As usual, this workshop is open to anyone including people who didn't participate in the previous 2 workshops. THEORY: WHAT KINDS OF CHARACTERS ARE THERE AND HOW DO THEY WORK? There are several directions we could have gone from last week's plot brainstorming. We could have continued to work on developing a detailed plot outline, we could have talked about point of view and voice and tried to pick an approach for our project, we could have talked about genre, we could have started brainstorming worldbuilding, or we could go the direction I actually chose, which is characters. Why did I pick characters? Well, probably all of you have heard some discussion about plot-driven fiction vs. character-driven fiction. Since I put the plot workshop first I must be a proponent of plot-driven fiction, right? Actually, no. My opinion is that the best novels are both character driven and plot driven. If you look into it deeply enough plot and character are really the same thing: plot is built out of the actions, reactions, epiphanies, transformations, and deaths of characters, while characters only come to exist for the reader by being portrayed and developed through plot. In terms of developing a novel, I prefer to work on character and plot in alternation letting them inform each other: vague plot, vague characters, detailed plot, detailed characters, write the actual story which will cause evolution and revision of both plot and characters. (I will however stand behind the idea that history or backstory is the least important part of any story and should exist only to support the plot and characters. I can't count the number of times I have wanted to bonk my head into a wall when I saw someone trying to start designing an epic story by making a historical timeline.) Some people are not particularly interested in plot, and some are not particularly interested in characters, and some genres are more focused on one than the other. Thrillers and adventures are mainly plot-focused, while romances and dramas are mainly character-focused. You probably already know whether you want to write a novel focused on plot, character, or balanced between the two because it's a largely instinctive choice. If you don't know, I would aim for balanced between the two because it creates the most well-rounded audience experience. I've still said nothing about characters... Well, we can look at characters from a thematic angle (archetypes), a plot angle (roles), or a psychological angle (personality type theory). I believe the archetypes approach is the simplest and the easiest to study in examples of fiction and emulate if desired. Let me clarify that when I talk about archetypes I am not talking about Jung's archetypes, or his archetypes as adapted by Campbell, Vogler, or Frey. I dislike that system because it is akin to astrology and tarot cards: inconsistent, incomplete, and the symbolism tends to get in the way of actually understanding how the archetypes work. So when I talk about an archetype I mean any case in which you can point to several characters in unrelated works of fiction and say "these are all fundamentally the same character". Personally I think of them as the same soul in different incarnations or universes. One of my favorites is the minor villain who has an outward superiority complex and inward inferiority complex, generally someone who was bullied before gaining some power and learning how to defend themselves by isolation. Another I like a lot is the naive perpetually-blushing childlike character who desperately wants everyone to like them and get along with each other, and finds fulfillment in being helpful and obedient to a leader. I have not developed a complete listing of these archetypes, and I'm not sure it's even possible to do so. The important question is, what archetypes are important to you? I would encourage you to make a list of your favorite characters from any stories, combining any where 2 or 3 characters seem to be built on the same archetype, and write a few sentences describing each one's personality, how they got that way, and what they do and become during the story. One of the things I find interesting about Dramatica theory is that it approaches this problem from the opposite direction. It attempts to exhaustively list the realms of human thought (coming up with 32 of them) and split each into a pair of opposed focuses. For example, knowledge vs. thought, aware of the outside world vs aware of the self, trusting vs. testing, and controlled vs. uncontrolled. Theoretically every one of these 64 options ought to exist in at least one of the 2-8 primary and secondary characters of a novel. You can do this as a character-development exercise either using the Dramatica list of terms or using your own terms. And personally I like to split them into 3 or 4 alternatives rather than pairs, because anywhere there's a nice clear opposition, like between leader and follower, there are probably some other possibilities off at right angles, in this case equal partner and loner. (While these terms might be taken to describe a character's place in a character dynamic, I intended them to describe the character's personality in terms of their natural preference about how to relate to others.) The method is: make a column under each of your characters names, plus a blank column. Under each character describe a personality trait you definitely know they have, then try to identify what the others have instead, and use the blank column to note any alternatives which are not already embodied in a character. Please read Chapter 5: Character of this link. It will hopefully give you further tools to describe the archetypes of your favorite characters and identify what kinds of characters are missing from your current cast. It should also cover the concept of character roles. My previous partial book about game design This one's also about character traits: Motivating disjunctions and emotional metabolism Don't get too hung up on roles though, they are oversimplifications that apply to most but not all novels. Some works of fiction present 2 or more equal characters who are each a protagonist from their own point of view and an antagonist from the other(s)' point of view, so there is no absolute villain. Sometimes the villain is technically the protagonist because he, or it if the villain is an abstract force like nature, is the one who proactively makes plans and messes for the main character to react to. Some main characters are merely watching and commenting on the actions of another character who is actually the protagonist; in this case the main character may be a guardian, a skeptic, or a contagonist (in Dramatica role terms). Protagonists, antagonists, major vs. minor characters, plot strands So how does theme fit into all this? Plot as thematic argument, characters as thematic vectors Here I talk about how to figure out from your themes what kinds of characters are necessary to illustrate those themes. Generating characters from theme. And finally the psychological/personality type approach. There are lots of theories of personality type. Many of them are a bit mumbo-jumboish: personalities by astrological sign, or Chinese astrological birth year, or birth order, or Japanese blood type, or which tarot card you draw to represent yourself. Enneagrams are kind of halfway between this and a scientific approach. Personally I recommend the Keirsey-Bates system (this is the one with personality types encoded as INTJ, ENFP, and other combinations of those 4 letters). However regardless of whether you think as system is absurd or reasonable, they are all handy collections of descriptions of 4-16 opposing personality types and just reading through them will probably give you inspirations for your own characters. METHOD: WHO ARE YOUR CHARACTERS AND HOW DO THEY WORK IN YOUR PLOT? The basic task here is to brainstorm your main cast of characters. 1. I'd like to see a chart, with each character's name at the head of a column and their different variants of each trait listed across the rows. Feel free to include appearance, cultural background, style of thinking and speaking, and anything else which seems relevant as well as simple personality traits and their role(s) in the plot. 2. I'd also like to see an updated version of your plot outline which describes what your characters are feeling and doing during each major section of the plot. Don't worry, I expect to still see question marks here and there for plot points where you don't know what should happen or other things you haven't figured out yet.

