How Much Can You Put a Character Through?

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neil-plakcyToday the Kill Zone blog welcomes our guest, award-winning author Neil Plakcy. Neil is the author of Mahu, just re-released in trade paperback by Alyson Books, and its two sequels, Mahu Surfer and Mahu Fire, which won the Hawaii Five-O award for best police procedural, and is a finalist for the Lambda award for best gay men’s mystery. His fourth book, Mahu Vice, comes out August 2009. Neil is the Vice President of the Mystery Writers of America, Florida chapter.

A few years ago, as he was getting his breakout novel Mystic River ready for publication, Dennis Lehane spoke at the Miami Book Fair. He’d just published the fifth Patrick and Angie book, Prayers for Rain, and he said that he’d put them through so much that they had just stopped talking to him. He thought he’d give them a break and write something else.

That idea really resonated with me, and I started to think about all the other fictional detectives, and their families and friends, who’d been put through the wringer a few times. In Les Standiford’s Deal series, Deal’s wife Janice leaves him after she’s been kidnapped, nearly drowned, and who knows what else.

The king of putting a character through hell, as far as I’m concerned, is John Morgan Wilson. Poor Benjamin Justice has lost his job and his reputation, been raped, infected with HIV, and had his eye put out. Just thinking of all that stuff makes me shiver. My hero, Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka, is my alter ego, and I can’t imagine putting him through so much—it’d kill me, if it didn’t kill him!

Not to mention the complications you set for yourself, as a writer, when you make such a major change to a character. If you shoot your protagonist in book one, then the effects of that shooting are going to resonate for a while. Kill off a girlfriend or fiancée, as they used to do regularly in the James Bond movies, and your hero’s got to get a little shy of entering a new relationship. Zoe Sharp’s Second Shot begins with Charlie Fox getting shot—and the effects of that shooting resonate through not only that book, but Third Strike, the book that follows, as well.

mahu The same goes for the supporting players. Kimo’s best gal pal since high school, Terri, loses her husband in Mahu, the first book in my series. And then, in Mahu Surfer, the poor thing ends up in a firefight at her uncle’s house. In an early draft of the third book, Mahu Fire, I put her on the mountainside among the others Kimo needs to rescue.

Then I stepped back. How could I do that to her? And more important, would she ever talk to Kimo again after being traumatized in three books? I believe in recycling characters—but I knew that I couldn’t keep putting Terri in jeopardy, or she just wouldn’t remain a convincing character.

When I was in graduate school at FIU, our teachers, including Les Standiford and James W. Hall, reinforced to us that what happened in our books had to matter to our characters. It wasn’t enough for a detective to investigate a case; he had to have a personal stake. In Mahu, Kimo was fighting to restore his reputation at the Honolulu Police Department, and then in Mahu Surfer, he struggled to prove that he could be as good as any cop on the force, if given the chance. I added an extra bounce by bringing in an old nemesis and then putting his close friend at risk.

As I’ve written more books, it’s getting harder to find that personal connection for Kimo, without incurring what I think of as the Cabot Cove Syndrome. I used to wonder why anyone would associate with Jessica Fletcher, since her neighbors, friends and colleagues died so regularly. How much could Kimo’s friends and family take before they would get the hell away from him? And how to avoid the coincidence factor? Fortunately I write about an island, where there are lots of personal connections, where the cops either grew up with the crooks or are related to them, but it’s still important to maintain credibility.

In Mahu Fire, I brought back a sympathetic teenager from Mahu, who’d gone through some hard times, and made things even tougher for him. I teamed him up with a new character I hoped readers would care about. People care about kids, right? And then in Mahu Vice, which is coming out this August, I threw Kimo’s gay pal Gunter into danger, along with Kimo’s troublemaking brother-in-law.

But I try and remember, especially with these supporting characters, that they are civilians, not police officers, and then when they go through trauma, it’s going to take them a while to recover. Kimo’s a tougher guy; by the time we meet him in Mahu, he’s been a cop for nearly six years, three of those as a detective. He’s still got a soft heart, but his skin has been toughened by what he has seen and experienced on the street.

I’ve been shaking up his personal life, though, moving him in and out of romance, but to me that’s all part of his emotional growth and development. Getting dumped isn’t quite as life-threatening as getting shot at, but it’s still pretty painful.

For now, Kimo and his friends and family keep talking to me. Maybe some day, like Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro did with Dennis Lehane, he’ll stop. But for now I’ll keep on throwing him curve balls and seeing how he, and his loved ones, react.

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CALENDAR OF UPCOMING GUESTS

Mark your calendar for the following guest blogger at the Kill Zone:

Liz Jasper, March 29

THE SMELL OF CORDITE IN THE AIR OF INACCURACY

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By John Ramsey Miller

I have been guilty of having the smell, or swirling of, Cordite in the air after gun play. The other night watching TV I heard one of the techs on CSI (someplace or other) saying that she smelled Cordite in a room, which is more than unlikely since Cordite hasn’t been around since WWII. There is no Cordite whatsoever in modern ammunition. With modern ammo you can smell the pungent Nitroglycerin after firing. Modern powder is basically sawdust soaked in nitro coated with graphite. In very simple terms, the shape and coatings control the burn rates. Of course, you won’t get any smell when using air guns (for the best ones click to read the review here) but with real guns, there’s definitely a smell.

