Category: character

I mentioned revisiting older topics last week and so now, rising out of the past—just when you were sure it was gone for good and there’s no way it was ever coming back…

I’d like to talk about revenge stories.

I think most folks love a good revenge story. Emphasis on most. Emphasis on good. When they’re done right they’re tons of fun, I think because we get a certain vicarious thrill from seeing someone get what they deserve. It could be a career-ending demotion. Maybe it’s getting embarrassed in front of the whole school. Perhaps it’s learning they’ve been left penniless by someone pulling a phenomenal heist.

And, yes, sometimes it’s them getting hunted across the tundra by somebody with a truly impressive collection of swords and pistols.

Now, this is just my opinion as a consumer of stories and occasional dabbler in the craft, but I think a good revenge story is a balancing act. Not too much of that. Just enough of those. A really solid foundation that can support all of it. If one of these things is off, my whole story can, well, become unbalanced. And once I’m off balance, it doesn’t take much for me fall over.

And we’ve all seen those, right? The revenge story that just seems kind of flat? Or maybe a bit… excessive? Possibly even a bit confusing?

So let’s go over four points I think a good revenge tale needs if it’s going to work. Again, just my own observations, and it’s always possible to find some exceptions, but I feel like these are four pretty solid points and I’ve yet to see them proven wrong since I came up with them.

With all that said… shall we embark on our path of vengeance against those who wronged us?

Well, actually, that’s a great lead-in to my first point. Has something happened that calls for revenge? I mean, there’s lots of bad things in the world but do they require me dedicating myself to balancing the scales of justice? A restaurant got my chimichanga order wrong once—does that require revenge? What about the person back in LA who broke into my car (well, jimmied the lock without causing any damage) but ultimately just stole a handful of change from the center tray. Maybe sixty cents, tops. Is that vendetta-worthy? Hunting that guy down doesn’t really seem worth it, right?

Some things absolutely call for revenge, but a lot of stuff just… doesn’t. A revenge story is a bit like a redemption arc this way. I need to have a sense of how my readers are going to see that initial incident. Will they agree it’s something that requires vengeance? Or are they going to think my characters are overreacting?

Which leads nicely to my second point. Is the character heading out to get revenge the one who should be getting revenge? It’s not unusual for one family member to avenge another, or for someone to avenge their dear friend or beloved. But as the relationships grow more tenuous, the motivation for my revenge story gets murkier. I may be a good customer, but I don’t expect the folks at my local sushi place to swear vengeance if something happened to me. I’ve chatted with the mail carrier a few times and she seems nice, but I’m probably not going to be carrying out a blood oath in her name.

Heck, I’m not even sure I know her name. Should I be the guy making that blood oath? I mean, if I should, it seems like a lot of other people should too…

Revenge is a personal thing. In its own way, it’s intimate. Personally, I’d say it needs to be a family thing. And yes, this can take the broader definition where my characters consider their best friends or teammates as family.

My third point is, to me, one of the most important parts of a revenge story. Simply put, the people my character’s getting revenge against must know why this is happening. If the team that killed my character’s family is being hunted down and killed one by one, but they don’t know why this is happening or who’s doing it… I mean, from their point of view how’s that different from a random killing spree? It might as well be Jason Voorhees out there.

I feel that a big part of a good revenge story is that it’s kind of symbiotic. It’s a relationship between the revenger and the revengee, so to speak, and relationships need to go both way (we can all agree one sided relationships are really weird, right?). So yes, we want Dot to get her revenge, but we also want Wakko to know why she’s doing all this. Why she’s coming after him. Why she’s been ruining his life. He needs that moment of understanding, one way or another—even if he just laughs it off (“…You’re the girl! And you’ve been looking for me all these years just to screw up now? Hah!”).

The reason for this is we understand—as readers and writers, consciously or not—that if Yakko doesn’t know why this is happening, he’s just a victim. He’s not an innocent victim, sure, but he’s still just a victim. He’s someone things are happening to for no reason. It’s the difference between someone seeing their house burn down and someone knowing why their house was set on fire.

Which leads nicely to my fourth and final point. Revenge can be a messy business. Very messy. Often reputations are shattered, blood is spilled, property is destroyed. And we’re all cool with that. We like seeing people getting what’s coming to them. Maybe even with a little interest.

