Character Distractions

Like most of my secondary characters who work out on the page better than even I expected, Rain and Farlae want their own book. Specifically, the story of how they met, survived disaster and fell in love (evidently the details I sprinkled around in Evermore were not enough to satisfy them.) They already picked out their own song (Two Princes by Spin Doctors) and Rain was making me listen to it at least twice a week. I outlined their backstory before I wrote Evermore, and I've been adding things to it ever since, but that was just making things worse.

When the same situation happened with Squilyp in Beyond Varallan, I let him live instead of bumping him off as I'd planned and dealt with him in other ways. This is the same reason you Darkyn readers will be seeing Rain and Farlae again in Twilight Fall. I gave them some story space primarily because their presence served the story, and to reveal a little more about their respective talents, but it was also a deliberate anti-distraction tactic on my part. To be frank, giving them more story also got them out of my damn head so I could concentrate on other things (P.S., they still want their own book, but Rain is presently playing a Strip Monopoly marathon with Farlae, and they both seem to be satisfied -- for now.)

The more life you breathe into your characters, the more they come alive on the page. The down side of this is that they also become more real and important to you. These are the type of characters who are always waiting in the wings, in some cases looking for any opportunity to tell or continue their story. Over the span of your writing career you can rack up dozens of characters like this, and unless you want to write one book with four hundred and ninety-three sequels, you have to find a way to deal with them and placate yourself.

A few other ways I deal with distracting series characters:

1. I write a short story about them. This is not as satisfying as giving them a whole novel to play in, but it takes less time and still gives me a chance to write out whatever's bugging me about them.

2. I send them off somewhere so they can't get involved in the current story. This is why Garphawayn is on Omorr at the moment with her sons, and Jema and Thierry are house-and territory-hunting in the Carolinas.

3. I outline their novel and/or everything I want to write about them. This works best with characters who haven't yet developed into full-blown major distractions, and may be the best way to deal with any character with serious distraction potential.

4. I bring them back with cameos or their own limited subplot thread. This works pretty well for characters who like Rain and Farlae are too developed to be placated with method #3. This is also what made Squilyp become such a pivotal character in StarDoc, something I fought for a while and then just caved in, accepted and worked him into the series plan.

5. Worst case scenario, I kill them off. This is a last resort only, and reserved for those series characters who threaten to derail and wreck things permanently, which to date has been only three (although Xonea has on more than one occasion come very close to being number four.)

The other thing to think about with character distractions is why you're being distracted by them. They may represent something you haven't expressed or addressed in your work, such as a subplot that didn't get enough attention or an unseen hole in the main conflict. Also, look for characterizations that suffer by comparison (i.e., if your secondary characters are more interesting to you than your protagonist, you can bet there's something wrong with or lacking in your characterization of your protag.)

How do you deal with character distractions?

Second to None

Secondary characters in stories are created for various reasons; most often because it's hard to write a story about only one person (unless you're doing one of those depressing post-apocalyptic things, in which case you can ignore this post.)

A good portion of the secondary characters I read in other writers' work are what I think of as reactors. Is the weary hero having a bad day? In pops his Reactor Good Buddy to buy him a beer and ask him why. Is the antagonist preparing to destroy the world? Over limps his Reactor Igor to hand him the Doomsday Remote Detonator. Is the angry heroine packing her bags to leave town? Her Reactor Best Friend is there to help her stow her toiletries, listen to her rant and reassure her that she's doing the right thing.

This is the biggest mistake I see made with secondary characters, too. While they might be well-crafted as people in an outline, once they appear in the story they seem to have no lives outside of what's happening to the prime time players. Most come off like paperdolls, dressed and posed and about as animated and interesting.

I think a writer should know much more about their characters than the reader ever will. Think about this when you're creating your secondary characters, and especially when you put them into play in your story. They're not just there to react to the protag, they're there to interact. To illustrate this, let's follow what happens in this scene from my novel Evermore:

As Byrne made his way to the stables, he stopped every man of the Realm who crossed his path and demanded to know if they had seen Jayr. All of them claimed they had not and offered to look for her. The innocence of their expressions aroused Byrne’s suspicions, and he made a detour to stop at the wardrobe keeper’s chambers.

Farlae came to the door in his shirt sleeves, an open bottle of bloodwine in his hand. “May I be of service, my lord?”

“You can tell me where Jayr is,” Byrne said. “Dinnae not bother to deny that you know. Nothing happens under my roof that you or your spies cannae see or hear.”

