Colin wakes up in a strange world that seems very much like a game, only there are no power ups, no ding! sound when you gain a level and when you die, you stay dead.
All the people summoned form parties and set off on their adventures, leaving behind the people who nobody wants in their group.
Story of my life, thinks Colin.
HOW TO AVOID DEATH ON A DAILY BASIS
A fantasy web novel with chapters released daily, Monday to Friday.
Susan x Neil (on Wattpad) http://w.tt/1RKRCQi Susan is having problems with quadratic equations. Neil will help for a price. The story of an unusual friendship between two teenagers who prefer to be alone.
When someone is reading a story they are assigning a value to what they are reading. This value can be anywhere from âI have absolutely no interest in thisâ to âI have to know what happens next, sleep be damnedâ. Obviously you want them to be nearer one end of the scale than the other.
While itâs impossible to have a story where the readerâs engagement is turned up all the way to 11 from beginning to end, there are ways to help you get the most out of a scene, no matter what the premise might be.
Action, conversation, or even a familiar set up thatâs been written about a zillion times beforeâ they can all be vastly improved if the reader actively wants to know whatâs going on. And there are ways you can help nudge them in that direction.
Often, when advice is given on how to improve a story, it is presented in the manner of a tutorial manner. Do more of this, less of this, this way is good, this way is bad. A lot of this comes down to wanting to be concise and get to the point, but it can lead to a lot of very similarly structured stories that end up feeling formulaic.
Your first priority should be to your own creativity. Whatever strikes you as interesting, wherever your imagination suggests you go, thatâs what you should pursue.
That doesnât mean it will be any good. Itâs a process that takes time and you will eventually take out things you used to think were essential parts of the story. But trying to second guess yourself and write to a pre-approved template isnât much fun.
If, for example, you think it would be good to start a story with an introduction of the main character, you might find, once itâs on the page, it feels a bit slow and not particularly interesting. The reader doesnât know who this person is or what theyâre going to do, but theyâre expected to absorb all this information about them.
Imagine youâre in a park and you see a man under a tree. Up in the tree is a child, stuck. The man is trying to coax the kid down. You go over to help. How interested are you in who this man is, where he lives, what his employment background is?
You donât need to know, and generally, other than for the sake of politeness, you arenât interested. You help get the kid down and you go on your way.
This would seem to be me advocating for not bothering to give the reader details they donât need. But just because they donât need it doesnât mean you canât give it to them, if it happens to strike your fancy. The reader might not care all that much, but they arenât going to throw the book down in disgust because your opening lines are:
Jack Brown, a 31 year old father of three, stood under a tree in the park, trying to convince his youngest son to jump down from the branches heâd managed to climb up into. Climbing down wasnât proving to be so easy.
Does the reader have a burning desire to know how old Jack is? Probably not, but if I want to tell them, for whatever reason, I certainly can. But can I boost their interest if I wanted to?
Consider the same scenario, but suddenly a man in a cape flies down and plucks little Timmy out of the sky and returns him to his father. Do you want additional background on this guy?
The thing is we all  have a general sense of curiosity, but we also have a sense of expectation. I may not know the personal details of the man under the tree, but I have a rough idea of the kind of information he might reveal to me. He lives in a house or a flat, he has a wife, or heâs divorced, he has a job, or not. I donât know the specifics but I expect them to fit into my past experiences.
And, of course, I could be totally wrong. He might have the most amazing history and if I gave him the time he could tell me some things that would blow my mind. But probably not.
Unless we are give some indication otherwise, we assume the norm. And most of the time we turn out to be right, so our level of interest is low.
The man in the cape, on the other hand, clearly doesnât fit into our preconceived ideas of whatâs normal. His story is going to be something different and that increases our level of interest.
That doesnât mean you have to go to fantastic extremes to grab a readerâs attention. If you went over to the guy under the tree and he spoke with a strong Swedish accent, that could also affect the level of interest, especially if the story took place in a remote part of Scotland. If the story took place in Sweden, not so much.
By being aware of what the reader expects, whether theyâre are going to be told something that falls within their realm of experience or not, you can manipulate that level of interest, both in small and large ways.
Being able to judge this scale, and use it to your advantage, isnât always obvious and you may not always get it right. If you think Marsha looks 20 and sheâs actually 21, thereâs not much to be gained from correcting you. If sheâs 47, it might be worth mentioning. But if sheâs 26?
You have to use your own judgement. but being aware of this ability to increase interest is very helpful when it comes to writing scenes that feel obvious, familiar or info-heavy.
Getting the reader to want to know, even in a small way, isnât just good in the immediate moment, it can also have a snowball effect where one thing leads to another and the level of interest quickly escalates. At the same time though, itâs also possible to cheat, and if youâre caught cheating you can easily lose any momentum youâve gained.
For example, if two boys at the back of a classroom are having this conversation:
âYou sure the security cameras will be off?â
âFor sure. I got the codes, we just have to avoid the guards.â
Here you are trying to get the reader to be curious about whatâs going on. Theyâre planning something suspicious but itâs not clear what. This kind of mystery set-up can work in terms of piquing the readerâs interest, but essentially youâre focusing on the question, not the answer.
Having no idea whatâs going on will pull a reader in to some extent, but you have to keep it up or otherwise once you reveal what it is, the interest can fade very quickly. For example, if it turns out the boys are talking about a video game they plan to play that evening, the reader would probably lose the curiosity they had built up.
Alternatively, if they had this conversation:
âYou sure the security cameras will be off?â
âFor sure. I got the codes off my Dadâs computer. The bankâs never had any kind of break in, so they use the same system theyâve used for years.â
It becomes clear these schoolboys are planning to break into a bank for real. This isnât what you expect of kids, so why are they doing it? How? What makes them think they can get away with it?
Because itâs outside of what you would expect, all sorts of details become much more interesting.
On the other hand, imagine the same sort of conversation between two burly men in basement, standing over a blueprint of a bank.
Now that theyâre two professional thieves planning a heist, the details of their personal lives become less interesting. Itâs still a dramatic situation and can be great material for a story, but because itâs more in line with what you expect, you wonât be particularly surprised by the whys and wherefores. You donât know the exact reasons why theyâre robbing a bank, but you have a rough idea.
And, again, Â you could be totally wrong. They might have a very unusual reason for the robbery. But without any indication of that, the reader will default to assuming to it being pretty much what theyâve seen before.
This can be changed very simply. If it becomes clear that these men arenât breaking into the bank to take money out, but to put a large amount of money in, then who they are, why they would want to do that, what brought them to this point all take on a lot more value for the reader.
Even though just about every story is probably not going to be about normal,everyday things, letting the reader know that in a definitive way by giving a clear indication within a scene is what snaps them out of their tendency to assume it is.
Itâs very possible, even common, that as a reader progresses through a story, they will discover stuff that they will find interesting and engaging. After they find it out.
If, however, you present the story in a way they arenât expecting, they will be interested and engaged before they find out the answers, and hopefully even more so afterwards.
