Title Idea #1: The magic of characterization. Title #2: My MC is a colorless douche.

lucidzfl · Jul 20, 2009

Ok, so here's my daily advice request.

I have a disease, and that disease is called M.C. Vanilla. I have dealt with 3 MC's in my three novel length series.

One common thread I've discovered is that my main characters tend to have very little character to themselves. Now I've analyzed this and I think I know the reason.

Every supporting character is little more than a caricature. Also, I'm not as attached to them as I am my MC, so I'm more willing to have them step outside the box from what I would let my MC do. This means my MC leads a very static, ambiguous, safe existence. Don't get me wrong, the situations are not safe. My MCs are all thrust into the most unsafe situations ever, but their internalization, their responses never pack any punch.

Angry powerful army guy can say whatever he wants to anyone. I know every single word this guy is going to say before he says it.

Dejected brother whose two sisters were killed is the same way. I know how this dude will react to ANY situation.

Pissy wife... Kind hearted but dull giant.... Paranoid redneck... Lunatic megalomaniacal dictator? I can write the hell out of these characters.

So why the hell does my MC come off as a powerful, intelligent, resourceful character that no one can possibly give a shit about?

10er · Jul 20, 2009

Mary Sue syndrome?
Someone else I can't remember right now put it this way: you can't love your MC unless you're a sadist and love means pain. Powerful, resourceful and intelligent? Personally, I don't care because I don't need to care. He has problems? Whatever, he'll get it done. He's awesome after all.

lucidzfl · Jul 20, 2009

10er said:
Mary Sue syndrome?
Someone else I can't remember right now put it this way: you can't love your MC unless you're a sadist and love means pain. Powerful, resourceful and intelligent? Personally, I don't care because I don't need to care. He has problems? Whatever, he'll get it done. He's awesome after all.

All of my characters are intelligent and resourceful and strong, but they are in situations that are certainly scaled to their abilities. (In much different ways)

MC 1 is a psychic that ends up being powerful enough to devour worlds and war with gods.

MC 2 is a clone who ends up in charge of a small clone resistance force that not only fends off the attacks of the indiginous people on a planet, but the military from which they went rogue

MC 3 is a man on a solo search for his wife through a barren wasteland filled with post apocalyptic nightmares.

I even tried putting them into emotional situations to give them something to identify with. MC1 spends all his free time cold calling names from a phone book trying to find his parents.

MC 2 tries to piece togethor who he was originally a clone of.

MC 3, as i said, is trying to find his wife.

I still don't think anyone gives a crap about any of them.

Kitty Pryde · Jul 20, 2009

Your MCs are characterless, and your supporting characters are caricatures? Ruh roh.

Maybe try some different exercises to fill them in a little bit? Like, what does each character want more than anything, deep down in his guts? What's he willing to do to get it? Now the stuff that happens to him should be specifically tailored by you to be the most painful wretched thing that could possibly happen TO THAT PERSON. Not average, run-of-the-mill badness, but specifically painful awfulness for your specific character.

For an example, um, take going to a ten year high school reunion. It's vaguely unpleasant in a general way to go to your reunion if you used to be skinny but you've gained fifty pounds since high school. Obviously. But. For the academically-obsessed girl who's now a mother and a math teacher leading a satisfied life, it's not so bad. For the star quarterback who's still beefcake and is a successful car-salesman and beloved by all, it's not so bad. For that girl from the cheerleading squad who placed her entire self-worth in her appearance and ruled the school by hating on all the less-gorgeous people, it's way more painful. THAT GIRL with THAT PROBLEM is interesting.

Or, you said you have a guy looking for his wife. In general, a lost wife is sad. It's sad to Generic Character. BUT. To a guy who's an only child with abusive parents who are dead, who found in his wife the only refuge from the storms of life that he had ever known, a missing wife is infinitely more horrible and painful and thus makes for really good reading.

In short, don't just torture them generically. Torture them in the most personalized way possible so they suffer the most.

