Forum Transcripts

Bringing the Character to Life 4/29/05

Event start time:

Fri Apr 29 19:04:38 2005

Event end time:

Fri Apr 29 20:32:26 2005



Legend:
Questions from the Audience are presented in red.
Answers by the Speaker are in black.
The Moderator's comments are in blue.

mary rosenblum

Hello, all! I hope you've had a great week!

mary rosenblum

This is our After Hours Forum, with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor and tonight we're talking about real characters on the page. I've published seven novels and more than 60 short stories and will do my best to answer any questions you have. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask and type your question into the regular send bar if that works better for you..

mary rosenblum

It's been an interesting week...

mary rosenblum

I got a call from my editor at Tor Books, the one who will be working with me on my forthcoming SF novel...

mary rosenblum

and it's always such a strange feeling, getting to know a new editor for a novel...

mary rosenblum

you and the editor have to figure out what your boundaries are...how much give and take is going to work...

mary rosenblum

whether you both have similar ideas about changes and compromise..

mary rosenblum

and you tend to work with the same editor for as long as you're with that house...

mary rosenblum

unless the editor leaves, so it's rather like a first date when you know you're going to get married like it or not!

tory

funny analogy, Mary.

mary rosenblum

It's rather an apt one, Tory, if that novel is your 'child', which it is to most of us!

kayo

So are you getting married, or just dating?

mary rosenblum

Well, Kayo, when the editor buys the book you ARE married, LOL, so the first date comes after the fact...

mary rosenblum

think of it as an arranged marriage in a way. :-)

mary rosenblum

But in this case, I think we're going to work well together...

mary rosenblum

Which is a relief!

mary rosenblum

Some editors CAN be difficult to work with.

mary rosenblum

I've never had one of those, fortunately, but I have had some who didn't do much that a copy editor couldn't do.

mary rosenblum

I've learned from the really good ones.

info

what if the editor buys your book and than you find out it's not going to work between you and the editor? What can a person do? Anything?

mary rosenblum

Well, info, it's not likely that you CAN'T work with that editor, although you and the editor may look forward to the day you're done dealing with each other!

mary rosenblum

This is our After Hours Forum, with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor and tonight we're talking about real characters on the page. I've published seven novels and more than 60 short stories and will do my best to answer any questions you have. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask and type your question into the regular send bar if that works better for you..

mary rosenblum

But a lot of it depends on how flexible you both are...

mary rosenblum

If the editor wants a change, can you consider it and make it, and will that editor listen to you if you have raeasons for not doing it?

mary rosenblum

Some authors are touch-me-not writers and drive editors nuts...

mary rosenblum

a few editors are 'my way or the highway' and drive authors nuts.

geezer

How long does the editing process generally take?

mary rosenblum

Geezer, it depends on the schedule for the book...

mary rosenblum

mine is probably already on their publishing schedule even though my agent hasn't finalized the offer yet!

mary rosenblum

And that will affect the length of time we have to work...

mary rosenblum

but since David called me on the phone to tell me the two major content changes he wanted me to consider...

mary rosenblum

I'd say we're going to be working on it sooner rather than later.

mary rosenblum

We'll see.

mary rosenblum

It may be he simply wanted to get a feel for how I am to work with. :-)

mary rosenblum

Generally it will be about two years between the acceptance and the bookshelf...

mary rosenblum

but it can be as short as one year...

mary rosenblum

or quite a bit faster if you're not dealing with a big NY publisher.

mary rosenblum

The small press publishers turn things around much more quickly.

kayo

Do you make most of your contact via phone or e-mail during the editing process, Mary?

mary rosenblum

Yes, Kayo, these days, it's all electronic. I already sent them the ms on CD...our edits will probably go back and forth as attached files, or CD for the entire ms.

mary rosenblum

I actually like the editing process if I have a good editor.

mary rosenblum

I'm always happy to make something better and that is what the editor is after, too.

mary rosenblum

Tweaky fixes are boring, but necessary.

mary rosenblum

You DO make logic errors no matter how careful you are...

wingedwarrior24

is cd the only way to send MS?

mary rosenblum

Well, you submit nearly all ms as paper manuscripts, winged. At least to NY publishers you do.

