Lessons from the Shark Tank: Creating Distinctive Main Characters

 

I’ve recently become hooked on the TV show Shark Tank. I’m not interested in being an entrepreneur, and I’d probably make a lousy one, anyway, but I love the show for its entertainment value. Entertainment is a fiction writer’s business, so my next few posts will talk about the show’s lessons for writers.

This post will cover the importance of developing main characters with distinct personalities. That isn’t limited to the protagonist but also includes the characters that play a significant role in the protagonist’s life.

I’ll start by distinguishing the six Shark Tank regulars. Here is my description of each, moving from left to right based on their normal seats on the show.

• Mark Cuban is possibly better known as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and as someone with political leanings on the right. He has strong opinions about products that make health or dieting claims without solid scientific research behind them, and I heard him refer to one of the participants—to his face—as a snake oil salesman. He also doesn’t hesitate to call someone a scammer. On the other hand, he’s very supportive of people he believes have a valid product and a realistic view of their future success even when he doesn’t see himself as the right business partner for them.
• Barbara Corcoran struggled in school because she has dyslexia, and it wasn’t diagnosed right away. After growing up in a large, low-income family, she made her fortune selling real estate. She invests in people as much as in their products. Although she can drive a hard bargain, she uses her vast network to make the products and companies a success.
• Daymond John worked all sorts of jobs as a child to help out his struggling family. While in high school, he decided that some of the popular clothing items (e.g., ski hats) were overpriced and that he could sell them cheaper, so he started his own clothing company. Although several of the sharks support good causes, I see Daymond as the most compassionate among them. He often invests in companies that give a share of their profits away. He also refuses to invest and dilute the owner’s equity when Daymond doesn’t think he brings any value to the deal besides providing capital. As an example of his big heart, he refused to invest in a teenager’s bowtie company because he didn’t think the teenager should be giving up any equity for money that Daymond wasn’t sure he needed, but Daymond did offer to mentor the boy, and that “deal” was accepted.
• Kevin O’Leary (nicknamed “Mr. Wonderful”) has a reputation for being mean, but I don’t see him that way. He tells it like it is and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. A venture capitalist from Canada, he also makes it clear that he is only interested in investments that will make him money. But none of that makes him mean in my book, and there are rare occasions where his soft side comes through.
• Lori Greiner is the sweetest shark. Even when she doesn’t like what an entrepreneur is doing, she sugar-coats her criticism before saying, “I’m out.” She has a show on QVC (a cable shopping network) and likes products that can be easily demonstrated on TV but will occasionally invest in something else.
• Robert Herjavec is an immigrant from Yugoslavia who made his money in the technology industry. In the heated discussions that sometimes occur on Shark Tank, he often takes issue with Kevin’s and Mark’s criticisms and supports the person who came on the show looking for an investment. He usually, although not always, believes an entrepreneur should follow his own dream even when it isn’t the best business decision.

Not only do the differences between the sharks make them easier to distinguish, but they are often the spark for heated discussions that help create the entertainment value of the show. In the same way, a fiction writer can use the differences among characters as the spark for the tension that any story requires. But characters that are too alike don’t create create friction.

So give them distinct personalities and watch the sparks fly.

__________

I thought about using the show’s logo at the head of these posts, and there wouldn’t have been any trademark issues with doing so. It would probably also be considered a fair use for copyright purposes. But since I had some of my own photos, taken at an aquarium in Wilmington, North Carolina in 2018, I thought it would be more fun to use them.

Life Goes On

 

Just over a week ago, I went to a funeral for my cousin Lawrence. Two days later, I attended a bridal shower for a nephew and his fiancé. The two events coming so closely together reminded me that life goes on, and as one closes another takes on a new direction.

Funerals are becoming more frequent as I get older, while this is probably the first bridal shower I have attended since my daughter got married sixteen years ago. But while Larry was laid to rest, babies were being born, couples were getting engaged, and life goes on.

Although divorce is not unknown on my father’s side of the family, mostly we have had some very long, very strong marriages. Lawrence and Janet had been married 63 years before her death in 2018. I was four when they got married and don’t remember the wedding, but my father performed the ceremony, so I was probably there.

That brings me back to the bridal shower I just attended. I wish Mike and Amanda the same long, happy marriage that Larry and Janet had.

And life goes on.

__________

The photo comes from one of Daddy’s slides and shows Lawrence and Janet signing their marriage license in 1955 while Daddy looks on. I assume my mother took the picture.

