Weaving Plots: A Way to Add Dimension to Characters

I’ve been reading a lot about plotting on blogs, and that always gets me thinking about characters with dimension.  I’m not honestly sure if there is a distinction in this term from depth, but I feel like there is because what I’m talking about today has more to do with plots than traits.

One day I’ll walk you all through how I develop characters.  I started one way, added a few things, twisted them around and landed at my process on character development.  I might have even touched on it here and there already, but while I’d like to give you one place to go for my method of development, I want to focus on plotting.

So let’s start with how I learn everything, utter failure.  I’ve said it a lot.  Failure is great.  It’s wonderful.  Oh, it never FEELS very good, but it’s still important.  I quite literally have scars on my body.  Each one (I promise I’m not exaggerating) was preceded by me saying, “This is gonna be AWESOME!” and then I hurt myself.

The first completed manuscript I wrote was AWESOME! (and by that I mean awful, and has since left me emotionally scared).  There are many reasons for this, but looking at this deep red line across the soul of my inner author, I think the biggest problem I had was that my characters each only had one plot, and those plots were all secondary to the overall plot.  People just don’t work that way.

She was a freshman then (her eyes were shut in the image I took of us when I was teaching her to drive).  But this is me and The Junior on one of my vacations.  I’m so proud of the fact that she takes after her uncle.

Think about your day?  What do you do?  Even if you break your day down into “Go to work,” “Come home,” and “Go to bed,” that wouldn’t come close to describing your day.  As I write this, I’m on vacation with my family.  One of my elder nieces, (she whom I call “The Junior,” who also happens to be an awful lot like her uncle) and I had the chance to sit down.  I haven’t seen her in a year.

“So what’s been going on?”

“Not much,” she answered.

I went on to explain that I seriously doubt nothing much happened over the course of the year I’ve been unable to really sit down and talk.  Oh, social media and cell phones allow for the highlights, but I wanted the directors cut edition of The Junior’s life.

That got me thinking about my editor’s comments regarding my Fourth Draft of Caught.  We were discussing a lot of arcs and he told me “readers expect more in fiction.”  You see, even now, Caught is very cinematic in structure and prose.  I did that by choice, and I may pay the price when it comes to sales and reviews, but I desperately needed something faster after writing The Journals of Bob Drifter.  That doesn’t mean I ignored my editor.  In fact, I feel a lot more satisfaction with this Fifth Draft.

So how do I do it?  In short, I remember people do more than one thing a day.  Heck, sometimes people do more than one thing at a time (sort of, but don’t throw research disproving multitasking at me).

There are a lot of plots out there.  Some also call them structures.  Others call them arcs.  Quintessential Editor did a few blogs about them recently.

I didn’t really do this with Journals or Caught.  I’ve been doing it ever since.  What I do now is plot each character before I combine all of those plots into one outline.  I keep aware of what opportunities arise, and I’m not afraid to let them unfold.  This is where those dimension comes into play.  Let’s do an exercise:

Think of a character.  Need help?  Okay.  I’m going to flip a coin.  Heads for man.

*flips coin*  (I do this whenever gender isn’t a large concern.  I even did this with my main character in my seventh book).

TAILS…Woman it is.

How old is she?  More importantly, what does she want?  Well, since I’m here visiting The Junior, let’s start with what she wants.  She wants to go to college and study theater.  (See…I told you she was a lot like her uncle!) Sorry…I think VERY fast.   What just happened is a lot like my process.  I flipped a coin, determined a gender.  The gender got me thinking about someone I love.  I took that real struggle, multiplied it by the power of “Fantasy” and got this:

A Young Girl wishes to become a Mistress of Transformation.  Why?  To what end?   When I talk about character development, I’ll go into more detail, but I like showing you HOW I think.  Anyway.  I have my first plot.  Because I tend to subscribe to Sanderson’s online lectures, I call this particular plot a “travelogue.”  Why?  Because she wants to go to transformation school.   Where Frodo had to get to Mount Doom, from a macro perspective you have a character who is in one place (high school) and wants to get to another (college).

This can even be what I call the “main plot.”  However, on her way to becoming a college student, there’s more that happens.  She has to earn money.  She has to gain references.  She has friends in high school that she may leave.  She has to confront the Administer of Admissions. (I’m seriously developing a plot as I do this, I welcome you to do the same.)

Each of those other objectives are plots in and of themselves.  They’re side stories occurred on the way to the main objective.

Now let’s take an easier, better-known case study.  Wizard of Oz.  Would we care NEARLY as much for Dorothy if she told Scarecrow, “Thanks for the directions,” and moved along on her way?  She could have.  The Tin Man is an even better example.   Some subplots (at least for me) are discovered.  (Oh crap, my character wouldn’t just leave some poor tin dude sitting there frozen…well…I guess this book’s going to get a little bigger while I work this out.)  Others are plots you see coming.   (Well, the Wizard isn’t just going to jump to help her.)

My point is, you want your character to have many plots and objectives.  They may all arise as part of a single goal, but life isn’t that easy, so fiction shouldn’t be.  What sort of plots are out there?  Well, again, I put a LOT of stock in Sanderson’s online lectures, so I’ll just share that website with you here.   Brilliant teacher though I think he is, I know there’s more info out there, so please share it in the comments below.

Here are a few case studies:  (This is how I learn best, so I hope it helps you).