“I know that Jayr went into the city early this afternoon. Just as I know that you spent most of the morning sitting outside her bedchamber door.” Farlae propped himself against the doorframe, his one black eye glinting. “As does, I daresay, the entire jardin. Doesn’t seem like a very comfortable spot. Is there something amiss with your own bed?”

Byrne’s lips peeled back from his teeth. “What business is it of yours what I do? I am master here. I will take my rest naked, on the battlements, among a herd of goats if it pleases me.”

Farlae shrugged. “Goats are overrated, or so I have heard. Sheep, now, they are said to be quite another matter. I may have to investigate that myself.” He drank from the bottle.

This scene is in Byrne's POV, so his problems dominate the situation. However, Farlae is getting drunk -- or trying to -- and being insolent versus sympathetic to the lord he serves. As the scene progresses, we discover that not all of that has to do with Byrne:

Killing his wardrobe keeper, Byrne decided, would not take a great deal of effort. The hall held at least twenty objects with which he could end the man’s existence. Only the prospect of Rainer’s weeping held him back. “Why did Jayr go to town?”

“Deliveries held up, damaged goods, paperwork to be signed, feed deliveries rescheduled, the usual,” the wardrobe keeper said casually. “I hope she remembers to pick up the parts that came in at the Singer Center for my serger.” He thought for a moment. “I believe a week ago Rain requested Jayr order four gallons of latex paint from the hardware shop. It seems he tired of the colors in his rooms. Too bad he won’t be here to repair them.”

“These errands could be handled by anyone. These are the last days of the tournament; Jayr knows she is needed here—” Byrne stopped and gave Farlae an incredulous look. “You did this deliberately.”

“The serger failed on its own,” Farlae drawled. “I will need it repaired if I am to tailor all that Lycra the humans must have for their Spring season costumes. I had nothing to do with the paint order. Rain is gone off with Viviana. Good riddance.” He took a drink from the bottle.

Farlae is concerned about how Byrne is treating Jayr, but he's also miserable over the fact that Rain, his lover, has apparently run off with a woman. The combination makes him bitter and sarcastic. Meanwhile, Byrne doesn't help matters by getting angry with Farlae:

Byrne stabbed a finger in his face. “This nonsense was but an excuse to send her into the city. You did this to keep her away from me.”

Farlae lowered the bottle and smiled. “Perhaps we did this to keep you away from her.”

“You’ve gone mad,” Byrne said blankly. “Every one of you. My own men, rebelling and conspiring against me. In my own keepe.”

“Doubtless we are.” Unimpressed, Farlae studied the condition of his nails. “Will there be anything else, my lord?”

“Get stuffed.” Byrne walked away. “No.” He stopped and turned around. “Call Jayr on the contraption she hangs on her ear. Tell her I command her to return to the Realm and report to me at once.”

“Oh, dear.” Farlae held up a familiar-looking device. “Do you mean this contraption? I fear in her haste to go, it fell out of her pocket and into mine. Well, Harlech may have helped it get there.”

Byrne grabbed it and threw it against the wall, where it exploded into a hundred fragments.

“That,” he said, staring into Farlae’s black eye, “is what happens to man’s head when I lose my temper.”

“Indeed.” Farlae folded his arms and looked interested. “What happens to a woman’s?”

For a long time Byrne stood and said nothing, saw nothing. For his insolent wardrobe keeper’s questions explained everything. He had lived with these men, trained with them, fought besides them. They were loyal to him because he was suzerain, and they lived by Kyn rule. Some of them admired him. Most of them feared him.

They were loyal to Jayr because they loved her.

“I would never hurt the lass,” Byrne said.

Farlae’s mouth took on a faint sneer. “That is not what I saw last night, outside the ballroom.”

Byrne is shocked to find out that his own men are actively protecting Jayr from him. Farlae witnessed what he thought was Byrne manhandling Jayr the night before, and he doesn't approve. The characters' emotions are at an explosive point now. So, naturally, they both explode:

“I kissed her,” he roared.

“You terrified her,” Farlae shouted back, smashing the bottle of bloodwine against his doorway. “You see, my lord, you were not the only one tracking last night. So tell me, when did your seneschal become your prey?”

“I love her.”

The three words rang between them, echoing down the hall until the shocking sound of them died away. Farlae crouched and began picking up pieces of the broken bottle.