mary rosenblum

We'll probably edit chapters by email...

mary rosenblum

I just didn't want to send 25 attached files!

mary rosenblum

And they weren't in a hurry so I sent them the cd.

kayo

Interesting. I'd not imagined a CD burner as a necessary tool.

mary rosenblum

It's not. I could have gone email or floppy.

mary rosenblum

I'll happily let you all look over my shoulder as David and I go through the editing process. If you watch my blog (available from my website homepage) you can see what I'm up to step by step.

kayo

So, talk to us, please, about bringing our characters alive in ink on paper. How did you create your MC for your SF book?

mary rosenblum

Yes, let's talk about that because characters ARE the foundation of powerful writing, and if you can create REAL characters...

mary rosenblum

you WILL sell your fiction because most writers can't. :-)

mary rosenblum

Well, maybe not most, but a lot.

senicynt

Hi Mary, what is the URL for your website blog?

mary rosenblum

I can't remember the blog url, but there's a link on my webpage: www.maryrosenblum.com

mary rosenblum

right on the homepage.

mary rosenblum

What DOES make a character real to the reader?

mary rosenblum

Why does the reader begin to feel that this is a real person?

jr souza jr

http://writingruminations.blogspot.com/

mary rosenblum

thanks, jr.

mary rosenblum

It's simple enough, I should remember it. :-)

mary rosenblum

The key to creating real people is to think about how you make a new friend...

mary rosenblum

because that is the process you will duplicate.

mary rosenblum

Your reader is making a new friend in your MC...

mary rosenblum

or at least meeting someone memorable that he/she will respect even if that MC isn't entirely likeable.

mary rosenblum

Say a new person shows up in the workplace.

mary rosenblum

How do you decide what that person is like?

mary rosenblum

Everything you do in real life you can duplicate on the page.

mary rosenblum

AND you can go a bit farther, since in third person, you can give readers a peek at the character's thoughts, which is darn...

mary rosenblum

hard to do in real life unless you are a telepath.

tory

You watch to see how they treat people.

mary rosenblum

Yes! We learn a lot by watching our new co worker's interactions with the bosses and the stock clerk.

mary rosenblum

And the waitress at the restaurant, the kid waving a petition outside the restaurant...

mary rosenblum

every interaction tells us something..

mary rosenblum

We listen, too, right?

mary rosenblum

What kind of vocabulary does this person have?

mary rosenblum

Is she from the south? What prejudices are revealed as we chat in the lunchroom about the day's news, the troublesome neighbor kid, dog parks?

mary rosenblum

Pretty soon we'll get an idea of whether she is religious, conservative or liberal, likes kids, is married, divorced, all that stuff.

kayo

Engage them in conversation, but don't ask too many questions right away. Observe with eyes and ears, and take notes like crazy!

mary rosenblum

Yep...and of course, that's what YOU the author do!

mary rosenblum

You set up a scene where your character has to reveal the things you want the reader to know.

mary rosenblum

The most common mistake novice writers make is they plop their MC down in their story...

mary rosenblum

and let that person take off running along the plot path, with no thought about how to reveal that character to the reader.

mary rosenblum

So we know nothing about that character, and if his/her behavior doesn't make instant sense in terms of how WE think...

mary rosenblum

we assume the characterization is thin, the character is cardboard...

mary rosenblum

because we haven't seen enough of the character to realize why he or she behaves this way. Unreal character!

mary rosenblum

Of course this is MUCH tougher in a 1000 or 2000 word story than if you are playing about with 7000 words!

senicynt

telepaths - I read in Scientific American that they are learning that people may in fact be telepathic. After studying brain patterns, they know that when a person sees someone do a thing, the same areas of the brain activate in the observer as well as in the person doing the activity. They also note that in autism, those same brain areas do not fire which may explain why autistics are dissassociative. Now, there's some SCI FI tidbits. :-)

mary rosenblum

Oh yes...:-) telepathy and empathy is a reoccuring theme in many of my SF stories. I'm very interested in the research. :-)

mary rosenblum

Again, the key is intent here.

mary rosenblum

Rather than plop that character into the plot and have at it...

mary rosenblum

spend some time developing your character thoroughly...

mary rosenblum

and THEN decide what few traits will convey that character to the greatest degree with the fewest words.