When writing a story, using the senses to make scenes more vivid and visceral is simple and obvious advice. You want the reader to feel like theyâre right there with the characters, experiencing what theyâre experiencing.
Using what the characters see, hear, smell, touch and taste will further reader engagement, but these are not the only senses people have. There are in fact a host of other senses that are often overlooked or are so abstract that it isnât clear how to convey them on the page.
A simple google search will produce a list of senses other than the big five, but it isnât enough to be aware of them, or to be able to define them. You want to be able to capture the feeling in a way that the reader will relate to, and relate to strongly.
The kind of senses Iâm referring to are things like balance, hunger, time, unease, fear, pain, temperature. Everyone is familiar with these sorts of feelings, but itâs hard to describe. In fact itâs much easier to simply state it. Iâm hungry. You know exactly what I mean and what it feels like to be hungry. But this kind of statement wonât put you in my place. It wonât make you feel hungry.
However, if I describe the kind of food Iâm hungry for, the ridiculously indulgent cream cake sitting in my fridge, then I can not only make you feel hungry too, I can actually make you want to go open the fridge, even though it wonât do you any good because you arenât here (and even if you were good luck getting any before I stuff it all in my face).
This is what you what to achieve with all senses, to make the reader have a mirroring physical response, and there are a number of ways to do this.
Thatâs not to say you shouldnât use the big 5 sense also, but because they are used so often by so many writers, it can be hard finding an original way to put it. Somebody always seem to have already found the perfect phrase, and a bunch of other people have re-used it ad nauseam.
You can, of course, still have the hairs rise on the back of a characterâs neck, or a cold bead of sweat trickle down their back, and the reader will have some kind of sensory empathy, but not as strong as they might have 50 or 100 years ago.
Thatâs one of the big advantages of considering the lesser known senses. Theyâve been employed less frequently and so offer more opportunities for fresh ways to draw readers in.
So, here are a few different techniques you can use to accomplish this.
The most direct method is to go on the body. You literally describe the sensations evoked in you when you experience a particular event or stimulus and the reader feels it too, whether a nervously bouncing leg or a cold bead of sweat. But, as mentioned above, itâs hard to avoid cliches and some senses donât really have this kind of physical component. What are the physiological sensations associated with time passing, for example?
Often, a more effective method is to use the scene to recreate the stimulus itself. Like in my hunger example, making saliva pool in the readerâs mouth can be more powerful than describing the saliva in the characterâs, and itâs also one of the few times over-describing something can be a good thing.
You should also pay close attention to the words you use. Strong verbs, similes, alliteration can all affect how well a reader slips into the same mind state as a character. It takes a little thinking about, but it should quickly become second nature to go through your options and realise that jagged or scraping are more evocative words to use when describing pain than simply painful or very painful. Similarly Where, what, why? can convey confusion better than Where am I?
The biggest problem comes with the really abstract senses. Itâs hard to capture the way you feel when youâve been writing for what seems like ten minutes and you look up and two hours have passed. And, to be honest, the absolute best way to recreate that kind of feeling is to pay attention next time it happens to you and make notes. There really is no substitute for personal experience when it comes to trying to present a fresh perspective on a universal feeling.
However, what you may find is that your observations seem very familiar. People react in similar ways and focus on the same things, in particular the small things. Thereâs nothing wrong with this, a small detail can very often pinpoint a feeling very accurately.
When youâre on top of a ladder feeling unsteady, the things you notice within yourself, the shakiness in your hand or the wobbly sensation running up your legs, are pretty much what everyone feels, and while thatâs good in terms of being relatable, itâs not so good when youâre the umpteenth writer to make that exact same observation.
My point being itâs not just about noting the first thing that comes to mind, because chances are thatâs going to be too obvious and predictable. You should also consider going outside of yourself.
When youâre on top of that ladder, once you become aware of the immediate sensation in your body, think about your surroundings, the consequences, the possible options to save yourself should you fall.
An image of yourself smashing your nose into the concrete floor below or a filthy gutter you could grab onto, hoping it wonât be wrenched away from the roof, can give just a good idea of losing balance as swaying left to right uncontrollably.
You can even go further out, using the environment to suggest a particular state of mind. So a spooky story set on a dark and stormy night can help establish a mood that in turn makes it easier to convey the characterâs sense of unease.
Hmm, a dark and stormy night, I wonder if anyoneâs used that phrase before. I should trademark it asap.
Chapter One is a series of posts where I take apart the first chapter of a successful book to see what makes it work, how the author hooked the reader, which rules were followed and which were broken to good effect (previous entries can be found here: Chapter One Analyses).
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn was published in 2012 and made into a hit movie last year. The authorâs previous two novel were moderately successful, but sold nowhere near as many copies as this one.
Itâs a contemporary mystery thriller, written in the first person by two narrators, both of whom seem fairly unreliable. Chapters are alternated in a he said/she said format. The story starts with the husband (Nick) writing on the day his wife goes missing. The wife (Amy) is represented by a diary that begins on the day she first met Nick at a party in Manhattan.
Iâll be looking at both first chapters (his and hers) to see how they differ and how they complement each other.
When I think of my wife, I always think of her head.
The first line is quite an odd one. Nick is remembering the unique shape of his wifeâs head, but rather than a romantic memory it comes across more like a serial killer fondly recalling a favourite skull in his collection.
Iâm sure this is intentional, for the writer I can see it as an effective way to make the reader unsure about how this guy feels about his wife. But from the characterâs perspective it seems a strange way to begin a story.
The oddness of the first paragraph is enough to keep you reading, I think, but a little contrived. A way to get to him wondering what went on in her head, establishing the distance between them. I didnât really believe the first thing he thought about when thinking of his wife was the shape of her head.
The next few paragraphs are him waking up. Starting a story with a character waking up in bed, sun streaming through curtains etc., is considered amateurish and will be found on any list of things to avoid in a first chapter. And for good reason. Itâs dull, itâs cliched and it tells you very little. And all those things are true here.
Of course, no rule is absolute and thereâs always a way to make the old new and fresh again. Not in this case, though.
At that exact moment, 6-0-0, the sun climbed over the skyline of oaks, revealing its full summer angry-god self. Its reflection flared across the riverâŠ
Both characterâs are writers by trade (him a reviewer for Entertainment Weekly type mags, her a quiz writer for something similar to Cosmo), and both have lost their jobs due to the internetâs effects on the publishing industry. Clearly not a day too soon.
There then follows an extensive chunk of backstory. We learn how they meet, lost their jobs, moved back to his hometown in Missouri, her reluctance, their lack of options, and the buying of a bar with the last of her trust fund.
This part isnât too bad. Even though info-dumping isnât encouraged in the first chapter either, Iâve always felt it depends on how interesting your dump is. In this case the way he works in commentary about the economy, the state of the publishing industry and his hometown, his general mood of pessimism and guilt about taking his wife away from the life she was accustomed to, all helps bolster the expositional stuff so I wasnât bored (which is my main criteria for what makes something worth reading).
