Balancing Flat and Round Characters

[Writing-source]

 I've been posting on writing with meaning.  Most writing classes will insist that characters have to be round, that they have to grow through the story.  And for the most part, that's true for the main characters of books for teens and adults.  However, flat characters do have their place in literature.  When you write a story, you need to decide which characters need to be flat with little to no growth and which need to be round.  

[kids' books-source]

Think through popular children's books, and you'll see they are often driven not by character growth but by adventure. Both Captain Underpants and Geronimo Stilton, some of the most popular books,.  Kids love the humor, the excitement, and the color in these books.  If the two kids of Captain Underpants learned to be good, emotionally mature boys, they wouldn't be funny,  Kids would lose interest.  If Geronimo Stilton changed, target audiences wouldn't know him.  They want him to stay the same as he goes on his adventures. 

[Luna Lovegood-source]

Furthermore, a lot of background and side characters in books for older kids and adults similarly don't need to change.  In Harry Potter, Dobby stays the same loyal character.  Luna Lovegood may change some, but she stays true her nickname "Loony" no matter what happens around her. Hagrid never understands that his stubborn love of dangerous animals puts everyone around him in peril.  If they ever stopped being themselves or became moving targets, you wouldn't be able to use them to measure the growth of the main characters.  Part of their charm is they stay the same. 

[Hogwarts-source]

Even villains often stay the same, though not always.  Voldemort doesn't learn as Harry Potter goes on adventure after adventure to face him and take him down.  He holds that he is the only one to take down Harry, even though he's often the only one who can't.  Malfoy gets taller but doesn't stop being the same bully he was as a first-year throughout most of the story.  Side and antagonistic characters don't have to grow any more than kids' story characters do.  

[Books for older kids-source]

However, if your character or characters are at the center of a book for older kids or adults, he/she/they should grow.  That's when you look at what kind of growth you want to explore.  It doesn't have to be about the moral of the story, as in a conventional moral, like be a good child or obey your mama. Few people enjoy reading a book more about agenda than story, regardless of what your point is.  However, think carefully.  What kind of misunderstanding does your character start out with that he/she/they can grow out of?  

[Frozen's Elsa-source]

For instance, in "Frozen," Elsa's misunderstanding is that she can protect the world, especially her sister, and find happiness through isolation.  First, she tries isolating herself at home, then, when she leaves home, she finds a new place to hide.  She even sings an anthem to isolation, "Let It Go," and banishes herself to an ice castle.  Her isolation protects no one and brings her no joy.  Anna starts with the misunderstanding that she needs a stranger to save her from the misery of her isolation. In the end, neither sister finds happiness until they both decide their true happiness is in each other.  They grow and mature through overcoming their misunderstandings.  They are the round characters, while Olaf, Duke Weselton, Hans, and the others remain more or less the same.  

Part of the joy of crafting characters is to decide who needs to grow and who will need the same as the adventure and scenery around them change.  How does your main character grow?  What characters can remain flat?  

Characters Come Alive

["Gulliver's Travels" statue; source]

I've blogging about writing in a literary or meaningful manner.  I'd heard before that good stories are driven by characters. As I've blogged previously, according to Orson Scott Card, you can theoretically drive a story through an interesting location (think Gulliver's Travels or, arguably, much of the Lord of the Rings trilogy), a question (pick a whodunnit kind of mystery, and you'll find the subgenre title speaks for itself), a plot (most sci-fi or fantasy plotlines where the story is king, and the characters are interchangeable, also arguably Lord of the Rings).  However, some the most compelling fiction is driven by character because character is story.   

[Macbeth; source]

I've heard from various sources that character-driven stories hinge on the dynamic between characters' desires and fears.  Toward the end of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Lizzy's story exemplifies the desire to overcome fears that keep the two main character's apart. Standard romances from all eras and in all subgenres play out in that tension between fear--fear of rejection, of embarassment, of whatever, and the desire to get with the other character. Shakespeare's Macbeth showcases two main characters that desire power and fear losing it.  Hamlet shows a protagonist paralyzed by fear and unable, without a lot of drama and death, to fulfill his father's desire for revenge.  In Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, Val Jean, while in hiding, fears discovery by Javert and a return to his hellish existence in prison. However, his desire to see his adoptive daughter's happiness leads him to sacrifice and risk all to bring her that happiness.  All of these characters' stories feature the tension between fear and desire.  