And that’s where it gets tricky. In a revenge story, it’s easy to go a little too far with the reputation shattering and the blood spilling and the property damage. And when I do, that’s when my characters stop being the hero and becomes monsters in their own right. Yes, Phoebe embarrassed Yakko in front of his friends and deserves to be taken down a notch, but holy crap now she’s naked in front of the whole school. And they’re all taking photos! That’s going to cause years of emotional trauma. And okay, Wakko’s getting revenge on the drunk driver who killed his daughter by… wait, he’s killing all the guy’s pets and children right in front of him? WTAF?

This shift is something I’ve talked about before. When those scales tip the other way, our mood’s going to shift, too. We stop feeling good about the revenge and we start feeling sympathy for the people getting revenge exacted on them. Suddenly they’re the victim and my hero’s become, well, the villain. Which, understandably, alters everything. The whole tone of my story will change, and a lot of things will be questioned. Not in a good way. Which, I mean, if that’s my intent, cool (digging two graves and all that). But if it’s not…

Y’see Timmy, a revenge story should be all about the characters. That’s how I see it, anyway. Why are they seeking revenge? How are they doing it? Are they managing to walk that fine line between being a hero and being a monster? Or have they fallen off it…?

Speaking of which, next time, I’d like to talk about the consequences of my actions.

Until then… go write.

Okay, I’ve fallen waaaaaay behind in ranty blog posts over the past two months, so let me take a few minutes and try to make it up to you

As it happens, I wanted to talk about redemption stories. You know, where our hero has done something awful in their past and is now seeking to balance the scales one way or another. Maybe by actively trying to make up for it or by punishing themselves for it.

Right up front, if I want to write about redemption a key thing is empathy. A good redemption story depends on me knowing how my readers will respond to various incidents and actions. If I don’t have a good sense how something will go over, it’ll be easy for my redemption tale to seem pointless, silly, confusing, melodramatic… or, y’know, all of the above.

And, as usual, none of this is ironclad, heavily researched and sourced literary theory that I rigorously defended for my thesis or anything like that. It’s just observations from many, many years of reading and watching stories. Your mileage may vary.

That said… a redemption tale could either be the main thrust of my story or it just part of a single character’s personal arc. Either way, I think my story has to hit a couple of key points. Not in an “introduce the first conflict by page 23,” way, but more in a general “let’s talk about the characters and the story” way. If I don’t have these points in mind, there’s a good chance that my “redemption” story may end up a little lacking

1) Does my character need to be redeemed?
This is one of those “obvious” things that I’ve seen a fair number of folks mess up. If I’m going to tell a redemption story about Wakko, he needs to have actually done something that requires redemption. It’s really cool that Wakko wants to sacrifice himself to make up for his past sins, but if he doesn’t have any past sins… well… That’s not redemption, it’s just a pointless sacrifice. Wakko needs to have something in his past (or do something very early in my story) for which some form of redemption is required. For this post, let’s call it his key event.

This is my first big empathy moment as a writer. If I can’t predict what actions (or lack of actions) my audience will see as needing redemption, my story can get silly pretty quick. There are some things—even things we’d all agree are bad things—that just don’t tip the scales into that “I need redemption for this” territory. Accidentally kicking my cat is bad, but it’s probably not worth a novel of me trying to make up for it Wakko should not be going on a ten year penitent crusade around the world as penance for putting a red sock in the wash (unless comedy is my goal). If he’s really guilt-ridden about that nickel he picked up off the sidewalk when he was six… again, I’d better be writing a comedy.

Also, please note I’ve been referring to the key event as something in the past. That’s going to come up again.

So what was Wakko’s key event? Did he knowingly write a bad check? Peek in someone’s bedroom window when he was fourteen? Sabotage a relationship? Steal a car? Blackmail someone? Maybe… kill someone?

This leads nicely into…

2) Can my character be redeemed?
Somewhat related to the first point. Much like the key event needs to cross a certain threshold to be redemption-worthy, I think we can all agree that there’s another threshold where it’s going to be a lot harder for someone to balance the scales. Maybe impossible. That’s true in pretty much any society, past, present, or future. Sometimes people do things that are beyond redemption. It’s really tough to imagine anything a serial child rapist could do to make up for what they’ve done.