mary rosenblum

There are some universals that will connect readers to characters.

mary rosenblum

And it only takes one or two strong 'you're like me' connections for that character to turn from ink-on-paper to a real person for the reader.

kayo

I'm reading a Walter Mosley Easy Rawlins series mystery and am enjoying the tiny snatches of characterization the author seems to effortlessly drop throughout the writing.

mary rosenblum

Mosely is an excellent example of good character writing.

mary rosenblum

If you like mystery, James Lee Burke is also.

mary rosenblum

And that's a trait of characterization...you scatter bits through the story, clear up to your climax.

senicynt

One could have fun with a character who is a telepath but doens't know it, they accidently pick up the electromagnetic fields of the things they are near. As a result, they are locked into an insane asylum.

mary rosenblum

It was a popular topic in SF, sen, back in about the seventies.

mary rosenblum

Zena Henderson's 'The People' books were very well read.

keith mac

Have you found dialects to be useful?

mary rosenblum

They can be, keith, as a way to make a character memorable, or to suggest a background.

mary rosenblum

If your MC speaks like a hillbilly or a cowboy or a street punk, your reader instantly fills in the background for the character.

mary rosenblum

Which is why I give novice writers a lot of grief when their farm hand with an 8th grade education uses college English major language!

mary rosenblum

Works the other way, too!

mary rosenblum

Just don't overwhelm the reader with phonetic spellings that distract her from the story!

catydorr

mary can you give us a couple of examples of the universals traits connecting reader to character

mary rosenblum

Sure.

mary rosenblum

I have a student who sent me an excellent SF piece. And the MC really didn't, in my opinion, matter much to readers...he wasn't all that likeable.

mary rosenblum

But the circumstances were such that if he revealed to the readers his love for his son and his guilt over his son's supposed death...

mary rosenblum

and when his son reappeared, his hurt and anger that he had been intentionally misled about this faked 'death'...

mary rosenblum

readers would end up really identifying with him, liking him, and forgiving him for his 'questionable' actions.

mary rosenblum

Because most of us can identify with loss, guilt, and personal pain caused by someone we love.

mary rosenblum

Love, guilt, fear of abandonment, desire to fulfill a parent's expectations,...

mary rosenblum

there are tons of universals that most people will have experienced in some degree.

mary rosenblum

This is our After Hours Forum, with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor and tonight we're talking about real characters on the page. I've published seven novels and more than 60 short stories and will do my best to answer any questions you have. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask and type your question into the regular send bar if that works better for you..

mary rosenblum

The trick is to reveal these universals without adding pages and pages of unnecessary scene to your story...

mary rosenblum

and as I said, the shorter your story, the harder it is.

mary rosenblum

When you're writing short short...and those of you in LR are sure doing that. :-)... You need to decide...

mary rosenblum

what will reveal the side of your character that matters...what will make his or her actions make sense to the reader.

mary rosenblum

Let's take a short short where, say, the climax is that a browbeaten teen...

mary rosenblum

who has spent his life trying to please his domineering father...

mary rosenblum

finally stands up for himself, and Dad backs down.

mary rosenblum

It would be easy and tempting to just tell the reader that sonny is a browbeaten teen or show Dad ordering him around and son doing everything with a hangdog look.

mary rosenblum

But you know what?

mary rosenblum

Pity is not a good connection.

mary rosenblum

Readers want to admire a character and 'stupid character syndrome' or spineless characters who put up with terribly abusive spouses or parents do not connect well.

mary rosenblum

This is a case of needing to tone down the father, and let the son's behavior tell us that Dad is domineering...

mary rosenblum

rather than make Dad over the top awful.

mary rosenblum

Give the son a reason to really want to please Dad.

mary rosenblum

Maybe older brother died in a car accident and he was everything Dad wanted in a son...

mary rosenblum

and our MC is really trying to replace that kid for Dad without understanding what he's trying to do...

mary rosenblum

but we readers will see it.

mary rosenblum

Nearly every reader has, at some time, tried to please someone who simply wasn't going to be pleased no matter how hard we tried...

mary rosenblum

and that's going to connect.

