Category: rules

May 14, 2016

How To Succeed In Hollywood…

            Sorry this is running a bit late.  Ending up lost in a great book earlier this week and put me behind on a lot of things.
            Okay, I’ve said a few times that I don’t want to use this blog to go over the basics.  If you’ve found your way here, I’d like to pretend that you’ve got a loose grasp of your chosen writing format.  But I’ve seen a few screenplays recently that… well, it’s apparent the basics of screenwriting aren’t as well-known or understood as they should be.
            Now, to be clear, I’m talking about if I want to do this professionally.  I want a studio to hire me and give me a pile of money so they can turn my script into… y’know, garbage. But, hey, they’re giving me a pile of money. 
            If I’m trying to do indie/YouTube things with my close circle of friends… format doesn’t really matter as much.  No one else out of that circle’s going to see it, right?  But if I’m thinking of Hollywood, of screenplay contests, of those big brass rings people have been thinking of for decades…
            Well, I need to have some idea how a screenplay works.
            So, here’s a  dozen basic rules I should have down before I show my screenplay to someone. 
            And especially before I submit it to someone.

            1) Basic Format—Scripts are always in single space Courier 12.  Always.  If you heard a story about a professional screenwriter who only works in Times Roman and turns in his or her work that way, I can tell you two things—that person’s already got the leeway you only get with a well-established career, and as soon as they handed the script in the whole thing was reformatted into Courier 12.  It’s the industry standard for a number of reasons, including timing and scheduling.  Every other department needs that script in Courier 12.
            Ahhh, says clever wanna-be #8… if they can convert it anyway, then what difference does it make if I want to write in Times or Arial or Wingdings? 
            It doesn’t make any difference how I write it.  But when I submit it to a contest, an agent, or a production company, it has to be in Courier 12.  Because scripts are always in Courier 12.  Always.  And I’m trying to convince people that I’m a professional. 
            One other thing—I don’t use scene numbers in a spec script.  That’s something that comes up much later during the actual pre-production for a film.  They’re a tool for the assistant directors and department heads, not the screenwriter.  Putting them in now will just get me tagged as an amateur.
            2) Basic Style—Always use third person, present tense.  Always.  The script is what’s happening on screen right now.  Characters can have dialogue where they talk about things in past tense, but all my action blocks and descriptions must be in third person, present tense.
            A screenplay that switches person or dips back and forth between past and present tense is always a good tip-off for readers that this is someone’s short story or novel they sloppily adapted into screenplay format.  There’s also usually a reason no one bought their short story or novel, and it’s related to the fact that they didn’t bother to learn how to format a screenplay…
            3) Capitals— This isn’t that tough.  I use capitals the first time we see a character so the reader knows this is someone new.  I’ll go into this a bit more in a minute.
            I also use capitals for emphasis when something important happens.  When YAKKO IS SHOT or Dot’s exploring the graveyard and finds A SEVERED HAND ON THE GROUND.  Keep in mind, though, that in this sense capitals are just like exclamation points.  The more often I use them, the less power they have, and eventually they’ll tip the scale and just start frustrating or annoying the reader.
            Also, noneof this applies to dialogue.  Again, for clarity, I should never apply the above rules to dialogue.  If dialogue is in capitals it means someone is shouting–nothing else.  To be clear, there is no other way to interpret capitals in dialogue.  Capitals in dialogue=shouting.  So even if my sister has never been mentioned in the script before, I don’t say “Have you met my sister CAROLYN?”  I also don’t say “Hey, over there on the ground, is that A SEVERED HAND!?!!?” 
            Okay, I might shout if I see a severed hand.  But am I supposed to shout?
            4) Names– As I mentioned above, whenever I introduce a character, I put them in all caps in the action blocks.  The very first time I see YAKKO WARNER I need to know he’s someone new. After that he’s just Yakko.  For example…
Another man cut from the 50’s action cloth, ZACK “ZAP” MARSHALL is standing by another panel, a few feet down the wall from Lance’s.   This one has three large buttons on it, marked “laser,” “missile,” and “x-ray”. Zap also wears a wide, high-tech belt buckle with a large button in the middle of it.
REX
Ready, Zap?
ZAP
Just give the command, Captain.  I’m ready to blow it out of space.
            Dialogue headers are always all caps, using the most common version of the character’s name, and I never change dialogue headers for a character.  Wakko’s dialogue is always headed with  WAKKO, Dot’s is always headed with DOT.  The only time they would change is if the character has completely changed identities on screen.  For example, in Captain America: The Winter Soldier we find out the title assassin is actually Cap’s supposedly-dead friend Bucky.  He’s WINTER SOLDIER in headers until he’s revealed as BUCKY in either the action block (because you’re introducing a new character) or dialogue (where it still isn’t capitalized unless it’s shouted).  Then his next dialogue header should be WINTER/BUCKY.  Use that double-header once, and then he’s BUCKY from there on in.