Eventually he gets out of bed, goes down to the kitchen where his wife is making breakfast and then we cut to him going to work (at the bar). The chapter ends with him seeing a line of men walking along the river bank, mirroring the feeling he got from the angry-god sun (you have been seen) and he hurries into the bar.
I donât know who the men were or why he felt disturbed by them, but I donât think Iâm meant to. I think itâs meant to feel odd, again, as a way to set the tone for the story, and I think it does that fine.
So, nothing much happens in this opening chapter. Itâs more about tone and introduction. Heâs not happy in his marriage, he feels guilty and a little bitter.
He isnât a very sympathetic character and I think the author has gone out of her way to make you question his loyalties. This is not the normal approach for this sort of story. Usually in a story where a man is suspected of killing someone, we are encouraged to empathise with him and be on his side. If he turns out to be innocent we are relieved, if he is guilty, we are surprised. Both resolutions work, the important thing is to keep the reader following the story. Something much harder to do if they donât like the character.
However, in this case, the dual narrators shifts the focus onto who is the good guy here, rather than rooting for one person from the outset. This probably works best in mysteries where the reader is perhaps willing to wait a little longer to find out whatâs really going than in other genres.
Tra and la! I am smiling a big adopted-orphan grin as I write this. I am embarrassed at how happy I am, like some Technicolor comic of a teen-girl talking on the phone with my hair in a ponytail, the bubble over my head saying: I met a boy!
My first reaction was to fervently hope the rest of her diary entries werenât written in this style. I havenât read the whole book, nor seen the movie, but I know enough of the story to suspect she isnât quite the gushy Sex in the City fan this makes her seem.
There are plenty of clues that she is aware how her writing will come across. She makes several references to her job as writer of quizzes in womenâs magazines, the kind of status it gives her among other writers, and her need to practice her skills. And beyond that thereâs a sense that all is not quite what it seems. I think her fizzy personality and one liners are meant to keep you engaged but still, having to actually plough through pages of this pseudo-teen mag!!!! writing fills me with more dread than any murderer.
The end of her chapter, where they kiss under a shower of powdered sugar, is particularly cheesy, and makes me think sheâs faking it (or at least hope she is).
Having said that, the difference between narrators is very clear. You wouldnât confuse the two styles, even without chapter titles. Itâs also clear both arenât being totally frank. He wears his guilt like a fluorescent jacket, and she writes like a delusional Austen fan.
Neither character is particularly appealing at this point. In fact Iâd say neither chapter is remarkable in any way. So what makes this such a successful book?
Well, I have no doubt itâs a good story, with interesting twists and turns and fascinating characters even if you donât like them very much. What it tells me is that you donât need a slam bang opening, even for a thriller, if people have some expectation of good things to come.
In previous Chapter Ones Iâve considered bestsellers with slow starts to have been countered by having established authors behind the wheel. If you know the author and have confidence in their abilities you really wonât care very much about the first couple of chapters.
In this case, though, the writer was fairly unknown and her books mid-list at best. If it wasnât an attention grabbing opening that sold the public on the book, what was it?
I think it was probably a number of thing but in my opinion most likely it was marketing and publicity. Seeing a book advertised heavily in newspapers, seeing it reviewed well by journalists in serious publications has a similar effect as a big name authorâs name above the title. People assume there must be something to all the hubbub and wonât be put off by a slow start (or even a hackneyed one as in this case).
Getting publicity, though, isnât all that easy. Itâs where big publishers have it a lot easier than those self-publishing on Amazon. Not that simply signing with a traditional publisher will get you the same kind of results. They donât spread their money around evenly, they prefer to choose one or two books they think will do well and then push them down everyoneâs throats as hard as they can. Seems to work.
What it does tell you is that readers arenât all that bothered about how a story starts if they have a reasonable expectation that good things are coming. You just have to find a way to give them that expectation.
Dialogue is a key part of any story and itâs usually what readers find most engrossing. They might skim long descriptions, but when they get to someone speaking thatâs where theyâll get pulled back in.
What people say and how they say it not only tells the reader whatâs going on, it also sets mood, gives an idea of character and provides a natural back and forth that will naturally keep readers engaged.
It helps to keep the flow going when characters are talking, and being able to convey how characters are saying things without explicitly stating it is a very useful skill.
Hereâs a basic example of what I mean: âGo to Hell!â
You know how thatâs being said without my having to put he said angrily in the narrative. Hearing how the character speaks in the moment is a powerful tool, but itâs easier for some emotions than others.
Anger, like in the example above, is pretty straightforward. Exclamation mark, swear words, all capsâthese are pretty easy to work in and for the reader to pick up on. Other emotions and tones arenât so obvious, but there are a number of techniques that can help.
The best place to see all the different approaches is to read plays and screenplays. These are very dialogue intensive media with a specific culture of putting the bare minimum of descriptors when it comes to what is being said.
Reading the scripts of plays and movies that you like or that are of the same genre that you write can be very illuminating, but itâs also very time consuming. You canât just read them like you would a normal story, even though you may find yourself doing just that. You have to stop yourself from being swept alongâwhich can be quite difficult since thatâs exactly what itâs designed to doâand go over the same section repeatedly until you see exactly whatâs being transmitted and how.
This is quite tedious and not for everyone, but if itâs something you find interesting, as I do, then it will prove to be very revealing. In the meantime, here are some things Iâve picked up.
Itâs helps if we see the thing that causes an emotion. For example, if a mother is irritated by a child focused on their iPhone when sheâs trying to tell him something, then thatâs a lot easier to convey than the same woman still in a bad mood because of that child a chapter later when sheâs at the shops.
Having the trigger in the same scene means you can establish the cause of the emotion, assuming you can clearly set up the situation (who doesnât find being ignored by someone glued to their phone irritating?), and the reader will simply transfer their feelings onto the characters.
Using specific verbs that suggest a particular mind set also helps. If she takes the phone from him, it tells you a lot more if she snatches it or rips it from his hands.
This is particularly useful when you have a set of short question and answer type dialogue where you donât want to break it up with descriptions of peopleâs raised eyebrows and tightened jaws.
Once the phone is grabbed, the tone of the conversation between mother and child is clearly defined and doesnât need to be restated after every line.
One strong action, whether a pat on the back or a surreptitious look in someoneâs shopping bag, can establish the tone for any length of interaction.
Another method to control the tone is to use tempo. If a character is asked a question and then gives a long answer, that has a different effect to a character who is asked a question, gives a partial answer, has to be prompted for more, and so on.
Who talks more, who interrupts, who holds back, these things give an indication of a characterâs state of mind and attitude without having to say Dave paused and looked out of the window to tell the reader whatâs going on if you vary the tempo and line length.
Melodrama makes people think of bad soap operas. In fact, melodrama is about emphasising the emotional aspect of a story, but when you do that you can very easily tip over into hysterical characters who overreact to every little thing.