“Christ.” He knelt to help him. “This is a wretched bloody mess.”

“It need not be.” Something like kindness softened Farlae’s craggy face. “Aedan, if you love Jayr, do not force her into something for which she is not ready. Give her leave to come to you, if that is what she wishes. Give her time.” Sorrow filled his eyes. “God knows, you cannot hold someone you love if they do not feel the same for you.”

And right there, Farlae drops the act and shows his true emotions. He is utterly miserable over losing Rain, and draws on that to warn Byrne not to do something that will drive Jayr away. Byrne responds to that in kind:

There was no more time for this. “I’m riding out to the north side of the lake to meet with Cyprien. Tell anyone who is still interested that I will return in an hour.”

Farlae took the shards of glass from him. “Yes, my lord.”

“And Farlae,” he said, staring into his hellish eye, “Rain has as much interest in Viviana as I do in a herd of goats.”

The wardrobe keeper inclined his head. “Thank you, my lord.”

The key here is balance. While Byrne's problems dominate the scene, they don't overshadow or eliminate the existence of Farlae's problems. Both characters reacted according to their different personal situations. Farlae didn't assume the reactor position of responding only to Byrne's problems; he presented his own in various ways, and in fact drew on his pain to offer advice to Byrne.

Also, note that Farlae didn't offer a long monologue or info dump on his situation. He doesn't have to, because aside from the few hints he drops, his behavior reflects it. He's not reacting to Byrne as much as he's venting anger and misery, most of which is generated not by this confrontation, but by losing Rain.

We put a lot of work into creating our secondary characters, so we should take advantage of them. Don't let yours be mere Reactors to your protag(s). Know who your secondary characters are, what's happening in their lives, what they're feeling and how that motivates them before you bring them onstage. Invest them with as much realism as you can, and you'll never end up with a story about a protagonist surrounded by a herd of paperdolls.

Now it's your turn -- how do you handle your secondary characters? What problem(s) do you most often run into with writing them? Let us know in comments.

Got Quirk?

A quirk is a peculiar action, behavior, mannerism or personality blip that is generally unique to an individual. Everyone has at least one, even if they aren't aware of it. Celebrity quirks are often fascinating, like the president who kept a jar of jelly beans on his desk, the talk show hostess whose entire wardrobe is black, or the world champion golfer who has to carry three pennies with him every time he plays.

Quirks can add dimension and realism to fictional characters. A perfect character is basically cardboard, but one who whistles old show tunes, wears a black bowler or calls everyone he meets "pal" or "doll" demands more attention. The quirks themselves don't have to be huge things, either. Sue Grafton's P.I. protagonist Kinsey Milhone loves sandwiches with the repulsive-sounding combination of peanut butter and pickles (and she was quite put out in one novel when she discovered that a long-lost relative shared the same quirk.)

Writers themselves have plenty of quirks. One writer friend of mine has a pair of lucky writing socks, Lord help his wife if she ever loses them in the wash. Another writer I know always prints out the first copy of a manuscript she's written on her favorite pale blue paper. Other quirks I've heard writers admit to seem to me more like a method of mental/physical/environmental preparation, as in praticing yoga before every writing session, lighting specifically-scented candles near the work space or perching a new Beanie Baby on top of the computer monitor.

I have my fair share of quirks, too. Years ago I stopped buying clothing with prints or patterns; my wardrobe is now 100% solid colors. I keep books to read, jars of pens and blank notebooks in every room in the house, including the bathrooms. As for work, I never eat an hour before I write or write while barefoot. I write facing a blank wall with my back to the windows in the room. When I know for whatever reason that I'm going to have a tough writing day, I wear a really big, ugly old torn-up T-shirt I stole years ago from my guy. Even if I don't reveal it in the story, I always give every one of my characters a birthdate and a full name. Whenever I finish writing a novel, I never type "The End."

What are some of your quirks, writing-related or otherwise?

Quirky links:

Jennifer Jensen's article on characterization and using quirks, Create Distinct Characters ~ Vary Personalities and Backgrounds for Interesting Fiction.

Author Judy Reeves has a entire page of interesting famous writer quirks here (I love the last one.)