(Your supporting characters should have their own desires too. You don't have to torture them as much, though. Just remember that, in the book inside their heads, THEY are the main characters, so don't make them one-dimensional.)

Mr Flibble · Jul 20, 2009

Maybe try some different exercises to fill them in a little bit? Like, what does each character want more than anything, deep down in his guts? What's he willing to do to get it? Now the stuff that happens to him should be specifically tailored by you to be the most painful wretched thing that could possibly happen TO THAT PERSON. Not average, run-of-the-mill badness, but specifically painful awfulness for your specific character.

This. In spades.

Also, does he have emotional flaws? Ones that people can relate to, that he has to struggle with?

So say he's got a nasty temper, one that can turn violent or so that he ends up verbally alienating people - that's his defining flaw. Show him struggle with it, try and conquer it, maybe not manage it all the time. Show this get him into trouble of his own making and then struggle with it some more.

lucidzfl · Jul 20, 2009

Kitty Pryde said:
Your MCs are characterless, and your supporting characters are caricatures? Ruh roh.

Maybe try some different exercises to fill them in a little bit? Like, what does each character want more than anything, deep down in his guts? What's he willing to do to get it? Now the stuff that happens to him should be specifically tailored by you to be the most painful wretched thing that could possibly happen TO THAT PERSON. Not average, run-of-the-mill badness, but specifically painful awfulness for your specific character.

For an example, um, take going to a ten year high school reunion. It's vaguely unpleasant in a general way to go to your reunion if you used to be skinny but you've gained fifty pounds since high school. Obviously. But. For the academically-obsessed girl who's now a mother and a math teacher leading a satisfied life, it's not so bad. For the star quarterback who's still beefcake and is a successful car-salesman and beloved by all, it's not so bad. For that girl from the cheerleading squad who placed her entire self-worth in her appearance and ruled the school by hating on all the less-gorgeous people, it's way more painful. THAT GIRL with THAT PROBLEM is interesting.

Or, you said you have a guy looking for his wife. In general, a lost wife is sad. It's sad to Generic Character. BUT. To a guy who's an only child with abusive parents who are dead, who found in his wife the only refuge from the storms of life that he had ever known, a missing wife is infinitely more horrible and painful and thus makes for really good reading.

In short, don't just torture them generically. Torture them in the most personalized way possible so they suffer the most.

(Your supporting characters should have their own desires too. You don't have to torture them as much, though. Just remember that, in the book inside their heads, THEY are the main characters, so don't make them one-dimensional.)

Great post and this is the perfect opener to what I think my problem is.

I apologize for calling my supporting characters caricatures. They start out as a caricature, and that makes writing their reactions very easy to come up with at the start. By the end of the novel they've made massive leaps in terms of character, and voice. All of the best lines of dialog I've ever written in my entire life have been from supporting characters.

Its as if I'm either afraid to have my MC grow in voice, or I just don't know how to do it.

Now, the point I REALLY want to talk to about is this. You said that the history behind his wife is the reason he wants to find her so desperately.

How do I accomplish this without an info dump either verbal or internal?

vox · Jul 20, 2009

In one of his songs, John Lennon wrote something to the effect of "life is just what happens while you're busy making other plans". I've found this concept helpful in writing fiction. I write with idea that my characters all have better things to do than deal with what they're dealing with at the moment in my little story. Giving them thoughts, emotions and actions that deal with these other things makes them more real. Even when they are on a task that they've chosen, it's still a means to an end for them.

I know you've given your people some backstory, but it might help to get into their heads and really explore the "why" of it all.

lucidzfl · Jul 20, 2009

vox said:
In one of his songs, John Lennon wrote something to the effect of "life is just what happens while you're busy making other plans". I've found this concept helpful in writing fiction. I write with idea that my characters all have better things to do than deal with what their dealing with at the moment in my little story. Giving them thoughts, emotions and actions that deal with these other things makes them more real. Even when they are on a task that they've chosen, it's still a means to an end for them.

