Category: character

I though I’d talk about something utterly unbelievable.

No, seriously.

Most of you have probably heard of willing suspension of disbelief. It’s when my readers (or moviegoers or whatever) are willing to overlook or ignore obviously wrong or just plain impossible things for the sake of enjoying a story. It’s a deliberate, often unconscious decision to… y’know, just go with it. We know super-powers aren’t real, but we can still enjoy Wonder Man. Ghosts aren’t real either, but I’ve really been loving School Spirits. Dragons? Also not real, but people keep lining up for Westeros-related stories. Heck, kaiju make no sense whatsoever. None. They’re 100% impossible, on so many levels. But people keep heading out to see Godzilla movies.

The catch, of course, is that this is willing suspension of disbelief. But if I’m not careful, I can push things in my story a little too far and my readers are suddenly no longer willing to suspend their disbelief. It hits a point where they just can’t ignore all the cracks and cut-corners and missing chunks and then… the whole thing comes down.

When that suspension of disbelief starts to crumble—or if you prefer, when disbelief starts to grow—I think it comes from two specific directions. One is from elements within my story. The other is from characters in my story. Let me talk about both of these for a few moments.

If we’re talking about I think genre stories tend to be the immediate targets when we talk about willing suspension of disbelief. Sci-fi. Fantasy. Horror. Genre tends to have a lot of the elements I was talking about earlier—super powers. Ghosts. Monsters. So it’s the easy thing to point at when we talk about suspension of disbelief because they’re easy things to, well, not believe in.

Now, granted, yes, some people just won’t believe this stuff no matter what. We’ve all seen that reviewer who begins “Well, I picked this up even though I never like horror… and now I remember why!” It’s possible for folks who don’t like a genre to tolerate a genre, sure. Just keep in mind, what seems like a little ask for another reader is going to be much harder for them to let slide. Their block of disbelief is going to be calving off massive chunks of disbelief like a glacier dealing with global warming.

I’m saying this just as a reminder– we can’t do anything about these people. If they happen to pick up one of our books, it is what it is. Let’s not worry about them too much.

But even for people who do like these more fantastic elements, there comes a point where I’ve pushed things too far. Maybe I’ve crossed one too many genres. Perhaps I brought in an element too late in the story that makes too big a change. Whatever it is, eventually there’s a beat, a moment, a thing where I’ve just gone too far. I’ve seen John Scalzi call this point “the flying snowman”—that we can accept a snowman who comes to life, sings, eats food (hot food, even), but hang on now he’s flying? Seriously? Oh come on…

Something I’ve talked about here a few times is that stories have to be believable. There needs to be a grounded world my readers can understand. That includes stories set in medieval fantasy valleys, gigantic space stations, and even a world just like ours except no one’s ever done anything about that serial killer who lives across the lake by the old summer camp. Whatever my setting is, it has to be something a reader can—on some level—understand and believe characters can exist in.

Take that giant space station. We all inherently understand the nature of a space station—even a very advanced one—and why it might need different crew members. Maybe even a lot of crew members. We can understand why it’s located out here on the fringes of space, working like a sort of interstellar lighthouse—or maybe a watchtower? Very isolated research? Artificial gravity isn’t a wildly new idea. Neither are supply runs or some form of food synthesizer or an oxygen generator. Look at that. A bunch of very understandable, very believable things about our space station, but still leaving us lots of room for weird, new things we don’t understand. Make sense?

Three quick notes to this. First, I personally try to resist the urge to give normal, familiar things new “genre” names unless it’s going to be really clear what they mean. Too often this is just, well, a lazy way to worldbuild. Most folks will get frustrated if they read through a hundred pages of jha’krynn forging and training before it becomes apparent a jha’krynn is just what people call a shield in this world. Plain old, normal on-your-arm shield. And they should be frustrated. Maybe even a little annoyed—I’ve been making them do extra work for no reason. And that frustration means they’ll be a lot more judgey going forward (maybe even looking back), and less likely to suspend their disbelief.