To smell Cordite you’d have to have people firing very old ammunition. According to a quick check under Cordite on Wikipedia: “The smell of Cordite is referenced erroneously in fiction to indicate the recent firing of weapons.” So from now on, unless I am writing a period piece, it will be “The pungent smell of nitroglycerin, sawdust, and graphite swirling in the air.” Or I’ll just say, “the smell of gunpowder.”

We’ve discussed accuracy in fiction here before, and maybe it’s worth a second go-round. There are more mistakes made about guns than most other subjects in modern fiction. Maybe that has to do with the fact that the majority of authors are not gun familiar, or comfortable with guns. When it comes to guns, I don’t know everything about them, but I do know enough to safely handle Airsoft Guns all of my adult life. I am hardly an expert on the subject, but I know several (Scotty Boggs, Jason Parr, and Gary Reeder) and never hesitate to ask them for technical advice.

Modern gunpowder is slow burning and non-explosive until it is put into a confined space to allow compression and a spark is introduced by a primer. If you put black powder into an ashtray and put a cigarette in there, your fingers will throb for a very long time and the blackening will be burned into the skin. It explodes without being compressed when a spark is introduced, or rather it burns so fast it seems to explode. John Gilstrap can write here about explosions as he is an expert in energetic materials. When I was in college I put a cigarette into an ashtray I’d poured black powder into.

Here I present a few basics, and probably as much information as an author really needs to know to keep gun owners from laughing out loud and maybe never reading that author’s books again. The two handguns depicted below are my own: the revolver is a Smith & Wesson K-22 Model 17 in .22, and the semi-automatic is a Colt 1911 Model 80 in .45 ACP.

REVOLVERS are guns with cylinders that turn (clockwise or counter-clockwise depending on the manufacturer, model, and date issued) to allow a new bullet to present itself before the firing pin in its turn before the barrel. They are also called “Wheel” guns, and may or may not have an exposed hammer. Some hammers are shrouded so the hammer won’t get caught on clothing. They will hold from five to nine rounds depending on caliber and model. Revolvers do not usually have safeties. Not being cocked and/or not having the trigger pulled back is the revolver’s sole safety method. Older guns may be fired if the hammer is struck by force and the firing pin hits the shell’s primer. That is why most cowboys carried the cylinder under the hammer empty. Modern revolvers have a block between the pin and the primer unless the trigger depressed when the hammer falls. There are two types of revolver: the DA, for double action and the SA, for single action. With an SA you have to cock the hammer to move the cylinder (think cowboy gun) or the DA, whose cylinder turns as you squeeze the trigger, or when you cock the hammer.

A SEMI-AUTOMATIC handgun has no cylinder, but is fed cartridges (bullets are the nose of a cartridge) from a magazine (housed in the handle), which holds the cartridges in a stack under pressure from the spring. As each bullet is fired, the receiver slides back from the pressure of the explosion and the extractor grabs the rim of the casing to pull it from the chamber, and flip it out to the right. (There are a few left-handed 1911s whose casings flip to the left). The receiver then moves forward under spring tension and, as it goes, it pushes the next cartridge in the magazine into the chamber and leaves the hammer (or striker assembly in the Glock) cocked for the next trigger pull.

All handguns have some safety mechanism. Some have magazine disconnects (won’t fire without at least an empty clip in place) or some firing pin block (to prevent firing when dropped) is usually incorporated. Most semi-automatics have one or more safeties, and some have none to speak of except a lack of trigger pull. A Colt 1911 (They come in several calibers including .45 ACP, .38 Super. 9MM, and .22 LR) has several including a thumb safety, a grip-strap safety, and on some a half-cock, and one that involves pushing back the receiver a fraction of an inch to prevent it from firing. The latter would be a last ditch to keep the gun from going off, and if you miscalculate and the gunman is lucky, the bullet will pass through your palm. When semi’s last bullet is fired and its case ejected, the receiver locks open to let the user know the weapon is out of ammunition. Slap in a mag, release the receiver, and there’s a new round in the chamber.

You will hear over and over that “Glocks do not have safeties.” But they do. Glocks do not have “external” safeties, but they have the two-part “safe-trigger” which actually is a safety. On a Glock the “Striker” (no internal hammer) is half cocked by the first 1/4″ of slide retraction while chambering a cartridge. The other “half-cocking” of the striker is the first stage take up of the trigger pull. On a Glock you get ONE SNAP, then you have to jack the slide resetting the half cock on the striker to have another snap. With some practice you can only pull the slide back just enough to reset the action without ejecting the “dud” round for another try. Interesting isn’t it? There may be exceptions to what I’ve written, but I think it is accurate enough to get a writer around in a shootout. And probably more than most of you want to know.

