It’s quite common to use similes and metaphors to put a character’s experiences in context. For example:

The sky reminded Jane of…
The sound was sharp like a…
It was like her favourite song…
It was like the housekeeper from that show…

There are two purposes to these kinds of references:

1) To help the reader experience what you’re describing. If your character says that someone’s jacket smelled like coffee, the reader will smell coffee when he/she reads this. Obviously, this will fall flat if he/she has never smelled coffee before but that risk must be weighed with the ever-important #2.

2) To add depth to your characterization. This one slips me up a lot.  If your character says that a sound reminds her of an out-of-tune piano, the reader assumes she’s familiar with out-of-tune pianos (and in-tune ones for that matter). The reader then concludes that the character is a musician. Excellent. Well, excellent if she is a musician. If not, what you have is probably what I find myself constantly avoiding (*cough* revising *cough*) and that is the tendency for writers to use metaphors that work in their own heads. This is why we see a lot of references to 80s culture in YA novels (because 80s culture works for the 30+something writer, not today’s teen!) 

The advice here is: be careful. Every time you use a simile or metaphor in your writing, make sure it is the right one for both your audience and your character.

I know I shouldn’t harp on this one anymore, but I can’t help it. I harp. I’m a harper. The fact of the matter is that I’m currently reading a book and it’s only plot is the main characters’ desire to find out a secret (except, in the case of this book, the main characters don’t even want to find out the secret…more on that later!)

There are many problems with the secret as a plot and I like lists so I’m going to make one:

1) Books are about journeys. If they only reason for readers to turn the page is to find out the end, they might as well just read the last chapter and save themselves the 4 hours of their lives that they’re never going to get back. Ever. So if you want to have a secret in your book, you need to make the discovery of said secret an interesting journey (by the way, main character sitting on ass saying, “I wish I knew___” is not interesting!)

2) The longer something stays secret, the bigger the payoff needs to be. I read a book recently where the entire plot was finding out what happened to a friend of the main character. When the big reveal came in the end, I was very disappointed, almost to the point where I couldn’t recommend the book to friends. I’d read 200+ pages for this secret. That’s 200 pages of growing expectations. So, if you want to do this, your secret better come with fireworks and I’m talking, “Luke, I am your father” fireworks.

3) Creating realistic obstacles to secrets is a challenge. If your main character’s goal is to find out a secret, what stops them better be pretty serious. Another character saying, “I don’t feel like telling you” is not serious. Neither is the main character not thinking to ask when it’s stupidly obvious to all readers that he should. Oh, and neither is the main character not getting off his ass because he can’t be bothered to ask. These aren’t obstacles; they’re stupid and annoying main characters. You need a real obstacle which means the keeper of the secret needs a REALLY good reason for keeping the secret and the main character needs a REALLY good reason for wanting it revealed. And, if you’re really smart, these reasons should oppose each other.

4) A secret with no purpose is like a race that ends at a brick wall. You need your main character to DO SOMETHING with the secret once they get it, otherwise your story ends the second it is revealed (and yes, I mean the second and not 20 pages later). This is why secrets work well as obstacles to goals. For example, imagine you have a main character who is a cop and he needs to find a killer so he can put him in jail. In this case, there is a REALLY good reason for the killer to keep the secret and there is a REALLY good reason for the cop to want it. But more importantly, once it is revealed, the goal is not dead because the cop has to use the secret for something (which is the real goal…put killer in jail).

I wanted to write a post about why the reflection character is so important, but there’s no way I can say it as well as Michael Hauge, so instead, I bid you to read this:

http://www.storymastery.com/articles/98-what-are-friends-for-the-kings-speech

Here’s the thing. You don’t have a plot in your novel because time moves forward. Time is boring.

You don’t have a plot because stuff happens while time moves forward. Stuff is boring too. Sure, some stuff is more interesting than other stuff but it’s still just a bunch of stuff.

You don’t have a plot because your main character is trying to figure out a secret while stuff happens while time moves forward. Secrets… well, secrets aren’t boring when they’re revealed but they are for the 300 pages before they’re revealed because, um, they don’t exist yet.

A plot is what you have when your main characters finds a goal and then tries to reach it. Yes, there may be a secret he/she needs to figure out and there may be stuff happening and there probably will be time moving forward but without the GOAL, there is nothing to engage your reader in what happens.

The first line contest on Authoress Anon’s blog has got me thinking about first lines so I decided to post some of the ones from a random selection of books on my shelves.

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning
“If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.”

Angela’s Ashes
“My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born.”