            5) Don’t Name every Character—In the abbreviated, concise format of a screenplay, names are an important tool.  They tell the reader that this character is someone we need to pay attention to.  They’re important enough to the story that they rate a name and not just a title like MAN #2 or WAITRESS or OFFICER.
            Alas, some idiot somewhere started pushing the idea of naming everyone in a screenplay.  The logic is that this gives more detail, nuance, or some such nonsense.  Do not do this.  If my screenplay is littered with extra names, the reader’s going to be tripping over themselves trying to keep all those names straight because the logical assumption is that they need to be kept straight.  I made the effort to name them, after all.  So rather than focusing on the story, the reader’s trying to figure out how the woman in the mall and the taxi driver figure into the story.  That’s breaking the flow and it’s going to piss them off when they realize they wasted time and effort juggling twenty-seven names for no reason.
            Never name someone just to give them a name.  No one—not even the actor—is going to be upset with just MAN #2.  A friend of mine has made a good career out of being MAN #2.  Trust me, MAN #2 is going to make a nice chunk of money, even for just one day on set.
            6) Actually Describe Things—A few years back I got to interview screenwriter-director David Goyer (The Dark Knight, Man of Steel, the Blade trilogy) and he told me a funny story about getting smacked down by Guillermo del Toro.  It seems Goyer had described a character in a script as “a living nightmare.”  del Toro looked at this and said “What does that even mean?  That is boolshit!”
            There is a time and a place for pretty, evocative imagery and language.  That time and place is not while writing a screenplay.  As I mentioned above, the script is about what’s on screen right now, which means it has to be something we can actually see.  A reader needs to be able to visualize what’s on the page, and it’s very important that multiple readers visualize the same thing.  I can tell you Jack is a dead ringer for my old work friend Scott, but that doesn’t mean a damned thing if you don’t know what Scott looked like.  “It’s a hundred times cooler than Armageddon” sounds really cool, but it’s really hard to do concept sketches and storyboards off that.
            During our interview, Goyer actually admitted this issue bit him in the ass when he directed one of his own scripts.  He’d given a vague, roundabout description of a sequence, but once he was on set he actually had to figure out how to film it.  Now he needed a real description.  So production came to a halt while Goyer and his assistant director tried to block out the mess that writer-Goyer had left them to deal with.
            That leads nicely into…
            7) Don’t write what we can’t see – A solid corollary to the last point.  I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen stuff like this in amateur screenplays (and a few professional ones).
            Tight on a man sitting in a restaurant, not eating.  This is WAKKO, an advertising executive who just scored a multi-million dollar contract with Pepsi.  He’s freaking out, though, because he also just found out his fiancé has been cheating on him with someone from her office.  Another WOMAN!  And now he’s questioning their whole relationship, himself, how did he miss this, how could he be so blind? And how is he going to explain this to his friends and family?  No, Mom, Jane’s not coming to Thanksgiving–her bird’s getting stuffed by one of the girls from legal? Wakko keeps going back and forth between blaming her for cheating and blaming himself for not realizing why things felt strained between them.
            What’s wrong with that paragraph?  Well except for the first sentence… how is the audience expected to know any of this?  All we’re going to see is a guy in a restaurant.  Again, the script is what’s on screen right now.  Not what’s in someone’s head.  That’s the stuff that comes out through dialogue, action, and maybe some clever set dressing or wardrobe choices.  But definitely not in a block of exposition in the action blocks.
            8) Don’t Over-Describe Characters—This sounds a little contrary to some of the stuff I’ve just said, but trust me–it isn’t.  A bad habit some writers develop—especially prose writers—is to go mad with character description.  Hair color, eye color, ethnic background, education, music preferences, drink preferences, underwear preferences, etc…  They take their entire character sketch and drop it into the screenplay.
            I don’t go nuts describing characters in scripts for a few reasons.  One is that I always want to be tight and lean in a screenplay.  Two is, as I just said above, I don’t want to describe anything the audience can’t see.  Three is the one none of us like to think about—there’s a good chance this character will change.  I can spend half a page describing Rosario Dawson and then they decide to cast Jennifer Lawrence.  It happens. 
            Just give enough description so the character stands out from any other character.  Really, if I’ve got more that two sentences of character description I’ve got too much.  Yeah, I may have tons more, but remember—the script is about right now.  Everything else about my character will come out in the course of the story through their dialogue and actions.  If it doesn’t, my problem is not that I only got two sentences of character description.
            9) Don’t act – Okay, you know those little descriptions under the dialogue header, usually in parentheses?  These are called parentheticals.  Sometimes, as a joke, they’re called wrylies.  It’s a quick set of instructions to the actor about how the line’s supposed to be delivered.
            Actors loatheparentheticals.  Actors hate parentheticals the same way screenwriters hate  producers who want us to change the ending so everyone was dead the whole time and to make Natalie Dormer’s part a lot bigger because she’s become kind of a hot item since we finished principal photography.  It’s someone who has no idea how to do my job telling me how to do my job.  Let’s look at a quick scene from one of my own scripts…