Itâs a bit like overacting in a movie; a big performance can be enthralling if done right, and ridiculous if pushed too far. Melodramatic stories suffer a similar problem, although, like bad acting, they can still be entertaining when preposterous.
However, emotions are important in all stories. You want the reader to feel connected to the character and to empathise with their plight. And there are a number of techniques used in melodrama that can be applied (in moderation) to your story and help those feels reach your readers.
In melodrama the intent is to get characters to an extreme. While a sad character might be mildly upsetting, a character bawling their eyes out can make the audience feel distressed.
There are two basic ways to bring a character to this kind of emotional place. Either an event occurs that causes them to react, or you make them very sensitive so that they go off the deep end at the drop of a hat.
Making them overly sensitive is the easier of the two, and also one of the tropes of bad melodrama. You donât have to come up with an involving narrative if your character is ready to die for the man she just met in the supermarket five seconds ago. Love can just strike you down sometimes, right? Cheap as this method might seem, that doesnât mean it isnât effective. Once you get the reader past the initial suddenness of the emotion itâs pretty much accepted as part of the story. Quick and big can pull the reader in, and from there theyâre yours to lose.
The other approach, to have a dramatic, even sensational, event occur that causes the character to react emotionally may seem the more respectable route, but it also has its drawbacks.
If a nurse discovers she has cancer, that her husband is cheating on her and then the hospital catches fire, you can see that all of those events would be very emotional for her, but having them all happen at the same time would start seeming a little contrived.
If you have too many disasters occur in too short a time to the same set of characters it becomes ridiculous. The nature of fiction, though, is to have events escalate in a story, so if you start off in a heightened state youâre going to end up somewhere insane.
You can avoid some of this by making events connected and also by putting characters in an active role rather than just reacting to things happening to them. So, for example, if the nurseâs husband is cheating because her cancer makes her feel terrible and not in the mood for physical intimacy, and sheâs the one that causes the fire in the hospital because she starts smoking (she already has cancer so who cares?) then the focus is more on her and not so much on the unlikely set of events.
It also makes a big difference how well you know someone. If a close friend breaks down in tears you want to comfort them and help them. If a stranger breaks down you feel uncomfortable and unsure what to say or do. Itâs much the same for fiction.
The advantage of soap operas is that the audience spends a lot of time with the characters so they feel like they know them, and consequently respond like they would to a friend. With books, you donât have the same kind of relationship unless youâre writing a long-running series (which is why Book 6 of a series can get away with far more outrageous stuff then Book 1). If youâre going to put a character through the wringer, it usually helps to give readers a chance to get to know them. You can do this by having them do interesting but not too emotionally draining stuff early on.
The desire of a character can also make a big difference in how they are perceived. A woman who loses a child to a miscarriage is a terrible thing, but if she was really desperate to be a mother than the loss is felt that much more keenly. This principle applies in most cases. If you can establish the depth of feeling within a character before something happens to trigger those feelings, it will be more likely to trigger similar sympathetic feelings in the reader.
The other aspect of melodrama that gives it a bad reputation is the voyeuristic. Itâs important to show a characterâs emotional reaction, after all this is what we have been building up to, but lingering on it too long can start to feel unseemly.
Knowing how much to show and for how long is a matter of personal preference, but once you realise the longer you milk it the more successful a connection you can make with the audience, it becomes very tempting to keep going for as long as possible.
Melodrama has a tendency to wallow in it to the point of drowning, but despite those people who look down on this sort of thing as exploitative and cheesy you should bear in mind that there is a huge audience for it, so it clearly works (for some).
Thatâs not to say I think writers should make all their characters run around in hysterics all the time, but at the same time being too restrained and controlled can make things a little bland and sterile.
When writing a story you may find that the good guy has access to a limited range of emotions compared to the bad guy.
Basic emotions (happy, sad, angry, etc.) are easy enough to evoke, but more complex or darker feelings tend to be more difficult to justify.
For example, if the heroâs best friend wins the lottery, a good guy would react how? If heâs a decent human being, probably by being pleased for his friend.
If a friend of the villainâusually a not so wholesome individualâwins the lottery, then the response can be more varied. Pleased (because he plans to âshareâ in the wealth), jealousy, resentment, maybe even plans to steal the money. These darker thoughts are often more interesting and offer more ideas for where to take a story.
While making your main character evil but still likeable is a very hard thing to achieve, that doesn't mean you canât give them (and the reader) the chance to experience the darker side of their personality.
The main character in a story has to appeal to the reader. Theyâre going to be stuck with them for quite a long time so making the despicable probably isnât going to do you any favours.
But we all do questionable things and show poor judgement at times. Part of being human is making mistakes, often hurting others in the process. Exploring that side of person is a big part of fiction, and if handled well can be very satisfying.
The truth is though that readers often respond better to characters who do nothing bad, are never in the wrong and behave honourably. They might find themselves in trouble or accused of wrongdoing, but through no fault of their own.
Itâs part of human nature to consider oneâs own feelings of being unfairly treated as entirely justified, while other peopleâs are childish and petty. And in fiction we can easily relate to people who are suffering in similar unfair fashion.
Should you, however, wish to delve into the dark side of your characters a little more there are ways of keeping them likeable. These techniques can, like any, be abused. Used to their extreme they can even allow characters to do horrible things while seemingly still being on the side of good, but if used sparingly they can allow you to add depth to both your characters and your stories.
First and foremost it helps to make characters aware of their own shortcomings. That doesnât mean they get to avoid them, but when they do behave less than perfectly, simply acknowledging that what they did wasnât all that great can make them more human.
So, for example, if our hero whose friend wins the lottery feels envious and pissed off that heâs sitting in his studio apartment eating noodles (again) while his buddy is out having the time of his life, then addressing this emotion, maybe by talking to someone about it, makes him less of a bad friend and more of a regular human being struggling with feelings we all struggle with.
In effect he becomes two people, both a bad guy and a good guy, in the same person. The conflict between these two creates tension and drama, and it gives the reader someone to root for.
In addition to this, it also helps to raise the stakes to help justify those feelings. If our hero needed money badly, but it was his friend who got the windfall, you can understand his disappointment. Taken to itâs extreme, though, this can also allow you to take a character into very murky waters.
If a terrorist has planted a bomb that will kill thousands, is it okay to torture him? And to feel no remorse while doing so? This is a common trope in thrillers where itâs almost seen as the duty of a character to act inhumanely if the stakes are high enough, even to revel in it.
And readers will more often than not buy into this logic because a writer has the advantage of getting to show the methods used actually workingâthe disaster is averted, the kidnap victim is foundâand out leave out any of the collateral damage.
At this point I'd like to take a moment's silence for the all those construction workers and janitorial staff who died on the Death Star and Death Star 2. Never forget.
Another method is relativism. If the hero is surrounded by people who are much worse than him, then his behaviour can seem quite honourable.
A bank robber who plans to steal a  lot of money may not seem the likeliest of heroes, but if he is in a gang of vicious thugs and he tries to prevent them from hurting people then he becomes more likeable by comparison.