Before I Fall
“They say that just before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that’s not how it happened for me.”

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
“Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were prefectly normal, thank you very much.”

Hunger Games
“When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.”

Identical
“When I look into a
mirror,
it is her face I see.”

The Catcher in the Rye
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

The Help
“Mae Mobley was born on a early Sunday morning in August 1960.”

Thirteen Reasons Why
“Sir?” she repeats.

Twilight
“I’d never given much thought to how I would die–though I’d had reason enough in the last few months–but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.”

will grayson will grayson
“When I was little, my dad used to tell me, ‘Will, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.'”

So tell me. If these had been posted on Authoress’s blog, which ones would have you hooked?

We members of the writersphere like our rules and that is evident by the number of them floating around. While I could attempt to list the most common ones, I don’t see the point as I’d then have to also list why there are exceptions to every single one. Well, almost every single one. The one about not stalking an agent in the toilet is probably valid.

Anywho, the one I want to talk about today is stereotypes. People will tell you to always avoid stereotypes. This is one of those rules that is mostly right but sometimes not. There are certain circumstances where a stereotype can be necessary. For example:

1) When you have a minor character you don’t need to explain. For example, if your main character needs to make reference to someone in their past in a way that will explain an entire scenario without actually explaining an entire scenario, it’s sometimes easier to use a stereotype. So your main character might refer to her younger sister, the head cheerleader-slash-supermodel and it will be implied that this sister was more popular and probably got all the boyfriends etc etc etc. While it would be more interesting for the younger sister to be more popular despite being a Physics nerd, it would take a lot more time to justify this kind of thing and you don’t want to do that if all you need is one line to establish why the main character doesn’t want to fly to Buffalo for her sister’s birthday party.

2) When you have a major character who the main character needs to have a revelation about. For example, if your main character needs to hate a character named Bob for a portion of the book (probably because Bob has some kind of essential information the main character needs), you can make the main character dislike him because of a perceived stereotype. So your main character might hate all bartenders because she dated one and he was a player so she thinks they’re all players and therefore Bob, the bartender, must be a player too. This stereotype acts as a blinder for a portion of the book, however it’s important that you turn it on its ass in the end (meaning Bob can’t actually be a player).

3) When you are making a statement about stereotypes in a more general sense. You may want to do this if you’re trying to show why a stereotype is ridiculous. For example, if you had a book where the government decided to make all blondes into professional cheerleaders because they decided that’s what blondes do. Yes, I realize my example is ridiculous but that is kind of the point.

4) When it just works. I have no explanation for this one. Sometimes, you just need a character that is a stereotypical whatever because that is exactly the kind of character you need for your plot. The example that springs to mind is Jack from Will & Grace. In many ways, Jack fit into a stereotype for a gay man in New York. This worked for the show because it showed how different Will was and, in a way, showed that the stereotype was wrong (see #3).

If you can think of other examples of when stereotypes work (or don’t!), please add them in the comments.

I don’t think I could possibly get sick of watching the movie Love Actually. There are many things I love about this movie but the one I want to talk about today is characterization. While some movies take 2 hours to tell 1 story, this movie tells at least 8 stories in the same amount of time. Not only does it do that, it sets up all of the main characters in the same amount of time another movie might take to set up 1 character.

How does it do this? Let’s start by looking at the setup for 3 of the main characters:

1) Billy Mack. He’s a washed-up rock star whose manager is trying to get him some work. He keeps screwing it up but his manager keeps trying and keeps smiling. In this one scene, we learn what Billy needs, why he isn’t getting it and who is there to help him get it. This scene is also funny as hell which is why we are immediately engaged by his character.

2) Daniel. His wife has just died. He’s a mess and doesn’t know what to do about his step-son who may or may not be shooting heroin into his eyeballs. He turns to his only friend who tells him he needs to stop crying if he wants to get a girlfriend. So we know what his problem is, we know why he’s struggling and we know who is there to help him. In Daniel’s case, we are engaged because we feel sorry for him.

3) Jamie. He’s the ultimate nice guy whose girlfriend (and brother) are totally lying to him and, from what we can tell, they’re not the first to do this.  We like him so we are engaged in his story.

Each of these story lines uses a different technique to create engagement and yet they’re all equally successful. We want to laugh at Billy, cry for Daniel and become Jamie’s best friend (or girlfriend…cough). And this all happens in the first 20 minutes of the movie for all of the story lines. We see why Karen is so overwhelmed by the need to create a first lobster costume, why Colin will never get a girlfriend in Britain despite his big knob, why John can’t meet a nice girl in porn, why Mark is up Sh*t Creek without a paddle and not because he’s gay, why Sarah can’t just tell Carl she loves him and wants to have his babies, why Natalie thinks so poorly of herself and her tree-trunk thighs, and why the Prime Minister wishes he was Margaret Thatcher, the saucy minx.