WENDY
(excited)
You did it!
TED
(proud)
Yeah, great shot, Zap!
LANCE
(relieved)
All clear again, Captain.
REX
(serious)
Yes.  But for how long? 
WENDY
(confused)
What do you mean, Rex?
REX
(thoughtful)
If it wasn’t for brave crewmen like Lance, Zap, Ted, and the rest of you, the galactispiders would make the starways far too dangerous. 
            Are those parentheticals really telling you anything useful?  Most actors would be able to figure this stuff out just from context.  So would any reader. 
            Which, for the record, is why none of these parentheticals are actually in my script—I just added them for this example. 
            Y’see, Timmy, there are only two times to use a parenthetical.  One is if it’s life or death important to the story that this line is delivered a certain way.  If the whole film is going to fall apart if Yakko doesn’t whisper in this scene, then add a (whispered) to that line of dialogue.  Two is if I think there’s a very real chance this line could be misunderstood, even with all the context and lines before it, and the resulting misreading will destroy the entire film.
            If I’ve got a parenthetical in my screenplay, I need to think long and hard about if it meets one of these two criteria.  And then probably remove it anyway.  They’re the adverbs of screenwriting.
            10) Don’t direct—Okay, what I just said about actors hating it when you tell them how to act?  Directors loathewriters who fill up a script with directing notes.  When I fill pages with stuff like “Pan over to reveal…” or “rack to see Yakko’s expression,” directors shake their heads, cross that out, and plan how they’re going to shoot the scene.
            Like the parenthetical above, only put in direction if it’s life or death important to the film.  If the story hinges on this being a crane shot, then put in—if the story really hinges on it.  Me thinking this scene would be really cool with a crane does not make it a pivotal shot. 
            Plus, a lot of time adding direction honestly detracts from the story.  Here’s a great example—how many of you have seen Sherlock?  Remember the last moment he has alone with Irene Adler at 221B Baker Street, when they’re sitting at the fireplace and she’s trying to convince him to run away with her?  It’s pretty important that we don’t focus on what Sherlock’s doing with his hands, right?  Except if I point this out in my script, readers are going to spend the next ten pages trying to figure out what Sherlock’s doing with his hands, and that’s going to override a lot of what’s going on now.  If I hadn’t mentioned it, they wouldn’t’ve thought about it, but now it’s essentially a low-level spoiler in my own script that his hands are doing something that will matter later.  Don’t worry about that sort of thing.  By the time the readers get to the flashback and figure it out, they’ll understand that when the movie is filmed we can’t focus on his hands at that point.
            By the way, just to clarify—it doesn’t matter if I plan on directing the script myself.  The script I submit to a contest, an agent, or a producer, has to be a script for anyone.  If I’m actually going to be the director, I’ll have plenty of time later to add that stuff.  Plus I’ll have my own notebook and schedule.  For now, all those things are just taking up space on the page.
            11) VO vs. OC—Okay there’s a huge difference between voice-over and off-camera.  This is one of those little things that can get me tagged instantly as an amateur if I get them wrong.
            Voice-over(V.O.) is when someone’s talking that no one else can hear.  Announcers and narrators are usually voice-over.  Train of thought is voice-over.  “Little did he know…” tends to be voice-over.  Another good tip—I will never, ever see lips moving for a voice-over.
            Now off-camera(OC) is when someone’s talking that other characters can hear but the audience can’t see.  For example, if Phoebe’s on her phone talking to Wakko, and we hear his voice, he’s off-camera, notvoice over.  That old bit when everyone hears a voice, turns, and sees that Dot has come into the room—that’s off-camera.
            I want to use OC carefully, because too much makes it look like I’m trying to direct again (see above).  I’m not going to put it during an intercut phone call.  I don’t use it when we know Dot’s on the other side of the room but we’re not seeing her at this moment.
            12) Don’t use archaic terminology – Forsooth, whenst thou uses scrivening of yesteryore, thy words appearst equally of yesteryore. And few and far between liest those who show interest in the dry, dusty bones of a mouldering anecdote.
            Or, as we say today, no one’s interested in an old script.
            It used to be common to end every scene with CUT TO or FADE, or to end every page with (CONTINUED).  It also used to be common for the US military to have a lot of horses and bayonets.  In both instances, that hasn’t been the way it works for years.  When I started working in the film industry back in 1993, CUT TO was already dead.  (CONTINUED) was on life support, and only cropped up in very limited use. Usually for ongoing dialogue.
            If I’ve been using an old script from The Maltese Falcon, The Godfatheror Rocky to learn this terminology and formatting—I need to toss it.  The film industry grows and changes like any other industry.  If my reference script wasn’t written in the past ten years, it’s probably going to give me more bad habits than good ones.
            This is also one of the big reasons I wanted to go over all of this again. At this point, it’s been about nine and a half years since I worked in the film industry full-time. My experience is getting old, and I’m smart enough to admit that.
            Some people are not.
            Or  just don’t care as long as you’re going to pay them…
  
