What do our characters reveal about us?

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A good friend is visiting for a couple of days while my husband is out of the country on a missions trip. Gerri and I have been close friends for a quarter of a century. Our kids have been good friends most of their lives, and now our grandkids are good friends. As much as we enjoy each other's friendship, you couldn't find two people more different than Gerri and I. She's a sanguine-choleric, oozing confidence, while I'm a melancholy through and through.

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One of our more pronounced differences is that Gerri, a respected Bible teacher in our circles, almost exclusively reads non-fiction, while I, of course, am a novelist. I finally persuaded her to read Lying on Sunday, and tonight we had a most interesting conversation about her take on the book (which she confesses has become like dessert at the end of the day). Well then.

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On Monday, Katy asked, "What lengths will a writer go to to write great dialogue?" To take it a step further, what does that dialogue--and characterization and theme--reveal about the writer? According to my friend, plenty.

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She said to me, "You're a vault, Sharon. No one knows the real you, because you have the key well hidden. But you express your deepest feelings, elequently I might add, in your writing. And I'm amazed because I've known you for 25 years, and I've never known you to express your feelings the way you do through your characters. But make no mistake about it, they're your feelings." She went on to say an author has to be in touch with her own feelings in a finer way than she lets anyone know, for she couldn't possibly know her characters so well if she didn't know herself to the same degree.

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Having done a good deal of teaching on the four personality types: sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic and melancholy, Gerri said, "Reading your novel has helped me understand how a melancholy--a personality type whose language I don't even speak--thinks. (Kind of tough since she's been married to a melancholy for 40 years.) When I pick up Lying on Sunday I'm in Abbie's world. I see that her biggest problem is that she could never measure up to her own expectations--let alone her husband's or God's. Because of your novel I have a greater understanding of family and friends whose personality types are so different from mine. I've learned more about you through the pages of this book, than through hours of conversation."

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The thing she said that meant the most to me was that women will be touched by this story; that it will help them through some difficult situations. Honestly, I couldn't hope for a greater result for my efforts. I believe it's the ministry God has given me, the way Philippians 2:13 is worked out in my life: "For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose."

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I wonder, what fictional character, most unlike you, has helped you learn more about the people around you--or even yourself?

The Things We Say

Elizabeth McKenzie where are you? We've still got two copies of Zora and Nicky by Claudia Mair Burney, just for you! Please, oh please send us your address! And don't forget, dear readers, that this month we will be giving away a copy of Talking to the Dead by our own Bonnie Grove. Leave a comment, and we'll enter you into the drawing. If you have recently started following us, we at Novel Matters want you to know that we are thrilled to have your company, and we hope you will chime in on the stimulating discussions that take place in our comments.


What lengths will a writer go to to write great dialog? I once took a course from T. Davis Bunn, in which he revealed that he had once frequented coffee shops with a voice-activated recorder tucked into his pocket. Later, he transcribed the overheard conversations, so he could study the rhythm and pattern of speech.

All to improve his writing, you see.

I ended up buying myself a recorder after that, but never had the nerve to use it the way he did. I have, however, been known to take some very, very detailed notes in church.

When I wrote To Dance in the Desert, I watched Hugh Grant movies to think through the way two of my characters would talk. I wish I'd known my friend, the British poet Mandy Sutter at the time. If I had, Tom and Jane might have, from time to time, admitted that they were "chuffed" to hear some bit of good news. If they were really happy, they might have been "dead chuffed," and if they were delirious, they might have been "chuffed to little mint balls." Talk like that tempts me to write another British character.

I hope it's no surprise that I love language. I'll bet you do, too. You probably have a whole lexicon of funny sayings you were raised with that you've passed on as a (perhaps dubious) legacy to your children.

I grew up hearing about loud noises and sudden appearances of quiet folks who "scared the piewadden" out of others. Then one day years ago, I'd dropped in to pick my son up from third grade, when I heard a little girl demand, "Alex! What's a piewadden?"

The answer? I haven't the slightest, though it seems to be a substance that bursts out of frightened people.

I have on my desk a lovely book titled Informal English by Jeffrey Kacirk. I'm not certain it's much use when determining what a particular character, with a particular background would say in a given situation, but it's still great fun for browsing.

You do browse dictionaries for fun, right?

Here are a few that I like:

box of teeth: an accordion.

happifying: making happy.

Mississippi marbles: dice.