A cartridge is made up of four parts: Casing, Bullet, Primer, and Gunpowder. The bullet is the projectile that is seated in the casing, but the cartridge is never accurately called a bullet. A shotgun round is referred to as a shell. A shotgun shell (or round) that has been fired is often called a hull. A shotgun shell holds either pellets or a single slug.

A magazine can hold as many rounds as its length and width accommodates. Some mags hold bullets in a straight line and some are wider to allow staggered rounds. Low capacity factory magazines hold from six to eight rounds. You can keep one on the chamber to add an additional round to the gun’s capacity. Hi-capacity magazines hold more shells than a standard mag. I have had fifteen round mags, and some handgun magazines hold twenty or even thirty rounds. Some handgun drum magazines hold more …a lot more.

A magazine can be called a clip. In the military a rifle or machine gun has a Magazine, handguns can have clips. People rarely say clip any more but it was once common to call any magazine a clip. There are clips that hold .45 ACPs in a half moon for use in .45 LC revolvers, and to shoot 9MM rounds in a 38, but they are rare enough that an author shouldn’t need to concern themselves with those.

There’s lots more to know like available calibers, shotgun gauges, How a barrel length’s effects powder burn and velocity, range, knock-down values, recoil, and trajectory. There are enough bullet types and weights to fill several books. And every author who writes weapons should buy a copy of Gun Digest so they can read about and look at the weapons they write about. Write it off as reference material. Get the latest one you can find because they add new gun models yearly, but anything in the past ten years is plenty for most applications. Any bookseller has them and EBay has lots of them used. Here’s the link:
http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=m38&_nkw=Gun+Digest&_sacat=See-All-Categories

You can study guns for the rest of your life, but the truth is, authors don’t need to know very much to keep from writing someone shoving a clip into a revolver, playing Russian Roulette with a Glock, or just writing convincingly about what a character has in their hand, handbag, or holster, or how that gun works.

Been There, Been That

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By John Gilstrap
http://www.johngilstrap.com/

I’ll be honest: This is not the blog entry I’d intended to write, but given the posts over the last two days, inspiration struck while I wasn’t looking.

I think Ol’ Cap’n Sully is worth every dime of the $3.2 mill his agent was able to squeeze out of William Morrow. He’s worth twice that if that’s what Morrow was willing to pay. That’s how the game works. Agents pitch books, publishers make offers and authors accept or decline. I know for a fact that if Pinnacle, my current publisher, had offered ten thousand dollars more than they did for my next book, I would have accepted it. Ditto a hundred thousand or a million or even five million. I’d be out of my mind not to. I’d expect nothing less (more?) from someone as sharp as Sully.

I think Mark Combes had it right in his reply to Michelle’s post yesterday. Publishing is not a zero sum game. The fact that Sully got big bucks does not mean that someone else won’t. I heard on the news yesterday that Crown is paying $7 million for President Bush (43)’s book on his most important decisions. That’s $10.3 million in a single day from two different publishers. Will they earn out? I’m betting they come close, but I’m sure that from the authors’ perspectives it doesn’t matter.

I’m equally sure that as authors competing for shelf space in the same stores, it’s none of our business. I find the sniping about such things off-putting.

Fourteen years ago, I had the honor to be one of the seven-figure first-novel news items. After decades of writing for my desk drawer, I’d achieved my lifelong dream–in spades. I think I’ve written in this space before about the thrill I feel being in the company of writers, of calling myself a member of the club that I’ve always dreamed of joining.

Unfortunately, my newsmaking advance barred my immediate entry to the club because I was assumed by some of my “colleagues” at the time to be a talentless hack who happened to bamboozle gullible publishers (23 of them worldwide) out of money that they could never earn back. Because I hadn’t paid my dues, some of the authors I admired most wouldn’t even speak to me.

Most notably, I was in New York attending an event when a well-respected midlist mystery writer introduced me to one of the Great Names as “John Gilstrap, the guy who made X on his first novel.” The Great Name glanced at my outstretched hand and walked away.

Even though all of these authors understood how the game is played, their prejudice (jealousy is too loaded a word, and is too self-elevating) was focused on me—not on my agent and not on the publisher, but on me. I guess no one wants to burn bridges with agents or publishers. I have it on good authority that my advance in and of itself made NATHAN’S RUN dead on arrival as a possible nominee for a first-novel Edgar Award. (I’m not saying that I would have won, or even should have; only that I was told that the fix was in from the beginning.) That’s tough stuff.

As for there being no zero sum game, I think it’s interesting to note that one of the popular and woefully underpaid writers at the time—and one who always treated me very well, in fact took me under his wing—recently signed a reported $10 million book contract. Good for him.

Every year brings a new crop of newsmaking advances. Some of the recipients are celebrities, some of them are short-term headline darlings cashing in, and some of them are real authors beginning what they hope will be a long career. Each of these newly-anointed rich folks triggers a new round of behind-the-back sniping. I understand where it comes from, but I can’t bring myself to participate. Been there, been that.