            13) Don’t use real celebrities as characters—A bonus point I’ve mentioned before.  I’ve read screenplays where one character ended up at a resort with Johnny Depp, another one where someone dated Carmen Electra, and a really, really creepy one about George Clooney getting involved with a producer… who happened to have the same name as the screenwriter.  Unless your movie is already in production and Helen Mirren happens to be your best friend in the world who would do anything for you, do not use her as a character in your screenplay.
            Yeah, I’m sure some of you are already calling foul.  After all, haven’t I littered the Ex-Heroes series with mentions of celebrity zombies?  Well, yes I did.  But that’s the difference between a book and a screenplay—you can still read the book if Nathan Fillion, Jessica Alba, or Alex Trebek don’t show up.  Now if someone ever decides to make a movie out of the book… well, then there’ll probably be issues. 
            Although I feel relatively safe saying Fillion would show up.
            So, thirteen tips to a more coherent, professional-looking screenplay.  I’m betting the majority of you knew most of them.  But a few of you… well, now you know.
            And knowing is half the battle.
            Next week… I wanted to talk about some very bad people and how to make them good.
            Until then, go write.
characterdescriptionnamesrulesscreenwritingtips
January 7, 2016 / 2 Comments

The Woooooorld of Tomorrow!

            Welcome back.  Glad to see you all survived the violent transition to 2016.
            I like to start the year by going over what this pile of rants is for and why I do it.  I think it’s good for any of you who’ve stumbled across this page.  It’s also good for me, to help stay focused on helpful tips and suggestions and, yes, the occasional rule.
            That’s more or less how this started, almost nine years ago now.  At the time, I was writing for a screenwriting magazine, and I’d see tons of articles and websites about tricks and gimmicks—the sort of stuff you worry about after writing.  I’d guess at least two-thirds of writing articles, even in our own magazine, fell into this category.  Stuff like how to get an agent or manager, how to aggressively network, how to arrange book signings, that sort of thing.  Most of which seemed like… well, like it was skipping a few steps.
            And some of these folks were asking to be paid for their pearls of so-called wisdom.  
            So, I went to my editor with a few spec columns about… writing.  Some basic things I’d written up based on my own years of many failures and a few successes (or, as some folks call it, experience).  And the columns were rejected.  A few months later I went to another editor, he passed them up the chain, and they were rejected again.  Those three columns became the first posts here.  I’d tossed them up just so it felt like I’d done something with them.  I thought they were fairly well written and made some good points—I didn’t want them to languish on my computer.  Maybe in the tiny, limited space that was the internet somebody would stumble across them and find them useful.
            (Bonus fact. Maybe a year after I started posting here full time somebody pointed out Thoth-Amon was also the evil sorcerer in the Conan books and comics.  Completely slipped my mind when I picked the name for the site.  I just went with it because Thoth was the Egyptian god of writing)
            Anyway, as I worked my way further into the life of a full-time writer, I was exposed to more and more people’s work.  I read scripts for a couple different contests and got a bunch of exposure to it (reading 400+ pages a day will do that to you).  And it struck me that I kept seeing the same basic mistakes.  Often to wince-inducing levels.
            Okay, so this is just my own experience, but at this point my experience is pretty broad so I feel good about saying it…
            Most aspiring writers fall into one of two camps.  Some think writing and storytelling are mechanical, quantifiable processes that can be broken down into solid rules and formulas.  These are the folks who will use Syd Field as proof that their screenplay is perfect and quote the MLA Handbook to explain why their novel deserves to be published  