Second note ties to that other thing I mentioned. A world just like ours except… Some folks think “the real world” means I don’t have to worry about things being believable or relatable. But the truth is, unbelievable things happen in the real world all the time—things that would be pure nonsense in fiction. And a lot of what’s relatable to me in my life would probably be completely alien to a little girl growing up in Aswan. And the life of an undercover NSA agent would probably seem baffling to me. Depending on what my story is, it’s still going to need that grounding.

Third and last. My readers are going to have a sense of what’s possible in my world. Keep in mind, possible can still include highly unlikely. The thing is, knowing what’s possible means they know what’s impossible, and if something comes across as impossible… well, that’s another big chunk off the ol’ disbelief block.

Now… remember, way up there when I mentioned the two directions? Let’s talk about the other one. The Roman numeral II in our outline. Or probably a B, thinking about it.

Anyway…

The other thing that can wear down my willing suspension of disbelief is my characters. If they’re doing or saying unbelievable things, or if they’re just inherently making someone think “I can’t believe anybody would…” I mean, my readers won’t be willing to suspend their disbelief long for someone like that. Honestly, how many found footage movies hit that point where we’re basically yelling at the screen “WHY ARE YOU STILL HOLDING THE CAMERA?!?”

Characters have to be believable. They’ve got to be consistent—or at least consistently inconsistent. I can’t have them acting and reacting in whatever random way happens to move my plot along. My readers need to see motives they can understand. Natural-sounding dialogue. Relationships that are somehow relatable to the average person.

The reason this is important is because when my readers believe in my characters, they’ll believe in what happens to my characters. If I believe in Yakko and Yakko ends up turning into a werewolf, then—by extension—I have to believe in werewolves. If I believe in Dot and she runs into a dragon, oh holy crap, it’s a dragon!

Okay this is getting silly-long so one last tip. It’s silly to point out, but one thing that whittles away at suspension of disbelief really fast is getting facts wrong. If I tell you that WWII ended in 1964 (the same year the first war with Iran began) or that there’s only one T in Manhatan, your brain is going to automatically shift into denial mode for a moment. because you know these aren’t correct. It’s a little slip in that willing suspension of disbelief, and after too many slips…

Yes, there might be a reason my character thinks there was a war with Iran in 1964 (he’s an idiot) or that Manhatan only has one T (we’ve slipped into another universe). But this is yet another one of those I need to be careful/ every story is different things. If I let too many of these build up without an explanation, I’ll hit a point where it doesn’t matter if I have a reason for them or not, because my reader just can’t believe any of this anymore.

There’s also a flipside to this, one that takes a bit of empathy. I can also blow the reader’s willing suspension of disbelief by using completely accurate facts that are unbelievable. There are lots of websites and YouTube channels that’ll tell you about amazing true coincidences or billion-to-one events that actually happened. If I’m basing a chapter—or a whole story—around these things, it could cause problems.

I’ve mentioned this before, but years back I interviewed a filmmaker who’d just finished a documentary about the botched 2003 invasion of Iraq and the even bigger mess that came after it. One of the things he told me was how much material he’d left out of the film. There were so many incidents of complete and utter incompetence in the year after the invasion nobody would’ve believed them. Because they were just so goddamned unbelievable. He told me a few during the interview and I kept saying “What? What?!?”

Oh crap. Wait. One more thing. The for-real final tip, kind of going off that last bit. I’ve said this many, many times before but… being true doesn’t matter. Once it’s on the page, all anyone cares about is if it’s a good story about believable characters. Whether or not the events and characters are real is irrelevant. Too many folks see “true” as some sort of pass that means readers have to accept things. But if I’ve got a true story that’s just completely unbelievable… it means I’ve got a completely unbelievable story. Simple as that.

Y’see, Timmy, that’s what it all boils down to. When your suspension of disbelief is broken, even for a moment, it breaks the flow of my story. The more often the flow’s broken, the harder it becomes for my readers to be invested. And eventually it’s just easier for them to go sit on the couch and get caught up on Starfleet Academy or School Spirits or something.

So keep it believable. Or as believable as you can.

Next time I’d like to rant a little bit about ranting a little bit.

Until then, go write.

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.