I’m sure some of you immediately thought “well, they could die,” but that’s not redemption, is it? It’s just death. Possibly revenge, but that’s a whole different animal.

So when I’m writing Wakko’s redemption tale, I need to really think about what he’s done. Again, this is going to be an empathy issue. Will my readers think his key event is a redeemable act? Or is it so extreme nothing could ever make up for it.

3) Does my character want to be redeemed?
This may sound obvious, but I can’t force redemption on someone. That’s not how it works, despite everything the Inquisition tried to teach us. Wakko needs to want it.

And… maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he doesn’t feel like he did anything wrong. Perhaps he paid his fine or wrote his apology letter or served his time and considers the matter closed. Or it could be he knows it was wrong and just doesn’t care. Maybe he feels he’s beyond your petty ideas of right and wrong. Some people are like that. If that’s the kind of character I’ve written Wakko as, it’s going to be tough to do a convincing redemption story about him.

4) Why hasn’t my character done it before?
Okay, for this one, I want to toss out what I personally think is a pretty solid rule of thumb… Feel free to agree or disagree down below.

In a good redemption story, a notable amount of time needs to pass between the key event and the redemption for that event.

Y’see, Timmy, in my opinion one of the main elements of redemption (from a story point of view) is guilt. If I don’t feel guilty about the key event, why would I want redemption?

With that in mind, if I’m taking care of things immediately after the key event, this isn’t so much redemption as it is… well, cleaning up. Wakko may feel awful about having to clean up the mess he made, but does he really feel guilty? If I hit someone with my car, it’s the difference between calling 911 and sitting with them until the ambulance comes… or switching my headlights off and speeding away. I may feel bad in both situations, but they’re two very different situations.

So what made Wakko run from his key event? Why didn’t he clean up his mess right then? What’s kept him from admitting it or doing anything about it until now? Denial? Fear?

And this one leads nicely to a sort of two in one, Watsonian-Doylistic point…

5A) Why is my character doing it now?
If I accept that Wakko’s tried to hide that key event for weeks or months or years… why is he looking for redemption now? What’s changed for him as a character that he’s decided to acknowledge this and make amends, starting today? What’s his (and I hate myself for saying this) inciting incident?

This is yet another empathy moment for me, the writer, because this is a big decision for any character. It’s a major change of course. They’re going against what they’ve done up until this point in their lives. If this isn’t a believable change of heart, my whole story could fall apart.

5B) Why is my character doing it now?
Looking at this as the writer, from a story point of view, why is this happening now? Odds are Wakko’s going to start thinking about redemption in this story, because I write about active characters who actually do things. So why have I included this? Am I just looking to give him some flavor and round him out a bit as a person? Is it the main plot of my whole novel? No matter why I’m doing it, this decision and the repercussions from it need to fit into the structure of my story and into Wakko’s arc as a character.

6) Does it balance the scales?
At the end of the day, every redemption story comes down to this. Has Wakko made up for what he did? Does he believe he did? Do other character think things are even now? Are my readers going to think he’s redeemed himself, or is it going to come across a little thin or forced?

I mentioned death up above—well, you thought about it, I mentioned it—so it’s probably worth talking about that. A lot of folks try to use death as the ultimate balancing agent. A life for a life, redemption achieved, and so on. I mean, sure, Wakko robbed, raped, and murdered his way across the country, leaving hundreds of people physically and/ or emotionally scarred, but in the end he died saving that little kid from getting hit by a bus And that makes it all okay, right?

No, of course it doesn’t. In fact, if not handled just right, death can come across as cowardice or a “he got off easy” situation. It can even look like laziness or a cop-out on the writer’s part. I mean, I don’t have to deal with all these complex emotions and repercussions if Wakko just gets a bus in the face. But it still counts as a strong resolution, right?

Right?

And there you have it. This is the kind of stuff I think about when I’m trying to do a redemption arc story. And if I don’t have good answers for most of these points, well, maybe I need to look again at how I’ve set up my story. Or my character.

Because there’s a decent chance they’re not on the road to redemption.

Next time I’d like to say something about said

Until then, go write.

