do? Put the photographer to work doing something fruitful to take his mind off his fear.

Bright (Bad) Idea Fairy

The problem, however, is Morse assumes the photographer has the same knowledge-base and doesn’t take time to show Stephen how to use a knife properly and the man is badly injured as a result. Now we’ve already had a problem (plane crash) and now we have a complication (bad injury) and then it gets worse.

Morse, again, being an in-his-own-head-guy and unaccustomed to having to communicate WHY he wants certain things done, tells Robert Green to bury the blood-soaked fabric.

Green is jealous of Morse and rebellious and instead of following instructions and burying the material? He hangs the blood-soaked rags from a tree where an incoming storm whips up the scent of a newly opened All You Can Eat Buffet.

Soon, the men are being hunted by an apex predator with the munchies for humans.

***Side note here. Look at the genius in the choice of character names. Morse, a cryptic person who must unravel the “code” of his situation and realize the bear is actually the (MUCH) lesser threat. Green, the man who envies to such a degree it drives him to plot a murder. Stephen is the first to die. “Stephen” was also the first Christian martyr, the first innocent to die for the greater cause—salvation.

#DeepThoughts

Back to FLAWS

But all of this was birthed from a myriad of flaws. Morse failing to communicate and assuming his comrades are operating with the same head knowledge (because he’s never had to use this type of information in a real-world way).

As a billionaire, Morse has never been required to explain himself before. He doesn’t understand that this might be a good time to START.

Additionally, the two photographers are city people who don’t have the training/understanding to know 1) NOT to drag a knife toward the body and 2) that the smallest scent of blood will draw predators. BIG ONES.

These men are used to the “civilized world.”  When thrust into the wild, they make a critical error. They fail to properly appreciate that their position at the top of the food chain has drastically shifted.

Only ONE member of our stranded coterie gets that they’ve suddenly gone from ordering OFF menus to being ON the menu #DailySpecial #MarketPrice #JokesInPoorTaste…

Where was I? Oh, yes…

Bad Decisions Depend on Circumstances

Sometimes characters will make bad decisions simply because this is a completely new world or a set of circumstances they’ve never faced, thus have no way to fully appreciate. The “bad” decision was not a “bad decision” before the adventure.

A good example? Merry and Pippin in The Lord of the Rings. In the Shire, people talk and are sociable. These naive characters haven’t yet felt the consequences of this new and dangerous world.

To them? Chatting away and freely sharing information at The Prancing Pony is NOT a bad decision in their minds. Neither is frying bacon on top of a mountain.

They’ve always lived a life that if they were in a pub? They drank and made friends. If they wanted bacon? They just made bacon. They’ve never had to think beyond their mood or stomachs. The Hobbits don’t have the experiential base to grasp that fire is a “Come and Kill Me” beacon.

Bad Decisions & The Wound

We’ve talked about The Wound in other posts. In Thelma & Louise what is the wound? A lifetime of male oppression. In Thelma’s case, her husband controls every aspect of her life.

Thus, when she finally does get on her own, she has poor judgement and is naive and that’s how she nearly ends up raped in a honky-tonk parking lot.

Louise has been a victim (shamed and alone) and doesn’t trust men or the law. Thus, her baggage is what leads her to shoot Thelma’s attacker, but then also dovetails into the really, really bad decision to run.

But if we look at all these examples from an analytical distance, these characters are just DUMB. But why aren’t they TDTL? Context. Because of plot we (the audience) are not staring down at them like specimens through a microscope. We empathize with “bad” decisions. Why? Because there’s context (their world).

Making “Stupid” Forgivable

Great writing is a sort of alchemy that transforms the raw material of “stupid” into the literary gold we recognize as “damaged,” “broken,” and/or “naive”—which we have ALL been at one time or another.

This hits us in the feels. We relate, connect, and BOND with the characters because we’ve been there, done that, and have the scars to prove it.

In The Edge, “bad” decisions are forgivable because most of us are not wilderness experts. Readers can empathize with maybe doing something seriously stupid if stranded in a similar fashion.

In The Lord of the Rings we, the audience, have “been” to the Shire—and know what world created the childlike Merry and Pippin. Thus, we appreciate these characters are grossly out of their depth and give them a pass.

In Thelma & Louise we can understand how damaged people make poor decisions because, unless we’ve been living under a rock, we’ve made similar choices, and suffered consequences created from fear not reason.

What this means is that, while ALL of these characters made really wrong decisions, they are necessary and pardonable decisions that serve to drive the character arc and thus the plot’s momentum.

That is the final note on characters making bad decisions.

Plot Puppets

Do we have a character making a mistake, withholding vital information, acting irrationally because it is coming from a deeper place of flaws, circumstance or wounds?

Or, do we have a character playing marionette? Characters are making a mistakes because we NEED them to. The tension has fizzled, so let’s just let them do something epically stupid (and random)?

Audiences can tell the difference between mistakes that are organic and flow from deeper emotional waters versus something contrived. And we can ALL be guilty of forcing characters to make bad choices simply because we sense tension is missing. Even I have to go back and ask the tough question…WHY is this character doing this?

What are your thoughts? I love hearing from you!

What are your thoughts regarding characters making poor decisions? What are some of your favorite examples? Ever quit a book, movie, or show because you wanted everyone to DIE? What are some great examples of characters who you should hate, but you forgive? Why? Can you think of what activated empathy instead of disdain?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

FYI: I’m AM loading new classes. They’ll be up next post. I know I said that last time, but whatever. I lied .

What are some classes y’all need? Topics you’d like me to talk about here on the blog. I dig suggestions!

BTW: October’s winner for the comment contest is Bjørn Larssen!

Please email your 5000 word WORD document to kristen at wana intl dot com. One-inch margins, double-spaced, Times New Roman font, please. Or you are also welcome to choose to send me a query or synopsis instead. Query shouldn’t exceed 500 words and synopsis 2,500 MAX. Congratulations!

What do you WIN? For the month of NOVEMBER, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

The post Flawed Characters vs. “Too Dumb to Live”: What’s the Difference? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.