This is, of course, a very dubious line of thinking. If a man is a professional thief chances are he isnât all that pleasant, but in fiction you can present characters in a flattering light even when theyâre doing terrible things.
In cases like this it also helps to give them a good reason to behave badly. If the money is for grandmaâs operation, the bank thief is seen as someone doing what heâs got to do, rather than just a greedy a-hole who can't hold down a job.
Again, it also helps if he is aware that heâs doing something bad and regrets it. You often see this through the âone last jobâ trope. The more reluctant he is, the less we blame him for breaking multiple laws and biblical commandments.
You can also have a character have a change of heart. If someone who does bad things decides to change his ways and even uses his nefarious skills against his own kind, that is seen as a respectable pursuit.
The classic example of this is the hitman who refuses to follow orders and kill his target (usually a child or a woman) and then goes on the run, killing those trying to kill him and his new best friend. Heâs still a psychotic murderer, but now heâs using his talent for shooting people in the face for good. Hooray!
But the dynamic works for less extreme scenarios. A character who decides to fix whatever problems they caused (even by questionable methods) can be quite appealing, especially if they have to become an outcast to do so.
Most characters have a professionâdoctor, cop, assistant in a cupcake storeâand in the course of doing their job they will slip into work mode. They will talk and act in the way you expect someone in that position to talk and act. The problem is that this can make them come across as stereotypical.
This is especially true for secondary characters who might not appear often other than to perform a job related task, but it can also be true for main characters where every time they have to do their job they start acting in a very specific mannerâa politician uses a lot of meaningless double-speak, a doctor uses a lot of medical jargon, a cop becomes focused on factual questions and answers.
This makes it clear what they do for a living but little else.
What a character says and how they say it not only tells the reader what kind of a person theyâre reading about, but also helps to set mood and tone for a scene. Thereâs a lot you can do through dialogue beyond asking and answering questions and imparting information.
If a character acts one way when in work mode, and then they behave another way once theyâre off stage, it can make them seem like two separate people. Like a story about an actor and the role heâs playing, but in a story you want the reader to be able to connect fully with the character as a whole.
While a good professional should be able to divorce their feelings from the job they do, it doesnât make for very good storytelling, nor does it add any depth to the portrayal of the character. In fact it can end up doing the opposite.
Often it isnât obvious because thereâs only one character of that sort in the scene. So one politician acting like a politician might seem reasonable.
âIf elected, I promise I will do everything in my power to get that bridge built.â
Sounds like the sort of thing a politician would say. But if you imagine another politician in the same room, would they be two distinct personalities? Even if they held diametrically opposite views.
âIf elected, I promise I will do everything in my power to stop that bridge being built.â
Despite the content of what theyâre saying being different, the structure is the same. Both are making statement that sound like promises but are in face totally non-committal, which certainly tells you they are both politicians but not who they are beyond that.
Once they come off stage itâs a lot easier to have them express themselves as individuals, but itâs a wasted opportunity not to use all appearances to give a character depth.
The problem is that all politicians do tend to sound the same. Theyâre all trained in the same techniques to do the job effectively. The same with cops and teachers and librarians. This is doubly true if the only function of the character in your story is to come in, perform their job, and then leave. How can you avoid making them stereotypical when they only appear for a paragraph or two?
Using the technique of imagining if there was someone else of the same profession in the scene is a good place to start. Would it be easy to differentiate between them? This wonât fix the issue, but is a good way to spot the problem.
Also consider what happened to the character in the previous scene. A politician whoâs just been told thereâs been a death threat made against him will act differently to one whoâs been told heâs ahead in the polls.
Having a character simply at work so the reader can see what they do has very little value, even if their job happens to be quite exciting.
If you want to establish a characterâs job in an authentic manner, how many words do you need to do that? Is a politician who gives a long speech full of empty promises going to be more convincing than one who makes one campaign promise he obviously has no intention of keeping?
The more isolated a scene is from the rest of the narrative the easier it is to let the character switch to work mode, so making sure the character is in touch with previous events, mentally and emotionally, helps a lot.
For minor characters, consider what they were doing prior to their appearance, even if we never see it. You donât have to give them a detailed backstory, but any residual emotion will help add nuance.
Having one character interrupt another is a good way of shifting the dialogue from formulaic to dramatic. If a cop is asking a witness questions in a standard cop-like manner, and the witness wants to know where he got that pen because she had one just like it which went missing and is he sure thatâs not her pen, then that can throw the cop off his even keel. Characters act in a particular way because they are prepared. If you can throw things at them that they arenât prepared for they will have to go off script. Using another character to provoke a response is one way, but any sort of unusual activity in a standard scene will give the characters a chance to act like themselves rather than the job.
Even though itâs important to have a character behave in a way befitting his job and status, itâs far more important to engage with the reader and have them connect with the character on a deeper level. The best way to do that is not to focus on what makes them a typical member of a community, but to find the traits that are unique to them and typify their personality, and then find ways to draw it out of them.
Making sure readers actually care what happens to your main character is integral to any story. You canât just take it for granted that just because your story hasstuff happen to a guy that the reader will automatically be interested.
If your story happens to be about a noble main character who has exciting adventures this is less of a worry since this is the basic story archetype from fairy tales and myths, but not all stories follow this template.
While the simplest way to endear your MC to the reader is to demonstrate their general decency, whatâs sometimes referred to as a pat the dog or save the cat momentâthe MC goes out of their way to be helpful to some innocent in trouble and their good guy credentials are confirmedânot all main characters are straight out of a Disney family movie.
Fortunately there are a number of other ways to boost your heroâs general appeal.
The Superhero
Some characters are just good at everything. They have exactly the right set of skills for the problems they face and are able to overcome obstacles with ease.
The most common way to counteract any resentment of a know-it-all clever clogs is to make the stakes incredibly high. James Bond is saving the world, he needs to be expert at everything.
You can also use details. If our hero takes down twelve ninjas single-handed, how did he do it? The more unexpected his moves, the less focus on his ridiculous abilities. So grabbing an iron poker from the fireplace is perfectly plausible; using a pencil from his kidâs schoolbag is more interesting.
Unnecessary but cool details can also add something, like Indiana Jones taking an extra risk to grab his hat. Our hero using a pencil sharpener before stabbing his attacker is unlikely but more entertaining.
The Downtrodden
In many cases a hero will start out in difficult circumstances. No money, horrible family, never lucky. Itâs more than likely someone with this kind of background would be angry, bitter and self-pitying. Realistic as it may be, these kinds of emotions donât translate well.
They are far more engrossing for the person feeling them than the ones hearing about them and it would be a mistake to think itâs okay because later on things turn around. Readers who get irritated by a character now donât generally hang around to see if the misery continues or not.
You can get round this by making the character upbeat rather than defeated. Cinderella, Harry Potter, Charlie (of Chocolate Factory fame) all had plenty to be mad about, but handled their troubles with good grace, and then took their opportunities when they could.
