Four Primary Reasons Characters Don't Work

Sometimes a book falls flat.  We read for emotions...which means we read for character.  When editing for my clients, I notice a few things about characters that don't quite work.
I found 4 main reasons characters don't work for me:

- Generic action that could be performed by any character.

- Average dialogue.

- Slow opening scene.

- Uninteresting situation/premise.

 

Check for these things and maybe it will help improve your chances for a great sale, screenplay or novel...!


 

Quirky Props for Characters - Bizarre Stuff For Your People

There are many places you can get ideas for personal belongings that set your characters apart.

When I fly United, the greatest source of entertainment is the Sky Mall Magazine. 

I can’t believe what wise guys invent and others, less wise, buy.  Writers, take note; a quirky character can own quirky things.  Sky Mall is full of inspiration. On the most recent trip, gone was my favorite - the Lawn Yeti - which always made me question the mindset of crypto zoologists. 

The new Sky Mall featured improved items to thrill those-with-everything who crave unnecessary and ludicrous gadgets. 

Appropriately, I listened to Madonna’s Material Girl as I thumbed through the catalogue and saw a blow up thing that you’re supposed to lean on, not your face, your whole body.  On the next page, I learned I could rest secure in the knowledge that I could make a perfect pop-up egg in an electric Eggmaster – like it’s hard to use a pan????  Then to complement it, page 25 offered Environmentally “Green Gourmet Cookware.”  Really?  Must we be P.C. even when we cook?

Since much of my writing involves food as a theme, I thought something like that could come in handy for an oddball character.

 

HAVE A HIPSTER CHARACTER?

I turned the page and puzzled over a faceless watch  -  a wrist band where the time shows up on the links of the watch band.  Why? I asked myself. Haven’t all the gear-head, gadget-loving people moved on from watches altogether?

 

Then there came the Miocrodermabrasion System that will clear those pesky pores, featuring a pore-sized vacuum straw, no kidding!

Great for a spurned wife seeking a new lover or a desperately insecure teen maybe?

If pores weren’t your problem but your butt was, the Magic Benefit Panty promised to give those who are butt-less a seriously great bubble butt.  This is quite important when dancing these days…especially if you are shaking you stuff to the namesake song: Bubble Butt.

The last one truly confused me – a shirt with pockets under the armpits.  I could understand it if it was meant to hide a container of deodorant.  But I’m sorry, a passport, jewelry, and credit cards under your arms?  Really?  It advised me to put my cash there.  Really?  Who’d want it after it’s been to Sweat Heaven and back?   If your character wants one, it’s called a Compression Security Travel T-Shirt.  With seven (yes seven!) hidden pockets, it’s only $69.95.  But they don’t offer reimbursement for the pain of scraped and chapped underarms.  I can see a character suffering after wearing such a thing for a few hours as he perspires heavily as the bad guy sits next to him with a dinner knife aimed at his ribs.

 

GOT A NERD TO OUTFIT?

 

Sky Mall isn't the only place to discover quirky belongings for your characters.  At Uncommon Goods you can find ideas for outfitting your nerdish secondary character.  He might like a ray gun sculpture which can be had there for only $170.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or a skateboard stool...  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WEALTHY CHARACTERS?

And for your wealthy couple a map made of license plates.  They'd only need to fork out $3,900

 

If one ignores the other, maybe he hides in an ostrich pillow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or wastes money on a Back To The Future Flux Capacitor!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Caticorn Cat Unicorn Shower Curtain?

 

FOODIE CHARACTER?

 

Being the foodie that I am, I was especially attracted to the Spam and Ketchup cookbooks.  Each only sets your cook back about $10

 

And if your character is a low budget foodie, maybe he has a $13 Wilton 'Football' Novelty Cake Pan.

 

 

 

ROMANCE CHARACTER?

For your kinky romance character the handy dandy Baby Banana Toothbrush with Handle.

SCENTS:

Because you also want to engage your readers senses, they also sell cookie dough or zombie cologne.

 

 

TEEN CHARACTERS?

 

ModCloth will thrill your quirky teen with a taco purse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                              a jaws necklace

 

 

and math leggings for your genius cheerleader.

 

 

 

Have fun tooling around on these and other quirky gift sites for props. They are great places to find the little fun belongings that bring characters alive. Do you know of any cool places to find prop ideas? 