Jump in, please. Tell us the turns of phrases you hold nearest your heart.

We'd love to hear what flips your switch.

Guest Blogger Jeff Gerke: Plot-first or Character-first?

We invited Jeff to blog today and next Friday because he asked us to test drive a plotting tool he developed for fiction writers a while back. I like what Katy said about her experience with Jeff's book: "It's like having a brilliant editor at your elbow for the whole process." Curious? You should be. Jeff brings years of experience as an editor, novelist, and publisher to your elbow too.

I believe there are two kinds of novelists in our world. Of course every writer is an individual and no one writes entirely like anyone else. But when you break it all down into its simplest elements, I think you can put every novelist into one of two groups.

You're either a character-first novelist or a plot-first novelist.

A character-first novelist has character ideas all day long. Interesting people populate this writer's imagination. This writer is constantly coming up with cool issues and fears and backstory for fascinating story people. This kind of novelist will have more heroes and best friends and mysterious women in black than she has stories to put them in.

A plot-first novelist, on the other hand, gets story ideas like crazy. Ooh, this guy could totally be a double agent and that's why he's here with the bomb before the president makes his speech that starts the war! Plot-first novelists create fascinating stories and nail-biting plots that make their character-first brethren's minds spin.

The problem with being a plot-first novelist is that most of her characters are more like furniture than people. They don't have real personalities. Typical characters in these writers' books are "the girl" and "the friend" and "the bad guy," which is to say they're basically just more plot elements. They're in the story so that when the truck blows up and they're killed, it gives the hero a reason to go on his rampage.

The problem with being a character-first novelist is that her books are filled with beautifully drawn, realistic characters--who sit around doing nothing. We get manuscripts full of exquisite dialogue and unforgettable story people, but then we fall asleep because there is no story for these interesting people to live out.

A great novel has both strong characters and a strong plot. But how do you do both if you are, like most novelists, naturally better at the one and weaker at the other?

The solution is twofold. First, you have to dedicate yourself to doing the very hard and counterintuitive work it will take to produce excellence in the area you're not strong in.

Plot-first novelists draw shallow characters partially because they don't think they're important but also because it almost hurts mentally to put in that work. It's like making yourself do a semester of calculus if you're terrible at math. It's the same with character-first novelists trying to come up with good stories. It's so much easier just to do one more exploration of a relationship than it is to figure out three-act structure.

So the first thing needed is to agree with yourself to do the work to get better at what you're weak at. Until you decide that crafting a great character is just as important as writing the scene in which the plane crashes, you're never going to do it. Until you decide that it really is vital to give your story a satisfying structure, you'll simply skip it. Your novels will all remain lopsided and defective. And probably unpublishable.

The second thing you need to do is learn how to get better at the thing you're weak at. There are many books and electronic writer's helps tools that can help you. I have developed two myself: one for character creation and one for plot creation. These are the tools I use in my own writing, and I know they can help you.

Next Friday, I'll summarize Character Creation for the Plot-First Novelist and How To Find Your Story, but for now it's enough that you 1) recognize whether you're a plot-firster or a character-firster and 2) commit to doing what it will take to strengthen your skill in the area where you're naturally weak.

By the way, some writers say they are setting-first novelists. I know what they mean, but usually you find out that the setting is, to them, really more like a character. Like Narnia or Middle-Earth or Avonlea. These people are usually character-firsters. Others tell me they're murder-first novelists, but these are really plot-firsters who begin with that element of plot and build the story from there.

You can purchase Jeff's e-books mentioned in this blog at http://marcherlordpress.com/Store_Stand-In.htm

It's Just a Name...

Most of my writing career, I’ve published non-fiction. Once I wrote a short article about a woman who I’ll now call Gertie McGuiness, who lived next door to me when I was growing up. After I was married, I read a death announcement that put me into tears. I read the names of childhood playmates who were going to be pallbearers for Gertie McGuiness, other relatives I recognized. My husband and I rushed to the visitation at the funeral home – me sobbing, him holding me by the elbow.

We entered a crowded room of mourners and then – Gertie McGuiness walked toward me and said, “Hi, Latayne.” My husband said he had to hold me up.

“I th-thought you were dead,” I said. She chuckled, put her arm around me, and led me to the coffin where her sister-in-law – a woman also named Gertie who married one of the McGuiness brothers – lay serenely. Others in the room brushed aside tears and smiled at my sputtering delight at finding that my friend, the other Gertie McGuinness, was still alive.

