writing

write for your characters, not for yourself

~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ 2 Comments

I’ve re-watched The Avengers and Iron Man 3 on DVD, and two lines in The Avengers really jumped out at me.

One is a negative example:

Various characters are discussing how crazy Loki is, and Thor says, “Have a care; he is of Asgard, etc. etc. and he is my brother.”

The Widow points out all the people Loki has killed, and Thor immediately says, “He’s adopted.”

This would be a perfectly fine line from Malcolm Reynolds on Firefly, but it’s really wrong for Thor. It’s sort of like holding up a sign saying, “Joss Whedon wrote this screenplay.”

The positive example is from earlier in the picture, when Loki is being transported as a prisoner. Thor shows up, grabs Loki, and flies off. Cap is about to give chase, but Natasha advises him not to, saying that Thor and Loki are basically gods.

“There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that,” is Cap’s reply as he straps on his parachute.

Joss Whedon is an atheist and he got some flack for the line, but:

1) It’s not written for Joss Whedon; it’s written for Steve Rogers, who is not an atheist, and

2) it’s a really sharp line.

So, that’s today’s storytelling lesson from the movies. No matter how clever you think a line is, don’t put it in the mouth of a character who wouldn’t say those words.

the timely and the timeless

~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ Leave a comment

Laura Stanfill sent me this link from the New York Times (“Writing Bytes“). She knew I’d be interested, since I quite enjoy modern technology (in fact, I’m writing this on a newly-acquired Android laptop – bet you didn’t even know there was such a thing!), but on the other hand I never write about it. The stories I tell take place in a world with no Internet, no computers, no cell phones, and minimal landline phones.

It’s an interesting article (I didn’t read the whole thing, I confess – tl;skimmed 🙂 ), with a lot of different opinions, but my avoidance of modern tech is not because I think it’s changed storytelling in some fundamental way (a point of view that seems preposterous to me), it’s simply because I think people tapping on keyboards or touch screens is inherently tedious to watch, and why give yourself that obstacle to overcome? Face-to-face conversations can include body language, facial expressions, and the possibility that one character will pop the other in the snoot. Much better for storytelling purposes.

Also, and this part is accidental, my stories have ended up being pretty timeless. After all, I started A Sane Woman in 1990, and everything I’ve written since then has built on that foundation. How  would I deal with the changes in technology over those 23 years? As it turns out, by ignoring them 🙂

I do think it’s hilarious that some of the writers think all the technology has taken some sort of mystery out of life. Gee, I don’t know – are there still unsolved mysteries (of a criminal kind)? I expect there are. Are there still big unanswered questions in science? Yup. If you’re a character in a YA novel who is trying to decide between two suitors, is there a device which will give you the right answer? Nope.

The Internet brings an unbelievable amount of information to people (those people who have access, at least), and some portion of that information is even true, but I haven’t noticed that this has eliminated mystery, doubt, confusion, or disagreement.

 
“The trouble with technology is that it eradicates a character’s ability to be lost, and it’s the state of being in the dark and the journey toward understanding that has given rise to the greatest stories ever written. Marlow’s voyage up the uncharted Congo in Heart of Darkness, the shocking truth of Rochester’s past in Jane Eyre, the mysterious gentleman caller in The Glass Menagerie — none of these tales could take place today because access to a smartphone would reveal mysterious whereabouts, mad first wives and marital status in seconds without the hero ever needing to leave his living room couch.”

Well, if this instant access to information is so magical, how come so many people currently believe that the president is a Muslim, or not a citizen, or a space alien? No technology yet discovered has been able to triumph over people’s desire to believe whatever they feel like believing (especially since one thing the Internet does really well is immediately supply supporting information for anything you choose to think – no matter how objectively ludicrous).

 
“There’s nothing worse for plots than cellphones.”

Chris Carter, the creator of the X-Files would disagree. He’s said that the only thing that made those stories possible was cell phones, so that Scully and Murder could talk while investigating separately. Going back now and watching the first season episodes (before the cell phones), you can feel the writers struggling to solve that story problem. Which technology solved for them.