[Austen characters-source]

In author Abbie Eamons's video "The Hidden Science behind Disney Movies," she adds to this depth of character with the dimension of a fundamental misunderstanding that a character must work through in order to achieve growth and become a more mature character.  For instance, Lizzy thinks of Darcy as a rich jerk, proud and unbending.  She thinks of herself, meanwhile, as someone who is a clear-eyed judge of character.  It's only after she understands that she, too, deals with both pride and prejudice and that her judgement of him was somewhat hasty that the walls between the two can come down.  Macbeth's misunderstanding is that he cannot be defeated or dethroned.  Growth in characters throughout literature, from Shakespeare to Austen and beyond, characters start with a misunderstanding that needs to be overcome for that character to grow. 

[dialogue; source]

Eamons also recorded another video, "How to Write Great Dialogue" in which she further showed how each character will have patterns in their speech and a manner of manipulating people around them.  As you create and write your characters, you can make sure each sounds unique. Understanding their hobbies, obsessions, jobs, etc. can help you tailor each character's speech patterns. A Medieval princess wouldn't use metaphors about modern tech unless she's a time traveler.  As Eamons points out, a character who has never seen the ocean would not use oceanic metaphors for everything, however a fisherman would.  If you were writing a book like Pride and Prejudice, you'd go through and make sure each of the main and minor characters have their own unique patterns of speech.  If you go through and mark the dialogue of each of Lizzy's sisters, father, mother, aunt, and uncle, you'll find that you don't really need a dialogue tag to know any speeches about nerves would come from Lizzy's mom, melodrama and self-centeredness would come from Lydia, and self-sacrificing sweetness would come from Jane.  Each character should sound unique. 

[Your writing; source]

As you go through your characters, figure out what their desires are vs. their fears.  How does your plotline relate/play into those desires and fears?  How can you make each chapter highlight that drama and struggle?  What kind of misunderstanding does your character start with, and how do they overcome it?  Does each character have his/her own unique isms/speech patterns?  If the answer is no to any of these questions, it's time to look closer at your characters.  

Empowering the Normal World

 

[Keep the reader in mind as you craft your normal world; source]

I've been blogging about how to make any piece of writing more literary.  The novice writer will just throw in a bunch of details about the character's life just to show what it's like.  I've read too many stories like that, and I wanted to put them down before I even got to the heart of the story. If you're writing a first draft, it's all good.  But with a later draft, it won't work at all.  Unless each detail is chosen with care and meaning, unnecessary moments and descriptions of the character's mundane life will bore (and lose) the reader.  

[Beginning with the normal world; source]

If you're writing using the hero's journey or anything akin to it, the character(s) generally start in the normal world. You'll want to show how life is for this character, which will likely include mundane moments or descriptions.  But if you're going to do so, you'll want each detail, each moment, to mean something later. Everything in a book should build on character, plot, or setting. As you craft either a mundane scene in the beginning or somewhere else, it has to serve one of those purposes.  Think of each feature of that normal world as a possible way to foreshadow or in some way build up toward something later.  

[Wonderland-source]

A lot of literature starts in a mundane world that can only be appreciated in retrospect after you've read (or at least dug into) the book.  Dorothy starts out displeased with Kansas, frustrated and bored, but then it becomes all she longs for when she's launched into her colorful adventures in Oz. Alice only sees the charm in her mundane life in contrast to the uncontrollable wackiness of Wonderland.  We wouldn't understand either character if we didn't see the world from which they came.  

[Into the story-source]

There can be individual figures or events in the normal world that later take on greater significance. Think of Charlotte Bronte's classic novel with Jane Eyre's early friendship with Helen Burns.  That name, that character, gives the protagonist hope for humanity and love as she's the child's first friend, but also is part of her crucible of fire through her death of a fever.  She then foreshadows later literal burning in the story, a burning of a bed and of the whole home.  What seems like a mundane character foreshadows the entire story.  Alexandre Dumas's Count of Monte Cristo starts with the protagonist in possession of a most marvelous mundane life, with his successes being rewarded by wealth, a fiancee, titles, etc.  This life suddenly becomes more significant as each is torn from him by plotting rivals.  Then, they become the core of his revenge plot.  He'd just seem angry and mean-spirited if we didn't see the world from which he was torn.  The normal world is at the foundation of the whole story. 