Face Generator

While I was hunting around for some links to go with the character cards post, I came across the Morphases Editor, an online composite face generator. I put a link in comments, but this one is so interesting and potentially helpful in creating character portraits that I thought I'd put up a finished example, too, to show you all what can be done with it:



This is something like my vision of my character Will Scarlet. I took elements from five different faces and manipulated them to generate the composite, so it's my creation and does not require a model's release form for me to use the image. If I decided to use this in a promotional character card, it would need more work -- I'd like to run it through photoshop to clean up the image, change the length of his hair, even out his skin tone, pack up those dark bags under his eyes and otherwise fiddle with it -- but it's a very good place to start.

Cast Balancing

I think most writers try to compose interesting characters, and put a lot of work into creating an appealing cast for their story. Reading a novel with boring characters is like being locked in a room filled with everyone's least favorite aunt, the sort who wants to pinch your cheek, tsk over your clothes/weight/love life, and talk about their bunion or bowel problems without stopping for breath.

(Aunt Frances, I'm not talking about you. I promise.)

One thing I do notice about characters in novels is when the cast is unbalanced. Raise your hand if you've read a story populated by the following:

All of a kind: the characters have interchangeable or sound-alike names.

Gang Bangs: the cast consists of one female and twenty males, or one male and twenty females.

Generation gappers: the entire cast is in their twenties, or thirties, or forties, etc.

Monochromatics: all of the characters are white, or black, or Hispanic, or [insert ethnic group].

Threesomes: three siblings, three friends, or three of a kind.

Tokens: one black character in an all-white cast, one white character in an all-black cast, one gay character in an all-hetero cast, etc.

West Side Stories: all the characters are split between two opposing groups, no in-betweens.

Now before anyone starts sending me hate mail, I'm not knocking every story with these type of casts. Some of them have become a tradition in genre fiction, and I don't think they're unbalanced if they serve the story. Threesomes, for example, are the time-honored foundations for romance trilogies. If you're writing a book titled "The Last Woman on Earth" you have no choice but to use a gang bang cast. Casts for epic fantasies are prone to become West Side Stories because of the good vs. evil conflicts involved.

That said, if you're tired of the same-old same-old, and want more diversity and originality in your novels, it's a good idea to balance out your cast before you start writing the book. First, make a list of all the characters in the novel by name in alphabetical order. Then:

Ages: Note the characters' ages next to their names, and compare them. If everyone in your novel is 29, and it's not titled "Logan's Run" you might want to shift around some birthdays.

Gender: Highlight the names by sex: pink for girls, blue for boys. If you end up with a huge chunk of blue or pink, you might consider switching some of the characters' genders.

Group Dynamics: mark the members of any numbered group like a threesome among your cast. Are they individuals or blurred clones of each other? Work on how you can give them more distinct personalities so they're not so dependent on their group relationship.

Loyalties: Note whose side your characters are on. See if you have a few characters who are neutral or disagree with both sides. If you don't, think about changing around some loyalties.

Naming: Look at the characters' names to see if any sound alike or start with the same letter; readers often confuse these characters with each other. Think about changing the ones that are too close.

Race: Put a letter indicating race/ethnicity next to your characters' names. If your cast is all one race or ethnicity, and you can't logically justify it, it's monochromatic. Also, use this step to see if you've cast a token character. Unless there is a valid story reason for a monochromatic cast, consider putting a bit more racial diversity in your story.

Balancing your cast through diversification makes your characters seem more alive and natural. They become people who might exist in reality. Since that's the goal of most writers, I think it's worth the effort.

The Character Palette

One of my new favorite online toys is Degraeve.com's Color Palette Generator. All you have to do is enter the URL of an online image, like this, and it gives you two palettes with codes based on the image's colors (great if you design websites around an image, or you're a quilter trying to balance fabric values.)

Last year we talked about the possibility of using a color wheel to aid in creating character casts for our stories. I played around with the idea for a while, trying a couple of variations that I mentioned in comments. At one point I had made fifteen different wheels and I still wasn't getting any closer to a finished prototype.

I hate waffling like this, so I shoved all my wheels in the filing cabinet and sulked for a while. It wasn't until I was generating a color palette for a quilt I'm restoring that the Bright Idea Fairy bonked me over the head with a lightbulb.

The wheel won't work because our characters can't be grouped that way; Dean was right. It would only work for stereotypes. Unique characters demand unique palettes. You just need a starting color to work from, but it has to be your character's color.

Let's say I have a protagonist who is feminine, delicate, shy and obviously not based on me. We'll call her Rose, and her character color will be the same as a rose from my garden. I'll load it into the palette generator, see what sort of colors I get, and use them as inspiration for the characters in Rose's story:

Character Palette Antagonist Rose's Mom Hero Rose Hero's Brother

Those character assignments are straight off the top of my head, but I hope that gives you the general idea. The method needs more refinement, too, but I believe I'm on the right track now. What do you guys think?