There's Nothing New Under the Sun

 

I’ve reprinted this post several times, most recently on May 10, 2021. But it’s one of my favorites and is a good follow-up to last week, where I showed the many ways artists could create a vision from the same initial mold. So here it is again.

There’s Nothing New Under the Sun¹

The wind was picking up. Watching the approaching gale from her seat in the cockpit, Anne was grateful that Carousel had reached shelter before the storm hit. But as the sailboat’s bare mast bobbed and weaved with the others in the harbor, Anne prayed for the sailors who were still out on Lake Michigan.

Notice the opening sentence, which I borrowed from Chi Libris. Chi Libris is a group of well-known Christian novelists that include Angela Hunt and James Scott Bell. The group decided to publish a book of short stories with five shared elements: the same opening sentence, mistaken identity, pursuit at a noted landmark, an unusual form of transportation, and the same last line (“So that’s exactly what she did.”). The plots vary widely, however. In fact, the point of their collection, What the Wind Picked Up, is to show that the same basic idea can generate many diverse stories.

That’s one reason you can’t copyright ideas. The idea itself doesn’t make the story. It’s what you do with the idea that counts.

But there’s an even more important reason why you can’t copyright ideas. The founding fathers included copyright provisions in the Constitution to encourage creative works, not to inhibit them. As Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, “there is nothing new under the sun.” If ideas could be copyrighted, there would be nothing left to write about.

Here’s one idea that is frequently found in literature. Two young people fall in love but are kept apart by their feuding families, and the consequences are tragic.

You could call Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet a case of mistaken identity in 16^th Century Verona, Italy. The two protagonists fell in love before discovering who they had fallen in love with.

Move the setting to New York City in the 1950s, and you have West Side Story.

Then there is the apparently true story of the Hatfields and the McCoys in the Appalachian Mountains during the late 1800s. Their feud escalated after Johnse Hatfield began courting Roseanne McCoy, and Johnse’s family had to rescue him from the angry McCoy men. Did Johnse escape on a horse or use some other form of transportation that we would consider unusual today?

Or travel back to even earlier times. Legend tells of two Native American lovers from rival tribes. When their chiefs forbade their marriage, the lovers swore that if they couldn’t live together they would die together. Fleeing from their families, they embraced each other and jumped off the landmark now known as Lover’s Leap in Illinois’ Starved Rock State Park.

All of these stories use the same basic plot idea, and one (West Side Story) is still under copyright.

Now think of all the contemporary authors who have used that same plot idea. If you could copyright an idea, those stories wouldn’t exist.

Let’s look at another example.

Miss Read (pen name for Dora Saint) has written multiple books about everyday village life in England. While these books tend to have a main character, they center around an ensemble cast of ordinary, and mostly likeable, village residents. 

Does that remind you of a series by a popular American authoress?

When I read Jan Karon’s first Mitford book, I immediately thought of Miss Read and her Fairacre/Thrush Green books. It isn’t that the writing style is similar—it isn’t—or that the authors tell the same stories—they don’t. But their books have a common theme.

I don’t know if Jan Karon read Miss Read’s books before writing her own. For the sake of my point, however, let’s assume she did. And let’s also assume Jan Karon knew she could use the same idea without violating copyright law.

So that’s exactly what she did.

__________

¹ This post first appeared on the June 27, 2012 Hoosier Ink blog.

Tulip Parade

 

Tulips are springing up all over town. No, not the flowers we expect to see in the spring. These are much larger and don’t fade away as the weather gets hotter.

These tulips are art, and they show that creativity isn’t limited by the basic structure. Different artists created these designs using the same mold but putting their own interpretation on it.

Just for fun, here are some of my favorites.

__________

If I read the map correctly, the attribution information for the tulip at the top of this post is Musical Galaxy by Catherine Sams. The others are, FROM BOTTOM TO TOP (I don’t know why Blogger wouldn’t show them the way I tried to enter them), Peace, Love, and Tulips by MHS 2022 Painting 3 Class (Elena Lopez, Instructor); Deconstructed Banker by Betsy Mellon Anton; Puppy Love Bud by Marco “MarcoArt” Salazar; Geometric Tulip by David J. Robertson; Positivity in Bloom by Marla Macadlo; Growing at Eads Elementary by High Ability Art Club 2021-22 (Stephanie Middaugh, Sponsor); FHH Where Kids Grow Strong by Girl Scout Troup 15446; In Memory of Heidi (MISS PRINT); The Promise of a New Day by Randy Buvala; Fun by Jose Armando Arceo; Hoosier Gold by Betsy Mellon Anton; and (no title given) by April Burford. 

