Even BIGGER than life

I have to confess: I'm not sure where Maass is going with this.  Page 32 of the Workbook asks me to find TWELVE places the protragonist can break through boundaries and do something s/he wouldn't have done at the beginning of the book.  While this is all great and good for character growth, with too much of itthe character traits you outline at the beginning of the book don't seem so much like traits if the character is just busting through that way of thinking or acting right away. 

For example, if I have a female character who's quiet and shy in her speech, I can't have her shouting too much.  The soft-spoken trait then looks like an affectation rather than a true trait, and the reader is going to see my character differently. 

On Page 35 (still in Chapter 4) Maass says to practice taking a thought, action or piece of dialogue and first make it bigger, then make the same action smaller.  And THEN come up with 24 points in the story (in mine, it would be 24 per character) where you can heighten or diminish something the character does, says or thinks. 

Um. . .. wow.  48 times?  Really?  I'm going to work on this tomorrow, but I'm wondering if this level of intensity might get tiring after a while, or make the characters seem caricatures.

Larger than Life Characters

Now we're on to Chapter 4.  Here, Maass says that one of the things that makes a memorable, larger-than-life protagonist is that they will do what the rest of us would never do.  They say things out loud that we only think.  And of course, they come up with witty repartee in an instant, where we always have the perfect comeback an hour after the discussion. 

Part of the exercises (Page 31 of the Workbook if you're following along) is to outline the things that your character would never, EVER, under any circumstances, say.  What s/he wouldn't do.  And what s/he wouldn't think.  Then, find places in your story for your character to think, say and do those things. 

What type of situations might cause that?   What would be the consequences of the thought or action? 

My thoughts at this point (having not done the exercise yet) are that it would have to be fairly well into the book to write this.  Because a reader isn't going to know it's against the character's traits to think/say/do something until they know the character.  But then I can see the shock value of starting with something big and dramatic, like killing someone, and then revealing how out of character that is.  The repercussions of whatever opened the book would have to be felt throughout it, I'm thinking.

Has anyone done this exercise already?  Thoughts? 

Growing Conflicted

Still working on Maass's chapter on Inner Conflict (Chapter 3), and in looking back at the work I did for Chapter 2 (Multidimensional Characters) I see now that identifying those extra character dimensions is a good chunk of the work toward creating (but not, darn it, solving) internal struggles for the characters.  For example, in the wip, the hero's primary trait is that he's a rescuer.  He sees himself as the person who swoops in and takes care of things for those who can't.  He's a doctor, as well, which plays right into that.  Rescuer types often become EMTs, doctors, etc.

The opposite of that would be to throw someone to the wolves, a very villainous trait and one I don't think that my hero has.  Still, I wrote a scene with him doing something like that just to see what would happen.  Very interesting.

But what would happen if someone came along who he could not save?  Someone with cancer, or (in this instance) a mental illness that was simply beyond the medicine of the times to treat?  How would that challenge him as a person?  As a doctor? 

So let's hear it.  Pick one of your characters and tell me his or her defining quality, as Maass puts it.  What's the one trait someone would use to describe your character, as in "he's honest" or "she's very direct".  Now, what's the opposite of that, and how would you show some growth from one toward the other, even if not all the way there?  Your honest hero might not have to become a pathological liar, but what would test his honesty?  And would there be a time when he could actually tell a lie to achieve some greater goal?

Internal Conflict

So you've created characters who are heroic and likeable.  Maybe still flawed at the opening of the book, but that's okay. They can be flawed but still likeable, so long as their flaw isn't something like being a serial murderer or a pedophile.  The flaw has to be redeemable, something the character can overcome--which brings me to the subject of this week's (I promise to do better about posting regularly) post. 

Internal conflict.  Growth of the character, WITHIN the character.  This chapter of the Maass book deals with the internal conflict, something I love but I always seem to give my characters a Mt. Everest to climb.  But I want them to work for their happiness.  So how do you identify what that internal conflict is, make it large enough to be a rewarding read, but manageable enough that the character has a realistic chance of growing and changing enough to overcome it?  How do you keep everything in balance? 

Breakout Novel--Heroes

I'm working my way through Donald Maass's 'Breakout Novel', and the beginning section is on heroes and heroines.  I'm just going to call them heroes or protagonists, because we all know that women can be and are heroic, as well.