The Road to Paradise

The story is about the narrator's effort to understand an ideal society (paradise) and to tranform into its member. The Avatar represents someone from paradise. The Housemate represents someone with contradicting. The Housemate does not interact with the Avatar in the story. The interactions are confined to: Avatar <-> Narrator, and Narrator <-> Housemate.

(Avatar)    (Narrator)    (Housemate)   ----------  ------------  ------------  -------giving      conserving    draining       empathetic  emotionless   amplified     forgiving   judgemental   manipulative  flexible    routined      impulsive     communal    impersonal    selfish   

The plot from the perspective of character dynamics:

The Narrator and the Housemate came to share a living unit. Not long after living together, the Narrator discovers another side of the Housemate and distaste grows. The Narrator begins to imagine an ideal society where values exhibited by the Housemate would be gone. Through the examination of the roots of those values, the Narrator learns to see the changes in the Housemate and himself.

It's a challenge to get an audience to sympathize with an unemotional main character. If he's really emotionless readers will probably want to know why he is that was and see it as a problem which must be fixed (probably in the first half of the story). Although perhaps you already intended that to be part of the plot. What happens to the roommate in the end? If you present him as a symbol of all that's wrong with the world readers will also see him as a problem which needs to be addressed (although in this case it would happen shortly before or after the climax).

The traits of all three characters will change. I intent to present the characters more like human than symbols, so their traits aren't all sharply different. For the sake of the chart, what I put was a little exaggerated. I want to keep the characters and events down to earth to bring paradise closer. I want not to present paradise as a destination of escape.

I don't how the story ends, because if lives just ends and stop changing it seems unnature. I think the story will end without a definite ending. In the begining, the reader doesn't know the character. In the end, reader feels that he knows them. That is all I want from the story.

People don't change dramatically in short times. I don't intent to telescope, instead, I want to focus on the small changes. It might be more realistic.

The Road to Paradise

I am learning how to best use the letter system from workshop 2. The design of the story can be divided into three areas. Area I is the part where I talk about my thoughts on the dynamics in English. Area II is the formulation of the dynamic rules. The rules can be from characters, from the themes, or the world building. Area III is the composing of the plot.



I. On the character dynamics between the Narrator and the Housemate:

While the Narrator holds strong to his values, he doesn't try to distrub the harmony in the household. He doesn't like to strategize, so he is candid. But at the same time he tries to space out the remarks so that at least they are digestable.

conserving vs wasteful:

The Narrator observes first, then points it out to the housemate when he concludes the wastefulness of the housemate is not an incident but a habit. The criticisms are spaced out and the housemate receive them quite well. It is easier to talk about the wastefulness when the housemate is just wasting his resources. The next is wasting resources that are voluntarily shared by them. Then it was those involuntarily shared. The most difficult is the resources that belong to the Narrator. The first case is the easiest because the housemate knew that the Narrator is not trying to intiate any change, so it is received more like a curiosity. The last one is most difficult because the Housemate is using the Narrator's resources for something the Housemate is passionate about.