           The other group think rules are for old-school losers who don’t get that spelling, formatting, and structure just hamper the creative process and will get overlooked when people see the inherent art in the writing.  Nothing matters past the pure art of words flowing out of their fingertips.  Because we all have fantastic stories to tell.  Don’t know how to spell that word?  That’s what spellchecker’s for.  Don’t know what the word means?  Well, they’ll get it from context.  Not in the mood to write? Then just wait for the muse to strike.  Someone said bad things about your writing?  Ignore them, what do they know?!  Nothing matters except being happy about your writing.

            Both of these groups are usually wrong, for the record.
            Note that I said “usually.”  Most folks think it’s all-or-nothing.  You have to be on one extreme or another.  The truth is that it’s more of a middle ground.
            Y’see, Timmy, there are correct and incorrect things in writing. I have to know how to spell (me—not my spellchecker).  I have to understand grammar.  I need to have a sense of pacing.  If I’m writing a script, I’ve got to know the current accepted format.  As a writer, I can’t ignore any of these requirements, because these are things I can get wrong and I’ll be judged on them. 
            On the other hand, there is no “right” way to start your writing day or to develop a character.  There’s only the way that’s right for me and my story.  Or you and your story.  Or her and her story.  This is the Golden Rule that I’ve mentioned here once or thrice.  If I ask twenty different writers about their method, I’m going to get twenty different answers.  And all of these answers are valid, because all of these methods work for that writer. 
            But that still doesn’t mean I can ignore every convention or rule I don’t like. I need to understand the rules if I want to break them successfully. Yeah, maybe there are ten or twenty people who broke the rules and succeeded… but there are hundreds of thousands, probably millions, who broke the rules and failed miserably.
            And that’s what I try to do here.  Talk about writing.  Not the after-the-fact-stuff, just writing.  I talk about rules that we need to learn and follow (until we’ve got the experience to bend or break them).  I try to offer some various tips and suggestions I’ve heard over the years that may (or may not) help out when it comes to crafting a story.
            I have a few topics on deck for the weeks ahead.  Author visibility.  Action.  Inside jokes.  Stakes.  Motives.  A few others.  And if there’s something that’s been gnawing at you that you’d like me to blab about, let me know down in the comments.  I’ve been doing this for a while—there aren’t many topics I haven’t had a painful learning experience with, and I’m always willing to share.
            Oh, also… if you happen to live in the southern California area, I’d like to recommend the Writers Coffeehouse.  It’s a monthly meeting of writers of all types and levels to talk about… well, writing.  All aspects from first ideas and editing to pitching and marketing.  It’s free, it’s fun, and it’s open to everyone.  Jonathan Maberry (author of the Joe Ledger series, the Rot & Ruin series, and many others) brought it with him when he moved to the San Diego area, and he hosts a Coffeehouse the first Sunday of every month at the Mysterious Galaxybookstore. And starting this month, on the 24th, I’m going to be hosting one here in Los Angeles at Dark Delicacies.
            So check that out if you’re in the area.
            Next time, I’d like to talk about lanterns.
            Until then… go write.
Coffeehouseeditinggolden rulemuserulessnowflaketips
December 11, 2015

Protagonist #3

            I can’t believe the year’s almost over.  Where did the past few months go?
            I wanted to get much more done this year.  But we’ll talk about that in a few weeks…
            While posting my last few little rants and adding in links, I realized there’s a lot of basic stuff I haven’t revisited in two or three years now.  I think part of it is because I’ve been doing more conventions and talking about these topics there, so it feels like I’m going over them all the time.
            Anyway, over the next month or two I want to go over some things like dialogue, stakes, action, and a few other random tips and tricks I’ve stumbled across during the many years of mistakes that make up my career.
            Right now, I wanted to talk about some character basics.  Three of them, to be precise.  Put this rant near the top of the advice column.  I’m really, really tempted to call it a rule, but I think that would spark too many comments about various exceptions and distract from the point I’m trying to make.
            Pretty much across the board, my characters need to be believable, relatable, andlikeable.  If my protagonist doesn’t have these three traits, I’m pretty much screwed.  It’s not impossible to have a story where my characters don’t have these traits, but it’s going to be an uphill battle.  Like, rolling-a-boulder-up-a-mountain level uphill battle.
            Allow me to explain by going over each of these. We’ll do that with my frequently-used volunteer character, Dot.  Also, there’s a lot of back and forth between them, so I apologize now if this gets a bit confusing or jumbled at points. 
            First up, Dot has to be believable.  Almost nothing is more important than this.  If my reader can’t believe in the character within the established setting, if they don’t feel like a real person, my story’s got an uphill battle going right from the start.  It doesn’t matter who (or what) Dot is, she must be believable.
           How do I do that?