 
“I think the Internet has eroded 19th- and 20th-century notions of a person’s life being ‘a story,’ or the notion that one’s life needs to be ‘a narrative.’ Instead we increasingly seem to be seeing ourselves as just one more unit among seven billion other units. For the West this collective denarration is sort of a comedown, but for a majority of people on earth, to be included at the global dinner table is a big step up.”

This could possibly be a very interesting idea if he offered any evidence, or even any real clear idea of what he’s talking about. 🙂

Also, and this is a pet peeve of mine, the 19th and 20th centuries are a brief blip in the history of human storytelling. What about all those earlier centuries?

 
“Birds Eye Peas: a rule taught to me by a writing teacher who said not to use brand names or products so specific they could quickly render your stories out of date. Technology is a Birds Eye pea.”

Yup. The Millennium books illustrate this perfectly. The technology Larsson reported in such obsessive detail was all out of date by the time I read the books. The first one was probably out of date by the time the third one was published. I always avoid specifics like this (well, as much as I can — there’s at least one Star Trek reference in my novel U-town 🙂 ), and for this exact reason. I think it can take the reader out of the story.

crazy like a human, part 2

~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ Leave a comment

I was interested to read this article at Salon: "The trouble with rape revenge movies."

I talked about this question here, including how I've deliberately stayed away from this trope (both because it can reduce female characters to being female first and human second, and because it's very predictable at this point).

But I do have to mention that I think the writer is only looking at the surface of the Kill Bill movies. Yes, they are revenge movies, as most of Tarantino's movies have been recently. But Kill Bill Vol. 1, Kill Bill Vol 2, Inglourious Basterds, and Django Unchained (all revenge stories) are four very different movies, and fundamentally they are about four different things. I covered some of this in my review of the Kill Bill movies.

Genre structure can be something to hang a story on, but that doesn't mean that's all there is. A classic example is Gosford Park, which uses the form of an English country house murder mystery in order to tell a story about class (among other things). I could name a lot of different mystery stories (including my own) which are really about a lot of different things (I just happen to be a lot more familiar with mystery stories than revenge stories, but I'm sure the same principle applies there as well).

three great scenes, no bad ones

~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ 8 Comments

Martin, over at writeafirstnovel, posted about "Big scenes, little scenes."

That post made me think about the movie director Howard Hawks. Someone asked him once to define what made a great movie. His answer was, "Three great scenes, no bad ones."

I've seen this cited in a few different articles about movies, but there are times when I think the writer has missed the point. It doesn't say "three great big scenes," after all. Sometimes the great scenes aren't the big ones, the ones which drive the plot. Sometimes they're the quiet ones in between.

My response to Martin's post said:

One example would be the Lord of the Rings movies. The big battle scenes are really big -- lots of special effects and digitally-created crowds and things flying through the air and whatnot -- but the scenes I remember the best are the conversations. Sam and Frodo, Aragorn and Eowyn, Pippin and Gandalf, Aragorn and Theoden.

Here are two examples from Hawks' movies:

In To Have and Have Not, the plot involves whether Bogart's character will take a dangerous job because he needs money, but the movie is only petending to be a thriller – it's a love story (in dangerous conditions) between Bogart's character and Lauren Bacall's. Her character has nothing to do with the plot, but the scenes between the two of them, with Hawks' usual crackling sharp dialogue (provided in this case by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner), are what people remember about the movie. I'm sure there are fans who could quote the Bogart/Bacall scenes from memory but couldn't tell you where the movie even took place.

In Rio Bravo, the plot involves whether a dangerious gang can lay siege to Sheriff John Chance's jail and free their cohort, who's being held for murder. The movie sets this situation up and then proceeds to ignore it for an hour, entertaining us with various interactions between Chance and his few (and very flawed) associates. (This was the model for the Avengers movie, BTW, where all the good parts involve scenes between the various heroes while the villain is in their custody.)

One thread that runs throughout Rio Bravo is that Chance's long-time deputy, Dude, has become an alcoholic, and will he be able to keep it together under the pressure of the siege? This is a fairly light-hearted movie, but this question is treated very seriously throughout (and without easy or pat answers), and the scenes between John Wayne (who plays the Sheriff) and Dean Martin (who plays Dude) are the best in the picture, though they don't have much to do with the mechanics of the plot.