I know you've given your people some backstory, but it might help to get into their heads and really explore the "why" of it all.

Interesting. And I guess this is what I have to answer to myself.

In every one of my books, my MCs are exposed to extreme situations in which their only response is to react. Theres not a lot of "down time" in my books for reflection.

katiemac · Jul 20, 2009

So why the hell does my MC come off as a powerful, intelligent, resourceful character that no one can possibly give a shit about?

There's something wrong here in your phrasing. If your character is powerful, intelligent and resourceful and I can tell, there's a good chance I'll care about him.

Have you ever read a book where you kind of roll your eyes and go, "Wow, everything bad happens to this guy!" But then you take a step back - we're hearing about the story through this character's focus because everything bad happens to him, coincidence or not. There's a reason Luke Skywalker or Harry Potter get the story told from their perspective, not Obi Wan or Neville Longbottom.

Maybe you're telling the story using the wrong character as the focus. If that's not the case, you need to make your MC relevant to his own story.

10er · Jul 20, 2009

vox said:
In one of his songs, John Lennon wrote something to the effect of "life is just what happens while you're busy making other plans". I've found this concept helpful in writing fiction. I write with idea that my characters all have better things to do than deal with what their dealing with at the moment in my little story.

Oh I love this. I've read many variations of this piece of advice, put this is pretty damn concise.
Don't "use" your characters to get your plot going, use your plot to get in the characters' way.

vox · Jul 20, 2009

lucidzfl said:
In every one of my books, my MCs are exposed to extreme situations in which their only response is to react.

Could it be that they're being shown as reactionary only, instead of proactive?

lucidzfl · Jul 20, 2009

katiemac said:
There's something wrong here in your phrasing. If your character is powerful, intelligent and resourceful and I can tell, there's a good chance I'll care about him.

Have you ever read a book where you kind of roll your eyes and go, "Wow, everything bad happens to this guy!" But then you take a step back - we're hearing about the story through this character's focus because everything bad happens to him, coincidence or not. There's a reason Luke Skywalker or Harry Potter get the story told from their perspective, not Obi Wan or Neville Longbottom.

Maybe you're telling the story using the wrong character as the focus. If that's not the case, you need to make your MC relevant to his own story.

Have you ever watched Prison break?

In that story, the two main protaganists are Lincoln Burrows and Michael Scofield.

There are plenty of people with enjoyable, and really quite impressive arcs in that series. The prison guard from season 1's transition from Guard, to disgraced homebody, to bounty hunter, to prison bitch is awesome, and his acting has carried it the whole way.

However, Lincoln is still a clueless ape, and Michael is a brooding pussy.

For 5 seasons!

I think the writers have the same problem I do. The ancillary characters are given everything to do and the primary characters, despite being the catalysts for the story are empty and completely bland.

10er · Jul 20, 2009

lucidzfl said:
Have you ever watched Prison break?

In that story, the two main protaganists are Lincoln Burrows and Michael Scofield.

There are plenty of people with enjoyable, and really quite impressive arcs in that series. The prison guard from season 1's transition from Guard, to disgraced homebody, to bounty hunter, to prison bitch is awesome, and his acting has carried it the whole way.

However, Lincoln is still a clueless ape, and Michael is a brooding pussy.

For 5 seasons!

I think the writers have the same problem I do. The ancillary characters are given everything to do and the primary characters, despite being the catalysts for the story are empty and completely bland.

I haven't watched Prison Break, but it sounds like American Gods, where every single character is more interesting than Shadow.
Sometimes I think writers do it on purpose.
If the MC is empty enough, the chances people will project their own personalities onto him/her increase, making identifying with him/her easier for them? Or something like that?

Red-Green · Jul 20, 2009

Let me ask you--and be honest--are your main characters your alter ego in the story? When you're writing the story, are they a stand-in for you?

dgiharris · Jul 20, 2009

Redzilla said:
Let me ask you--and be honest--are your main characters your alter ego in the story? When you're writing the story, are they a stand-in for you?