What’s Wrong with Publishing

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sully So last Sunday morning as I was drinking my coffee and scanning the book review section of the Chronicle, I stumbled across this little nugget:

Chesley Sullenberger of Danville, the US Airways pilot who safely landed his jet in the Hudson River in January, has signed a $3.2 million deal with William Morrow for two books, reports thedailybeast.com. The first will be a memoir; the second a book of poetry.

I nearly spit out my coffee.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have as much respect and admiration for Captain “Sully” Sullenberger as everyone else. Safely landing a plane on the Hudson and sparing all lives? Amazing. If possible, I’d like to have him at the helm of every future flight I take.

But a 3.2 million dollar book deal?

I don’t fly planes, and have no aspirations to learn how to when I retire. Many good friends of mine have managed to spend their retirement in true luxury due to the efforts they put in with sites such as EquityRelease.co.uk to solidify their financial situation, and this may be something that I choose to do too. I think Sully has probably led a fascinating life, perhaps even one worth reading about. But let’s have a show of hands: do any of you think that William Morrow is going to be able to recoup this advance, especially considering the attention span of the average American?

Maybe. We do love heroes, and there’s a chance that if this book gets cranked out quickly and makes it to market by Christmas (which I’m guessing is their target release date), people will still consider springing for the $25 purchase price. But will enough do so to earn back that advance? Or will there be another hero on our radar by then whose story is equally compelling? (And I’m just going to throw this out there: unless there’s a whole bestselling sub-genre of airline poetry that I’m unaware of, I’m guessing they were planning on throwing 3.2 million at him for the memoir, and he asked for the poetry book as an add-on. I’m just saying.)

As the midlist slowly shrinks and more and more authors are being offered advances that amount to less than minimum wage for their efforts, discovering that the octuplets mom, or Joe the Plumber, just signed a seven-figure book deal is octupletsincredibly disheartening. I’m not saying that these people can’t write- who knows, maybe Nadya Suleman is the next Zadie Smith. But the implication is that anyone can write a book, that it requires less effort than other fields of expertise. When I meet a physicist at a cocktail party and they invariably announce that they’re planning on becoming a writer as soon as they retire, I smile and nod encouragingly, when what I actually want to say is that when I retire, I’ll be working on cold fusion. Of course many authors have a second job to support their writing career (hell, with what we get paid, we have to). And when I was a personal trainer, I drew plenty of raised eyebrows at the pronouncement that I was working on a novel. But then, no one ever offered to throw a huge advance at me in a crass attempt to cash in on my fifteen minutes of fame.

So when the publishing industry bemoans the fact that no one is buying books anymore, and that they need to lay off staff and cut expenses to keep themselves afloat, I’m increasingly unsympathetic. Perhaps they should take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask themselves if it’s really worth spending the bulk of their energy and finances chasing the public’s tail. Maybe it’s time they got back to supporting good books by people who have devoted their lives to the craft of writing them.

Now you’ll have to excuse me, I’m off to find something that will draw me praise or scorn in the public arena, hopefully enough to raise my profile. While I’m gone, take a stab at an airline poetry haiku. Here’s mine:

Stuck in the middle seat

No food, no water, on the tarmac

Oh my God someone farted.

Building a Writer’s Platform

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By Joe Moore

As the responsibility of marketing and promotion falls more and more on the shoulders of the author these days, one of the questions that agents and editors ask novelists is “What is your platform?” With the economy putting extra pressure on publishers, they expect writers to come to the game bringing a ready-made audience. They not only want but expect authors to already have established a fan base or at least a group of potential fans—and for new writers, this is BEFORE your book comes out. Even veteran, multi-book authors must have a solid, established platform. It’s part of the “new” business plan.

So what is a platform?

platform1 In a single word, your platform is your “brand”. Having a platform helps your relationship with your publisher, and it can assist you in selling more books.

So how do you establish or build your platform? The quickest way is to start with the Internet. Here are a couple of methods to begin nailing that platform together.

Website. There was a time when a website was only for the rich and famous. Those days are long gone. A writer without a website is about as logical as an author without a telephone. Outside of the bookstore, the author’s website is the “first impression” a potential reader gets of your brand. It’s truly a no-brainer. Your website is your billboard, your advertisement, your calling card. And the potential for delivering a creative message is only limited to your imagination. Essential elements on your website must include: a method for contacting you; a method for purchasing your book(s); a method for the press to gain information (digital press kit); an incentive to linger or return such as a contest or free sample chapters; a method to track your website traffic. Other considerations include continuity in your site colors and design that are in sync with your book covers or other branding elements, and a reasonable amount of interactivity such as a method of leaving comments or subscribing to newsletters and publication news.

