Getting Into Your Character's Head

 Creating a character is emotional detective work. You need to deduce what has happened to this person over the years because of the situations they've gone through then decide how that has affected them and how they react to different things because of those situations.

Let's say that your main character is a woman in her late twenties who has had a relentless stalker after her for eight years. Every time the stalker finds her, he will hurt anyone close to her, he will destroy her reputation and her job, and he will generally make her life hell. The police have been unable to stop him, when they actually try, so her only recourse is to change her name and run.

Imagine yourself as this character on an average day doing average things like meeting new people. What are your thoughts?

You and I would probably be thinking very different thoughts meeting a new person as opposed to your heroine.

You and I probably don't have an escape plan if someone threatens us. Would your heroine? How would she live her life knowing she might have to flee at any moment? Would her apartment be filled with memory items? Or would it be fairly empty of personal stuff? Would it make her messy or neat?

If something unusual happens, would she immediately expect a threat?

In your plot, what characteristics will your heroine need to survive? What characteristics would make it harder to survive to add to the tension of the story?

These are just a few questions you should ask yourself.

If this is hard for you, try to think of a character similar to your major character in a book, TV show, or movie you've seen that really grabbed you. That may give you some ideas, too.

USEFUL LINK:  SFWA has created a primer on editors for self-published authors.

https://www.sfwa.org/2022/01/28/indie-files-indie-authors-primer-editors/

Character Change and Backstory

QUESTION: My main character used to be a bad guy, but now he’s not.  He’s gone elsewhere and changed his name.  How much of his past should I include?  Do I need to write scenes from his past?  Will readers believe he has changed?

If his past (backstory) is important, and it probably should be, you don’t have to include scenes of that past unless you think the reader wouldn’t understand him or his backstory is really complex.  Usually in a case like this, his past life must impact his present one, and backstory scenes are interlaced with the present day.  

Remember that every time a scene from the past is inserted, the reader stops dead to get his mind into the past then must stop dead again to get back in the present.  This kind of back and forth is not a good thing in popular fiction like fantasy.

Backstory can be inserted easily enough during present time scenes through dialogue, thoughts from the main character, and events.   

He could be in a tavern to meet another character and hear a drunk nearby talking about his former identity's bad-ass behavior and think — “He'd piss his pants if he knew he was sitting a few bar stools away from me."  Then you could have another character say, "But (insert former name here) was decent enough.  He'd never fight around civilians and that time he rescued the child from the burning house instead of taking the money.  You wouldn't see (insert new bad guy's name here) do that." 

Sooner rather than later, you’ll also need to tell the reader why he chose to change.  Again, it need not be a huge info dump.  

As to whether readers will accept a bad guy as a good guy, part of this is determined by genre expectations from its readers.  A truly despicable character would never be accepted as a hero in a romance, but, elsewhere, readers have a lot more forgiveness about this.  In your reading of the genre you are writing, do you recall characters who switched moral sides and did it work and why?  

Two superhero movies I can recall where the bad guy turned into the good guy are MEGAMIND and DESPICABLE ME. The change in their characters was the story.  And who can forget Loki in AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR?  

Also, think of Magneto in the X-Men series.  As a bad guy, he is morally and emotionally complex, and he's helped his former friend Charles Xavier more than once to save the day for everyone's sake. 

Usually, bad characters who change sides have already shown they are capable of good behavior with the bad behavior.  That makes it more believable.  A psychopath who changes to become a hero is totally unbelievable.

The trick is making your character's choices and changes believable.  If you do, the reader will accept them. 

Too Much Or Not Enough Information

 QUESTION:  Is it okay to leave the reader a little confused so that later on, when I reveal the secret to them, it’s surprising?  My main character withholds secrets from others and from the reader.   

It depends on what you mean by confuse.  If you are leaving out information so that what is happening makes very little sense or the main character is behaving in a bizarre manner with no real clue why she is, that’s a very bad thing.  If you give the reader more than a few “what the heck is happening, and why is she behaving like this?” moments, then the reader stops reading.  

If you mean not giving the reader all the information, that can work, but it is a tricky dance between giving the reader enough information and lying to the reader by withholding too much.  

With a major viewpoint character it works to leave out information if that character isn’t thinking about something. Readers don’t feel cheated if there’s really no reason for that character to be thinking about this subject, but, if this subject is up front and center in her thoughts, then the reader would feel cheated if important information is left out.

