Characters
In the past few weeks, I've been reading up on writing tips. And of course, the quality of our stories largely depends on the quality of the characters our stories are about. Whether the challenges they face pull us readers into the story or not. Whether we can relate to them. How we see them change and grow as the story proceeds.
Sometimes it's fun to identify one element in your writing skills you want to practice on. A character, and its flaws, and how the character learns to deal with those flaws is an example of such an element. Working on this one part of your story telling very explicitly in an exercise, might help in building and evolving characters in other stories you are working on.
Below is my example, but you can also give it a try! Think of a random character, and of a random flaw. Then do these two writing exercises:
- Part 1: Put your character in a setting where the reader becomes aware of the character's flaw.
- Part 2: Show how your character is dealing with his / her flaw in a new way - show how the character has evolved.
If you try it out, let me know in the comments below how it went!
(my impression of a character feeling ashamed of her flaw ;) )
When Things Go Better than Planned
(Part 1)
So far so good. People are still on the ground, no sign of resistance. No sign of any alarm gone off or of police officers or guards making their way through. The code to the safe worked, the money is in the bags, all three of them stuffed to the brim with one hundred dollar bills. Now, all there’s left to do is leave. Leave, without making a scene.
But that’s easier said than done. The thing is, I just really love a scene. I just really love sticking it to someone. You know, when you catch one of those desk clergy ladies moving her arm inch by inch towards the alarm button. And you look her in the eye, and point your gun at her, and say something terrifying. Like, “The last person who tried that still wishes it was only her hand I blew off!” And then to see her shrivel up and crawl back into a lonely corner.
Or better yet, when a team of guards comes in, all heroic and save-the-day like. And then you get to trap them and tie them up and gag them and stuff them in your minivan, only to let them go thirsty for three days and finally untie them when they are weak, then drop them in a pond in a bordering state and leave them there to just barely survive.
I love a scene. Allowing it to unfold, then taking control and setting it to my hand. But now is not the time. The bags are full of money, things are going surprisingly well. No need to improvise, no need to do anything rash. I slowly walk towards the exit. Slowly, still giving someone, anyone, a chance to make a move.
(Part 2)
I couldn’t do it. Unfortunately. Leave without a scene. As I planned on going to the exit, the huge window pane on the side of the building caught my attention. Beautifully transparent, obviously pretty damn well taken care of and spotlessly clean. And outside, just past that huge window, cars were grouping together. Police cars, around eight of them.
In a reflex I took out my gun and pointed it at the centre of the window. The first bullet got caught in the glass, which was obviously reinforced. Same for the second. But the third bullet landed perfectly on top of the first, and increased the pressure to such an amount that the entire wall of glass came rumbling down. Like a waterfall, its icicles pouring down on the police officers just getting out of their cars, causing enough confusion and cuts and blood for me to have time to turn around and make my way out of the backdoor.
Almost a success. Almost, because the glass didn’t fall in just one direction. In some unusual play of gravity, part of the window backfired, landing a share of glass on me. One of the shards would definitely have struck my heart, had it not been intercepted by my fake boob. The fake boob that popped in my chest like a party balloon. I could have died.
The boobs are still like that. One perfect, the other deflated. I keep them this way, as a reminder. That time, I promised myself I wouldn’t make a scene. It was a promise I broke. It always eats at my confidence a little, my two imbalanced boobs. And that is how I need it to be. It’s just enough to quench my inner fire, to manipulate my confidence in such a way, that these days, I finish what I come to do and go. Even if it could have been done more epic.
Improving our character building skills
Figured out what the above character's flaw was about? This was a bank robber loving conflict!
I always enjoy giving a story a weird twist in the end, and I liked making my bank robber a woman. A woman vain enough to have fake boobs, and then determined enough to keep one of her boobs deflated as a reminder to keep her own promises.
But next time I do this excercise, I think I will try to express the story less through the character's inner thoughts. And more through her way of interacting with the world and with people. So maybe have her in a scene where the lady at the desk reaches over for the alarm button, and she simply tells her "don't", with a look of disinterest on her face. And that we then learn to understand why and how she moved beyond her craving for throwing a scene.
Hope you try it out for yourself and have fun making your character evolve!