[Pack your suitcase for the journey-source]

The key is to make sure you don't bore your reader with that mundane world before they can get to Oz, Wonderland, Thornfield Hall, or wherever the drama is in your book.  If you're writing a children's book, the normal world should give way to the underworld, in whatever form it takes, as quickly as possible, preferably within a page for very short kids' fiction or a chapter if it's a little longer.  Even if your reader does have a longer attention span, the normal world should not take up more space than is absolutely necessary and should include as much meaning for later as possible. Think of it as a very small suitcase you're packing for the journey. Does the mundane world foreshadow or set up for some character or plot development?  Does some daily item later show up as a symbol or an emotional or plot trigger?  Is it a rifle on the wall, an item or character, which will later turn up and become critical to the story?  Can it be?  

Find Your Writing Buddy

[A friend can pull you along-source]

 I've been blogging about how to write in a more literary fashion.  It doesn't matter what kind of writing you're doing.  You will want someone to help at most if not at every step.  Some masters of the craft can just sit and write exactly the words they want with no one to help.  But those are few and far between.  Most people, even the best of writers, will need help to brainstorm, to edit, to beta read, to help you motivate yourself, etc.  Few people can write without some help.

[Writer's block-source]

I don't know about you, but I run into a lot of writer's block.  When it was just me trying to push forward, just me and that blank page, I was getting nowhere, and what I did produce was dull. I spent a lot of money trying to find different methods to push through that wall.  Now, I have a writing buddy.  If I run into a block, we talk it through.  He knows the story as well as I do if not better, so the ideas fly back and forth.  Writer's block doesn't last long with the creative juices flowing like that.  

[goals-source]

Furthermore, a writing buddy can help you keep on target with your goals.  If you're accountable to someone, you're more likely to stay on target.  It's like any exercise.  If you're only responsible to yourself, it's easy to break promises, forget goals, and walk away.  Having someone there to help you move forward will keep you on track, especially if you're both doing that for each other. 

[Beta reader-source]

Lastly, a writing buddy can help with beta reading. If you're reading your story with someone or having someone read afterward, they can tell you what you forgot or somehow missed.  It's easy to get confused and lose details.  It's also easy for a character, plot point, setting, etc to sound clear and beautiful in your head.  It takes someone outside your head to tell you that your character is a jerk, your setting is absent, and your character's sidekick has changed eye color three times.  

[Writing buddies-source]

Your writing buddy can be a friend, a family member, a writer's group, strangers in an online forum, or anyone else willing to help you push yourself forward, willing to help you brainstorm, basically, willing to help you be the best writer you can be.  You can even have a different writing buddy for each part of this.  Who is/are your writing buddy or buddies?  If you don't have one, where can you find one? 

Driving Stories with MacGuffins

[Running with the MacGuffin-source]

I've been blogging about ways to write in a more meaningful or literary fashion.   This post is more about driving any kind of story, but with a particular emphasis on how this method can be made more meaningful.  One of the most popular ways two drive a story is through a race to acquire that one mighty thing that may save or destroy the world, the awe-inspiring MacGuffin.  MacGuffins can have greater merit than just as a plot device.  

[Woohoo!  Save the McGuffin! Source]

According to TVTropes.com, MacGuffins are "a mysterious package/artifact/superweapon that everyone in the story is chasing." Even if you've never heard of MacGuffins, you've seen them.  They're a staple of Hollywood. Indiana Jones is always racing Nazis/Indigenous peoples/nameless cronies for some kind of archeological MacGuffin.  It's the briefcase full of money the crazy cast of "Rat Race" or the Rat Pack (in the older "Ocean's 11") won't be spending.  Whatever it is doesn't have to be special to the reader/watcher as long as it matters to the characters.  It's the Thing, that all-mighty Thing you can use as the carrot on the string to drive the story (and characters) forward. 