           Dot’s dialogue should sound natural.  Her words have to flow naturally and they have to be the kind of words Dot would use.  I’ve seen countless stories where four year olds talk like they’re forty and forty year olds talk like robots.  When Dot speaks, it can’t be stilted or forced, and it shouldn’t feel like she’s just spouting out my opinions or political views or whatever.

            The same goes for Dot’s actions, reactions, and motives.  There has to be a believable reason she does the things she does.  A reason that makes sense with everything we know about her or will come to know.  If her motivations are erratic and just there to push the plot along, my readers are going to pick up on that really quick.  If I find myself thinking (or shouting) “What are you doing?!” at a character, it’s a good sign their motivation isn’t believable
            Also, please keep in mind that just because Dot is based on a real person who went through true events doesn’t automatically make her believable.  Sometimes, believe it or not, it can make her seem even more contrived.  I’ve talked here several times about the difference between reality and fiction, and it’s where many aspiring writers stumble.  Don’t forget, there’s no such thing as an “unbelievable true story”—only an unbelievable story.
            Speaking of which, this first trait can be an immediate challenge for genre writers, yes?  Werewolves aren’t believable  because they’re not real.  Neither are leprechauns.  Nanotech cyborgs, aliens, ghosts, hive minds, demons, Santa Claus, Elder Gods, barbarians from the Ninth Realm of Shokar—we’ve pretty much proven all of these things are fictional, much as we might want some of them to be real.  But, as I just mentioned, part of this trait is making them believable within the setting of the story.
            Next, Dot needs to be relatable.  As readers, we enjoy seeing similarities between ourselves and the characters we’re reading about. It lets us make extended parallels with what happens in their lives and what we’d like to happen (or be able to happen) in our own lives.  It’s not a coincidence that most stories deal with ordinary people in extraordinary situations.  It’s hard for readers (or an audience) to enjoy a story when they can’t identify with the character on some level.
            Part of this is me being aware how my readers are going to view and react to Dot.  There needs to be something they can connect with. Almost all of us can relate to blue collar, middle class folks easier than multi-millionaire celebrities.  I feel safe saying everyone reading this—or writing it—has been the victim of an awful break up or two.  Very few of us have hunted down said ex for a prolonged revenge-torture sequence in a backwoods cabin.  Hopefully none of us.
            This is also going to tie back to the idea of being believable.  Dot’s actions and reactions, her motives and experiences, are a big part of what’s going to make her relatable.  This is how the readers come to understand her.  By the same token, the less believable or common a character element is, the less likely it is my readers will be able to relate to it.  If I make Dot a reincarnated, retro-futurist one-percenter who eats nothing but snake hearts, speaks only in Babylonian metaphors, and firmly believes the lizard men are going to be returning to claim the world (and welcomes her new reptilian overlords)… well, it’s going to be a real challenge for my readers to identify with that.  And if readers can’t identify with Dot, why will they care what happens to her?
            When Dot doesn’t have any character traits we can relate to, we’re no longer understanding her—we’re observing her.  It’s an immediate wedge between the readers and the character, keeping them at arm’s length.  And that separation is going to keep readers from getting caught up in my story.
            Again, this isn’t to say characters can’t have amazing traits or abilities, but  those can’t be my focus.  The most successful takes on Superman haven’t been the ones that focus on his godlike powers, they’ve been the ones that emphasize he’s still basically a guy who grew up in all-American, small-town Kansas.  Jessica Jones may be able to punch through a wall, but her story is really about how she chooses to deal with her past—therapy groups, lots of drinking, and random sex with guys she barely knows.  Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger is a trained and lethal warrior who still prefers to spend his time playing with his dog, wearing Hawaiian shirts, and enjoying burgers and beer. In my own book, The Fold, Mike may have one of the most amazing minds on the planet but he really just wants to fit in and be like everyone else.
            Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Dot has to be likeable.  There has to be a reason we, as readers, want to follow her story and not his or hers or theirs.  We have to like her.  There should be elements to her we admire and maybe even envy a bit. We have to be somewhat invested in her accomplishing her goals and making it to the end of the story.
            Keep in mind, likable can mean a lot of things.  It can mean adorkable klutz but also fantastic work ethic.  Maybe Dot has impeachable integrity.  Maybe she takes care of every stray she finds.  She could be really funny or perhaps she’s just always there when her friends need her.  Or maybe she’s the one who just says what needs to be said and stands up for the little people, no matter the cost to her.
            On the flipside, if she’s morally reprehensible, a drunken jackass, or just plain boring… well, what’s going to keep people reading?  Nobody likes the person who kills babies or pets.  We’re rarely interested in boring people (because none of us think we’re boring) and we don’t like stupid people(because none of us think we’re stupid).  If this is how I’m characterizing Dot, nobody’s going to read through a few hundred pages of her exploits.  Or lack of exploits.
            Again, this doesn’t mean my character has to be a saint, or even a good person.   In Doctor Sleep, we find out that Danny Torrance grew up to be a major, life-ruining alcoholic. Cat Grant on Supergirl is a ruthless, often cruel boss who can’t even be bothered to get her assistant’s name right.  Sherlock Holmes has often been portrayed as curt and with very little patience for those he thinks are inferior to him (which is most people).  Raymond Reddington is a ruthless “concierge of crime” who doesn’t hesitate to pull a trigger or stab someone in the back (figuratively or literally).  We’re still interested in them as characters, though, either because of underlying codes of honor or because they’re doing things we wish we could get away with.  And because of this, we’re willing to follow them through their stories.
            Now, I’m sure many of you reading this can list off a dozen or so examples from books and movies of characters that only have one or two of these traits (someone probably skipped down to the comments after the first few paragraphs and started typing them up). It’d be silly for me to deny this.  Overall, though, I think you’ll find the people that don’t have all three of these traits are usually supporting characters.  They don’t need all three of these traits because they aren’t the focus of our attention.  If I’m a halfway decent writer, I’m not going to waste my word count or screen time on a minor character—I’m going to save them for Dot.
            So, to sum up, a good character should be someone we’d like to be, at least for a little while.  That’s what great fiction is, after all.  It’s when we let ourselves get immersed in someone else’s life.  So it has to be a person–and a life– we wantto sink into.  One we understand on some level or another.  One we can believe in.
            One we want to read about.
            Next time, it being the season, I’d like to talk about Santa Claus.
            Until then, go write.
characterdialogueempathyprotagonistrules
December 3, 2015