I was going to say something similar. The Mary Sue disease can be a pretty strong one.

But I'd also like to ask a basic question? Are your characters real to you? Have you made them real, given them a history with minute details? Given them a personality and unique identity?

I've found that in real life, we are all defined by certain events in our past. Similarly, we each have our quirks that make us interesting.

One thing I do with my characters is envision and 'channel' a certain personality for each of my characters. I like to draw upon people that I have met and literally transfer these people into my stories. In some cases, I may take 60% from one guy and 40% from another.

I've found that this gives a certain 'realness' to my characters and stories. Once I channel them, then the characters actual TELL ME what they would do in the situations I put them in. In fact, it gets to the point where the only thing I'm good for is creating the world and stage in which they are the principle actors. Oftentimes, the results are what I would have never anticipated. Even when I want them to do a certain action: kill the villian, seduce the love interest, etc... The characters will still achieve those actions but usually in a way better than what I originally thought of.

Basically, if you feel your MCs aren't interesting, then think of some interesting people that you've know, and use them as a model for your MC.

Good luck

Mel...

So my suggestion? Think of a few interesting people that you know, and let them be the main character.

vox · Jul 20, 2009

dgiharris said:
I've found that in real life, we are all defined by certain events in our past.

This.

I spent a good amount of time writing the stories of my backstory for some of my characters... actual pages of prose that allowed me to see them in action then. Doing that has helped me a great deal when it comes to choosing their actions now - in the story I'm actually writing.

lucidzfl · Jul 20, 2009

Redzilla said:
Let me ask you--and be honest--are your main characters your alter ego in the story? When you're writing the story, are they a stand-in for you?

Thats the closest approximation. Yes. I guess the reason is not egotistical insomuch as when I write, I always think my MC would do what I would do in that situation.

I hate when characters make ridiculous decisions and swore my MC would make realistic choices.

Red-Green · Jul 20, 2009

Okay. I didn't want to pop off with one of my half-assed theories if it didn't even apply to you, but it does. And I'm starting to think it's not totally half-assed, because I've now encountered half a dozen people in this situation.

For going on five years now, I've been in a small writing group with a guy who has this problem. His prose is solid, he comes up with great premises, and he can run an action sequence that'll take your breath away. The one obstacle he's been trying to overcome is how not to make his MC him. They are at heart always his fictional alter ego. Not in an egotistical Mary Sue way, where they can do no wrong, but just in the mundane sense that they think, talk, and act like him.

They're also dead boring, but he's not a boring guy. You probably aren't boring either, but the problem then is kind of an existential one: you don't know yourself. You don't know what makes you interesting. You don't know what makes you quirky or compelling. End result: you don't know your character and your fictional alter ego is flat.

I'm not going to say that it's impossible to know yourself well enough to make your fictional alter ego compelling, but I think it must be really hard, having watched my writing group member struggle with this for five years.

So, that's your challenge. You need to sever this character from your own identity and let him develop his own personality. Let him make decisions that are not like the ones you would make. Give him different motivations than you have. Purposefully. This won't happen on its own. Go through your book and at each moment say, "What wouldn't I do?" Then, make him do that. Then, figure out a motivation for why he did something that you consider counter-intuitive. Work backwards from your own logic. If X motivates you to make decision A, then -X might motivate your MC to make decision -A. Consider this an exercise and rewrite a few scenes with this model in mind: he must do things that you wouldn't do.

For the record, my writing group buddy has refused to take this advice, so I can't vouch for whether this exercise will work, but it's worth trying, right?

The book I've got on sub works on this principle. At every turn, my MC makes decisions that I consider horrible, disastrous, and indicative of a severely impaired ability to evaluate cause and effect. This just happens to be my MCs personality, and as much as I can understand his motivations and "logic," he's not me.

lucidzfl said:
Thats the closest approximation. Yes. I guess the reason is not egotistical insomuch as when I write, I always think my MC would do what I would do in that situation.

