Tag: characters

Thursday Technicalities: Secondary Characters

Featured Ariel Paiement
Publishing Advice

Introduction

Last week, we talked about character dimensions or aspects, and this week, we’re moving on to talking about secondary characters. Secondary characters are often ignored or not given the focus they should be given simply because they are secondary, but good fiction will develop these characters too. Let’s talk about what part your secondary characters play and why they’re so important that they too need as much development as the main characters.

Roles of Secondary Characters

When it comes to secondary characters, we often view them as supporting cast members to our lead roles, the main characters. While it is true that they’re going to be supporting characters, if they’re going to do their jobs to the best of their abilities, their roles need to be defined and their characters developed.

So what are their roles? Well, secondary characters predominantly provide either support or opposition to our protagonists and antagonists. But if they’re going to do that, they’re also going to need to take on more specific roles in the story. The ones who show up for any length of time should be fulfilling multiple purposes or roles along the way in helping or hindering the protagonist and antagonists. And, interestingly enough, it isn’t always necessary that these secondary characters be intentionally working to help or hinder. Some secondary characters may do both at different times simply in the process of living their own lives and pursuing their own goals.

Developing Secondary Characters

As you work with your secondary characters, my recommendation to you is that you develop them the same way you develop your protagonists or antagonists. Take the time to carefully craft them and to give them their own goals, internal conflicts, and dreams. Some writers avoid this because they’re worried the secondary characters will steal the show. This is rarely the case. If this is starting to occur, it’s usually due to having chosen the wrong protagonist/antagonist or having underdeveloped either of those two. But if those two issues aren’t present, then usually a well-developed secondary character can help rather than hinder your plot’s advancement and richness.

So when you’re developing the secondary characters, the key things to focus on are internal conflict, motivations, and storylines. They should have their own development in all of the areas just as the protagonist and antagonist do. In order for their storylines to add to the conflict in the main storyline, their subplots cannot be undeveloped. The things they want and the story arcs they’re going to travel through will all impact the main story if you’ve woven the two together well.

How to Weave the Storylines Together

But now you might be asking… How do I weave the two together so that they flow into each other properly? This one is a little bit difficult to achieve at times, but here’s one really great way to do it. Take the characters you have, list out a few locations, and write down the key plot points for the main plot and any subplots that will impact that plot. Then start connecting a character with a plot point and a location. Sometimes, the connections will make zero sense, but if something is working, make notes on how they all interconnect. I think you’ll start to find that your subplots for secondary characters intersect and enhance the main plot in ways you never would’ve imagined. Try to find at least three or four ways that your secondary characters can interact with the main plot while following the arc of their sub plot.

Too Many Cast Members

The last thing I’ll note here is that you can have an issue with too many secondary characters. Usually, a story doesn’t require twenty secondary characters. Even in my most complex series where I have two plot lines going on at the same time, I have maybe five to seven secondary characters who play any significant role in the story. The rest show up only as needed. Those that show up when needed are given the illusion of being real, but not much development is done with them because they’re only there for a scene.

The problems that usually lead to too many cast members are not using your characters to their fullest, having too many directions, or giving screen time to those who don’t need it. Most of the time, the issue is that an author hasn’t used their characters to the fullest of their potential. For example, in Trader Prince of Aleshtain (my current WIP), I initially had the MC’s best friend separate from the MC’s mentor figure/voice of reason. But the mentor figure only showed up in one or two scenes, and after he departed the stage, another supporting character takes on that role. I only needed the mentor figure to give good advice toward the beginning of the book. So in the newer version of the draft, that mentor figure has been blended with the best friend. Now, the best friend offers the needed sage advice while also encouraging the MC to do what he knows is right. I didn’t need that second character to act as a mentor figure at all because I had the MC’s best friend and could easily combine the roles.