Blogging. You obviously know about blogs or you won’t be visiting this one. A blog is an online method of expressing your thoughts with a means for visitors to leave a comment or opinion. As a writer, your blog will probably be about your writing, your books, or some other connection to your craft and career. Some authors like to venture away from their books and discuss other topics such as politics, religion, economics, etc. A word of warning: You’ve worked hard to establish and build your “brand”. Don’t blow it by pissing off your readers. At some point they just might reject your next thriller or mystery because they don’t agree with your position on unrelated issues. A blog can easily turn into a slippery slop.

Newsletter. As previously mentioned, your website needs a method for your visitors and fans to subscribe to a newsletter or news bulletin. If they’re a fan, they want to know about you and your books. When is your next book coming out? When are you going to do a signing in their area? Will you be at a particular writer’s conference? They want the news. And the best and most economical way to get them what they want is an electronic newsletter. There are numerous email-generating newsletter sources that you can use to put together a value-filled publication. A few suggestions are Constant Contact, MailChimp, and Vertical Response.

Write some stuff. Any writing credit is a good writing credit, and it helps build your platform. No matter what you write, whether it’s for the local paper or a national magazine, you’re byline will contain a mention that you are a novelist. So if the reader likes your article or how-to piece, and they see you also write thrillers or mysteries, that’s a potential plank in your platform.

Book forums. There are a ton of forums out there dealing with readers and writers. A good resource to begin finding them is groups.yahoo.com/. Others include WritersNet, Helium, Backspace, and Absolute Write. Make yourself known on these and similar forums and you’ll be adding to your brand and platform.

Social Networks. Sites like MySpace.com, LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com, Twitter.com and countless others are perfect for building your brand. The only potential risk is the time you might spend on these sites instead of writing your book. But they are a terrific source of finding your dedicated or new fans. A word of caution: see the note on blogging above.

Additional platform building tools include professional publicity photos of yourself and a strong press-ready biography. Also, memberships in writer organizations such as the International Thriller Writers or Mystery Writers of America help build your brand and platform among your colleagues and fans. The networking and connections made within these organizations and their subsequent writer conferences are invaluable.

How’s your platform coming? Any other suggestions on building a strong brand?

Thriller writing 101: Creating an atmosphere

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Every successful thriller begins with a distinctive atmosphere. The thriller writer must establish an atmosphere at the beginning of the story, to ground the reader in the story’s place and time.

Note: Atmosphere, while related to setting, is not the same thing as a setting! The atmosphere is what draws the reader in until he or she has time to engage with the characters and plot.

As an example of atmosphere, let’s say your story starts off at a hotel. Is the hotel located along the strip in Las Vegas, is it a no-tell motel along I-95 in South Carolina, or is it a beachfront motel in a party town in Southern California? Each locale would provide an opportunity for a completely different atmosphere. It’s your choice as the writer to create an atmosphere according to the needs of your story.

What works: Trilateration (I have no idea where I came up with this term; probably Star Trek)

One check list I use when creating atmosphere is the five senses. Of the five senses, writers tend to seriously overuse sight and hearing. We forget all about smell, taste, and touch. When creating atmosphere, it’s helpful to roam back through your paragraphs, weaving in references to the other senses. That’s what I call trilateration.

For what it’s worth, here’s a link to an ehow article about creating atmosphere.

What doesn’t work: Generic settings, laundry lists, overdescription

Introducing characters with description dumps is boring, and so is introducing settings with laundry lists of description. You need to bring the setting alive by infusing it with mood, in the same way that you inject your characters with life and attitude (For the how-to about that, see Robert Gregory Browne’s post about bringing characters to life).

So I’d love to know, how do you go about creating atmosphere in your thrillers? What techniques or tricks of the trade can you share with us today?


New Characters Wanted

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne
http://www.clareangleyhawthorne.com/

Jane Austen was a vampire…Pride & Prejudice meets Zombies or Predator…

What next – Charles Dickens as a serial killer? Charlotte Bronte as a transgender PI? I’ve had enough of people ripping off famous authors, famous characters and famous historical figures. Create your own bloody characters I say!

Inspired by yesterday’s blog post on creating powerful characters that jump off the page I simply had to vent today (yes, it’s my Monday rant!) about the use of what I call gimmicks rather than characters. I know that in today’s commercial environment, the publishing industry (just as the movie industry) wants name recognition but really…WTF???

In Australia we used to have a segment called ‘what cheeses me off’ – and here’s mine for today – a list if you will of character gimmicks that drive me nuts.

  1. The rehash of past literary detectives – enough with Sherlock Holmes already! The only one who has pulled this off (in my mind) is Laurie R King and she created her own terrific character in Mary Russell on top of pulling off the aged beekeeping Holmes with aplomb…but for everyone else – enough!

  2. The ‘other perspective’ gimmick – Does the world really need Mr Knightly’s diary? What next – Uriah Heep’s peeping tom memoirs? Confessions of a rake by Mr Willoughby?