My beloved and I tried to watch a show a month or three back. From the moment we met them—their very first scene—one of the characters was just awful. Blatantly ignorant and incompetent, and always trying to bluster past it. Insensitive to the point of almost being cruel. And incredibly self-centered. We watched three episodes before giving up, and in all of that I think said character maybe had two conversations that didn’t center around themself.

In fact, said character was the reason we stopped watching. Yeah, by then there were some hints of growth and improvement, but at that point they were so deep in the hole we didn’t want to watch another two or three episodes and see if they managed to climb out.

And just to be clear, this wasn’t a minor character. This was one of the leads! Arguably the lead, depending on who you asked and how the show had worked out billing. Pretty much from the start, the main character of the show made us not want to watch the show.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, first impressions matter. In the real world and in fiction. Maybe even more in fiction.

This ties back to an often-misunderstood idea I’ve mentioned once or thrice before– three act structure. No, really. As a writer, I establish the norm, I introduce some form of conflict into the norm, and then I resolve that conflict. That makes sense, right?

So when I introduce a character, nine times out of ten I’m establishing the norm. This is who they are. It’s how they act every day, how they usually treat people. These first impressions is where my character arcs are going to begin. They’re who my character is without the added pressure of that conflict I’m going to be introducing.

It may sound really obvious, but this is why we tend to meet protagonists doing good things (or at the very least, neutral things) and antagonists doing bad things. Because if I start with someone being a self centered idiot, well… they’re a self-centered idiot. And probably have been for a while. Which doesn’t always make for a compelling character.

Getting past that first impression can be tough, especially if it’s something that’s going to give my audience—my readers—a strong reaction. It’s not impossible, but I’m definitely choosing an uphill battle as my starting point. If your first thoughts are that my character’s kind of a rude bastard or just a general ass or maybe a bit creepy in the bad way… I have to spend time getting past those perceptions. And that’s time I can’t spend getting to, well, the plot.

Think about some of your favorite characters from books or movies and think about how we first meet them. How often are they doing essentially decent things, even if it’s just in a low-key, maybe even not terribly joyful way? It’s rare that a character’s first page is trying to convince us they’re a horrible person.

And just to be clear, I’m not saying they have to be so happy-go-smiley-sweet that Mr. Rogers goes into diabetic shock. I just don’t want them to be an awful person. That’s it. Someone can be frustrated, depressed, annoyed, or even full-on angry and still not do awful things.

This might sound a little weird because we had a big, maybe ten year span where it was really common to have main characters who were… well, jerks. They were rude. Petty. Sometimes flat-out cruel. We’d see it in movies and TV shows and even commercials. They’d show people doing unquestionably mean things and narratively treat it like “ha ha, that was great!” If you stopped to think about it, though… those people were jerks.

And there’s always going to be exceptions of course. It’s possible I could have a clever reveal planned, and this ruthless gang lieutenant we met in chapter one is revealed as an undercover FBI agent early in chapter two and hey wait did we actually see him do any of this stuff he keeps talking about? It’s also possible to structure my story so we’re first meeting someone a bit further along their arc, and that might change things a bit, too.

But I still need to introduce an interesting and semi-likable character. Or, at the very least, not an unlikable one. If my readers don’t enjoy following a character, there’s a really good chance they’re just going to stop reading. And then they’ll never see that cool twist I set up at the start.

So think about those first impressions. Because I only get one chance at them.

Next time, unless there’s some serious opposition, I’d like to talk about conflict.

Until then, go write.

Okay, let’s talk about animals for a minute, and how we respond to those animals. Just some random thoughts I’ve had that sort of coalesced over the years. Take them as you will.

It’s a pretty basic human reaction to pat a dog. If a dog walks up and bonks their head on your knee, you give them a pat on the head or a scratch behind the ears or maybe a full belly rub depending on said dog’s position at the moment. It’s something most of us do by instinct, and we usually want to do it so bad we’ll end up asking complete strangers for permission to do it. It’s almost like a reflex action. Dogs. Pets.

In fact, it’s such an ingrained thing, it’s kind of unusual when someone doesn’t want to pat the dog. Sure, there’s some folks who might refuse for health reasons, possibly emotional ones, but overall… if someone doesn’t want to pet the dog, it makes us wonder a bit, doesn’t it?