Additionally, pulling in too many directions can weaken your use of character and your story by extension. If you give so much screen time to a character meant to be a supporting cast member that they end up hijacking the main character and the plot line, your story can end up pulled in too many directions. The best solution for this is to remind yourself of the story’s focus then go back and trim out any scenes with that secondary character that aren’t useful to advancing the main plot, helping one of the main characters, or hindering their journey. While a secondary character should be as developed as a main character, they don’t get the same amount of screen time as a main character. Instead, their development is shown in more concise ways during interactions that the reader has with them while they are in some way advancing or hindering another character or heightening the conflict.

Conclusion

Developing your secondary characters is extremely important. Failing to do so means that you have failed to use them to their greatest potential in building your story and your plot. Don’t lose the richness and the additional complexity that a well-developed secondary character can bring to your tale. Be careful to keep their time on the stage balanced so they don’t steal the spotlight, but don’t be afraid to give them their own goals, hopes, and dreams. Let them live and breathe on the page too.

Thursday Technicalities: Internal Conflict

Featured Ariel Paiement1 Comment
internal conflict

Introduction

With our discussions regarding publishing concluded for now, we’ll turn now to discussing some of the key elements of crafting fiction that you can use to improve your writing, both with a completed manuscript and with one you’re still writing. I’ve recently been working through Donald Maas’s Writing the Breakout Novel, and I’ve found that these areas are ones that can prove challenging but are going to really take your work to the next level.

So, I’m going to go through some of the sections I found to be most useful and important with my own take on them based on things I’ve seen work out well in fiction. Today’s topic is going to deal with conflict within the character, otherwise known as internal conflict. This is an important part of fiction and really brings characters to life, so it’s not something we can overlook as writers. Let’s get started!

What Is Internal Conflict?

Internal conflict is when the character is conflicted within themselves regarding any given situation or decision. This differs from the major conflict that drives your plot (at least in many cases) in that the conflict driving the plot is usually some sort of external conflict that puts pressure on the character and may even exacerbate their internal conflict. In some cases, the internal conflict may be the driving conflict in the story and may create the external conflict due to a character’s actions in response to the conflict internally.

On a more basic level, internal conflict is when a character wants two opposing things at the same time. This simpler definition usually makes it a little easier for us to think about what our characters’ internal conflicts might be. Regardless of what the internal conflict is and whether or not it is the result of external pressures or the leading cause of those external issues, this is a tool in writing that cannot be ignored if you want a character that feels real and alive.

Keys for Internal Conflict

First and foremost, an internal conflict for a character must include two fundamentally opposed desires. This sounds really straightforward, but here’s the thing… You have to figure out how and why your characters could or would want those opposing things. We as people have issues with this in our own lives all the time. For example, consider someone who wants to eventually have a family but also doesn’t want their freedom to hop from partner to partner taken away. Those are two opposing desires. They can’t have both, and they’re eventually going to have to decide which one matters more. We all run into these kinds of ultimatums, and we all eventually go with one or the other when it becomes apparent we can’t have both.

The second key is to make the two options mutually exclusive. We all feel conflicted about things from time to time, but if we can find a way to make both work, then we often do. Furthermore, the options facing a character need to be ones they strongly care about. For example, in my book Bane of Ashkarith, the male lead has a strong desire to uncover the truth and to share that truth–whatever it may be–with the world. But he also has a strong desire to stay alive, and the truth is likely to get him killed if he goes ahead with telling it. He can’t have it both ways. He either tells the truth or he doesn’t. And he has strong reasons and motivations to choose either option, so it isn’t a situation where he can simply decide one choice doesn’t matter that much and just go with the other. No, he has to fight through the internal conflict to make a decision on what to do.

What if my character is too black and white to really struggle in the obvious ways?

You want to ensure that you set your characters up with a similarly stark set of options that lead to internal conflict. Sometimes, however, you find a character that is simply too morally upright and black and white to struggle with some of the more common issues. I’ve run into this recently with my male lead in a novel I’m working on. S is a trainer for an intergalactic organization whose sole goal is to sow dissent, chaos, and evil throughout the galaxy. They are directly opposed to God and anything that could be considered good, though they don’t really care what form evil and darkness takes so long as it does in fact drown out what is good and right. S doesn’t agree with them or their standards, but his situation is such that he must play along.