  3. The never ending sequel – Once a classic is done, it’s done as far as I’m concerned – so I don’t need to read Mr. Darcy’s Daughters or Pemberley the sequel (the latter was particularly bizarre I felt, though I confess I did read it!). The only ‘sequel’ I appreciated was the two books written by Jill Paton Walsh based on Dorothy L. Sayers unfinished notes.

  4. Real life historical figures as sleuths….I’m just not buying the King/Queen who can sneak out of court and go sleuthing…

Now don’t get me wrong, some people have managed to pull off these things and more power to them if their book sells. Jasper Fforde has a hilarious series featuring Thursday Next that spoofs all sorts of literary figures (I particularly loved the therapy session for the cast of Wuthering Heights in which Healthcliff [now a porn star known as the Black Stallion] arrives and then the session is disturbed by a bomb thrown by the pro-Catherine faction) – but unless you can achieve that level of sublime satire, I say, leave well alone.

In this environment, however, everyone seems to want the easy fix – the ‘hook’ that will draw in the sales without having to do the hard work of creating new ‘jump off the page’ characters. Call me old fashioned but the classics of tomorrow are not going to be reheated leftovers from previous classics – or are they? I sometimes wonder and despair…

So what ‘cheeses’ you off when it comes to rehashed characters…any others to add to my list?

Creating Characters that Jump Off the Page

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Rob-Toughguy Today our guest blogger is Robert Gregory Browne, whose latest work WHISPER IN THE DARK received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and is currently available in stores everywhere…

Imagine, if you will, The Fugitive with Ace Ventura as the lead.

While much of the plot of this exciting movie could remain intact, the entire flavor of it would be radically different. Scenes would change, dialog would be altered… and, despite the plot similarities, chances are pretty good these two versions would wind up on completely different shelves in your local video store. Which isn’t all that surprising.

Because when we watch a movie or read a book it isn’t really plot that we invest ourselves in. It’s character. The characters set the tone, and our acceptance or rejection of those characters is essential to our acceptance or rejection of the story itself.

Great characters make us laugh and cry or even frustrate and infuriate us. Great characters make us squirm in suspense and excitement. Great characters take us on an emotional rollercoaster ride and are absolutely essential to our suspension of disbelief.

WELL, SURE, BUT…

Whenever I spout off about the all-important need for great characters, someone invariably disagrees. True writing success, they say, lies not only in great characters, but in your ability to come up with a great plot and structure, compelling dialogue and so forth.

And they aren’t wrong. In fact, I couldn’t agree more.

But the simple truth is this — and I’m not the first to say it: your characters define all those things. They are your story. Even if you succeed in giving us a wonderful plot and structure, you’ve got nothing unless your characters jump off the page. In writing fiction of any kind, characters are everything. Everything.

It is impossible to imagine Gone With the Wind without the feisty, self-centered yet courageous Scarlett O’Hara. Or Citizen Kane without the domineering presence of Charles Foster Kane.

But not only are these lead characters all-important, every character that surrounds them seems to be full-bodied and alive. The authors have somehow managed to pump life into every single character that occupies the page.

Now the question is this: how do you and I do the same thing?

CREATING COMPELLING CHARACTERS

WHISPERTruth is, I can’t tell you how to do this, but I can tell you how I do it — and I’m often complimented on my great characters. But my method, like any other method taught out there, is not surefire for everyone who tries it. In fact, many people will reject it out of hand as being far too simplistic. And they may be right. Yet it works for me. And, who knows, it might just work for you.

There are writing gurus who will tell you that the only way to create a great character is to sit down with a legal pad or a bunch of note cards or a character chart and start filling in the blanks.

How old is the character? What’s his occupation? What are his likes and dislikes? What school did he graduate from? Where’s his hometown? Who were his best friends in grammar school. What kind of parents does he have? Does he have any siblings? The list goes on and on and on.

All of these questions are designed to help you get under the skin of your character. To help you understand him or her to the fullest extent possible so that when you write your scenes, your character will be alive in your own mind. And if he’s alive in your own mind, then surely he’ll be alive in the minds of your audience.

Well, yes. Of course. But, I’m sorry, call me lazy, call me stupid — I just can’t bring myself to sit down long enough to answer all these questions.

Oh, I’ve tried. But halfway through I find myself wondering, what’s the point to all this? I may say my main character attended Dartmouth — but how exactly does that bit of information help me unless it’s directly related to the story at hand?

I have yet to figure it out. Instead, I approach the task in this way:

CHARACTERS ARE ATTITUDE

Let’s go back to Scarlett O’Hara for a moment. How did I describe her? Feisty, self-centered yet courageous? You could throw in flirtatious and childish as well. These are all attitudes that our audience can immediately latch onto and understand. We don’t need to know that she comes from a pampered Southern background and a rebellious Irish father to understand — and perhaps identify with — that attitude. Her attitude alone is enough to draw us in.

Why? Because attitude is action — the character in a state of being. Giving your character an attitude — preferably one that conflicts with the other characters in your story — is a great way to help you and your audience understand who that character is.