The Lovely and the Beautiful
The pretty girl who gets all the boys is not going to impress much if your target audience is mostly female. Even if sheâs really nice and helps old people across the street, sheâs already won the lottery, now she wants to be the centre of attention too?
There are two popular ways to approach this. Either sheâs in a world of other gorgeous people who are horrible to her because of something thatâs not her fault (e.g. sheâs poor and theyâre all blinged up), which makes her more likeable by default.
Or, alternatively, she (somehow) gets all the advantages of being super-hot while only being slightly above average in the looks department. Simply downgrading her attractiveness not only doesnât stop the two hottest guys in town fighting over her, it actually fits very well into most womenâs insecurities about their own looks.
Both of the above approaches are horribly overused and yet perfectly viable. There is an appetite for stories about moderately attractive women who find love with hot and/or rich guys, and for stories about hot girls who are treated unfairly by even hotter girls.
Another approach, though, is to give the girl something she cares about more than finding Mr Right. So prosecuting a murderer, finding a lost artefact, solving the Middle East crisisâanything that isnât based on her looks will help.
She can still have relationship issues, but if thatâs her priority her physical appearance will have more influence than you might want.
The Blowhard
Characters who have lots of opinions and observations about lifeâusually a way for the writer to express their own insightsâcan become overbearing and preachy, even when itâs meant to be humorous.
The obvious way to prevent this is to have a lot going on in the characterâs life. If theyâre busy doing stuff, then their views can add to the story, providing voice, tone, mood, etc. Balance is important though.
Something else you can do to make it feel integral to the story, rather than tacked on, is to have the story directly challenge the characterâs viewpoint. This requires the character to have a somewhat focused set of ideas (i.e. they're obsessed with one thing in particular).
So, a character who thinks women are just interested in guys with money meets a woman who makes him rethink his beliefs. Or a guy who believes aliens control the government finds himself embroiled in a plot to stop a galactic war.
The sooner you can establish his worldview, the sooner you can make life dismantle them, which is when the fun starts.
The Scaredy Cat
Some characters are defined by a fear they have. This fear will play a major role in the story ahead, but at the start of the story it can just be about showing the fear an d they're inability to overcome it.
Establishing this fear is necessary, but if you show this through inaction (theyâre so scared they canât act) it isnât particularly interesting an d the character can come across as weak and feeble.
For example, if our main character is deathly scared of heights and later in the story she has to climb up a cliff face to save her child, then earlier in the story you might have a scene where the same character has to climb a ladder to get a toy stuck in a tree and just canât do it.
By showing how extreme her fear is, her eventual overcoming it to save her daughter becomes that much more tense and engaging.
But a woman stuck on the first rung of a ladder unable to move isnât the most dynamic of scenes.
Rather than have a character paralysed by an irrational fear, you can actually have them show a little bravery in that first scene and for it to go horribly wrong. This failure will not only reinforce their fear, making it even harder for them to accomplish their eventual goal, but it also gives the reader pause for thought when they realise the fear isnât quite so irrational.
You like someone more if they at least try, and you have more concern for them when the fear is real and theyâve already failed once, especially if it cost them something.
Weeding out familiar phrases isnât too difficult. Getting rid of overused scenes and premises is not so easy.
Certain types of scenes occur so often because readers want themâin some cases even expect them. They want the guy and the gal to end up together; they want the evil plot to be foiled. And different genres have tropes that readers enjoy seeing again and again. But while commercially there may be an acceptance of the same old story, artistically it can feel less satisfactory for writers and more discerning readers.
So how do you write scenes that readers are eagerly anticipating without simply producing an imitation of every other book already out there?
You can, of course, come up with a new twist on an old idea. Most likely, anything thatâs get you excited enough to put pen to paper will have an element of this. But a book is a long thing, and you will be hard pressed to come up with a completely new take on every scene. In fact, itâs probably not advisable even if you wanted to. Most readers want some degree of the familiar and relatable, not something so different that it feels surreal or experimental.
What you can do to lift these kinds of scenes is to give your character a little self-awareness.
If a guy in a leather jacket carrying a shotgun kicked your door down and said, âCome with me if you want to live,â it might occur to you that what was happening was like something out of a movie. And that awareness might make you not react the way a character in a story would. In fact, running away from this nutjob might  be your best option.
You might not go alone into the attic to check out that sound of someone sharpening a knife. You might not ask the genie for a million bucks. You might even ask a direct question of a person acting suspiciously to avoid any misunderstandings.
Most characters in fiction act like theyâve never read a book or seen a movie. They take things at face value, go along with whatever other people want, and are taken by surprise when the obvious happens.
Wait, you mean the kidnappers never planned to keep their end of the deal? How could they be so dishonest?
The thing is, though, characters canât directly reference their predicament. Your female lead canât make the observation that having the two hunkiest guys in school fight over her is like something out of a YA novel if, in fact, she is in a YA novel. It draws too much attention to itself and you want the reader to focus on the content not the medium. Itâs not impossible to write that kind of meta-fiction, but it will feel jokey.
For example, if our YA leadâs reaction to having Jim and Jon vie for her affections is to say, âGreat, you can do my book report for me and you can pick up my dadâs dry cleaning. Thanks.â Letâs see how deep their love is now.
If sheâs aware of where being timid and flattered by a little attention can lead you, sheâll be less likely to blindly go that way.
Knowing that something to good to be true probably is, that people have agendas they arenât telling you about, that doing what other people want you to do is a schmuckâs game, can give a character a healthy dose of original thinking.
Even if the writer knows the guy promising the world is going to deliver, that doesnât mean the character does. And knowing that even handsome millionaires can turn out to be douche bags is something we should all be aware of.
Small talk isboring. Characters who waffle on about the weather and the dream they had last night and their favourite toy when they were a kid donât hold a readerâs attention for very long.
At the same time, characters who enter a scene, get what they want, and leave can make the story feel rushed and sterile.
There are, of course, plenty of books that use the more rushed approach and it can work very well. It makes it much easier to keep the reader hooked and turning pages. Many bestsellers use this approach, although they donât win many literary awards.
But weâve all read books that had long passages of seemingly random observations and conversations that not only didnât read as boring, but actually added to the story. You felt a stronger connection to the character because of the glimpse into their personality. So how did they manage it when your attempts feel like meandering asides and unnecessary tangents?Â
Even though the most common advice is to not distract the reader with irrelevant informationâif it can be cut, it should be cutâif you follow this to an extreme you can end up with something a little soulless.
In most cases you want to give your characters a little space and time to be people.
The simplest way to do this is to write interesting stuff. If two people are having a chat about nothing in particular, but it happens to be an interesting conversation, it will hold a readerâs attention. For a bit.
Making it funny is also a good way to prevent the reader getting impatient. If they're enjoying the conversation, even if it isn't pushing the story forward (I know, heresy), readers will happily stick with it. But not everyone is a comedian, so this tends to be easier for some than others.
