Character Confusion

 

My current work in progress has three shipwrecked sailors as secondary characters. They enter the story a little over halfway through and are gone within four chapters.

I researched the types of jobs that sailors do on ocean freighters and decided to make the characters a third mate, an assistant cook, and a deckhand. So far, so good.

Then I had to come up with names. Normally, I go through my name lists (first names popular in that time period and last names gathered from a number of sources) until I come across something that just sounds right. Using that process, I decided on Davis Blakeman for the third mate, Elliot Campbell for the cook, and Pete Quilly for the deckhand.

But when I wrote the chapters, I was getting them confused. And if I’m confused, readers certainly will be. So how do I make each individual sailor stand out from the crowd?

My protagonist may think of them by their roles, so sometimes I refer to them as the third mate, the cook, or the deckhand. But that gets tiring if I do it all the time. And a twelve-year-old living in 1925 would refer to them as Mr. Blakeman, Mr. Campbell, and Mr. Quilly. But keeping those names straight was where the confusion came in.

For a second or two I thought about getting cutesy and calling them Mr. Boss, Mr. Chef, and Mr. Workman, but that was way too corny. So I came up with a more subtle way to remember them and changed two of the names. Elliot Campbell still worked, but the third mate became Matthew Tate and the deckhand became Henry Duke.

Here is how my protagonist remembers them:

Putting her hand in front of her mouth, Jessie stifled a giggle. Did they realize their last names all started with the same letter as their job? Then she grinned. And Tate rhymed with mate. She wouldn’t have any trouble remembering him.

There are other subtleties here, too, which readers might pick up on their own but which don’t hurt anything if they go unnoticed. The cook’s last name is a popular brand of soup, and the deckhand’s first name starts with the same letter as “hand.” But those are just bonuses.

The important thing is that I no longer have to stop and think which sailor I’m talking about when Jessie uses their last names.

And that’s a win for readers, too.

Listening to Your Characters

 

Sunday’s sermon talked about God as the potter and we, His creations, as the clay. We can’t tell Him what to do, although we try anyway.

Fiction works like that, too. I create the characters, and I get to tell them what to do. But sometimes they have a mind of their own. When that happens, it’s my job to decide whether to let them follow it.

And sometimes I do.

God also lets us follow our own way sometimes. But no matter why He does so, one thing is clear: God knows us better than we know ourselves.

And that’s where the analogy breaks down.

Two weeks ago I mentioned that the fatal flaw I had tried to give my protagonist wasn’t working. In a sense, she was telling me that I didn’t understand her, that even though she liked being with her friends, she loved her family more. So I will try to listen more carefully when I write the second draft.

Because sometimes the characters know themselves better than I do.

Back to the Fair

 

The Lake County Fair took a hiatus last year for COVID 19, and I suffered from withdrawal. So this year I submitted twelve photos and earned two red ribbons.

Technically, I could have entered twenty-four photos—one each in each of the twelve color categories and one in each of the twelve black-and-white categories. But in some of those categories I either had nothing at all (e.g., I had no sports photographs taken within the last three years) or I didn’t like what I did have (e.g., domestic/farm animals). And that was my criteria. I didn’t have to love it, but I didn’t want it to embarrass me, either.

It was easy to decide what to enter in the color Artistic Effects category since I had only one that I really liked. The photo of the Grand Canal in Venice at the head of this post was the first of my two red ribbons.

Since I was only allowed to enter one photo in each category, other decisions were harder. That was especially true of the wildlife categories, where I had a number of choices. I’m glad I ended up with the seagull for the color one, since that was the other red ribbon and I don’t think I had anything that could have beaten the first place entry anyway. I chose the seagull because the lines from the seawall and the fence give it an interesting and unusual composition.

My second choice was this iguana. It’s a nice photo but too conventional.

I also considered entering the iguana as a black-and-white wildlife photo, but I think it loses a lot of its interest without the color.

It’s still a good picture that wouldn’t have embarrassed me, but here again I had several choices and ended up going with something a little less conventional. The photo of the geese ready to take flight didn’t win any ribbons, but I doubt the black-and-white iguana would have done any better.

My favorite photo didn’t win anything, either, but I’m still proud of it, especially since portraits are not my strength. Deciding which one to enter wasn’t hard since I had only one. Here it is just for fun.

I’ll never know if I would have done better if I had made different selections, but that’s part of being an artist. What I like and what appeals to others isn’t always the same.

And I’m fine with that.

That Pesky Fatal Flaw

 

There are no hard core rules for fiction—they can all be broken if the writer does it intentionally to achieve a particular effect. But one of the stronger “suggestions” is that a protagonist should grow during a novel by starting with a fatal flaw that the protagonist overcomes by the end of the story. That’s not always the case, of course. James Bond has no fatal flaw and no growth, and I find him incredibly boring. Indiana Jones doesn’t grow through the course of the story, either, but he does start with a fatal flaw—his fear of snakes—that is still there at the end, and he has several other quirks that make him human and allow me to enjoy those movies. But unlike those characters, each of my protagonists needs to start with a fatal flaw and to overcome it by the end of the book.

So what’s the problem?

The first question is how to incorporate the fatal flaw into the first chapter without making the character so unlikeable that the reader gives up on the story too soon. I’ve read many an Amazon review where the reviewer put the book down after the first chapter because the protagonist was “too whiny” or “too selfish,” or something similar. If that characteristic is the fatal flaw, then the reader missed the point and the author allowed it. Sohow do I find the sweet spot that discloses the fatal flaw without making the character unlikeable? The only way I know is to write and revise and write and revise until my sixth sense—and my beta readers—says I have achieved it.

The second problem is finding the appropriate fatal flaw. When I started writing Lonely Rock, I was convinced that Jessie’s fatal flaw would be valuing her friends more than her family. But as I continue to write, that isn’t coming through. So now I’m wondering if I chose poorly. I’m not sure this is the right spot to experiment with a different fatal flaw, but I’ve made myself a note to work on it in the next draft and maybe change Jessie’s fatal flaw to self-doubt and/or fearfulness.

One thing is clear: Jessie needs a fatal flaw that creates empathy rather than disgust.

And I’m determined to get it right.

The story starts here--or does it?

 

Writers, myself included, often begin a story too early, giving a lot of background before reaching the place where the story really starts. We justify it by saying the background is necessary to the plot or characterization of the novel, which, even if true, is just an excuse for bad writing since it can usually be woven into the story when it becomes relevant. As I said, I’ve been guilty of this too and had to force myself to go back and cut out pages or even chapters at the beginning of the manuscript.

But my current work in progress, Lonely Rock, is different. This time I started too late.

In my original first chapter, Jessie and her friends were looking forward to a fun summer. That would have been fine if the book was about what happened to Jessie and her friends over the summer. I started there because I wanted to show the reader what Jessie was like, and she is all about her friends. But the real story involves Jessie’s move to a lighthouse, and the friends exit offstage. If I start the book with them, readers will expect these walk-on players to have major roles and will be disappointed when that expectation isn’t met.

That chapter also introduced too many people at once. Aside from Jessie’s three friends, I had various townspeople show up to make the scene more interesting. That can be confusing to a reader.

The second chapter introduced the other major players—Jessie’s family. And there were no extraneous characters to confuse the reader.

So what did I do? I switched the two chapters with a few minor changes to the timeline and how I introduced the setting. To make it work, I had to move the story back several days. I think I also managed to find a way to introduce readers to Jessie’s personality without having her friends present. But this is the first draft, so it may change again.

Because maybe there’s an even better place to start.