CHARACTERS ARE EMOTION

Adding emotion to your character can help your audience identify with him or her. Looking at Scarlett O’Hara again, when Gone With the Wind opens we see the flirtatious and selfish side of Scarlett’s personality. But as the opening scenes continue, we discover that despite all the attention she’s getting from the men in her world, she’s actually in love with another and has been rejected by him. Scarlett is wounded by that rejection yet hides the hurt from all but the object of her affection.

This is an emotion/reaction we can all identify with. If we haven’t experienced it ourselves, we have seen it in others we know and love. The emotion is what gives depth to… the attitude.

CHARACTERS MUST HAVE A GOAL

Every character must have a goal. Not just the main character. This is a given. Without a goal, your main character will wander aimlessly and your audience will disappear.

But every character that inhabits your story should have a goal. The character’s goal is often what defines both attitude and emotion.

Let’s take a relatively minor character for example. A grocery store clerk. The hero is buying a carton of milk. For a beat of conflict in an otherwise innocuous scene, we might give the grocery store clerk a goal: she wants to go home. She’s been on her feet all day long, the new shoes are killing her and all she wants to do is punch that time clock (and maybe anyone who gets in her way) and get the hell out of there.

This goal can help you define the character’s attitude. Is she weary? Is she grouchy? And how does this affect (read: conflict with) the hero?

Giving such a minor character a goal and an attitude/emotion may seem silly, but the result is a much richer story with much richer characters.

CHARACTER IS ACTION/DIALOGUE

Defining an attitude/emotion and a goal are all wonderful, helpful things. But none of them mean squat if we don’t see these things in action.

Sure, we can have Joe Blow say our hero is a selfish, manipulating bastard, but that means nothing unless we see this for ourselves. The way your character acts and speaks is what finally defines her/him.

When I describe Scarlett O’Hara as flirtatious and self-centered, these attributes are defined by what Scarlett says and does. She flirts with just about every man who enters her world, she manipulates them into paying attention to her despite the unhappiness this brings to the other women around her. By seeing her in action and hearing her words, we quickly understand the attitude and emotion she brings to the story.

The cliche, Show Don’t Tell, couldn’t be more true here. We must always show our characters acting and reacting — not simply talking about their motivations and desires.

ME + IMAGINATION

Defining a character’s goal/attitude/emotion/action are all wonderful things, but how exactly do we go about doing that without resorting to those cards and charts and character sketches the writing teachers tell us we so desperately need?

Again, this works for me. It may not work for you. And it’s deceptively simple:

Every character I write is me. From the hero and heroine down to that grocery store clerk, every single character I write is… me.

Yes, you say, but isn’t that a bit limiting? Doesn’t that make for a rather monotonous set of characters?

Maybe. But I have yet to hear any complaints. If my lead character is a divorced father of three who finds himself unwittingly involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the government, the first thing I ask myself when approaching a scene (even though I’m happily married and wouldn’t know a conspiracy if it jumped up and bit me) is this: how would I react in this situation.

Then I add the color (read: attitude/emotion). How would I react, if… I was a self-centered bastard… a no-nonsense cop… an officious political hack. And I apply this technique to every character I write.

In short, I’m like a method actor playing all of the parts. By using myself and a healthy dose of imagination, I can approach characterization from the inside out. And once I’m able to get into the skin of my characters, it’s much, much easier to create someone whom I, and hopefully the audience, can identify with.

FINALLY…

If you still feel like you have to drag out the cards and charts, then so be it. If knowing every single little detail about your character is important to you, then by all means write them all down, cover your entire wall with important tidbits of information. I would never belittle anyone for doing what feels right for them.

But while you’re at it, take into consideration the things I’ve talked about here. Remember attitude, emotion, goal and action.

Because these are the things that will make your characters leap off the page and propel your audience through the story. The key to success is to get your audience to say (and I’m cringing as I write this):

Frankly, my dear, I do give a damn.

Rob Gregory Browne was an award-winning screenwriter who rode the Hollywood roller coaster until severe motion sickness forced him to retire. He has now settled comfortably into his new life as a thriller writer, producing the books KISS HER GOODBYE, the just released WHISPER IN THE DARK — which received a starred review from Publishers Weekly — and the upcoming KILL HER AGAIN. Rob lives in California.

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CALENDAR OF UPCOMING GUESTS

Mark your calendar for the following guest bloggers at the Kill Zone:

Neil Plakcy, March 22
Liz Jasper, March 29

Millionaire For a Night

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John Ramsey Miller

Last weekend Susan and I went to Fairfax, VA to visit good friends. We went to a casino with John and Joy Gilstrap. We played blackjack. I drank Scotch. Starting with a check for $25,000.00, I found a table and the four of us began gambling. I soon bored with wagering $1,000.00 a hand because I was winning more than I was losing, so I quickly moved to bets of two and then three thousand a hand, but soon went to $5,000.00 a hand. Somehow I lost most of the money in thirty minutes.

