Foiled Again

Have you ever noticed a pair of characters so alike in so many ways and so opposite in others?  I'm quite sure you have.  Any English major can tell you these pairs of characters are called foils of each other.  Foils are incredibly useful in characterization.  Look at Tom Riddle [a young Voldemort] vs. Harry Potter.  They have so much in common.  They're both orphans with black hair, incredible gifts, and a tendency to work outside the rules.  They both attract the particular attention of Dumbledore.  The list goes on and on.  What makes them different?  Their choices.  Tom chooses to embrace the darkness while Harry rejects it on every side.  These similarities and differences give Rowling the chance to enhance the reader's understanding of both characters.  We see the path Harry could have taken had he embraced the darkness that lurks inside and watch as he, instead, chooses a different path.

If your tastes are more toward the literary fiction, you'll see even more foils than in genre fiction.  Look, for instance at "Pride and Prejudice."  Darcy and Lizzy are clear foils of each other.  They at first can't stand each other because of their character differences.  Yet at the same time, they both personify the traits of pride of their position and prejudice of the other class.  They only want to speak if others will be impressed with their words.  They both have rebellious streaks against overbearing mother figures.  In some ways, they could not be more different, yet at the same time, they couldn't be more similar.  Their differences and similarities highlight the same in the other.

Let's look at fairy tales for a moment.  You may think that Snow White couldn't be more different from her evil step mother because the princess is pure, innocent, and kind, while the step-mother is vain and murderous.  This just means you haven't looked past Disney's version.  If you look carefully at the Grimms brothers' rendition of the story, Snow White's own vanity mirrors her step-mother's.  Her vain step-mother is only able to entrap her because she's drawn to ribbons, laces, corsets, combs, and the like.  The queen wants to kill Snow White, yet the story ends only after Snow White and her prince have the evil queen dance herself to death.  These two female characters are so different in so many ways, yet they are so similar at their core.

No matter what your genre or themes, the power, meaning, and literary strength of your story can be enhanced through careful attention to foils.  If your villain is all dark and hero is all light, both are boring and fall flat.  However, if your hero is noble and heroic but for his attraction to the dark, and your villain is angry and vindictive but drawn to the light in spite of himself, they both start to get more interesting.  Just look at Kylo Ren and Rey from Star Wars Episode 7.  He's angry and dark but drawn by the light inside.  She joined the light but yet is often tempted by rebellious, angry, or selfish impulses.  Neither is perfectly one or the other, and their similarities and differences weave them together and highlight the reader's understanding of both.  Look through natural pairs of characters in your writings.  How can you enhance your own characterization through the use of foils?

What can we learn from "Captain America: Civil War"?

I think my preteen boy gets what some movie makers don't yet get.  I showed him two superhero movies this week, and he saw something I didn't notice until he pointed it out: X-Men, the first one, fell a little flat.  Why?  The characters were pretty well-developed.  The storyline was coherent.  The action scenes were good.  Remember when I posted on humor and its importance to writing a compelling piece a few weeks back?  There was maybe one humorous line in the entire show.  Even a superhero show that is just a little too straight-faced fails to hold my boy's interest, and he's part of the target audience.  For some people, action scenes are enough.  For others, great characterization is plenty.  For others, as long as the plot is good, they will follow you all the way.  Humor adds the humanization and enjoyment that pull the rest of it together and keeps the audience coming back for more.  I haven't seen it, but I understand "Deadpool" brought people out in droves.  Why?  Because it was snarky, sarcastic, humorous.

Most recent Marvel superhero movies seem to get that.  DC seems to be lagging behind a little.  Joss Whedon breathed humor into almost every scene, not enough to make it cheesy but enough to keep the characters lovable and interesting.  In "Captain America:Civil War," the movie makers follow suit.  It has everything that keeps an audience entertained.  The characters have clear motivation, which leads to a compelling plot.  Rather than melding together in a messy, action-packed phone directory like the critically and audience-panned X-Men 3, each character stands out as the hero in his/her own piece of the tale.  The characters are more-or-less fully realized, all of them.  We get a some origins/introduction of characters from Black Panther to Spider-Man, and several continuations of characters, with the title character, Captain America, and his adventures in the foreground.  I believe each of those characters.  Furthermore, I like most of them, whether I like them in comic book version or not.  Having all of that work in a movie simultaneously is quite a feat.

But what my boy noticed that I really didn't was that the story didn't come alive until Spider-Man and the attending humor enter the picture.  My boy has never been a huge Spider-Man fan, but he is now because his enjoyment in the movie only started when he could laugh.  And characters only started wisecracking when Spider-Man showed up and got the humor ball rolling.