However, there are also a number of other ways to allow characters to express themselves without derailing the narrative or boring the reader.
The first thing to bear in mind is that context changes the value of what people are saying. So two people having a chat over coffee will be viewed very differently if there's a ticking time bomb under the table.
Even though the two conversations (avec bomb/sans bomb) might be equally trivial, knowing thereâs going to be an explosion in 30 seconds will completely transform how interested you are in whatâs being said.
This requires the reader to know about the bomb. If you only find out there was a bomb when it blows up, the two conversations will be the same (dull).
This is an extreme example, you donât have to have a life threatening set up to make things interesting, just a pressure to find the answer to a question, in this case will they find out about the bomb before it goes off.
Itâs wanting to know the answer that provides the tension, which in turn allows you to delay the reveal with conversation.
If our hero tracks down his biological mother because he wants to find out why she gave him up for adoption, their meeting, although polite and casual, will have an undercurrent of tension as he gets closer to revealing his true reason for wanting to talk to her.
A skilled writer will make this preamble not entirely random. A guy with an agenda can use chit-chat to get information while a writer with an agenda can use chit-chat to establish a mood or a state of mind.
The important thing to remember is that while the reader is waiting for an answer to the question posed by a scene, you have a window where the readerâs attention is fixed.
Of course, you need to make sure the reader actually wants to know the answer.
A character who visits their auntie in the hope of getting hold of her recipe for apple pie isnât going to appeal to a lot of people. But if sheâs planning on stealing the recipe to use in a TV cookery show where the prize is a hundred grand, then the scene takes on an extra frisson.
And itâs not just the raising of the stakes that makes it more interesting, itâs the increased specificity. The more specific the question, the greater the tension, which in turn leads to greater room for manoeuvre for the writer.
So even for the guy confronting his birth mother, an already tense and emotional situation, if heâs discovered that she gave him up when she was married, well off, and already had one kid, that makes his need for an answer all the more interesting for the reader.
As long as the characterâs/readerâs need to know is strong enough, what they talk about in the window before they get their answer has a much higher level of engagement for a reader than it would normally have.
This can even be used as a tool to draw the reader further in.
If a cop goes in to a room to interrogate the only guy who knows where the kidnapped heiress is being held, and he starts off talking about the new bathroom heâs having fitted and whether to go with the salmon or the teal, then the readerâs first reaction will be that he must have a reason for going off on this tangent. And wanting to know where heâs going with this approach can be as strong as wanting to know where the heiress is.
Of course, this means he will actually have to have a reason for taking the scenic route that you will have to reveal. If he talks about his decorating options for ten minutes and then beats the crap out of the suspect until he talks, that wonât make much sense. Eventually you get to a point where getting the answer to a question is so imperative that any deviating from that purpose seems unlikely.
But consider if he was talking about the colour of his new bathroom while he was beating the suspect. Psychotic, but not boring.
This is another way to use context to change the value of what a person is saying. A woman telling you how happy she is in her marriage isnât very interesting. How about a woman telling you the same thing while sheâs crying?
When somebodyâs actions are at odds with what theyâre saying, it immediately provides a question in the readerâs mind. Small talk doesnât always have to be truth or irrelevance, it can be lies, and lies are very interesting, especially when you know the person is lying but not why.
Things most of your audience will never experience
The small details that help make large emotions
The biology and culture of aliens and magical creatures (though this might just be my personal taste, I have seen it asked about extensively in every author Q and A involving an author that writes about aliens or fantasy creatures.)
The tiny gestures that make relationships what they are. This is not limited to romantic relationships
Events that you want your readers to perceive as taking a long time
DO NOT ADD MORE DESCRIPTION TO:
The setting (unless you forgot to put a decent one there in the first place. Most authors err in the direction of too much description, though, so itâs better to not add words if you donât have to.)
The exact nuances of every characterâs eyeballs
Concepts that most readers will already know about. Thereâs no reason to describe what a plague is or how to play Scrabble
Drawn-out negative emotions. Though realistic, they can be tiresome to read about
Things that happen within seconds of each other â the extra words feel like extra time
No new post this week as I've been struck down by a mystery illness (or possibly just a cold). In the meantime here's one from the archives.
Story is about character. Thereâs what happens to the character, and thereâs what the character does (not necessarily in that order).
Of these two key elements, what the character DOES is far more important than what is DONE TO the character.
Readers want to engage with a character who makes decisions and choices and takes action.
If itâs all about what happens TO the character, then chances are itâs going to turn out to be a boring story.
When that characterâs role is strongly defined, for examples if theyâre a police officer or a treasure hunter, their job allows you to make them proactive fairly easily. Their goal is clear from the outset and they take steps to get the job done. Solve the murder, find the lost diamond.
When the character is a normal person and someone or something comes into their life and forces them to cope, the time it takes for the character to work out whatâs going on and then what to do about it can drag on.
Examples of this type of story would be when a character finds out they are actually a supernatural being and never knew it and now have to integrate with a new society. Or they meet a good-looking stranger who they are attracted to but donât know what to do about it, especially since theyâre getting married tomorrow.
Those first few chapters where the character isnât sure whatâs going on, where they are dealing with something new and unusual that they werenât prepared for, are hard to write with any verve or focus.
The character seems to be confused or unsure of themselves. They donât know what they want. Everyone else seems to be making the decisions and our hero only ever reacts to events outside of their control.
While it is easy to convince yourself this is part of the story, that it is the only way to make the story feel realistic and that things will get going once you establish this new world your character has found themselves in, that is no use to the reader. Because a passive, reactive character is boring to read about. And dull is dull, whatever the reason.
That doesnât mean you have to turn your character into a super-spy ready for action whatever the eventuality. But you do have to bear in mind that a character with no agenda or desire of their own is not going to be very entertaining to read about. And the way around this in a story where the character is out of their element and needs time to work out what they want to do about it, is to remember the character has a life outside of the specific events of your story.
Too often, aspiring writers create a world where the MC is focused so strongly on the new revelation that they completely forget about everything else. They seem to have no job, no family, no friends, or those aspects of their life are treated in a functional, uninteresting way. When time passes it seems like they havenât done anything other than wait for the next scene to happen.
That sense of waiting is like waiting in line at the post office. Nobody enjoys doing that. And bear in mind, as the writer as least you know what the wait is for, the reader doesnât.
Take into consideration what the character would be doing if they hadnât found out they were really descended from a mermaid, or if the new boss hadnât turned out to be gorgeous. Would they be sitting at their desk twiddling their thumbs? Because if they would, then why would anyone want to read a story about them?
Itâs up to you to make the wait in line interesting and amusing. Giving them an agenda that has nothing to do with the storyline, one that may well be abandoned as the plot takes over, is important because it adds depth to the character, and also gives you a solid base to draw from and go back to while other elements have yet to reveal themselves. And if you play your cards right, you may even find that agenda finds its way into the main storyline.