Ther's one scene, near the end, which may be the best in the picture. Dude has failed. He's been captured, humiliated, and (in his mind, at least) replaced as deputy, and he's decided he really isn't any good any more (professional competence is always huge in Hawks pictures). He's sitting in the sheriff's office, about to take a drink The others are watching him, not about to say anything or interfere, and he pours the drink. Then, as he's about to drink it, he hears the "Deguello" music from outside. That's the music the bad guys are playing to remind them of the hopelessness of their situation. And, with an absolutely steady hand, Dude pours the drink back into the bottle.

It's a very quiet scene, with almost no dialogue, no big speeches or action, and it doesn't have a huge impact on the plot (Dude's decision doesn't determine how things go after that, and in fact he's taken prisoner again before the end), but it is a great scene.

I'm always leery of the advice I read here and there to get rid of any scene in a story that doesn't advance the plot. You could very easily end up with a very efficient engine that goes straight ahead, never slowing to look at the scenery and never turning to follow any interesting side roads.

protagonist (strong, female)

~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ 5 Comments

There was a very interesting blog post over at YA Indie called "5 Tips for Writing a 'Strong Female Protagonist.'"

Since I am writing a quasi-YA* story with a strong female protag (Stevie One), this was interesting to look at.

Here are the five (six, really) tips, as listed by Dalya Moon:

1) As the author, don't constantly rely on characters not telling each other key information to prolong plot points or tension

Oh, yes. Do not conceal information for the sake of fooling the reader or building bad suspense. Roger Ebert calls this the "idiot plot," where the plot of the movie could have been resolved in fifteen minutes if the characters weren't all idiots.

(I'm not sure what this has to do with a "strong female protagonist," though.)

The worst example of false suspense I can think of is Halfway House, by Ellery Queen, where Ellery Queen (the detective) chases after, traps, and confronts the killer. Then the book jumps forward to some time later, where Ellery sits down with several interested characters and details the steps of his detective work, how he figured out who the killer was, and then, at the very end of this long explanation, the name of the killer is finally revealed to the reader.

Ish.

Every character knew the answer pages and pages ago, why does the reader have to wait?

On the other hand, my characters (unlike Dalya's) are often good at keeping secrets, but those are (this is the distinction that I make) character secrets, not plot secrets. I have two characters who were abused as children, and you can learn some of that by paying close attention, but they don't talk about it. Because they wouldn't. As I always point out, there is a major character in U-town whose sexuality is not revealed until literally the last page (though other characters speculate from time to time throughout the book). But this doesn't have anything to do with the plot of the book, it's just a character note, and it is entirely consistent with her personality to keep quiet about it until she actually takes a lover.

And Jan Sleet, the great detective, often conceals information from her assistant (Marshall, her "Watson"). As Nero Wolfe often did with Archie Goodwin. But the readers (when Marshall is the narrator) know what Marshall knows.

2) Make your character better than average

Makes me think of Lake Wobegon. U-town, where all the characters are above average. 🙂

But, yes, definitely. However, as we discussed in comments on an earlier YA Indie post, if your character has skills (as opposed to talents), there should be an explanation of why she has them. As I said there, Stevie One is a kick-butt character (and she is not the most kick-butt woman in the book), but there is a reason she has those skills.

3) Allow readers to relate to your character

Yes, I think Stevie is "relatable" (a word I've never liked). She has enthusiasms and and (as Dalya said in her comments) she is definitely somebody who DOES STUFF (even if it's stuff that nobody has ever done before).

4) Let us enjoy some "booyeah!" moments through the character

This is related to the "skills" question above. If you've established why the character is especially skilled, you get to reap the reward of having her triumph from time to time. In fact, most of the major characters in Stevie One are particularly good at least one thing, and the one who isn't DOING STUFF will get to figure out her particular thing by the end.

5) Never let anything come easily to your main character

Of course, things don't come easily to Stevie One, and there are situations where it is partly her own fault that things are as difficult as they are for her. But if they are difficult it's partly because she's aiming high, which I think is also important. The goal should be something worth struggling for.