At first glance, it doesn’t seem like S necessarily is conflicted between two choices. At the beginning of the novel, he’s offered a way out. In order to get out, he has to play the long game and be patient, but there’s no question in his mind or that of the individual who offered him an out that he’s going to take it. He isn’t conflicted about it, and he isn’t conflicted about waiting it out so he can get himself and the girl who offered her help out safely.

So at this point, I’m faced with an issue. S is the protector, the dominant/alpha male who makes sure everyone under his care is safe even if it costs him everything to achieve that. He doesn’t dither over whether he’s willing to make the sacrifice to protect Gwen or others directly under his care. He already knows he will. He also doesn’t question the choice to leave because he refuses to be a part of the organization’s wickedness any longer than absolutely necessary.

“Growing” the internal conflict

In this case, S is a character that starts out with no internal conflict in his mind and must end up “growing” one. The way I chose to handle this? As Gwen begins to change his outlook on the situation and his approach to those around him, he begins to feel responsible for helping and protecting not just Gwen, who is directly under his protection, but also the other trainees whose trainers hurt or even kill them. He comes to a point where he is no longer certain that he can in good conscience abandon it all to run and never look back. Instead, he has a turning point that leads to his internal conflict: leave or find a way to fight back for the freedom of those who, like him, never had the chance to speak up and walk away from the horrors inflicted on them.

Gwen herself is put into a similar position, but she comes to it much sooner and sees it far quicker than S does. Her nature is not the protector so much as it is the outspoken voice for what’s right. That gets her and S into plenty of trouble in a culture that despises the truth and anyone who stands for it, but she stands firm anyway. Her internal conflict then, takes on a slightly different flavor than S’s, but the nature of the two is still similar in that the conflict is not in-built but must instead develop as their viewpoints and goals gradually begin to shift.

What if I just can’t think of anything?

Sometimes, characters make it very difficult to figure out what their internal conflict is or to determine how to push them into one. This might happen because the character doesn’t know what they want or is generally a somewhat weak type of person. I ran into this with Sebastian, a character from an allegorical sci-fi novella I’m working on revising. He falls into the category of “I don’t really know what I want or what I believe”. His problem was that he didn’t believe the popular narrative and was suspicious of the government’s claims, but he didn’t know what he believed if not that. He develops through the book, but I still have the issue that he doesn’t seem to really have much of an internal conflict at the start.

The solution to this? Start thinking about what they really want. If push came to shove, what is it that they’d fight for? Maybe the push might have to be really extreme, but what is the one thing that they couldn’t bear to lose, not accomplish, or fail at? Now take that thing and figure out what the opposite of it is.

For example, with Sebastian, the one thing he really can’t stand to lose is Vivian, the female lead. The opposite of that, to my mind, would be to lose her or let go of her. That gives me an internal conflict right there if I can find a way to set it up through the story such that he wants (or at least has to seriously consider) both paths.

Something else that I also found for Sebastian is that he is fiercely loyal to those he cares about. He can’t stand to lose the people he cares about or to walk away from them. So another conflict I can give him is having to decide between fighting for the people he cares about or walking away. With this character, however, there is no question in his mind, at least in the first novella, on which one he will choose for either of these. So in order to create any kind of internal conflict with him, I have to force him into situations where he can’t choose what he wants to choose. I have to make it so that he does have to walk away from his loved ones or so that he has to give up Vivian.

Sometimes, characters are like this. There should be conflict, but it might not always be clearly caused by the character wanting two different things. Sometimes it might be caused by a character wanting one thing but knowing the opposite is best and choosing the one thing they don’t want to do. This is a trickier one to pull off, and I would recommend you make sure you have at least one main character whose conflict is driven by two opposing options that they want to pursue.

Conclusion

That’s it for this discussion, everyone! I hope this was helpful for you. Next week, we’ll be talking about points of decision. We’ll go over why you need them, how to build up to them, and how they play into your character’s arc as well as the story itself. Until next time, happy writing!