What can we learn about storytelling, then?  Well, for one thing, when we write, we should make sure our target audience is entertained.  And the best way to do that includes character development, including clear motivation, which leads to compelling action, all spiced with humor to help us care.  And that, my friends, is my formula for good storytelling, whether it be in a movie or a novel.

Drives

Driving Forces: 

What drives your character?  I watched a well-written tv show this week that made me wonder if my characters' voices are as distinct as those in the show.  Then I saw a post on FaceBook that reminded me what that meant specifically.  What drives a person?  Their purpose or goal, their fears, their loves, and their losses.  I could talk about the differences between what they THINK their goal is vs. what their actual goal is.  These could be different.  A character could tell himself he's here to help another character when he's actually here because he wants to be loved.  The same is true for fears, loves, etc.  But that's a subject for another day.  What is their true goal?  If their motives are clear to the reader--even if they're not always clear to the character--the author, and therefore the reader, understands the character, and the character becomes more compelling.

Purpose: 

A real person is complicated and can have any number of goals.  However, most often, in their heart of hearts, a character wants one main thing, a dream, a hope, an aspiration.  A writer can look to the Enneagram for the goal as given in that character theory or that same writer can figure it out based on his or her origin or story.  

Why does the character get up in the morning or do what she does in the day?  What is the thing she wants MOST in the entire world?  Now, there could be an overriding goal for the character in general that is different than the goal of the moment.  Let's look at the song "I've Got a Dream" from "Tangled."  The current occupation of the entire bar full of warriors and villains is to maim and kill for money.  At first, the main characters assume that is their ultimate purpose, their greatest desire, in life.  But as the warriors and villains sing this song, they make it clear this isn't what they truly want to be doing.  This isn't their real purpose, just what they're doing now.  One of them wants to be a concert pianist, one a mime, one a sculptor, one a husband, and so on.  The circumstances of the moment are such that they can't fulfill their dreams.  So what is your character's goal of the moment and what is their ultimate dream or purpose?  Do they relate or clash?

I went through and figured out the ultimate goals of my main characters.  Connor is a lawyer whose real purpose in life is to avoid pain through having fun.  So when he has to sit and do law-related things, he does it, but the whole time, he's fantasizing about playing video games to avoid thinking about what's really going on beneath the surface.  His real purpose, then, is to avoid pain.  He will do ANYTHING to avoid pain.  So at the base of everything he says, there should be an element of pain avoidance.  Robin is a pilot and a dental assistant, but her real purpose in life is to protect others.  So everything she does should center on that goal in life or interact with it in some way.

Fears: 

Fears can also drive a character in a scene.  What keeps your character from living as he wants to live?  What stops him from achieving his dream or getting the girl?  Many times, the answer is fear.  This is his internal roadblock and another possible motivator for a scene.  Let's look again at that "Tangled" with the scene in which Rapunzel has finally escaped from the witch's tower.  Her stated goal is to see the glowing lights that float up to the sky every year on her birthday.  Her underlying longing is to find the joy the witch denies her.  Her fear nearly overcomes her and takes her back to the tower.

What internal conflict or fear bars your character from forward momentum?  Once again, I looked at my characters.  Connor's greatest fear is obviously pain.  He has experienced a lot of pain in relationships and will do anything to avoid them.  He dates but will run at any sign of a commitment.  Women aren't scary to him.  But women who want more than the thrill of the moment are. This prevents him from really growing up since relationships are part of adulthood.  Meanwhile, Robin's fear is men.  They have hurt her repeatedly, and she fully expects every man she meets to cause pain to herself and those around her.  Both of these fears are paralyzing when it comes to forward momentum in a romance.  So what keeps your character from doing what he or she wants to do?  It could be a physical barricade like Harry Potter's buddy Ron Weasley faces in scenes with giant spiders or it could be internal like Ron faces when he discovers he's interested in Hermione but doesn't know what to do about it.  The first section of this blog post is about what drives your character forward.  Now, figure out what holds her back.