So the next time you’re having trouble squeezing your novel’s setup into the first 20 pages, go watch this movie. Pick one character and watch their introductory scene. When it’s done, write down everything you know about that character and how you learned it and then use these techniques to tighten your own setup.

There are many things an author can describe while two characters are speaking to each other. These includes hand gestures, facial movements, and the one I want to talk about today: breathing.

People who are alive breathe constantly and most rarely notice they’re doing so. As long as it’s not done too often, there’s nothing wrong with a character doing the following:

1) Not breathing: A character can say they can’t breathe because they have been exercising or are panicked in some way. If done too often of course, readers might think the character has asthma.

2) Taking deep breaths. A character might take a deep breath in order to deliberately pause the conversation (for example, to collect their thoughts). If they do it too often, once again –> asthma.

3) Exaggerating breaths. A character can exaggerate an exhale as a way to show anger or frustration. Be careful with this one. If done too often, readers might think the character is a horse.

What is a problem is if your characters are doing this:

1) Taking a normal breath. Seriously? When is the last time you noticed that you inhaled normally?

2) Noticing someone else take a breath. Once again, unless that someone is gasping for air, YOU WOULD NOT NOTICE THIS unless, maybe, they were sleeping and you were watching their chest rise and fall in an effort to make sure they’re still alive.

3) Taking a breath while or immediately after swallowing. Try it. It’s impossible. You cannot breathe while swallowing and always exhale after you do.

4) Breathing out in a manner that causes a gale force wind effect. I haven’t seen this often but if your character breathes out hard enough to blow the bangs off his face, they’d better be hanging below his nose. Otherwise, it’s not breathing; it’s blowing.

Macy is in her rental car, driving to a wedding her mother made her go to because it’s supposed to have oodles of eligible bachelors and Macy must want an eligible bachelor, right? The wedding is at an elegant estate called Hillebrand Manor so Macy has worn a black silk sheath and Chanel pumps. As she drives to the manor, the gas gauge hovering only slightly above empty, something doesn’t seem right. To her left, she sees a field of cows. They stink and she can’t imagine how anyone could live near them. To her right, she sees a bug-infested lake with no signs of life around it. She reaches for the directions her best friend Tina prepared for her. She had told Tina that she’d get them herself but Tina insisted and Macy didn’t have the guts to tell her No, despite the fact that she knows Tina has the worst sense of direction on the planet and can’t use a computer to save her life. Glancing at the bottom of the directions, Macy sees the final destination: Hillgrand Farms. She slams on the brakes and then spends the next 10 minutes swearing about every stupid thing Tina has ever done. She berates herself for letting her mother talk her into another stupid setup and for not getting her own damn directions, going on to reaffirm that you can’t trust anyone with anything and should just do things yourself. When she has calmed down, Macy smooths her hair in the mirror, takes a deep breath and tells herself to continue. Because she can do it. She can find this damn wedding on her own.

The above snippet is a short example of the kind of thing you want to see in your setup (usually first chapter). Why?

1) It has action. The main character isn’t in conflict (to start) but she’s going somewhere. Note that she’s not going 200 miles an hour and isn’t lost initially. You don’t want to be doing #2 when the reader is too dizzy to keep up with #1. For my own stories, I try to limit the setup to one location (in this case, a car).

2) It is set in the best possible place in order to establish the main character (she’s single, can’t say no to people, was probably ill prepared for this trip, thinks she has to do everything herself if she wants it done right, hates farms and the country).

3) It provides a setup to the inciting incident. The main character is entering a new situation where you can slam her with an incident she hasn’t faced before. In this case, if the incident were something like she gets lost and ends up having to live on a farm because the people there say they will help her but then never get off their butts to do so,  we will feel the slam because #2 already established that Macy hates farms but can’t say no to people. Obviously, these flaws have been chosen because the climax of the story is going to force her to say No whilst on a farm and whilst letting someone else (possibly, an eligible bachelor?) do something for her. Presto, bingo, voila and POOF!

When writing your setup, my advice is this: decide which characteristics you’re going to “test” in your climax then backup and find a way to establish them in your setup (#2). If your climax is testing your main character’s ability to stand up for herself, your setup absolutely must show that she doesn’t stand up for herself. You don’t need to say why (that can come in the build-up).