That’s why I laughed when, many years back, I saw a skit where Benny Hill described a horrific movie about a man on a blood-soaked rampage of violent revenge that bordered on torture porn, which the comedian then called “a loving tale of warmth and compassion.” When the interviewer asked him about this, Hill grinned and said, “At the end, as he’s leaving, he pats the dog on the head.”

Now remember this. Patting the dog. We’re going to come back to it later.

There’s a writing term you’ve probably heard called saving the cat. It was coined by screenwriter Blake Snyder in his book titled (wait for it) Save The Cat! No, I’m serious. There’s a lot to be said about the book, but for our purposes right now, let’s focus on that title phrase and what it means.

Saving the cat is when my protagonist does something—usually something small and simple—that assures us they’re a decent person. It’s a narrative shorthand that tells us this is someone we should be rooting for. Helping a neighbor. Feeding a stray. Giving the other half of their lunch to someone. Making a point of leaving a good tip, even if they can’t really afford it. And yes… maybe even saving a cat.

Two things about this I think are worth mentioning. First, these things don’t need to be directly linked to my plot. Personally, just me, I think it’s a little better when they’re not, or only very loosely at best. It’s not something plot-driven, it’s something character-driven. They’re just random, relatable events that show my character (or characters) in a good light.

Second, whatever this moment is, it should happen kinda early in the story. This is a logic thing. By the time we’re halfway through my story, my audience should have a pretty good handle on the protagonist. It’s kind of late for me to give them a little nudge. I’m not saying my characters can’t leave a nice tip or feed a stray at this point (you should always tip well and feed strays), but by now this is just going to be part of their established character, not something shaping how we feel about them. After all, things have different emotional weight depending on where they happen in a story. Make sense?

Now, what’s funny about this is Snyder got the term “saving the cat” from the movie Alien. At the end of the film, the crew decides to blow up their ship to kill the alien and our heroine Ripley makes a point of grabbing the ship’s cat, Jonesy, and getting him to the shuttle rather than leaving him behind. The cat is saved and screenwriting manuals are changed forever.

But the thing is… this happens in the last half hour of the movie. We’re ninety minutes into it. If somebody haven’t figured out Ripley’s the hero at this point, I don’t know if seeing her save Jonesy is going to change anything for them. So the very act saving the cat is named after… isn’t really a save the cat moment.

And all of this brings us back to patting dogs.

There’s a weird moment a lot of <cough> less well-developed stories have that usually involves an antagonist being redeemed in some way. And this redemption is often tied to them doing something… well, really minor. They went on that blood-soaked rampage and murdered hundreds of people but heeeeey, they scratched that good boy behind the ears so I guess they’re okay. All’s forgiven! It’s a weak excuse to switch a character from villain to hero for… reasons.

I call this patting the dog (from the previously-mentioned Benny Hill skit). There’s two key things that give it away. First is that it’s trying to make us change how we see a character, and that change is almost always from negative to positive. Saving the cat is trying to establish our perception of a character, but patting the dog is usually trying to reverse it. And doing so in a clumsy, unnatural way that doesn’t match up with everything else we’ve seen the character do.

Second is that patting the dog almost always happens much later in a story. Again, logic. If I’m trying to change your thoughts on a character, you need to have existing thoughts on a the character. I have to have built them up as one thing before I can change them to something else. So patting the dog is very much a third act sort of thing.

And I’m not saying characters can’t have a big change over the course of a book. But that’s just it. When someone’s patting the dog, it isn’t over the course of a book, it’s happening all at once. It’s a switch flipping and now things are different.

Y’see, Timmy, these two ideas often get lumped together, and I hope I’ve helped you see they’re very different things. One’s a useful tool and one… I probably want to avoid.

So maybe I want to look at that little story beat from my current work in progress and see which category it’s in. Does it happen earlier or later in my book? Is it helping my readers get to know a character or trying to make them think differently about said character? And if it’s trying to make them think differently, is it doing it in a believable, natural way?

Those are some questions I’ve been asking myself lately, anyway.

Next time… I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get to squeeze in some quick thoughts about the holidays? But if not, I guess we’ll be doing the end of the year wrap up.

Until then… go write.