One of the things Maass says is that we identify with a protagonist not because we like them, but because we see in that character ourselves as we would like to be.  That in the outset of the book we should see at least some 'small show of gumption, a glimmer of humor, a dab of ironic self-regard' or some other heroic trait, even if the character is in the middle of wallowing in self-pity or doing something un-heroic at the story's outset. 

Another thing he asks is that we take out our favorite three works of fiction, the three we would most re-read now or have read the most.  Laura Kinsale's 'Flowers from the Storm' and the Lord of the Rings trilogy are definitely on there.  I'm trying to think of another.  LaVyrle's 'Morning Glory' would probably be the other, though I doubt I have a copy of it any more. 

The rich characterization is what brings me back to those books.  Though LOTR has an intense, intricate plot, it also has well-drawn characters.  The two romances have very intense internal conflicts and plots, but they're not 'we're gonna die' intensity in the external plot at all.  So internal plot and characterization.  And actually, LOTR has quite an involved internal journey for Frodo and everyone else.  The external plot points tend to overshadow it, though.

So what are YOUR three favorite works of fiction, and why?

Conflict--why is it so hard??

Spent this past weekend with the Olympia RWA Chapter at Manresa Castle in Port Townsend with some of the most fabulous people on the planet.  Had a wonderful time, and took up the current MFH (manuscript from hell) to work on.  Writing it has just turned into such a struggle.  And I discovered with their help that the reason is. . . . there's no conflict.  The hero and heroine both wanted, basically, the same thing. 

This makes for a very short book.

In my head, they had opposite goals, but once people with a clearer vision looked at my plot (or lack thereof), they said, "Hey! There's no conflict here, and no place for your characters to grow."

On the flip side, I think I helped a couple of people with the same problem with their manuscripts. 

So why is it so easy to see these ginormous plot holes in other peoples' books and not in our own?  Is it because we're too close to the characters?  Is it because we don't spend enough time before sitting down to write to get this figured out?  Or do we not go deep enough?  I mean, this is something like book #7.  I should have this figured out by now.  And I **thought** they were at odds.  But they're really not. 

I have a whole notebook full of 'deep insights' into this book that clearly meant squat.  I'm going to start fresh because I still like the characters, but I was heading them in the completely wrong direction. 

So today's question is, How do you ensure you have enough conflict?  How do you recognize when there's not enough?  And where do you draw the line between revising what you've got, and throwing it out and starting all over? 

Adrianne Lee told me that you need Goal, and Opposition to that goal.  And that both of those should either be heroic, or someone doing something unheroic, but for a very good reason, a heroic reason.  Part of my problem was that my heroine wanted freedom and/or self-determination, which is heroic, but the OPPOSITE of that, which would have to be the hero's goal, would be to deny her her freedom.  Bad juju there, at least for a hero.  One of the many reasons the book wasn't working. 

In my bullfighter book, the heroine wants to kill the story's villain.  Now, murder is generally not considered heroic, BUT she's going to avenge the murder of her family by the villain years earlier.  And of course, the villain does die in the end, but not at her hand, so she's still left being heroine-like.  Heroic.  Whatever. 

Thoughts?  How do we test our conflicts to ensure they'll be sustainable for an entire book?

What Jane Austen Saw

Research ain't everything.  It certainly helps, and I've read books with outstanding research, so-so research, and no research.  While researching an article I'm writing, just today I came across "The Boston Tea Party was a defining moment in America's Civil War".  Now, maybe it's just me, but I thought the Tea Party (NOT the current one) and the Civil War were in different centuries.  That right there is what you call a "Research Fail".

We've all heard "write what you know".  But how is that possible if you're writing a historical novel, or a futuristic?  How about a novel that involves some scuba diving if you're deathly afraid of the water? 

Jane Austen, however, did write what she knew, and we're certainly the richer for it.  She was a keen observer of the world around her, and could hone her words to a razor's edge--the better to cut you with, if you were her quarry. 

So this week I pose some questions:

• Do you "research" or "observe"?
• Do you get what you need before, during or after the story is written? 
• With the focus in most women's fiction being on the characters, rather than the explosions, murders or other selected mayhem of general fiction, is perfect research a necessity?
• And what do agents and editors think about this?  Will they take on a manuscript with great characters, but holes in the research? 

Let's talk