mary rosenblum

The common novice mistake is to simply show the reader a really HORRIBLE father and all we see of the kid's character is his submissive reaction.

mary rosenblum

WE don't understand the reason for it, and the connection doesn't happen.

mary rosenblum

Reader thinks 'spineless' and shrugs.

mary rosenblum

This is our After Hours Forum, with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor and tonight we're talking about real characters on the page. I've published seven novels and more than 60 short stories and will do my best to answer any questions you have. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask and type your question into the regular send bar if that works better for you..

mary rosenblum

It is a good idea to avoid extremes in characters.

mary rosenblum

How many really extreme people have you met in your life?

wingedwarrior24

When will we know when we have a realistic character?

mary rosenblum

Right now, as a novice writer, you'll find that out by giving your work to good readers to read.

mary rosenblum

After they have read your work, ask them questions. Did the character work for you?

mary rosenblum

What do you think about him?

mary rosenblum

Why do you think he behaved the way he did?

mary rosenblum

If their answers reflect your intentions at least closely, if not precisely, you're doing great!

mary rosenblum

And put real people into the place of your characters!

mary rosenblum

If Aunt Susie was faced with this problem, what would she do? SHe's sort of like my main character.

smilingsunflower

As an exercise and example, please talk about creating character change by taking a spineless character and empowering that character on the page using examples. Thanks

mary rosenblum

Well, let's take our kid who wants to please Dad. Actually, that's the case in the novelette by King, titled The Body, and was the source of the movie Stand By Me...

mary rosenblum

That is his MC's situation.

mary rosenblum

If you show us that character bowing to Dad's demands, taking Dad's abuse without batting an eye, simply shuffling his feet and saying 'yessir'...

mary rosenblum

we think spineless... doormat... and that's all we know about him.

mary rosenblum

Then, in the final scene, the kid runs away to join the circus, gets a job and moves into his aunts house..does something that tells us...

mary rosenblum

that he has had it with Dad and will from now on, work on having a real life instead of pleasing an unpleasable father and feeling like a failure.

mary rosenblum

At that point the reader says, 'how nice' yawns and forgets he ever read the story...

mary rosenblum

because you the author are asking us to believe that he could do this without giving us a shred of reason for that kid's behavior.

mary rosenblum

Why now? Why not before? Why change at all when he was such a perfect doormat?

mary rosenblum

BUT...our MC and his friend are going through stuff in an abandoned house...

mary rosenblum

and they find a box of old papers, and there is the headline page celebrating a kid who won the game at the state basketball championship...

mary rosenblum

and our MC chokes and his friend says, hey, isn't that your brother?...

mary rosenblum

and maybe then we find out that the kid feels he was the cause of the accident that killed his brother.

mary rosenblum

Suddenly his trying so hard to be what his father wants, his willingness to live with that father's hostility, has reason behind it.

mary rosenblum

Ah...guilt...he blames himself.

mary rosenblum

We've all been there...to a lesser extent probably, but we've been tehre.

mary rosenblum

And now we have a reason, and he's NOT a doormat but rather we catch a glimpse of a lot of crippling internal baggage...

mary rosenblum

that explains some of his behavior.

mary rosenblum

The main thing that makes a character is that 'you're like me' moment.

mary rosenblum

And the more realistic traits you give your character...the more likely it is that your readers will say 'you're like me'.

mary rosenblum

It may be fear of snakes, wanting a dog he can't have, having the hots for a pop star -- I call those 'velcro traits' and they tend to connect that character to some if not all of your readers.

mary rosenblum

That's why it's important to create that character so thorough ahead of time.

mary rosenblum

While you will have large personality universals to connect your reader....like our kid's guilt for his brother's death...

mary rosenblum

the small universals connect, too.

mary rosenblum

This is our After Hours Forum, with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor and tonight we're talking about real characters on the page. I've published seven novels and more than 60 short stories and will do my best to answer any questions you have. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask and type your question into the regular send bar if that works better for you..

kayo

"Bonnie was the only woman I had known in my adulthood who could make me feel like a child in the presence of maternal love. I leaned back against her anc closed my eyes. I'm a big man, weighing one ninety, but her work as a stewardess had prepared her to deal with heavy objects." Mosley

mary rosenblum

Yes, this is a nice first person example. Here, as Easy tells us about Bonnie, he's revealing how he feels about Bonnie...that he can feel that son/mother comfort in her presence...