Thursday Technicalities: bringing Flat Characters to Life

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

One of the things writers of all levels can run into is the problem of flat characters. Characters can be flat because they haven’t been characterized in a way that makes them stand out, or they can end up flat because they’re cliche and boring. This is especially concerning if your main characters are the ones that end up flat. So, how do you bring a flat character to life? Let’s take a look at some of the common issues and ways to fix them so the character has a life of their own.

Voice

Last week, we talked about voice as a method of characterization. This is one place where a character can go flat. If they sound just like everyone else in the entire novel, they’re not going to stand out. Obviously, if the problem runs that deep, other characters will also be flat. But the problem might only extend to one or two characters that readers can’t distinguish between because of their similarity in voice. This is still a major problem if it’s occurring with main characters.

I won’t go into great length about voice since it’s already covered in my last article here. Review that to see how you can effectively use voice to provide characterization that is solid and unique to each character.

Direct Characterization

The next thing that could happen is having no direct characterization for a character. Direct characterization is when the author tells the reader something about the character.

This is one that I personally recommend avoiding for the most part, but sometimes there’s good reason to use it. If it’s something we would never learn otherwise but need to know, for example, the author might choose to tell us that fact about the character. Note that this particular type of characterization won’t work for deep-point-of-view because deep POV focuses on eliminating the author’s voice and diving into the character’s point-of-view exclusively.

Indirect Characterization

This one is far more important than direct characterization for bringing a flat character to life. Indirect characterization focuses on all the things we learn about a character through little quirks, repeated actions, or recurring phrases and words. In this method, the character reveals himself or herself a piece at a time through concrete actions and behaviors, not through the author’s say-so.

If a character is feeling flat, there’s a good possibility this is what’s missing. The little habits, oddities, and nuances of a person is what makes them unique, and that’s equally true of a character.

This technique also has the added benefit of allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions and fill the character in with the broad strokes of their imagination, which often results in a more vivid picture for the reader than telling them directly does.

Another important note about indirect characterization is that it can include physical descriptions. Perhaps a character has a particular scar or marking on their body that bears significance to them and continually reminds them of how or why they got it. That can result in indirect characterization because that scar or marking acts as a vehicle to deliver information to the reader regarding that character.

Emotional Depth and Motivation

Another possible problem with your characterization is that they lack emotional depth and motivation. This problem can be the result of a cliche character. It happens a lot with books that focus on character types that have been overused. Think books with main characters like the bad boy, good girl, nerd, or any of the paranormal tropes such as vampires, werewolves, or witches.

Now, it isn’t that those character types can’t be given depth. They can. But often, writers slip into the cliche because it’s easier, and they forget to make the character unique. Emotional depth and motivation can help with this.

Revealing a character’s mindset and giving them just the right mix of emotional qualities can take a cliche character type and make it into an actual three-dimensional character that readers can relate to. Their emotional depth and how they respond to emotional stimuli provides the motivation for their actions in many cases. Even when people are at their most rational, emotion will factor in.

So if your character is feeling flat, check to make sure that your reader can connect to your character on an emotional level and can understand what motivates your character. Often, describing a character through their emotional state can be much more image-evoking than a physical one.

Change

This last one is the biggest problem that can lead to a flat character. If your character doesn’t change throughout the novel and is relatively uncomplicated, they are the definition of flat. The simplest way to fix the problem is to make sure they have a character arc. Make sure that by the end of the story, the character has changed, either for better or worse, and has learned something, ideally. There really isn’t much else you can do to fix this, but if you do that, then your character should be headed in a much more three-dimensional direction.

Conclusion

Though there are many reasons why a character may end up feeling flat, I’ve done my best to cover the main reasons why it happens. Do you have other reasons you’ve found for why a character ends up flat or ways to fix flat characters? If so, feel free to share them in the comments below! If you have something you’d like to see on Thursday Technicalities that I haven’t covered yet, feel free to send me an email or leave it in the comments.