One Line Characterizations

(Note: After several years of successfully dodging colds, I finally got caught by one. I'll live, but the accompnaying sore throat is making it tough to use the VRS for any length of time. Posting will likely be delayed or late until I get my voice back.)

One-liners as characterizations is a traditional form of verbal short-hand in the southern U.S. We considered it witty to offer a short anecdote or observation on a person in such a way that can be later expanded into a proper yarn, if need be. Most folks dismiss them as sayings or colloquialisms, but while they're usually joke-funny, they're also often painfully accurate:

She fell outta the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.

He's busier than a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest.

I don't know what sent her over the edge, but in that family, it doesn't take a real hard push.

He's got two ways of fixing things: do-nothin' or duct tape.

That girl would screw a snake if you held the head.

Most often the one-liner characterization is best delivered in dialogue, as it is an observation or gossip, but it works in the narrative, too. It takes a little investment of trust in the reader to "get" a description that isn't a typical recital of physical attributes, but with the right words you can prompt the reader's imagination to fill in the blanks.

With this sort of characterization, there is the temptation to use an easy, cliche analogy: as fast as greased lightning, dumber than a post, crazy as a fox. You can use cliches as practice by taking them, shaking them, and turning them into something new, like as fast as TV preachers go to Hell, dumber than invading Antarctica, and crazy as a dog after a treed squirrel.

You don't need to resort to the classic analogy form for a one-line characterization, either. Claes, a character who could rightly be described as a tall, sturdy, muscular, brown-haired youth who seemed immovable and unbending, yet who still possessed adorable, boyish indentations in his cheeks becomes in Dorothy Dunnet's hands an oak tree with dimples (Niccolo Rising.)

Your assignment today: in comments, give us a one-line characterization describing one of your characters, or a character from your favorite book.

Mary Sue Anonymous

A tall brunette walked to the front of the meeting room and stepped up to the podium. "Hi, everyone. My name's Jane, and I write Mary Sue novels."

"Hi, Jane."

"I've been coming to meetings three times a week for nine months now." Jane toyed with a thread hanging from the end of her sleeve. "I was feeling pretty good, and confident about earning my one-year chip, but this past weekend, I . . . I fell off the wagon."

Most of the audience shifted in their seats.

Jane pushed her shoulders back. "I knew what I was doing. I mean, I knew when I made my protagonist a virgin at twenty-six that I was heading down the wrong road. She's not a Christian fundamentalist, or unmarried and living in Iran. But I just couldn't bring myself to give her a fumbling backseat high school experience or a token bad marriage to an older man with regular erectile dysfunction. It's stupid, but . . . I really thought I could handle it."

Someone snorted loudly. A middle-aged redhead in the second row elbowed the bearded man sitting next to her.

"I kept writing, and made her beautiful and built and brilliant . . ." Jane stopped and covered her face with a trembling hand.

The redhead sighed. "The three killer B's."

Jane dropped her hand and bravely pushed on. "From there, I admit, it snowballed. I gave her a bottle-green Jag, and a job curating an art museum, and a Victorian mansion she bought for a song and renovated single-handedly. The next thing I knew she was gardening, raising hybrid roses and tossing together gourmet dinners for one."

A lanky teenager in a black leather jacket slowly clapped his hands three times. "So what did you name her? Elizabeth? Angelique?"

"Jennifer. Jennifer Jane Fairchild." Jane avoided his eyes. "I knew it was wrong. I knew it spelled the end of my sobriety, but you know . . . God, it felt so good to write it."

A thin, balding man stood up. "Tell us about the dog, Jane."

"I don't know what you mean." Jane's chin lifted. "I didn't write a dog in the story."

Everyone stared at her.

"All right. All right." Jane hung her head. "It was a golden retriever. Never sheds, never pukes or piddles on the carpet. Sleeps on the floor at the foot of Jennifer's antique brass bed. I named him . . .Goldie."

A tattered-looking man with a straggly goatee and a black cigarette planted between his chapped lips entered the meeting room and took a seat in the back row.

"Anyway." Jane paused to sniff a few times. "I did stop. I stopped as soon as Jennifer Jane stumbled across a Neo-Nazi plot to murder the democratic, extremely popular governor of her state. A murder which only she personally could prevent, of course, at great personal risk. I put away the pages in my desk."