mary rosenblum

and more importantly, that he's someone who can articulate that.

mary rosenblum

That gives us a sense of this character...

mary rosenblum

So rather than simply walking your MC through the scene in terms of what the plot demands...

mary rosenblum

think about what you can reveal about his character to the reader as he cleans the stable, or follows the thief, or waters the garden...

mary rosenblum

Keep in mind what your reader must know in order for your climax to work.

mary rosenblum

And see if your character can't reveal those thoughts and feelings in the course of his/her activities and interactions.

mary rosenblum

Let's go back to our kid again...

mary rosenblum

we have him revealing his feelings about his brother's death very clearly to his friend when they discover that stack of newspapers...

mary rosenblum

but we could let him hint at it in other ways.

mary rosenblum

Maybe he sneaks into his dad's study...and takes down that state basketball trophy and polishes it...

mary rosenblum

And as he's tiptoeing out the room, Dad comes in and catches him...and starts to get mad...

mary rosenblum

and then the trophy catches his eye and the anger we expect suddenly vanishes and he just looks sad...

mary rosenblum

and he says something about that game and maybe even makes it clear that the son died soon after, and our kid's body language...

mary rosenblum

tells us clearly that he is suffering as he listens.

mary rosenblum

So that scene...all action and dialogue...

mary rosenblum

reveals to us that Dad is not a monster but maybe motivated by his own grief/guilt and that it is this death that is connected to the son's behavior.

mary rosenblum

Readers are good at assembling many small clues. :-)

mary rosenblum

Never be afraid to revise your plot if you need a scene that will reveal important character information to us.

mary rosenblum

If things happen too quickly, readers may not have a chance to get to know your character.

mary rosenblum

Even in a short short piece, you can find a way create an 'intense pause'.

mary rosenblum

Maybe your MC has a brief, intense conversation with a buddy that reveals a lot...

mary rosenblum

or gets a letter, or sees something that connects to a memory...

mary rosenblum

and what we need to know is suddenly clear to the reader.

mary rosenblum

Of course your characters' motivations are clear to YOU.

mary rosenblum

You know that character. But we are not telepaths...most of us anyway.

mary rosenblum

So we only know what is on the page.

mary rosenblum

And you don't have to tell us everything.

mary rosenblum

That scene with the trophy and dad in the office wouldn't be long...

mary rosenblum

less than a page, probably. But readers will get a lot of insight from it about what is going on between these two characters.

mary rosenblum

So, to summarize, think universals...the things that allow your readers to think, 'he's just like me', 'she's just like me'...

mary rosenblum

from little traits like hating brusselsprouts, to larger issues such as feeling like a failure.

mary rosenblum

Those connections are what tell your reader that this is a person who shares some of the same feelings, worries, likes, dislikes.

mary rosenblum

And that's the basis for real characters...

mary rosenblum

giving them human traits!

madhatter

with "bad-guy" characters. He/she's not "Like me"?

mary rosenblum

Well, it's a good idea to give bad guys a few small traits that readers CAN identify with.

mary rosenblum

Bad guys are human, too. THEY don't think they're bad guys...that's YOUR opinion! :-)

mary rosenblum

And it makes readers kind of uncomfortable to realize that they share a trait or two with the villain!

mary rosenblum

all of a sudden this person isn't a cardboard cutout any more!

mary rosenblum

Well, thanks for coming!

mary rosenblum

This was a fun 'Oregon Hour' and I hear thunder rumbling. Honestly...

mary rosenblum

this week is beginning to remind me of August in Pittsburgh as a kid...thunderstorms every evening!

mary rosenblum

I'll post the transcript in the usual place.

mary rosenblum

Writing Craft: forum transcripts.

mary rosenblum

Do come by Sunday..

mary rosenblum

for our casual chat...

mary rosenblum

same time as the Forum...it's an open conversation on all topics...

mary rosenblum

See you then!

mary rosenblum

Have a great weekend!

geezer

Send it down to us!

mary rosenblum

Geezer, one thunderstorm on the way! !!

mary rosenblum

Night!

 

Return to Forum Transcripts