Wizard of Oz

Ender’s Game

I Am Not a Serial Killer

Star Wars

Most of those are best sellers or easily remembered, so forgive me if I don’t link to them.  My point is, if you watch this, do so with a pen and pad.  Write down the “events.”  When I teach my students, I teach them to break their features down into what I call the “Guy Does” test.  Break each event down into a subject-verb-object sentence.

Jawas Show Up

Uncle Buys Droids

Luke Sees Message

Droid Runs Away.

Keep going.  When you do this, you see the progression of your story.  You can reverse engineer each mini plot in what’s already been dissected to bits in terms of The Heroes’s Journey (the main plot of Star Wars).

If you dissect your character’s plot and only have one thing.  It’s not going to feel real to your reader.  Every character should be the main character in his or her own mind.  Anime does this VERY well.  Thinking about each goal and how the steps to achieve those goals will force new plots will help you create stories that have more dimension.  More dimension (in my arrogant opinion) means a better story.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Sympathetic Characters

Under my new book review format, I talk about how much I enjoy characters.  That got me thinking about character sympathy, why it’s important and how to manipulate the reader’s sympathy for a character.

One reference for how to adjust sympathy is Writing Excuses.  They’re more successful than I am, and they’re also better at this than I am.  The linked podcast addresses the how.  They reference another podcast that explains why you don’t have to have sympathetic characters.  That’s true.  There are reasons to have unsympathetic characters, but I’m not a fan of them.  They exist in The Journals of Bob Drifter, but that doesn’t mean I was overly happy about their existence, only aware of their necessity.

What is a sympathetic character.   There are a few differing opinions, but I’m going to selfishly hover in my realm of opinions.  While some feel sympathetic characters are those readers feel sad for, I don’t necessarily leave it at that.  When I talk about sympathetic characters, I’m speaking specifically on characters readers have a strong emotional response to.  A character my readers hate (if that’s what I wanted them to feel) is every bit as important as a character my readers love.  When I get feedback from beta readers, my worst fear is I’ll ask, “what did you think about Character X?” and the readers will respond with, “Who?”  That’s a  much bigger problem to me.

One of my betas for Journals hates Richard.  When she told me why, I smiled, and said, “Sorry, but that’s exactly what I wanted you to feel.”  The degree to which readers hate Richard is one thing, but if they hate him for the same reason my beta hated him, I did my job right.  Characters can’t be completely rage worthy any more than they can be completely sympathetic.  The masters (who in my opinion are George R.R. Martin and Peter V. Brett) can make you hate a character and then a book later, make you at least understand them.  This particular ability allows you to have an extra arch with your characters.

Image of Shawn Michaels is used in reference to WWE’s effectiveness in building character sympathy.  Photo Credit unidentifiable.

A great example for how to do this?  Believe it or not, the WWE.  I haven’t watched wrestling in years, but think about it.  Shawn Michaels went from hero to villain to hero to goof to hero and all the way around again.  Readers look for growth in character, and that’s another term that might be misleading.  Sometimes failure tests a character’s metal, and it’s okay for that character to regress.  Why?

Now we come to the main purpose of this particular blog.  We’re all human. Just on the drive to my brother’s house we talked about what it is to be human.  I don’t think people are good or bad.  I think they’re people.  Sometimes they do good things, sometimes they do horrible things.  I know I have.  So the most realistic characters react to their environment.  I have a few characters who don’t change.  I like those characters.  I like those who no matter the test, they alway pass.  I like the other characters too.  I think House, M.D. was a great example here.  What kept me watching that show was the thought that, “Maybe this episode, he’ll do the decent thing.”  Nope.  Never did.  It’s the same trick Charlie Brown kept falling for.  He’ll never kick the ball and House will never be a compassionate person.  (You can argue the end of that series with me in the comments if you want.)

Those characters are unique, but they can get boring quickly.  I’ve failed in my life, so I look for characters who have flaws, but are generally decent folk.  One of the more common compliments I get for Journals is Bob.  He’s a good, white-hat, guy.  He has his slumps, but he’s consistently kind and compassionate, and that makes him sympathetic when he’s faced with tragedy.  Others don’t like him because he’s too nice.  I think the world is just about done with antiheroes, then again, maybe not.  I think it’s an archetype like any other.  Use tools for a reason.

You don’t need a raging alcoholic day-care sitter any more than you need an incredibly pious prostitute.  That sort of extreme can seem forced and/or contrived.  Strive instead for people who feel real.  All my favorite books have at least one character I genuinely feel some connection too.  It’s the part of me I see in those characters that makes me want to see what happens to them.  I think this is something to strive for in writing.

That makes me want to close with a few (in no particular order) characters I found very sympathetic.  They area also some of my favorite characters in fiction.  They are:

Perrin Aybara from Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson.

Vin from Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.

John Cleaver from the John Wayne Cleaver series by Dan Wells.

The Warded Man/Arlen from The Demon Cycle by Peter V. Brett.

All of these characters have great emotional range.  Sometimes, they do things that make me proud, other times, I’m angry with them for how they handle a situation.  I could have gone on, but I just wanted to give you all a few characters I felt have the qualities I look for when I’m reading.  You can feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

In summary:  A sympathetic character is someone the reader feels something for.  They should be realistic by sometimes failing tests of character.  They can be “bad” or “good” as a whole, but no one is all of any one thing.  (except for a few carefully chosen characters, which I feel need to be offset by other members in the cast.)

I hope this gives you some insight into what I shoot for when I write.  If you think you’ve found something I missed, or you just have a good resource to share, let me know in the comments.
Thanks for reading,

Matt