"Oh, Jane." The redhead knuckled away a tear.

"I don't see what the big deal is," Jane snapped. "Sure, I know the rules. My protagonist should have been a recovering crack whore hiding from the cops in a flop house room with a sometimes-boyfriend named Wife Beater--"

The man with the goatee interrupted Jane by applauding loudly. One of the women sitting near him leaned over, asked him a question, shook her head and pointed to the door. The man with the goatee rose and walked out.

Jane rubbed some sweat from her face. "It's not like I'm going to publish it. Look, it was just a story. One story."

"That's how it starts, Jane," the balding man in the front row said, not without some sympathy. "One story, and then another, and soon you can justify every aspect of the Mary Sue novel. You join a writer organization, wear pink suits, have your business cards scented and go to luncheons once a month. And you know what the next step is after that."

Jane paled. "That won't happen to me."

"You never think it does," he said, "but then suddenly you're writing the last three words of your novel." He looked around the room. "And they are?"

The audience answered as a group. "Happily. Ever. After."

Jane burst into tears.

"I think we should have a reading now, to remind us all of why we're here." The balding man opened the book in his hands and began to read. "The Twelve Suggested Steps of Mary Sue Anonymous. Step One: We admitted we were powerless over Mary Sues--that our stories had become unrealistic."

As Jane groped in her purse for a tissue, the other people in the meeting echoed the balding man's words. Down the hall, the man with the goatee finally found the correct room for his meeting. He was welcomed by that group, and invited to step up to the podium and introduce himself.

"Howdy." He rubbed his mouth, dishevelling his goatee. "My name is Nick, and I write literary novels."

"Hi, Nick."

Character Wheel

While working with Antone Roundy's online Color Wheel generator to get some ideas for an e-book cover art in progress, a writing lightbulb flickered.

Everyone remembers from school what a color wheel is, right?



When people like artists, interior designers and quilters work with color, they are constantly thinking about how to put different colors together in a palette to create a certain look. Monochromatic color schemes, for example, are all tints or shades of one color (sky blue, medium blue, navy blue), while analogous schemes are all different colors which are side by side on the color wheel (green, blue, and violet.) Complementary schemes are when you put together colors from opposite sides of the wheel (green and red; blue and orange.)

I can talk color all day -- quilters are obsessed with values and patterns and such -- but that's not why I latched onto this color wheel thing. For years I've tried to explain how to balance characters in a story, but I never had a logical way to show how I do it. I always ended up trying to draw a schematic of the process and making a mess of it.

But now I'm thinking: is it possible to create a cast of characters in the same way artisans and designers use a color wheel to work out a design scheme? In romances, I know I prefer to write complementary heroes and heroines, and create sort of an analogous cast around those two contrasting characters. But the terms for color schemes don't quite translate right; we'd need personality traits to be the colors and define very different combinations. Each novel might require a new wheel, and I doubt any two writers' wheels would look the same.

It might still be too complicated a process to put together a character wheel, but I really liked the idea. It would make a great teaching tool, too. What do you guys think?

Personals

Madonna got me interested in the creative application of personal ads in her very funny film Desperately Seeking Susan. I loved how the screenwriter used the personals as a characterization device and an ongoing thread in the story. Now there's even a book about the best and worst personal ads of all time: Laura Schaefer's Man with Farm Seeks Woman with Tractor (my own favorite personal ad to date is Michael Kelly's hilarious Free Competition: Win My Hand in Marriage.)

Writing a personal ad for yourself might be authentic torture, but creating one for your protagonist can help you get in touch with who they are and what they want, aka that stuff you need for outlines, proposals and pitches. To borrow and paraphrase some tips from Linnea Sheldon's excellent article on how to write an online personal ad:

-- Know what your protagonist is looking for
-- Know what qualities your protagonist brings to a relationship
-- Think about what makes your protagonist unique and appealing.
-- Know what hobby, passion or activity occupies a large amount of your protagonist's time.
-- Be honest about who your protagonist is and what they want.

and, oh, if only I could tattoo this on a few inner eyelids:

-- Write in a style that naturally resembles your spoken word, not in a style in which you think you should write.

Here's one of mine:

Old but rich Frenchman with great personality seeks nimble plastic surgeon who is not hung up on looks. If you don't find me, I'll abduct you. R.S.V.P. M. Cyprien, La Fontaine, New Orleans.