Puzzling Out the Story

 

I’ve mentioned before that I enjoy putting jigsaw puzzles together. In fact, my love of puzzles is part of why I became a lawyer. The most interesting legal problems are the ones where you have to sift through the facts and arrange them into a cohesive story that creates a picture of the law.

Novel-writing is like that, too. Every piece must fit seamlessly into the story to create a complete picture. Red herrings have their place, but pieces that don’t fit must be set aside. Sometimes it’s as if two jigsaw puzzles have been put into the same box. I must separate the pieces before I can start either puzzle. Or maybe it’s just a few random pieces that found their way into that box. Either way, if they don’t fit, they should be discarded.

This needs to be done with caution, however, because there are also pieces that don’t seem to belong but do. I may have to wait until the puzzle is almost finished before I know where they go. Still, the story isn’t complete without them. Nobody enjoys looking at—or reading—a puzzle with gaps.

Writing isn’t easy, and the ideas don’t always flow sequentially. But when the pieces finally fall into place, they create a beautiful picture.

That’s why I love to write.

Writer's Block or Idea Overload?

 

After six years of heavy use, my primary laptop had slowed down considerably, especially when it came to starting up and loading programs. So after taking it in for service and still not being happy with the speed, I replaced it with a new one. I love my ASUS Vivobox, and, contrary to some people’s experiences, I have had no problems with Windows 11.

But even the best laptop can’t keep up with my brain.

Last Monday, June 13, The Wall Street Journal published an article about a Tokyo café for people with writer’s block. Apparently the owner helps them set writing goals, and being in the presence of other writers in the same situation provides additional incentive. It’s a fascinating concept, but not one I’ll be making use of.

Writer’s block has never been my problem. I’m more likely to be cursed with idea overload.

I wake up in the middle of the night with ideas running through my head, and I can’t go to sleep until I’ve gone into the office and written them down. And I currently have three manuscripts and a series of devotions in progress. Right now I am doing one devotion a day while writing the first draft of Across the Isthmus. But when I finish that, should I do the second draft of Around the Horn or the third draft of Lonely Rock?

If you invent a laptop that can keep up with the computer God gave me, I’ll be your first customer.

For now, my new one will have to do.

To Pen Name or Not to Pen Name: That is the Question

 

Actually, I answered the title question before I published my first middle-grade historical novel in 2017. I use my legal name, Kathryn Page Camp, for my adult nonfiction. But when I started writing for children, I wanted something a little less formal, so I use Kaye Page. That’s the name I went by when I was the same age as my middle-grade readers.

A few years back I heard a conference speaker say that a writer should use a different name for every genre he or she writes. Personally, I think that is going too far. Taken to its logical conclusion, someone who writes romance and mystery and fantasy would use three names even though the audiences might overlap. I do think pen names can be useful for distinguishing between audiences, however, which is part of the reason I chose to use one for my children’s books.

So why does this issue come up now? I’ve been listening to an audio-book called Little Souls by Sandra Dallas. It’s an excellent book, and I would recommend it to adults, who are its intended audience. But if I had read it as a child, it might have given me nightmares. Although the vilest action takes place offstage, the issue of child molestation is front and center.

Here’s the thing. I first discovered Sandra Dallas as the writer of middle-grade historical novels. I read the four she has published so far and enjoyed them immensely.[1] Although she didn’t start writing children’s books until after my daughter was grown, they are the kind that I would have encouraged Caroline to read (not that she needed encouragement). So after reading one or two myself to make sure they were suitable, I would have let her purchase them based on the author’s name alone.

The description of Little Souls makes it clear that it has adult protagonists, which is normally the mark of a book written for adults. I don’t remember what Caroline was reading when she was twelve, but some twelve-year-old girls read books with adult protagonists, such as Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice. And although Caroline was mature for her age, Little Souls would have come as a shock.

This is in no way a criticism of Sandra Dallas, who may not have even thought about it. In any event, I have no evidence or even any reason to believe that anyone has been misled. I will continue to read her books and to recommend them, with the caveat that children should make sure they are the audience before picking one up

Still, I’m glad that I chose to use a pen name for my children’s books.

---

[1] The Quilt Walk; Hardscrabble; Someplace to Call Home; and Red Berries, White Clouds, Blue Sky. All four are middle-grade fiction and suitable for those readers.