When I was down to my last three thousand, I went to the roulette wheel and started betting color, even or odd and some other combinations––never numbers. After I’d picked up fifteen thousand dollars, I went back to blackjack, and before I stopped I was betting 75,000.00 a hand and doubling up. When I finally stopped and cashed in, I’d won one-point-four million dollars. I handed the winnings over to Joy Gilstrap. I mean she did stake me to the original $25,000.00 and we were her guests. And we all won, I just won more because I have a devil-may-care attitude about money, especially money in the form of chips, backed not by cash, or gold, but by thin air.

While the casino was a country club ballroom in Arlington and the casino dealers were novices. My dealer had clearly never dealt Blackjack before and barely had a grasp on the rules. In fact he’d never before played poker. Sometimes he paid off nineteen when he’d won with a twenty-one. He paid any twenty-one double. He paid ties. He couldn’t count. In fact any pit boss sober enough to be breathing would have hit him over the head with a bottle. So it was no surprise that I won, my wife won, and John and Joy won as well.

Sometimes the deck is stacked against you, and sometimes you just can’t lose. Winning… well, there’s no feeling its match.

I wish I could write like I played Blackjack last weekend, but even without the gaming, spending time with people you enjoy and care about is what life ought to boil down to. This weekend I’m off to the Mississippi Delta to a wedding. I sure hope it’s half as much fun as gambling with a rotten dealer and good company, but I doubt it will be.

Report From the Snob Farm

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By John Gilstrap
http://www.johngilstrap.com

First an apology about missing my slot last week. My Big Boy Job sent me to Charleston, WV for the week to recertify as an instructor for OSHA-certified safety classes that I’ve been teaching off and on for about two dozen years. The Holiday Inn in Charleston—the one whose closed windows emit a frigid breeze and whose “closed” doors leak enough light to read by—didn’t have working Internet access. Thus, no blog.

I thought I’d give a report on the panel I moderated a couple of weeks ago called “Literary Snobs and Commercial Sellouts: The Truths and Truisms of Literary Prejudice,” the one I introduced in my previous entry here in the Killzone. The panel consisted of mystery writer Donna Andrews, thriller writer James Grady, and literary novelist and PBS radio commentator Alan Cheuse.

I started things off by reading parts of a New York Times article which denounced the decision to bestow a National Book Award on Stephen King. The tone of the article dripped condescension. After my selected five- or six-sentence quote, I just opened it up, and the discussion ran at full speed for an hour and fifteen minutes, during which absolutely nothing was resolved.

Don’t get me wrong. The panelists were all articulate and they were all good sports, but this is the kind of topic that draws more fireworks than conclusions. My only disappointment was that they were all so damned polite to each other. I was sort of hoping for a “Jane, you ignorant slut” moment, but it never came.

A couple of comments did stand out. The first one involved a question from a young lady in the audience. I forget substance of the question, but prelude was fascinating. She is in the process of writing a novel, and by way of defending the literary side of the argument she went on at length about the importance of words and images. In her book, she said, the thrill of writing lies in the beauty of her prose and the vividness of the scenes she creates.

Nowhere in her soliloquy did she mention story as an element of writing a book. When I asked her about it, she seemed rather flummoxed. Having already introduced myself as the quintessential commercial sellout, she seemed unmoved and a little put off when I suggested that while writing is itself an art form, the selling of writing is all business; and that to convince a publisher to invest in the production and distribution of a book, there needs to be some reasonable chance of earning back the investment. That expectation, I told her, requires a good story well told. I’m fairly certain that my observations fell on deaf ears.

The one truism on which all attendees seemed to agree was that movies suck, and that people who write them are talentless hacks. Books, they agreed, are so much better than movies. Every time a screenwriter touches the cherished words of a writer like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the result is something terrible. As discussed at the conference, Marquez reportedly turned down Anthony Quinn’s offer of $1 million for the rights to One Hundred Years of Solitude because he didn’t want those movie hacks to ruin the product of his muse. Clearly, he was less protective of Love in the Time of Cholera.

Thus began the movies-are-crap discussion. As moderator, I did my part to keep things going, but then, as resident script-writing talentless hack, I felt compelled to defend the craft. I explained that when I adapt a book for the screen, I am not trying to recreate the reading experience, anymore than a landscape artist in Yosemite is trying to recreate the great photographs of Ansel Adams. Or vice-versa. Books and movies are entirely different art forms; one cannot replicate the other. The job of the screenwriter—and subsequently of every one of the hundreds of people involved in the production of a film—is to tell a compelling story well. If the story was first told as a novel or short story, credit is given, and that’s where the creative obligation ends.

Here’s some food for thought (and, hopefully, discussion): Movies released in 2008 include The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire, Saw V and Space Chimps. The “quality” of these movies is all over the board, as far as I’m concerned. I’d pay $10 NOT to see Space Chimps or Saw V, and I’m guessing many of you agree.

Together, we’ve made the value judgment that some movies are just not worth our time. Does this make us “cinematic snobs” who are dismissive “commercial” films? At the end of the day, is it all just a continuum that boils down to taste?