Just last week, I watched as Superman saved the world again. Superman is . . . well, he’s not human, he’s nearly perfect physically, and yet . . . he’s not perfect. He’s flawed. Not as a character, mind you, but as an individual. For a character, he’s exactly what one wants and needs. Someone strong, good looking, a good person trying to right the world’s wrongs. But he is flawed.

Around Lois, he’s a complete dork, at least in the persona of Clark Kent. He acts utterly human and makes the same mistakes that people have made for centuries when dealing with members of the opposite sex. And then there’s that whole kryptonite thing. A little stone can debilitate a super-human power and kill a super man.

I’m coming to see that it is the flaws and not necessarily the strengths that make a character, well, strong in a story. Take, for instance, Luke Skywalker. He is a headstrong kid who wants to save the world. And yet for all his youthful idealism, he has the same weakness as his father—hate. It is what nearly undoes him, and yet that tension, that internal conflict is what makes the story interesting and relatable.

People want to see weakness in their favorite characters because it makes them human and makes them like us. It’s an unconscious liking, but it has an effect on the way we tell stories.

It makes me wonder if my characters are weak enough to be strong. How about yours? Are you making them too perfect and therefore unrelatable?

Bookmark This

My husband hates cleaning the bathroom. He will do dishes, vacuum, even dust before he’ll wipe down the toilet. In fact, to my best recollection, in the 6 years we’ve been married he has cleaned the bathroom only four times….make that five. He must have been vying for the “Best Husband Ever” award last week, because he cleaned both bathrooms. That’s right – showers, sinks, and toilets. 

Needless to say, I performed a very embarrassing happy dance.

Don’t get me wrong- my husband pulls his weight with the chores around the house. But he somehow manages to talk me into cleaning the bathroom…and I manage to talk him into doing the dishes and taking out the trash.  

What task does your character always avoid?

Bookmark This

How many characters are too many?

Well, I guess that depends. How many can you keep up with and how many can your readers?

70 Solutions to Common Writing Mistakes by Bob Mayer, from The Writers’ Digest Writing Kit, states “If the curtain on a play opened and there were thirty people on stage and all of them had speaking roles, would you be able to identify and keep track of everyone? Or if you went to a party and opened the door and the room was filled with people you’d never met before, would you have a good time? Throwing too many characters at the reader creates the same sense of bewilderment and diminishes the reader’s ability to empathize with any of them.”

I can usually remember two to four people when first introduced. Usually faces, and names if they interest me. The rest go into the blur of new people to be sorted out later. Even if they interest me, it takes me at least one more visit and good conversation to remember their name.

So why is it in writing we think we have to introduce all our characters up front? And why do we feel that if we don’t have ten plus people in our books, that no one will want to read them?

I’m not saying to limit your novel to 4 people, I have many more than that in mine, but everyone does not need to appear on stage at the same time, and they don’t all need speaking parts. I have been an extra on Touched by an Angel (yes, a long time ago) and was just that, an extra. Background. I have had speaking roles on stage that added to the scene, and been on stage again as background.

There will be background characters. Give them life, make them move, shift, walk stage left to stage right, but they don’t all have to speak, they don’t all have to show up at important scenes.

Writer’s Digests tip for the day goes on to say, “Larry McMurtry can do it in Lonesome Dove and win the Pulitzer Prize, but we’re not Larry McMurtry. He’s able to do it because he makes each character distinctive. It’s a question of how much you’re able to change personalities with your characters. Most of us can only take on a handful.”

So in order to have more than one character, they need to have personalities different from each other. Know your characters, even the background ones.

In theater, we were required to do character analysis of who we played. Not only did we know their first name, given to us by the playwright, usually, we had to know their last name. What their favorite ice cream was. Who was their best friend? We were asked to read the play with that one character in mind and learn as much as we could about them. Even if we were background and off stage most the time.

What did that create? A play people wanted to watch. Actors that knew and understood why they moved where they did.