Love and Loss: 

Either  a character's goal or fear may relate to love and loss.  Most characters love or have loved someone or something.  Otherwise, how can we love them?  How does love of the present or the past play into your character's goals or fears?  In the early Disney movies, future love is the title character's primary goal.  But this isn't the case in later Disney movies.  "Someday, my Prince Will Come," a song about how a girl's dream centers on romance, has given way to "Let it Go," a song about a character who doesn't think she needs anyone.  Cinderella lives for dreams of future love while Elsa is stuck in pain and loss of the past.  How does love from either the past or present complicate either goals or fears?  Maybe the character doesn't want love, will reject any love offered.  Do goals, loss, or fear drive the character the most in this case?  It depends on the character.  Why does the character have this relationship with love?  Or maybe the character is in love with being in love like Shakespeare's Romeo.  He would love anything that steps in his path.  How does this complicate his dreams and fears?  Maybe, like Snape, your character feels he can't love again because he's already found and lost the love of his life, and that love will ever affect his interactions with others.  

As mentioned, loss can also be a powerful storytelling device for enlightening a character's soul and motivation.  Maybe there's a character who wants no one's love or sympathy.  Look at Flynn Rider in "Tangled."  In the song "I've Got a Dream," he comes out sounding worse than the criminals around him because his dream is "much less touchy-feely."  He says he wants money.  But later, in a heart to heart discussion with Rapunzel, he confesses he really wants to escape being the hurt little boy he once was.  She sees his heart, feels his fear and pain of the past, and calls him Eugene, the name that describes that hurt little boy.

Love and loss are often tied together in ways that may or may not relate to romance.  Say you're writing about a hard-bitten character who thinks he neither wants nor needs people. But yet he has a dog for which he would die.  This is still love.  This character becomes sympathetic because he loves that dog.  Then the dog is murdered, and the character goes on a vendetta against those who did it.  We understand this character because he has loved and lost.  His love is in the past, but it still drives him.  We see his heart and understand pain and anger drive his character.  Though his actions are inhuman, love and loss drive him to those actions, so he is humanized.  This is very like Spider-Man's origin.  He loved his uncle.  Because of his own carelessness, his uncle was murdered.  He will forever after be driven to protect because he failed and, therefore, lost.  His drive will always be to protect.  His fear will always be more loss if he fails.  Romances are complicated by his fear of losing again.

Your Turn:

So what drives your character?  Most likely, desires or goals [her life's purpose], complicated or enhanced by love and/or the paired emotion of hate, loss, and fear.  So what are your specific character's drives?  If the audience can feel these drives in villains and heroes, your characters start to become real to the reader.  The characters start to jump off the page and carry the reader through book after book.  Characters that lack this kind of clarity of motivation become mushy, uninteresting, confusing.  Even if you're well advanced in writing a book, make sure you know these factors that limit and define each major character.  Is there a scene wherein your character defies what defines them?  Is there a real reason for it?  If not, you may want to rethink and rewrite.  No scene should be there simply for a writer's convenience.  Everything should be there to drive the character or the story.  Since characters should drive story, if your story is getting muddled, go back to the characters.  Chances are, that's where the muddle begins.

Getting the Eyes Right

Eyes?

A critical part of my characterization is to get the eyes right.  "Eyes?" you ask.  "What, you mean color?"  No.  Physical descriptions, as I've heard repeatedly, should be minimal in the narrative.

How to Use Description

For me, eye color and the rest of the description only matters when it plays a part in how the character feels about him/herself or in how another character sees them.  Say the character's eyes are brown like a puppy dog's.  That might not matter to the character, so he/she doesn't think about it.  However, that's what draws another person to them or makes them seem trustworthy.  Then the physical description matters.  For example, Harry Potter has his mother's eyes, and most of the other characters' initial reactions are to his mother's reflection in his green eyes or his father's reflection in his face.  Professor Snape's reaction to him is clearly complicated by Harry's resemblance to both parents at once.  This is when physical description matters, when the description is meaningful to the plot, the main character, or both.  

The Connotations of Appearance

If the description is more than minimal, it's just window dressing and may be more distracting than helpful.  I have heard from experienced writers that physical description should be a brief suggestion, so the readers can fill in the rest with their imaginations.  If a woman has "hair the color of a gold coin and eyes as cold as a frozen lake," she's clearly not supposed to be lovable.  We get an image without any more than that, though it suggests more.  Another female character may have "hair as golden as a sunset and eyes the color of a shimmering pool in summer," which gives us a woman similar in appearance to the first.  However, we get a more positive response with this description.  We want to meet the second woman but not the first.  It may be interesting if both descriptions turned out to be two other character's descriptions of the same woman.  But I'll have to think about how that would fit into a story.  