[The Stones-source]

Sometimes, the definition is a little more questionable.  The Avengers race Thanos for the Infinity Stones in the "Cherry Orchard"/Cassandra plotline of "Infinity War," wherein they see bad things coming but can't prevent them.  There are moments when the stones exceed the interchangeable, faceless role of the MacGuffin, but much of the time, they play that role.  When Dr. Strange or Loki or Thanos calls on the specific powers of one of the stones, they become more than a MacGuffin. When the characters are just chasing them around, only to lose them anyway, they become MacGuffins.  In the recent series Loki, their MacGuffin-ness becomes more clear (no spoilers). 

[The Deathly Hallows-source]

You can look at TVTropes and other sources for countless variants and examples in books, games, and literature of things that everyone seeks, but which turn out to be mostly useless except in its role to drive the story.  They appear throughout literature in books like the Percy Jackson series (Zeus's lightning bolt), Series of Unfortunate Events (the Baudelaire fortune), Harry Potter (many of the Horcruxes and Deathly Hallows), the ring, itself, in Lord of the Rings, and so many more. Their appearances are often central to these stories. 

[The One Ring-source]

People trivialize MacGuffins, but many books with deeper literary merit also center on MacGuffins. A MacGuffin is something about which the characters care about, which keeps the reader/audience invested in the character and plot, whether the item, itself, means anything in the grand scheme of things.  It can still be a symbol, something that means something beyond money or a ring or a gem.  It keeps the reader interested and entertained, but if you want your piece to have greater meaning than face value, greater than a run-of-the-mill genre piece, it's up to you as the writer to instill that meaning.  They can be made to be symbols of darkness, light, love, or anything else.  The ring represents addiction, for instance, which becomes clear as the reader watches the characters' obsession with it.  The Baudelaire fortune could represent the family they've lost.  The Horcruxes represent the darkness and division in the soul that occurs when one pursues actions that harm others.  

It's up to you as a writer if you decide to use a MacGuffin to drive your story to figure out how to make it more than an empty thing.  How can you do it? 

Keep It Moving

[Source]

I've been blogging about how to write in a more literary or meaningful fashion. This is not necessarily about adding meaning so much as keeping your reader interested and turning pages.  There are a few ways to keeping a reader going.  

[Source]

Step one is always making sure your reader cares about the reader.  If the reader doesn't care, you'll never get them to page two, let alone to chapter two and beyond.  I recently watched a video wherein they skipped that part. All the explosions, excitement, sinister villains jumping out of the darkness, etc. didn't affect me because the protagonist was not just uninteresting but was obnoxious to me.  Even if your character starts out obnoxious/mean/selfish/etc. to give them room to grow, I still need something to care about. You could have them save the cat (do something kind) or, better yet, start with a personal connection with someone (someone or something they care about) or a great personal loss (think how Disney often kills off one parent or another or simply takes the child away from them).  One way or another, always make the reader care, so what happens to them matters to the reader. 

[Source]

Once you've got them started, many authors suggest throwing in a question or cliffhanger at or toward the end of the chapter, so they have a reason to feel compelled to move onto the next chapter.  Obviously, if you're writing a romance or literary novel, you're not going to end every chapter with the damsel in distress or someone hanging literally from a cliff, though an action yarn often will.  Regardless, there needs to be some compelling reason to move forward. Think of Harry Potter or a murder mystery, wherein the narrative asks new questions every chapter before previous questions get their answers.  With a romance, it's often a piece of the overall will-they-won't-they question.  Find a way to make the protagonist, and, therefore, the reader want to know what happens next. 

[Source]

If all else fails, as in if you can't decide how to advance the plot next, remember Chandler's Law: "When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand."  This can be literal or figurative.  If your hero gets stuck in a corner, throw in a complication, a bit of action, a disturbing piece of news, a new question that redirects the plot and gets it moving again.  This, too, can result in a cliffhanger.  

The key to a compelling story is to keep the reader turning pages.  Mostly, this involves giving the reader a reason to do so.  Look at the beginning of your story.  Have you given the reader a reason to care about your character(s)?  Look at the ends of the chapters.  Is there a reason for your reader to keep turning pages?  

Don't Chase Your Reader Away

[Chasing readers away-source]