Over-Elaborate Paint Schemes

Hope you all had a nice week off and got a lot of writing done. Or at least a lot of relaxing so you’re fresh and ready to write again.

As it turns out, this little rant has turned out to be well-timed… but we’ll get to that in a bit.

For now, I wanted to talk about paint and simplicity.

As one or two of you might know, I am a bit of a miniature wargamer, or, as they’re known to the greater world at large, a geek. Yep, I build little toy soldiers and beasties, scale scenery, vehicles, the whole deal. I used to be much more into it than I am today, but I still enjoy building the models and playing with my group now and then.

Recently I was painting some models and remembered an old article I’d read ages back in one of the hobby magazines I subscribed to (again, used to be much more into it). They had a regular column on painting techniques for little toy soldiers, and one month a guest columnist wrote about what he called “non-metallic metallics.” It was a style of painting where you made swords, guns, armor, and so on look like steel and gold without actually using steel or gold paint. Instead you’d use lots of whites, blues, grays, oranges, and yellows—all different shades—to create highlights and reflections and the appearance of shiny metal. Make sense?  So much better, he said. So much more realistic.  It really brought the miniatures to life.

Now, the very next month they ran an article from another painter—their regular guy, in fact—and his article amounted to “no, no, NO!” He was very much against the whole non-metallic metallics thing. As he explained, it was using a lot of time and extra paint to create the same effect you’d get naturally by just using the metallic paints. Plus, the non-metallic style was completely angle-dependent. It worked well for displays and dioramas, but wasn’t appropriate for models that would be out on a tabletop battlefield and viewed from many different directions. That’s when the non-metallic illusion would break down. As he explained, why buy seven or eight pots of paint to achieve what—for these purposes—you could do much better with one?

That was the last painting column, if memory serves, and the regular guy was never mentioned again. The company that published the magazine also sold the paint. Draw your own conclusions about what happened there.

Now, aside from the capitalist warning, what’s the message here?