II. Putting the above into Letters and count what I need:

There are four types of wastefulness:
CW1 - Housemate wasting his own things
CW2 - Housemate wasting things shared but separable
CW3 - Housemate wasting things shared and not separable
CW4 - Housemate wasting Narrator's things

The Narrator observes at least two incident of each (eg: CW1x1 and CW1x2) before taking action CW1A. After the action, the Narrator observes the Housemate's change or reaction CW1R. For each of these cases, I have the order:

CW1x1 < CW1x2 < CW1A < CW1R

The order which the Narrator would confront the conflicts is:

CW1A < CW2A < CW3A < CW4A



I/II Narrator's view on his stuffs

On this topic, I also want to talk about how the Narrator treats his own stuffs. The Narrator has four kinds of stuffs:

NS1 - Things he wants to get rid of
NS2 - Things he wants to get more
NS3 - Things he wants to give more or share
NS4 - Things he wants to keep that aren't quite right
NS5 - Things he wants to rid of or stop getting if there is an alternative

NS1 seems easy but the Narrator is reminded of recycling later. NS4 and NS5 are hardest because they create a moral dilemma. In NS4, the Narrator knows that the objects weren't created right, but they are already there. In NS5, the Narrator feels forced to draw the line between what he likes and what he thinks he shouldn't do. There is a lesson from each of these topics (eg: NS1L). To learn the lesson, the Narrator recounts at least two incidents (eg NS1x1) thinking about them, and one incident of inspiration (NS1S). Following the learning process, the Narrator acts on it (NS1A). This gives the order:

NS1x1 < NS1x2 < NS1S < NS1L < NS1A

NS2S < NS3S < NS1S < NS4S < NS5S



III. Scene assignment

There are 36 scenes from this exposition. It seems like a bad idea to rearrange text. I should will be using a spreadsheet.

I'd like to include a bibliography of related books in each charter of the how-to-write book I intend to compile these workshops into, although I didn't have time to do them for the first two workshops.


Books About Character Building:

The Writer's Guide to Character Traits by Linda N. Edelstein, Ph.D.
If you only read one, read this one. Lots of info, scientific approach.

45 Master Characters: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt
Also good if you like the mythic approach. Combines well with books on personal mythology.

Characters Make Your Story by Maren Elwood
Older book, solid basics of characterization.

Fiction is Folks by Robert Newton Peck
Older book - lots of metaphors and the author chatting, not particularly theory-focused.

Creating Unforgettable Characters by Linda Seger
In my to-read pile.

Dynamic Characters: How to Create Personalities that Keep Readers Captivated and Writing Great Fiction: Characters, Emotion, and Viewpoint both by Nancy Kress
Haven't read these, but I've read Nancy Kress' fiction and her characters are rather lame... o.O

M is discontent be realizes that the problem is his lack of what he truly wants, but does not know exactly what he truly wants.

To contrast M, the following characters are needed (in some cases two of these may be combined into one character):

One knows what he wants but restrains himself from trying to get it because he believes it would be morally wrong and he fears censure.

One knows what he wants but does not try to get it because he believes it is impossible and he fears failure. (What if he's right and it really is impossible?)

One knows what he wants and is prevented from getting it by others for bad reasons.

One wants a bad thing, or a good thing with bad timing, and is restrained from getting it for good reasons.

One knows what he wants but doesn't deserve to get it because he is using unethical means to pursue it.

One gets what he wants but then faces repercussions.

One mistakenly thinks he wants something other that what he really subconsciously wants.

Some minor characters who already have what they truly want or who simply don't truly want anything.

One doesn't know what he wants, but M figures out for this person what they want.

One is obligated to give something he really doesn't want to give.

One is obligated to give something and finds a way of looking at things that allows him to enjoy giving it.

I have been doing some writing of the actual text of the story. I feel comfortable writing about the Narrator and the Housemate, because the setting is the real world. I am worry that there is a great challenge linking that to the Avatar and the Paradise.


The Narrator and the Avatar

The Narrator and the Avatar go to the Novel Character Relationship Workshop. They were given a questionnaire:

Question 1: How did you meet each other?
N: We don't remember how we met.

Question 2: What would you do with the Narrator?
A: I would first see what he wants to do with me.

Question 3: What would you do if the Avatar and the Housemate were going out?
N: I think I would want to kill the housemate.

Question 4: How old is the Narrator?
A: 25.

Question 5: What would you do if the Avatar confessed they love you?
N: The Avatar did. But it didn't help solve any problem.

Question 6: What would you do if the Narrator and the Housemate were dating?
A: I would wish that I were the Housemate.

Question 7: Do you miss the Avatar?
N: Yes, but I don't have a good reason to see the Avatar.

Question 8: Who is the Narrator dating?
A: No one.

Question 9: What do you think of the Avatar?
N: I think we have an unsolvable relationship.

Question 10: What do you think of the Narrator?
A: He has a solution, but he rejects it.

Question 11: Who does the Avatar like?
N: The Little Red Riding Hood (?)

Question 12: Would you marry the Narrator?
A: Not in any possible future.

Question 13: Do you love the Avatar?
N: It is painful to say it either way.

Question 14: Ever slept in the same room as the Narrator?
A: Every night.

... Well, I'm confused lol. The Avatar sleeps in the same room as the Narrator every night? Does that mean the Avatar is in the Narrator's mind, or the Avatar is the Narrator's housecat, or the Avatar lives in the Narrator's house 100 years in the future, or what? Isn't missing someone or loving them a good enough reason to see them?

I think the story will turn out to make a lot of sense. Is it okay to start posting text? I don't have the words to describe the characters. I can only show them.

[Edited by - Wai on September 5, 2007 5:53:37 PM]