The Process

Then, you ask, "What DO I mean by getting the eyes right?"  This week, I sat down to reexamine my notes and characterizations preparatory to revising my novel and realized something was missing: images that captured each character for me.  No one will see these images but me.  However, they're a critical part of my notes.  First, as I described before, I come up with the gist of my characters and their relationships to each other.  Then, I get more descriptive, using the enneagram.  Third, I sit down and find an image that captures my sense of each character.  Who is this character to me?  How does he or she look and, more importantly, feel like to me?  Look at the image above.  This child tells a story in his  eyes.  Without this image, I may just describe a dark-skinned child with almost black eyes.  However, staring into this face, into those eyes, I see a soul worth exploring.  I can begin by talking about his chocolate brown skin and eyes like a whirlpool at night, troubled and churning.  If a picture is worth 1000 words, the image of a soul is worth far more.  

Finding the Soul

I look for images that show the eyes from as close up as possible and that give the right character and emotional sense.  I may spend quite a long time looking for just the right image because that image will then inform my writing.  I may even change the eye color of the character to match the picture.  This process helps me capture the character's soul in a way I may not otherwise be able to do.  This process may seem like a waste of time to some people since no one will ever see the photo but the writer.  But it helps me get the voice right.  It is absolutely critical to my writing process.  Without it, the character may get lost in the words.  Try looking carefully into the images above.  Who can you create from these photos?  Now, go and find images that fit your characters.  

Characterization

CHARACTER INTERVIEWS:

I blogged once about the importance of characterizing, but I haven't yet mentioned how I do my characterization.  Sometimes in the past, I've either downloaded or invented a questionnaire, which I answer from the point of view of my character.  That can work, but I often find myself answering questions that aren't particularly useful to the story.  Even when the questions are useful, I find I'm writing around what's important instead of getting to what motivates my character.  Some writers use these questionnaires to great effect, and it's something writers can try to see if it works for them.  All one needs to do is google to find one.  Here is one of many:  [Character Questionnaire]

APPROACHES TO CHARACTER TYPING:

But like I said, questionnaires like that, at least on their own, aren't enough for me to create fully developed characters. These questionnaires, however, can be used to supplement something else. I now start with a character theory called the Enneagram.  One can start with one of several systems of personality typing, including the Meyer's-Briggs system used by employers and universities to help people choose a job or a major. [Meyer's-Briggs] Another simpler route may be the color system. [Color Typing ]There are countless other personality systems out there. I would start with a personality type from one of these systems  to get down the core of the character then fill it out with a questionnaire or just pertinent details about the character.  History?  Family?  Loves?  Hates?  Appearance?

I use the Enneagram because it comes ready made with details about how the character might realistically interact with other characters, their relationship with their parents, their desires and fears, etc.   [Enneagram]  I pick a primary character type then what's called a wing, a character type on either side of the main one that tempers and modifies the main character type.  So for instance, in the book I just submitted for publication, After the Dream, my female protagonist is Julia, a Loyalist with Investigator tendencies.  Her primary identity in the beginning of the novel is based in intense loyalty toward her husband, who doesn't return nor value her loyalty.  But when that husband is gone from her life, she become a lost soul. Afterward, Julia spends so much of her time in her own head as a Investigator [also called a Thinker] introvert that she struggles to get outside her own reality enough to try romance again. Meanwhile, Pedro, my male protagonist in the same book, is an Individualist [also called Artist] with Investigator tendencies.  His world, whether he's in a relationship or not, tends to be an emotional ride of introversion.  It is hard for two introverts, accustomed to their own internal difficulties, to connect in the social world outside their own heads.  Just knowing the basic character types helps me understand dramas and conflicts that the characters may deal with as they go forward.

FOR EXAMPLE: 

In the book I'm working on currently, Pigs Fly, the extroverted Connor, an Enthusiast [also called a Thrillseeker] with Loyalist tendencies, has left behind his buddy Pedro and his other friends.  He is a thrillseeker without thrills, a wolf without a pack.  He meets up and clashes with Robin, an extroverted Reformer [or Perfectionist] with Helper tendencies who can't stand him.

On the Enneagram website, toward the bottom of specific character type descriptions, there is a link to descriptions of character interactions your character might have in a relationship with any of the character types.  In other words, if you have the gist of how you want your character to relate with another character, this may help you decide on the types of your other character.  Also, this may help relationships in your book gain a sense of realism.

Knowing and understanding your character helps create a realistic foundation of drives, desires, internal and external conflicts, and fears to give your character a sense of weight and meaning.  Once one knows the basics of a character, he/she can then vary up the basic character and make him or her truly unique and realistic.