I hate when characters make ridiculous decisions and swore my MC would make realistic choices.

Namatu · Jul 20, 2009

lucidzfl said:
Its as if I'm either afraid to have my MC grow in voice, or I just don't know how to do it.

Now, the point I REALLY want to talk to about is this. You said that the history behind his wife is the reason he wants to find her so desperately.

How do I accomplish this without an info dump either verbal or internal?

Know your characters, particularly the MCs. This means lots of thinking about who they are, how they grew up, what they wanted, what they got, the foods they hate, the movies they watch, and how far they'll go to succeed at whatever you're throwing at them.

You can think all this through in your head, develop a Q&A, have a written dialogue in which you just let the characters talk about random whatever. It's nothing you'll pull out and plunk into your manuscript, not in concrete fashion, but it will permeate your characterization.

dgiharris · Jul 20, 2009

Redzilla said:
...So, that's your challenge. You need to sever this character from your own identity and let him develop his own personality. Let him make decisions that are not like the ones you would make. Give him different motivations than you have. Purposefully. This won't happen on its own. Go through your book and at each moment say, "What wouldn't I do?" Then, make him do that. Then, figure out a motivation for why he did something that you consider counter-intuitive. Work backwards from your own logic. If X motivates you to make decision A, then -X might motivate your MC to make decision -A. Consider this an exercise and rewrite a few scenes with this model in mind: he must do things that you wouldn't do.

Check out the big brain on Red...

Great advice. If I may attatch myself to the coattails of this wisdom, let me add the following.

Some people equate "What I would do" as the correct action. Truth is, that is not true. Human behavior corresponds to a Bell Curve of different responses.

Imagine that you are in a baseball park and all of a sudden there is an explosion right in center field.

What would you do?

Some people would scream, some people would laugh (thinking it is a joke) some people would run, some people would call 911, some people would just sit there doing nothing with a confused look on their face, some people would try to get closer to the field to see better, some people would vomit, some people may pass out from shock, etc. etc.

Which is the 'correct' response? Well, all of them really.,

So when trying to decide what an MC would do, truth is, there are ALWAYS a range of different emotions and choices in pretty much every situation. So when making your MC do something 'different' than what you would do, don't think that you are wrong.

The other thing I would add is that I've found that it is helpful to inject some 'personality' into your character. Regardless of his personality, there are always opportunities to inject some quirks, life, interesting things about the character.

I suspect this is one reason why your character is a bit flat. He has no quirks despite the fact that every single human being on the planet is not without their quirks.

Figure out ways to showcase those quirks and personality traits of your MC that makes him/her interesting.

For instance, picture an assasin about to kill a client.

Scene A: The assassin is alone with the client who is tied down to a chair. The assassin then shoots him in the head then walks away.

ANALYSIS: Very flat. Just an action.

Scene B: the assassin is alone with the client who is tied down to a chair. "Do you have a preference we're you'd like to be shot?"
"Well, yes, if you don't mind, not in the face please?"
"No problem." Assassin shoots him in the head then walks away.

ANALYSIS: Scene just went from flat to interesting. Why did the Assassin ask him then shoot him in the face? He's an asshole. What's going on here? Why did he do that?

Notice how just the addition of a little quirk/personality completely changes the scene. Transforms the character from flat to 3-d.

Anyways, without reading your book, i'm not sure what is going on, but hopefully this helps.

Mel...