Every time someone else makes a decision or withholds information from your MC and leaves them standing still watching from the sidelines, ask yourself what your character would be doing if none of this had happened? Donât just settle for the first, non-dramatic thing that pops into your head, make it worth writing about, and then use it to add depth to the main plot.
Orson Welles once told an interviewer that he considered the greatest screen actor of all time to be Jimmy Cagney. The reason he gave for this was that Cagney always played at the top of his range but was never fake or over-the-top.
The effect of this full-on style of acting was magnetic. When somebody is pouring their all into what theyâre doing, you canât help but watch. Most actors can do this when the script requires. Cagney could do it all the time. Love scene, death scene, action scene.
It doesnât matter how big you go if you can make it feel real. And because the audience believes the actor cares, they care.
When it comes to writing fiction you can use a similar approach to keep the reader engaged with whatâs happening in the story.
The most obvious way to make a character care is to have high stakes. Bomb going to go off, kid going to get killed, love of your life about to marry the wrong personâat these moments itâs easy to create a feeling of urgency. But there will be parts of your story where the situation wonât automatically pump adrenalin into the narrative.
Every story has highs and lows, but that doesnât mean exciting and boring. Even the quiet moments need to be worth reading, and have some value other than getting you from one good bit to the next.
Whatever a character is doing it should feel important to them.
And itâs not enough that you, the writer, know how important it is, the reader has to know too. With a movie this is a lot easier, the audience can see by an actorâs face how invested he is, even the bad ones. For every Jimmy Cagney thereâs a Nic Cage.
This becomes a problem when the character doesnât know whatâs going on until after itâs happened. For example, letâs say our hero is going about his business, drops in on his girlfriend and finds her gone, a note telling him sheâs off to Paris, adieu.
In that moment he realises sheâs the one for him and rushes off to the airport to try and stop her.
The issue here isnât his reaction to discovering sheâs gone and how he reacts, all that is pretty much standard romcom stuff and works even though itâs been used a gajillion times before. The issue is the lead up to that point and how to make it more than just padding.
Consider if in the previous scene our hero learns something about his girlfriend that makes him realises sheâs the one. He goes to her apartment intending to propose and finds heâs too late.
The discovery of her gone is the same, but he already knows how he feels about her. This may not seem like a big difference, but it is.
If you have expectations that are not met, you feel disappointed. The bigger your expectations, the bigger the disappointment.
Even though this is fairly obvious, itâs still important to keep it in mind. How I feel if I go to a top restaurant to find they donât have my reservation wonât be the same as how I feel if Iâm really looking forward to going to a top restaurant I booked six months in advance for my wedding anniversary and am turned away.
Emotions feed off each other and become more powerful.
Let me give you a scenario based on the romcom example from earlier. Journalist is outraged his Pulitzer-worthy story isnât being run. He storms into the editorâs office to quit. The editor reveals the real reason why the story was quashed, and how the journalistâs girlfriend intervened to stop him getting fired at great cost to herself. Our hero realises how much he owes his girlfriend and what an amazing thing she did. He rushes over to find her, but sheâs already gone.
The word that might occur to you here is rollercoaster, but that isnât really whatâs happening. Rollercoasters go up and down, but this is all ups. All heightened emotions. Itâs just that they are all different emotions. Anger, surprise, epiphany, excitement, disappointment, desperation, hope.
This creates the illusion of a change of pace whereas a character whoâs just angry and driven can become tiring. Transitioning from one extreme to another in a series of short bursts is very hard to tear yourself away from. A lot of badly written but successful blockbusters use this method to keep the reader glued to the page. You know itâs rubbish but you canât stop reading.
Not that Iâm advocating you use this method to write terrible thrillers for the money, but if James Patterson does call offering you a job now you know what to do.
And bear in mind that even though a Nic Cage performance might be hammy and ridiculous it can still be entertaining.
Generally speaking showing is considered a better type of writing than telling, but there are times when neither feels quite right. Fortunately there are a couple of techniques that use neither approach.
Telling is something like âJohn felt sadâ and has the advantage of being short and quick, but it tends to lack emotional engagement. You know what the writer means, you understand the characterâs experience, but you donât necessarily feel it too.
Showing might be something like âJohn let out a barely audible sigh and a single tear rolled down his cheekâ which lets you see whatâs happening rather than being told. This, when done right (unlike my horrible example), enables the reader to feel more present and empathetic with the character, but it can take up a lot more space.
But what if you want to create an immediate and visceral effect for the reader without taking up too much room?
In some cases you can avoid this whole quandary by not going shorter but by going a lot longer. The example of showing I used above isnât actually showing in the true sense, itâs more description than action. Iâm showing you the physical manifestation of sadness, and that can elicit an emotional response from a reader in much the same way you might start tearing up when someone next to you starts crying, but for a truer emotional connection you need to show the actual cause of the sadness and let it affect both reader and character simultaneously.
This means you never actually mention sadness because the narrative creates the effect for you. If you spend time with a character, when they learn the child they put up for adoption died many years ago their reaction wonât need to be captured in a long description, youâll have a reaction of your own.
However, you wonât always want to write a whole scene to convey the way a character is feeling. If Dave wakes up and his throat feels very dry, you might not want to create a whole scenario leading up to that revelation. But you might still want the reader to be in a similar frame of mind as the character and getting them to share a sensation can help do that.
Simply stating, âDave woke up feeling incredibly thirstyâ will get the idea across but not the feeling.
A long-winded description of what it feels like to have lips stuck together and a prickly sensation every time you take a gulp isnât much better.
What helps in situations like this is not to show what the character is experiencing but to use a similar, more concise example. Similes and metaphors work well at quickly getting an idea across to a reader while containing a lot of extra information that doesnât need to be explicitly stated.
Itâs not easy, though. Philâs fist connected with the policemanâs jaw and he went down like a...
Hard not to think of a sack of potatoes. But finding the right visual is fun and can be very satisfying when two separate ideas come together to capture a feeling people instantly recognise.
Thatâs not so say you canât overdo it.
Dave woke with his lips cemented together by dry saliva. He staggered into the kitchen like a newborn foal and filled a glass with water. The first sip went down like a man falling off a cliff and hitting every crag and ledge on the way to the bottom.
It can feel a bit much. Better to simply tell the reader the basics and add one interesting detail rather than a series of odd images that end up distracting from the story rather than adding to it.
Understanding when to use which approach is key, but comes down to personal preference in a lot of cases.
Telling has no emotional component, but sometimes itâs enough to just say someone sneezed, you donât have to describe the trajectory of every piece of spittle.
Showing through description, like describing a smile or a raised eyebrow, has a limited capacity for creating emotional reactions in the reader, itâs more useful as a way to help the reader visualise the moment.
Showing through action is the best way to build an emotional rapport with the reader but takes time. And itâs highly dependent on how well the reader has bonded with the character. If the hero walks in on his wife in bed with another man at the start of the story, the effect on the reader will be a lot less than if the exact same scene happened later in the book when the reader is a lot more familiar with the character.
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