Protagonist personal ads don't have to be about finding romantic partners, either:

Short shire boy seeks hot, deep type to accept his ring and complete the quest of a lifetime. Must be okay with fairies, elves, dwarves, and excessively hairy feet. Reply with directions to J.R.R. Tolkien. No orcs, please.

Southern tomboy wishes to meet recluse or shut-in. Should like overalls, boys, scuppernogs and small town crackshot lawyers. Platonist philosophies a big plus. Respond soonest to Scout c/o Harper Lee (use tree hollow if convenient.)

Young British schoolboy, robust, glasses, minor breathing problem, looking for someone to rescue me before things turn savage. Shelter-building and food-gathering skills appreciated. Send message in a bottle to W. Golding. Rule breakers need not apply.

How would your protagonist's personal ad go? (if you're not sure, try to write up one for the protagonist of your favorite keeper novel.)

What's in a Name?

Here's a writing exercise/game I've played with writing students that can help prod the imagination and sharpen your characterization skills, as well as give you a little insight into your own assumptions.

Go to a random name generator site, like Kleimo's, and generate a short list of names. At Kleimo, you can pick males, females, or a mix of both, as well as an obscurity factor of 1 (most common) to 99 (completely obscure.) Here's one, a mix with an obscurity factor of 20:

Earnestine Trower
Clayton Gamet
Katy Raggs
Mathew Nakasone
Nannie Schrum

Step 1: Write a line or two of story for each name. This can be a bit of dialogue, physical description, occupation, current life situation, or whatever the name itself suggests to you about the person who owns it. Just write down the first thing you think up:

Earnestine Trower kept her sensible shoes tightly laced, her white starched blouses buttoned up to her chin, and her hair so lacquered that it doubled as a safety helmet.

I suspected Clayton Gamet had been carousing out in our pasture at midnight again. Boy never seemed to sleep. But why had he spray-painted them red hearts on Pa's cows?

"Don't you love it?" Taylor spun around in a froth of pink tulle and black satin. "I bought it at Katy Raggs' boutique. Who'd have thought that dull little mouse could design something like this?"

I knew Mathew Nakasone was carrying at least five weapons and as many fake passports, but did I want to arrest him in the middle of his sister's wedding, or wait until he tried to slip out during the reception?

"Mummy, must we have Nannie Schrum to sit with us? She drinks all of Daddy's gin and then puts on his stripey pants and your hoop earrings and makes us sing pirate songs."

Step 2: Look over your name/story associations and see if you can recognize what made you make that particular association:

Earnestine sounds old-fashioned and unattractive, the combo of which makes me think uptight, rigid, controlled.

Every Clay I've ever known was a carouser and a fool for love.

Raggs to riches as well as rags in the expensive, useless objects that feed the vanity sense of the word; I don't like it when people call my daughter Katy.

Mathew's name triggered a strong image of a lean, dark, felonious multiracial cat burglar.

Nannie Schrum made me think of a bargain basement Mary Poppins and the -rum part of the name kicked in the alcoholic image.

Step 3: Now that you have a fair idea of the assumptions you make based on a name, take the same names, flip the character you created in the first step 360 degrees, and write another line or two of story:

You wouldn't know by looking at Earnestine Trower's bountiful, beautiful rack that she also came with a nice-size pool cue.

My Aunt Ruth claimed Old Man Gamet's Christian name was Clayton, but we kids were convinced that the nasty geezer had been born long before Christ, or maybe had even killed him.

The smallest cardboard box in Bender Alley belonged to Katy Raggs, judging by the three shopping carts of old clothes parked outside it.

"Cardinal Mathew Nakasone," I read from the candidate list. "Japanese-American, born in an internment camp, parents killed there, adopted and raised by Jesuits. Now he might make an interesting Pope."

"Come in, my pretty darlings," the elderly woman crooned as she beckoned from the door of the gingerbread house. "Old Nannie Schrum loves children to visit!"

G&G

If you're the parent of a child in America, you have read at least one issue of Highlights magazine. Long ago, some very smart marketing person at Highlights said, "Hey, let's put free copies in every doctor's office in the country. That might snag us some subscribers."

I don't know if the subscription angle worked, but I've been reading this rag for the last twenty-five years. I've lost count of the number of Science in Action articles I've explained and Hidden Pictures I've tried to find for my sniffly progeny (I can never find the freaking hammer. Never.) I know one thing -- if I don't see a copy of Highlights at a doctor's office, I leave, because the guy's medical license is obviously counterfeit.