So I wrote an article for our hometown newspaper (later reprinted nationally), called “Saying Goodbye to Gertie.” It was about redemption, getting someone back from the dead. I was eminently pleased with the whole matter.

But the next time I saw Gertie McGuiness, she seemed miffed. When I asked her what was wrong, she said, “You said I laughed. It was my sister-in-law’s funeral. I didn’t laugh.”

Of course she (like Sarah of old, now that I think about it) did indeed laugh. But she didn’t want to be remembered for insensitivity. It was her name on the line, after all.

You would have thought that lesson would have stuck with me a little better, but I thought fiction was different. In my novel Latter-day Cipher I named a minor character after a rather silly-sounding alias, something like “Rocky Richochet,” used briefly 20 years ago by a friend’s rebellious son. I characterized the character through the eyes of the villain, who called him “a punk kid.”

Imagine my distress last Sunday when my friend accosted me in the geographical middle of our church right after services and said sternly, “Did you or did you not call Rocky Richochet a punk kid?” He was angry.

I explained that in the book I had used versions of my own childrens’ names – of those characters, one died, two were infants, another was mentally unbalanced. They had been delighted in seeing details or names slipped into the narratives. He wasn’t dissuaded from his anger. (I have to admit I too began to become upset at the accusative tone, the public setting my friend chose.)

It was fiction, I kept saying to the man, it’s fiction.

But not to this man. I think he saw himself as the protector of his son's reputation, and he was not a bit pleased. And I don’t think he’ll get over it, though I apologized over and over.

How about you? Have you ever had any repercussions from using a name in your writing?

When the Muse Strikes

I'm so excited about this month's give-away! Yes! Talking to the Dead has been unleashed! And in my giddy happiness, I'm likely to give away more than one copy of the book (hint, hint) - so keep those comments coming! We'll announce the winner(s) later in the month!

I admire sci-fi writers, fantasy writers too. They literally create other worlds - new languages, culture, ways to communicate. They invent religions and rites and often include maps of the lands they have created on the front flap of the book. Maps! I can't even draw an accurate map of the house I live in, never mind some place that doesn't even exist. And the names! How do they keep those strange names straight? No Bob and Sue for them - they choose mythical names dripping with historic meaning. Names like Oyrasa and Mabh.

I read those books and I think, where did all this come from? How did they invent all of this? And while I enjoy reading the books, the thought of inventing an entire world from the ground up (or in some cases several worlds), exhausts me. At least, that's what I used to think - before I starting writing novels.

Writing, like all art, is an uneven partnership between talent and tenacity, skill and sheer determination. It is the oil and water blending of spiraling creativity and 'pull up yer big boy pants and git 'er done' scheduling. I've learned that creating the inner life of a character is just as complex and perplexing as creating a new language for the inhabitants of planet XYZ to speak. At least, if I do it right.

It is the core of what makes the reading experience so enjoyable - the transmission of self into a world that is 'other'. It is not my world, but it is a world that I can navigate with ease because the author has placed all the landmarks exactly where I need them, and has crafted the path I will take through this land in such a way that it blends with the landscape, and I don't even think of myself as being on a predetermined path at all. The 'other' world becomes my world - at least for a time - and I accept the lie of fiction as a bearer of truth.

But when I began writing novels, I came to an understanding about creating fictional worlds. The answer to my question about fantasy and sci-fi books, "Where did this come from?" was answered as I grappled with my own imaginary worlds. It all comes from the foundations of literature, the traditions of art, history, religion, and philosophy. In other words, it all comes from us. The fictional worlds we love are really our world - no matter where the writer picks it up and moves it to. And the reason we love the places we travel when we read is because, in the end, they all feel like home.

From Prequel to Sequel

I loved Sharon's last post because it brought to mind all the wonderful fictional worlds in which I have been privileged to spend time with fascinating characters. It's a wonderful thing for an author to create something so real that people want to linger there long after the story is over. Sort of like picking at the bones of a Thanksgiving dinner, sitting with glazed eyes nursing a cup of coffee, relishing the sense of connectedness. Taking time to appreciate all the hard work and preparation that went into the planning and the purchasing and the mixing and the baking of it. It's so much more gratifying to a writer when, instead of inhaling the story and moving on, readers comment about how much they enjoyed spending time with the characters and didn't want to let them go.