As a very broad example, imagine the heroine thinking about attraction during her first meeting with a guy who is attracted to her, but later, it is revealed she’s lesbian.  That’s leading the reader astray in a dishonest way.  If, however, she was married to a jerk who beat her, this information doesn’t have to be revealed until later unless there is a reason for her to fear the guy who is attracted to her.  

If it feels dishonest not to tell the reader something, then the surprise isn’t worth it because you may have lost the reader before the surprise is revealed, or the reader feels betrayed and lied to.

If you are confused about what to do, do it the way you feel works then trust your beta readers or critique partners to tell you if this works or not.

The Fourth Wall

In playwriting and stage performance, there’s a convention called the fourth wall.  Think of the stage as a room with three walls that contain the action.  The fourth wall is the invisible wall between the room and the audience who views the action through that invisible fourth wall.  The characters on the stage are unaware of that fourth wall and that they are observed.

If a character addresses the audience, they are breaking that fourth wall and acknowledging that what the audience sees isn’t real. Shakespeare broke the fourth wall many times at the ends of his comedies to ask for the audience’s applause.  

The fourth wall is often broken in today’s sitcoms and, occasionally, in TV dramas in a playful manner through dialogue directed at the audience but spoken to another character.  On a few rare occasions, I have seen a character actually wink or smirk at the audience/camera breaking the fourth wall for a few moments before the fourth wall comes back.  This is usually done when a show is making fun of itself and its conventions.  CASTLE and a few playful episodes of SUPERNATURAL used this method during metafiction moments. 

Metafiction: Literary/performance techniques that draw the viewer/reader’s attention to the fact that he is reading/watching.  For more detail, go here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafiction  

Early novelists had a problem with the concept of the fourth wall and the use of narrative and viewpoint to tell the story.  Novels like Richardson’s PAMELA were told in the form of letters to make up for no narrative voice.  Later novels used an omniscient narrator who saw all the action, the character’s thoughts, and dialogue and related it to the reader.  Sometimes, the narrator spoke directly to the reader with such comments as “Do not despair, gentle reader, for soon, Becky shall have her comeuppance.”

Over time, the omniscient narrator has all but disappeared, particularly in genre novels, and the story is now told in the close viewpoint of one or more characters.  

In some stories, the character looks back on the past and reflects on what has happened as they relate what happened.  This method is particularly popular in older style mysteries in the “had I but known” style.  

Had I but known that going to that party would destroy my happiness, I wouldn’t have gone, but I did and here’s the disaster that happened.  

Writers like Dick Francis, Gothic romance authors, and earlier romantic suspense authors have employed this story retold method to good effect.  

Most novels now have the reader inside the character’s head in the present moment so she’s privy to thoughts and what the character sees and hears, but the narrative element is invisible.  The reader can only see and know what the character does.  

To break that invisible fourth wall has always been considered bad writing because it pulls the reader from the story.  

Recently, however, I’ve read several novels where the author deliberately breaks that fourth wall at some moment in the story by letting the viewpoint character talk directly to the reader.  

Since the writer has, until that moment, written a competent book, I’m assuming this is a deliberate narrative choice.

Is this a good thing?  I don’t think so because it pulls the reader out of the book.

Is it a probable change in narrative technique?  That remains to be seen.  

Suddenly, a Pirate Ship Loomed Over the Horizon

 QUESTION: In action scenes, I use the phrases "suddenly" or "all of a sudden" a ridiculous amount of times when describing fast-paced action scenes. What other words or phrases can I use?

If you write the scene correctly, you don't need "suddenly" or any other synonym or phrase. The reader is smart enough to know the fighters in a physical battle are moving fast so everything is "suddenly" unless we say otherwise.

The trick is to get into the head of one of the characters and stay there. Let the reader see what the character sees and feel what the character feels.

You don't say, 

Suddenly, the other fighter pulled out his knife and jabbed at him.

You say, 

Sam dodged the other man's fist. The hand that should have been blocking his next blow moved downward toward the man's knife sheath. 

A flash of steel. 

Throwing himself backward away from the other man's knife, Sam slammed into the ground on his back. 

Or, if you are describing a battle of many men, you don't say 

Suddenly, a line of cavalry surged over the top of the hill toward them.

You say, 

On the hill just above the soldiers, the drumming of many horse hooves and the Rebel yell of hundreds of men warned them. 

The Yankees spun around as the Confederate cavalry charged toward them.