I don't have anything against Highlights. It's hard enough to entertain a kid with strep throat during the obligatory hour sick room wait. Still, there's one thing in the mag that has always bothered me: the Goofus and Gallant (TM) page. For you parents with extremely healthy children, G&G are two comic boy characters who teach kids how to make good choices.

Gallant is the good boy, naturally, who always does the right thing. He's clean, neat, his hair is combed and he's forever smiling while he walks little old ladies across busy intersections only when the WALK light comes on. Gallant is kind and generous and always shares, and never, never runs out into the street after a fouled kickball.

The comic never offers much backstory, but I can guess what kind of life Gallant has: perfect. He lives in a pretty little Brady Bunch house in the nice part of town with Donna, his sweet mother, Rex, his manly father, and Muffy, his adorable sister. They have a dog named Rover, and Rex drives a station wagon to work while Donna cleans and makes delicious, well-balanced meals. At night they play board games or watch Disney movies together.

Yet this happy family might have some dark secrets. I've always suspected that Gallant and Muffy were secretly adopted. Donna and Rex remind me too much of Doris and Rock, and you know how unlikely it was that they, you know, [insert RWA approved phrase]. Also, who names their son Gallant? Did Mom & Dad even consider the nicknames the kid is going to be stuck with? Gal, Gall, Ant?

Goofus, on the other hand, is definitely the bad boy. He usually shows up scruffy or dirty, with his wrinkled shirt tails hanging out and his hair mussed. He doesn't look especially goofy, but instead glowers and scowls as he runs around kicking old ladies and throwing baseballs at oncoming traffic. He couldn't make a good choice if he stole it out of your locker at school.

Goofus is kind of cute, actually.

Okay, to me the bad boy is always more interesting than the good one. Especially Goofus, who is more like a real child, in his hostile, selfish and possibly psychotic way. Goofus is a force of nature; he doesn't mess with people unless it's to give them a reality check. Unlike that insufferable boy scout Gallant, who can't do anything wrong.

Now that I think about it, Goofus is probably the victim of a terrible home life. Sure, he's mean as a stepped-on snake, and only makes friends with kids named Chainsaw and Skull, but what chance does he have? Orphaned so young after Mom and Dad blew up in the home meth lab accident, and now stuck living at the trailer park with his drunk unemployed construction worker Uncle Rufus and his jailbait girlfriend Bobbie Sue. Look at how pale and skinny he is. Kid's probably been raised on a steady diet of Fritos, government block cheese and what lukewarm Budweiser Uncle Roof forgot to guzzle from the can. . .

Anyway. There is a writing lesson to be learned from G&G. When you go back to work on your WIP today, check out your characters and look for this Hidden Picture: Goofus and Gallant. Because we want the reader to cheer for our heroes and boo our villains, too often we write in dead ringers for G&G. So if you discover that you've got the Hitler Youth or Psycho Boy in your novel, try a little retooling. Let your characters be real people, not cartoon morality lessons.

Riddick

Riddick, the character portrayed by actor Vin Diesel in the movie Pitch Black gets a small amount of redemption in The Chronicles of Riddick which is now available on DVD. [Warning: Spoilers on the latter follow.]

I seem to remember most of the SF critics panning TCoR, which is always a signal to me to definitely see it, as I never agree with those people. And I'm not sorry I did; Vin Diesel is one of my favorite actors and he did not disappoint. Also, the visuals from the movie are unusual and pretty awesome.

I guess what bothers me on the morning after seeing it is the redemption aspect. Riddick as an unrepentant murderer worked. Riddick being given a secret history and a Christ-like role in saving the universe simply didn't. I didn't need excuses for Riddick. I didn't need him sanitized. I accepted him as a murderer, because what he did in Pitch Black was realistic and yet balanced the ugliness and violence of his crimes without excusing them. If he truly needed some sort of redemption, I felt he found it in the first movie.

I took a deep interest in Riddick due to a character I've been wrestling with for six years, whose book I sold this spring and will likely be the third Darkyn novel, Darkness Has No Need. My character is a murderer. He is completely unrepentant. I have no plans to redeem him, as redemption does not apply to him. Neither do nearly all of the other rules by which we live. Thus seeing TCoR was good for me, not only for the enjoyment factor, but to see where I don't want to go.