We're all familiar with book and movie sequels and how rare it is for a sequel to surpass the original in quality. Sequels often lack the punch and surprise of meeting the characters for the first time and journeying down unknown roads alongside them. But for die-hard fans, any sequel is better than none because it allows them to return to the world they love and stay awhile. In response to Sharon's last post, I commented that Anne Shirley's world at Green Gables was memorable and as rich and diverse as any fantasy world. People couldn't get enough, so a TV series aired with stories about orphan Sarah Stanley's adventures which involved characters from the Green Gables books. It was a weekly fix for fans, and even though Anne wasn't featured, it was still her story world. Now a prequel is out, titled Before Green Gables by Budge Wilson, which offers fans a chance to reconnect with favorite characters and a familiar setting.

I checked out other prequels and wasn't at all surprised to find that a majority were connected to science fiction, such as Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov, and the Dune and Star Wars books. Star Trek took us to strange new worlds, but the latest movie is a prequel to the show where it all began. Also well represented were fantasy worlds such as Marion Zimmer Bradley's Avalon and Narnia in The Magician's Nephew. I had forgotten that C.S. Lewis's book was a prequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Wardrobe was written first, but it was necessary to write Nephew to explain a few things, such as why there was a lampost in Narnia, and other pertinent info that would tie things up in the end. And before we assume that an author's intentions for writing a prequel or sequel were entirely mercenary, we should consider that they might simply be missing some very old and dear friends.

Do you have a favorite story that you wish had a prequel or sequel so that you could revisit the characters and the setting? Share it with us and you'll be entering a chance to win Bonnie Grove's new release, Talking to the Dead.

The very real world of make believe

I'm thrilled to announce our June Giveaway is the newly released -- drumroll, please -- Talking to the Dead, by our very own lovely, talented, feisty, Canadian Bonnie Grove. Leave a comment for a chance to win her incredible debut novel.

Welcome to our new followers. We hope you enjoy the time you spend with us. Please join in on the conversations. We love to hear from you.

And don't forget our exclusive Audience With an Agent Contest. Agent Wendy Lawton of Books & Such will read the winning entry. Submission guidelines are under the "Promotions" tab. Please read and follow the guidelines carefully.

I've really enjoyed the last few posts here at Novel Matters, and the comments our visitors have made as well. Bonnie's post on 5/22 was very entertaining, caused us all to laugh. What's especially funny is, it wasn't far from the truth. As writers, we're never "off." We're working 24/7, our minds never quite shutting down. Inspiration can and does strike anywhere, at any time. Those who know us best recognize the moment of inspiration, and patiently wait as we scramble to preserve our thoughts on paper, or, uh, something close to it. Unlike Bonnie, I don't keep a notepad handy (note to self: you should), so in a restaurant or in the car I usually find a paper napkin to scribble on. At church it's the bulletin, in the restroom it's ... well, you get the idea.

Our stories are hard taskmasters -- they never give us a break. Even in our dreams, inspiration prances by like a butterfly looking for a net. I have learned to keep a notepad by my bed, for though I'm personally seldom inspired by dreams, I am terribly inspired in the time before I go to sleep. My mind in its relaxed state is a fertile ground of creativity. Scenes, dialogue, it's all there, like a movie playing just for me. That's when I hear my characters' voices the clearest, when my fictional world comes alive. I used to get up and run to my office to jot down my thoughts, because I've learned the hard way I will lose them if I don't. I was like popcorn, popping up time after time till the taskmaster finally let up enough for me to go to sleep. Then a friend, God bless her forever, gave me a pen that lights up. Now I don't have to get out of bed -- or wake my husband -- to capture the inspiration.

But while a free-wheeling imagination may produce the material for the novel, it takes disciplined time at the keyboard to write it. Latayne said it so well: "I absolutely must have extensive, uninterrupted blocks of time to first travel to, and then reside in, a fictional world. I can’t write a novel in short spurts." I heartily agree. Most of us can't just slip in to write a sentence or two, then slip back out to rejoin the real world. Interruptions can really mess up the flow of things. But neither can we turn off our fictional world just because we aren't at the keyboard. No, the life of a novelist is far more schizophrenic than that.

Our characters, their problems, and the world in which they live must first be real to us in order for them to be real to our readers. We have to know them well enough to tell their story, to make it believeable, otherwise who's going to care?

So I just have to wonder, what's it like to be Stephen King? If you could sit down and chat with any author, living or not, about one of their fictional worlds, who would it be and why?