There’s a subset of folks who insist things can’t be simple. Simple is stupid. Simple is for amateurs, they’ll tell you, not professionals. You’re not going to use that common, easy paint scheme, are you? Because you’ll never be considered an expert that way

Unfortunately, too many of these people consider themselves gurus of some kind or another. They’ll charge you good money for bad advice. Advice they’ll usually try to pitch as rules.

There’s nothing wrong with simple. Having a simple paint scheme let me paint the bulk of my Space Marine army in a few weekends rather than a few months. I had close to a hundred little soldiers the size of my thumb—I wasn’t going to spend hours and hours on each one.

But…

There were a couple models I did lavish with some extra time. Captain Machiavel got a lot of fine detail picked out on his armor. I put highlights on Veteran Sergeant Constantine’s sword. Veteran Dreadnaught Faustus has a ton of scrollwork on his weapons and purity seals.

(Yes, I named some of my little toy soldiers—stay on topic, okay?)

Just like there’s nothing wrong with simplicity, there’s nothing inherently wrong with complexity, either. It’s all about having the experience to know when each is appropriate. I wasn’t going to spend hours and hours painting each of the rank-and-file soldiers, because I didn’t want a hundred individual paint jobs distracting from the look of the army as a whole. That said, I’m still going to make the army commander, squad leaders, and big models look good because… well, they’re the ones people are going to focus on.

See where I’m going with this?

As an aspiring writer, I encountered lots of folks trying to tell me my writing wasn’t sophisticated enough. That my vocabulary was too simplistic. And I listened to them. I started using a lot more adverbs. I tried to use metaphors and similes in the description of every person, place, and thing that appeared in my stories. Hell, for a while I made a point of  never using the same dialogue descriptor twice on a page. And I never, ever used said. Said was stupid. It for amateurs, and I was a professional

Thing is, none of this made my writing any better.  Oh, sure, it was boosting my word count a lot, but it wasn’t really improving my ability. In fact, one of the first times I ever got to sit down with an actual professional editor—someone who could pay me money for my work—his two big pieces of advice for me were to cut all my adverbs and go back to using said.

Let’s do a quick test. Grab a novel or anthology that’s near you. Not a Kindle, if that’s possible—a real book will work better for this. Preferably something you’re familiar with.

Got one?  Flip through it, or just open at random once or thrice.  You’re looking for a page with dialogue, not exposition.  Found it?  Count up how many times said appears on that page.

I’m willing to bet it’s there a decent number of times. And I bet you never noticed until I just asked you to count them up. Said is invisible. When I use said, readers can enjoy my overall story rather than getting caught up in individual sentences that break the flow.

Y’see, Timmy, using complex phrasing and obscure words doesn’t automatically make me a good writer. Especially if there’s no point to my complexity and I don’t understand the words I’m using. If that’s the case, trying to do this can actually make me a worse writer. I’m suddenly the guy trying to do fine detail work with a paint roller, or trying to cook a five course meal when I haven’t quite figured out the toaster yet.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with being more sophisticated, or to using ten-syllable words over two-syllable ones. There just needs to be a point to it. It needs to serve a purpose in my telling of this story. If it’s just me, the author, trying to show off how impressive I am and how extensive my vocabulary is… well, that’s not really helping the story. It’s just the literary equivalent of hanging rubber testicles on the back of my truck.

I mostly use said in my writing. Mostly.  I’m not against having my characters shoutor mutter or snap or whisper or shriek or hissor call out. When they do, though, I have a solid reason for making that bit of dialogue stand out on the page.

So ignore those folks saying you must be more complex with a wider vocabulary. And the ones telling you to always keep it simple. Just focus on telling your story the best way you can.

And that’s that.

In other news… It is, alas, that time of year. So, if I may, I’d like to direct your attention to my usual Black Friday offer for those who need it, the standard Cyber Monday appeal to consumer capitalism, and the suggestions of much better stuff to give the readers in your life.

I’d also like to point out that my publisher, Penguin Random House, is doing a fantastic online campaign this season called Give a Book. If you’re on Facebook or Twitter, just use the hashtag #giveabook when you talk about buying books for friends, family, loved ones, and so on. Every time someone uses the hashtag, from now until December 24th, PRH is going to donate a book to the First Book literary charity. The goal this year is to hit 35,000 books (last year they aimed for 25,000 and hit 37,000). So take a minute out of your holiday frenzy and do something for a good cause.

Next time, I’d like to talk about the people we enjoy reading about.

Until then… go write.

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