6) Write the character you want to spend time with

This is the big one, since not only do I want the readers to enjoy spending time with her – the other characters have to want to spend time with her as well. She falls in with bad companions at the beginning of the story, and she is useful to them, but obviously they also start to like her, so this has to be convincing.

But I agree: no matter what the feedback, I never rewrite characters. I am willing to consider changing plot points, re-sequencing stories, even adding or removing characters, but I never change characters (except as they change in the course of the story, of course). They are who they are. I keep feedback in mind for future stories, for new characters, but that's it.

There are two characters in Stevie One who I've used before. I've taken those stories down, because the stories weren't right for the characters. This time I think I've got it, but the characters are the same as they ever were. They just needed me to create a better story for them.

And, yes, I loved this note at the end: "Because [Dalya's] a feminist, her characters may make a few mistakes along the way, but they don't end up dating their obsessive, controlling, serial-killer stalkers, ifyaknowwhatimean." Stevie One will have a romantic life at some point (when she's ready), and she will make mistakes, but she will not do that. She wouldn't anyway, but she also thinks of herself as a role model, and that wouldn't set a very good example.


What I would add to this list is the Bechdel Test, as I talked about here. Have a variety of female characters, have them talk to each other, and have them talk about things other than boys or men.

__________________________
* Stevie One is not actually a YA story (it's a mystery), but since it does have a teenage protagonist I thought it was interesting to consider it through the lens of "young adult" literature.

characters have many sides

~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ 4 Comments

I've been writing about Jan Sleet, the great detective, for more than forty years. She changed somewhat over the first couple of decades, though she has always dressed well, but she's been pretty much as she is now since 1990, when I started writing A Sane Woman.

But I've been thinking about how we've been seeing her. In A Sane Woman, and in the mystery stories more recently, we've only seen her from the first person point of view of Marshall, her assistant. But now, in Stevie One, we're seeing her from a third person POV (third person limited, technically, showing everything from Stevie's perspective – in the next part we'll be in Jan's own third person limited POV).

This isn't the first time we've seen her from something other than Marshall's point of view. In U-town we mostly saw her from omniscient third person. But this made me think of another question about how we see characters.

Most of A Sane Woman is in third person, but then it switches to Marshall's first person when Jan Sleet shows up. So, not only are we seeing her through Marshall's eyes, but we're seeing her only when Marshall is with her. There are periods of time when they're not together, and all we see then is Marshall wondering what sort of trouble his employer has got herself into now.

In the beginning of U-town, we see her again, but this time not only is it not from Marshall's point of view but it's also without Marshall, and we find that she's very different when he's not with her. She's jumpy and moody and generally unhappy, in fact. Once they are reunited, she immediately gets her eerie self-confidence back. To show that difference, though, we not only have to get out of Marshall's head but we also have to get Marshall out of the picture.

What is Sherlock Holmes like when Watson isn't with him? Watson doesn't know, and therefore he can't show it to us. (Yes, I know there were a couple of Holmes stories in third person or even from Holmes' point of view – just bear with me and pretend those don't exist for a moment.)

I thought of this for two reasons. One is that now in Stevie One we're seeing Jan Sleet without Marshall and she's calm and confident, very different from the first few chapters of U-town. So, we see that she's changed over time. Her self-confidence no longer depends on him. And we see that as other people see it.

When she's walking with Stevie One she takes out her cigarette case, opens it, takes out a cigarette, puts it in her mouth, puts the case away, and takes out a lighter and lights the cigarette. Stevie is very impressed by this dexterity (all of this had to be done one-handed, since Jan's other hand was using her cane). Marshall would have been less impressed, because he would have known that the great detective practices that sort of thing at home in front of a mirror.

So, to see our characters more fully, we have to show them from different points of view (almost impossible if you're in first person, of course) and also in different settings with different people. None of us are the same with everybody, so our characters shouldn't be either.


And there is more of Stevie One to read. This is the end of Part Three. The next part will (I'm fairly sure) be from Jan Sleet's point of view, but after that I think the "one part = one character's POV" scheme may have to change. I think we may be moving around too much for that.

But I could be wrong.