    

 -----Inky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FINDING THE “THING”

 

 

Over lunch this week, my sisters of the quill brainstormed with me about how to make my protagonist a more interesting, fun character to write.  Right now she’s a bit like Silvia Plath if she had been a cook.  She has a sordid past with baggage.  She’s a media-shy amateur sleuth, and that poses problems for her and between her and her ex.  She has a career that allows her to cross paths into red herrings and the killer, an expertise that is intimately connected with the plot and solving the main story question.  But something is still missing, something that separates her further from being me. 

I’m not whining that I’m bland or that I lack a third dimension.  I am, however, not a good fiction character because I’m extremely risk averse, which means I don’t walk into trouble or take on anything that a good girl scout would avoid (ironically I contradicted that by choosing to be a writer which challenges me every moment with the ultimate obstacle course, but that’s another post). 

It wouldn’t fit to power my sleuth up with a “thing” like Columbo’s outfit, complete with cigar and rumpled raincoat, unusual garb for a homicide detective.  It worked for him because it fit with the deceptively bumbling way he caught criminals. 

 

It can’t be as campy as Marty Mcfly’s inability to tolerate being called a chicken by Biff in Back to the Future.  That was a cartoonish story that could manage a “thing” that allowed for such an in-your-face flaw.

 

 

It wouldn’t fit my character to have more of a behind closed doors “thing” like Walter White’s choice to make meth in order to afford cancer treatment.  What was a sympathetic motivation became a dark “thing” indeed.

 

 

Mine is a different kind of story altogether with its own needs.  Other than my protagonist, I feel I have a grip on others who populate my story.  I’m happy with my other two POV characters, my secondary characters and even my red herrings.

The maddening impasse is with my darned amateur sleuth.  I need to step far outside my skin, outside my family culture to enjoy writing about her.  From the beginning, I gave her many of my traits so I could relate to her.  I’m somewhat shy, unless forced into a situation where I have to be gregarious.  My character is shy to the point of preferring isolation from the general public.  I’m a cookbook author.  She’s a culinary instructor and food scholar.  It is handy to know my way around a kitchen for her sake.  But she needs something more. 

 

To be relatable, and fascinating, I want her to be more than simply a heroine with laudable intentions, a pillar of her community, someone with impeccable ethics with no baggage clouding her judgment.  Who in my sphere is that generic and unsurprising?  Would I admire a bland friend like that?  Well, maybe my next door neighbor; predictability is comforting when it comes to the one who checks in on me if I’ve accidentally leave my garage door open all night.  But even he, behind closed doors, isn’t likely to be exactly what I expect.  And what does my protagonist do behind closed doors?  That’s what I need to figure out.  What’s her “thing”????

 

The sisters toyed with a few ideas and Stormy wondered if my character’s consequential flaw might be that she always tells the truth, that she’s compelled to do so because she believes that hiding a truth from her father led to a delay in finding her mother who disappeared when she was a child.  But as I thought through this interesting idea, I discovered that always telling the truth doesn’t work with some aspects of the plot.  That’s because of how the story unfolds (including a scene in which she chooses not to scare her daughter with the “truth” of their plane’s mechanical problems).  I need to allow room for skirting the truth, yet she could be painfully conflicted about it.  She believes that one truth as a child led to her mother’s disappearance and a lie led to her mother’s death.  So confessions and a fibs both led her to falsely believe she’d set dangerous things in motion when she was still in elementary school.  The duality is a nuanced trait for a 350 page book.  It could be absorbed by the page unless in narrative she is often waxing worried over decisions about telling the truth… It could easily be overdone.  Maybe my skill level isn’t quite there. 

 

I continue to brainstorm:

Some lie too much.

Some tell too many truths.

 

 

When you are sad, even a broken egg is too much to bear, let alone talk honestly about.  No.  No.  Inky.  That is too Silvia Plath.    

How do you find your “thing”?   -  inky

 

 

What Agents Want

I've attended dozens of writing conferences since 1994.  There I meet agents who openly talk about industry needs.  Most agents tell me that unless one has a very topical thriller, they look for:

1) voice
2) a dynamite start with an interesting inciting incident
3) fascinating characters
4) flawless writing
5) and that a plot can be flawed if the above are all in place.

Tinkers is a literary novel by Paul Harding that has virtually no plot but an amazing lyrical voice.  It breaks every rule yet won the Pulitzer Prize.  Sister Stormy introduced me to this book.

Salman Rushdie has another remarkable voice (Midnight's Children). The plot is hard to follow and yet readers are drawn to it by his new and fresh way of letting one share his world and mind.  Sister Stormy, once again loaned me this book, along with the Spark Notes because of its elusive plot.  - Inkpot