Exir · Jul 20, 2009

I have to add that basing a character on yourself doesn't automatically make him a Gary Stu, or uninteresting. In my WIP, my main character is based on how I was like when I was ten, only with certain attributes boosted up to the max: the fact that he just doesn't understand how people, particularly adults, work; that he has a huge imagination (at the same time realizing it is just wish-fulfillment, then goes on daydreaming regardless); and he is very attached to the memory of his past friends (and family, though I've never been an orphan myself

) to the extent of bitchiness. He is so bad with people that at one point, he attempts to "trick" a middle-aged couple into adopting him and actually believes that he can get away with it. (And he DOES "get away" with it to his delight, oblivious that his adoptive parents wanted to adopt him in the first place.) I think what makes it work is that when I look back on my childhood, I laugh at it, and I can see my negative traits very clearly. So that perspective allows me to toy around with certain traits and blow it up for dramatic purposes, without hurting my ego. Hopefully, when the audience reads about my character and his flimsy, wishful "trickery", they'll stand back and laugh too.

TheAntar · Jul 20, 2009

If you are going to base a character on yourself, try emphasizing the flaws and not the strengths.

At some point, even Jack Bauer gets boring if all he ever does is win.

In the end he wins, right? That's just how it goes. But focus on the FLAWS. That's why you read a book.

djf881 · Jul 21, 2009

You can modulate it to some degree, but your MC is necessarily going to be you. You've got to write him. If nobody would want to spend time with you, then nobody will want to spend time with your MC.

If you can be charming and funny, then you should definitely write a charming and funny character. You can make him moderately more charming and funny than you, yourself might be in real life by having other characters or events provide him with opportunities to say or do charming and funny things.

If you can do this, it makes things a lot easier for you, because you can keep a reader rooting for a character who does selfish or even downright evil things.

However, if you are not charming and funny to some degree, it's hard to fake it, even with the benefit of softball-setups and unlimited time to come up with witty ripostes. And if you try and fail at this, the whole book doesn't work. Also, note that other characters saying the MC is charming and funny doesn't make it true.

And the perspective character's actions shouldn't necessarily be unpredictable. The last thing you want is for him to do something weird and stupid that breaks suspension of disbelief or makes readers dislike him.

But plenty of successful authors have flat characterization or bland heroes, especially in the action-adventure and thriller categories.

If you look at the "hero with a thousand faces" school of storytelling, every one of those thousand faces is kind of a douche. Harry Potter has very little personality. Luke Skywalker has very little personality (R2-D2 is the most complex character in "Star Wars").

"Lord of the Rings" is another one that uses big plot to compensate for bland characterization. Frodo is quite bland, Aragorn is so flat in the book that Peter Jackson had to beef up his romantic subplot when every other aspect of the novels got slimmed down. Sauron was just a big eye. Every time these characters sit down to talk, they just wind up singing drinking songs to each other (with the lyrics fully transcribed in the text) until Nazguls attack them.

The entire cinematic James Bond character is, similarly, based on a characters whose primary traits are that he drives, dresses, shoots and screws really well,and when he kills somebody, he makes a wisecrack that usually isn't funny.

If your characters are stiff, you want to avoid first person like the plague. Pull to third-limited; you need to stick with a perspective character within scenes, but you can change the viewpoint from scene to scene or from chapter to chapter, which lets you have a more expansive cast and more stuff constantly going on.

When readers say the characters are thin or flat, they're really saying their bored, so if you can't make the character interesting when he isn't doing anything, take the Michael Bay approach and make sure he's always jumping off bridges onto boats and running around exotic locales and blowing up Ferraris.

Title Idea #1: The magic of characterization. Title #2: My MC is a colorless douche.

lucidzfl

Back from the dead

10er

lucidzfl

Back from the dead

Kitty Pryde

i luv you giant bear statue

Mr Flibble

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

lucidzfl

Back from the dead

vox

lucidzfl

Back from the dead

katiemac

Five by Five

10er

vox

lucidzfl

Back from the dead

10er

Red-Green

KoalaKoalaKoala!

dgiharris

Disgruntled Scientist

vox

lucidzfl

Back from the dead

Red-Green

KoalaKoalaKoala!

Namatu

Lost in mental space.

dgiharris

Disgruntled Scientist

Exir

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking

TheAntar

djf881

AW Addict