The importance of knowing our characters is so important, if we don’t care enough about a character to get to know them, our readers won’t either.

Bob Mayer’s solution: “Before you start writing, decide how many characters you feel you can handle in the story. You will have your protagonist and your antagonist. Then you will have your named supporting characters. Named characters will be those who appear throughout the story.”

This is helpful if you know your story before you put Uniball pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, but as you’ve read, I don’t do that. I don’t know my story before I start writing. So I have to figure it out as I go. Often, I get to parts of my story that require me to go back to an earlier part and share more about characters, put in what I’ve learned about them, change their profile. (If you want a good Character Profile sheet, email me and I’ll send it.)

Often, I get to know my characters as I write. I get rid of characters that aren’t important, giving their lines to someone else, if they’re worth keeping. I’ve even added new characters, or made background characters more important, replacing someone who I thought might have played a larger role. So for me, I role with the punches. But if you outline and plan, this is something to plan for.

Mayer continues, “It’s probably not a good idea to give names to characters who appear only once. Those characters might be described as spear carriers, analogous to those people on stage in the opera who stand in the background, carrying—you got it—spears. They’re window dressing, and you can describe them by their roles, such as “the taxi driver” or “the desk clerk” so as not to confuse the reader.

“Make sure the reader can keep track of your named characters, and keep focus on the protagonist and antagonist.”

I agree wholeheartedly. Even though I knew my name when I played background, the audience did not. You can know them, or not, but know why they are there, if you don’t, the reader won’t either. It’s been said many times that we should know 95% more about our novel than the reader; this is one of those things to know more of.

So know your characters. Introduce them with the reader’s memory in mind. And if you’re going to start all your characters with the same letter, know that the reader, at least this one, will be confused as to who’s doing what and saying what. Made up names are fine, but remember your reader when making them up. Just saying.

*Writer’s Digest offers great advice to its subscribers. Worth checking out.

Bookmark This

Sarah is writer looking for an agent. She is currently working on novel # 4, editing novels 2 and 3, and querying novel # 1. For more insight to her work, visit: http://legendoftheprotectors.wordpress.com/ or http://legendoftheprotectors.blogspot.com/

---

I never realized how many Q-tips I use in a day until my daughter started to steal them. She’d pull apart each Q–tip to build a large pile of fluff. Then she’d smile in delight at having accomplished such a feat.

I don’t get quite as much enjoyment from those little cotton sticks, but I do find them uber-useful. In fact, I rank Q-tips pretty high on my necessities list. They land somewhere around 12-hour moisturizer and waterproof mascara.

What item would your character deem a necessity?

Bookmark This

I live in Arizona, so it’s been hot (aka over 100 degrees) for a while now. And with the heat comes that dreaded of all times…Swimsuit Season. Don’t get me wrong, I love heading out to the pool with family and friends. I love the steaks and hamburgers on the barbeque. The very idea of lying out by the pool, even if I will never get tanner than pasty white, makes me stretch luxuriously.

But it’s no fun to squeeze into a swimsuit and realize you’ve gained several (and then several more) pounds since you found that perfect suit. Unless you are running for Miss USA, the first time you throw on that swimsuit is an eye opener. Alas, more time is needed on the elliptical.

What type of swimsuit would your character wear? And where would they wear it?

Bookmark This

Tomorrow is my birthday. As a kid, I would start looking forward to my birthday the day after Christmas. I knew exactly what I wanted for my birthday present weeks, even months, in advance. And deciding who to invite to my birthday sleepover was a big ordeal.

Then time elapsed, as it tends to do, and now my birthday sneaks up on me. I’m turning 28 this year. I actually had to do the math to remember how old I am. No more nine-and-three-quarters or five-and-a-half.  It makes me sad to realize I no longer count down the days, weeks, and months.  But maybe I’ll still have a sleepover party.

What would your character do to celebrate her birthday?

Bookmark This