Complex non-perfect characters vs perfect stereotypes

I'm chipping away at the long list of blog topics people asked me to write about, and this is one that I'm afraid to write about, as I don't think I have written enough to chime in on it. But when I voiced my doubt, my readers shouted at me that, yes, I can, I've written great characters. Well then, you guys know better, I suppose, as we writers are always too hard on ourselves. Let me spill here what I think, and you tell me what you think or if this was helpful to you. Deal?

Stereotypes are familiar yet forgettable. It's easy to use a stereotypical character as a crutch. Everyone loves a certain type of a character and is familiar with it. We all have grown up with them, both in life and in fiction. Heroes. Villains. Father figures. Mother figures. These are the big ones. There are also the typical sulky teenager, the dull librarian, the sexy chick, the nerdy boy or the macho guy. See, this is why I was afraid to write this, as I'm not 100% familiar with American-specific stereotypes in fiction, sort of am translating in my head right now. Anyway. Back to the point. You can plan out your novel with great character types and gloriously set out to writing it. Here is the problem, though. Unless you know what it's like being one of those stereotypes, you will most likely fail. Number one, readers will feel the characters are fake and flat, and they'll be bored because they have read books with characters like that over and over again. Result: they will likely forget your character as soon as they're done with the book. Number two, you will get bored yourself writing it, because you get satisfaction from writing something you know, something that rings true to you, something that you've been carrying inside and are dying to share. And if you're bored writing it, your reader will be bored reading it. Unless you've lived a lot of life and know how to spice up a stereotypical character with flaws and imperfections, I would steer clear of it. Which leads me to the next point.

Non-perfect characters are hard to write yet unforgettable. Why exactly are they hard to write? Because usually they're very close to who you are as a writer. The best stuff you write is always based on your deepest truest self. If you've been through a lot of shit and a lot of life and a lot of love and joy and grief and every possible emotion there is, you will be capable of showing this array of emotions in your characters. We're all non-perfect. That's why we relate best to imperfection. Even the most glorious hero must have a fear of darkness or secretly carry a blanket from his childhood to soothe himself in the moments of dire need. Even the most powerful mother figure must have weaknesses in order for us to believe in her, to believe she is real, she can exist in this world. Because we're building a fake world in our novels in such a way so as to make people think it's real. That's what carries them away, what makes them forget their daily struggles and disappear into a good story. And it's these flaws in the characters that we remember most. Take Humbert Humbert from LOLITA. Can you be any more flawed than that? And what about Scarlett O'Hara? Or Peter Pan? Or Harry Potter? They all have huge flaws, and we love them for it.

Write from people you know. There is this thing that somebody said and everybody always repeats everywhere, write what you know. I think it applies here. Don't worry about your characters being stereotypical or not stereotypical, perfect of imperfect, or whatever. Write what you feel, what you know, what you've seen and experienced. Write characters that ring true to you, no matter how crazy they might seem to others, or even to you. Deep in your gut you know that people like this exist. For example, I'm a little scared to start writing IRKADURA because I have seen so many weird strange personalities in my life, growing up in Soviet Union, that when I tell stories to my American friends, they always raise eyebrows, or exclaim, Wow, there are really people like that? You're not making this up? And I'm like, Nope, I'm not making this up, it's real. But see, it's because I know it's real, because I feel it's real when writing it, whoever will read it will feel that those people are real, not just fictional characters, and that's my goal as a writer, to make you believe in my stories. Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention. Somebody asked me recently how I write characters of the opposite gender and if I have any tips on that. Well, that's my tip. Write from people you know, it will always ring true.

Can I stress one more point here, the one that I've been stressing many times and you're probably sick of hearing? Well, hate me all you want, but I will repeat it once more. Please, please, PLEASE, don't worry about characters being written properly, or your novel structure being correct, or the length of your chapters, or any of that smart shit. Forget it. JUST WRITE. Just write your story the way you would tell it to a friend, or to whomever you want to tell it. As long as you stay true to storytelling, as in, every sentence should push it forward, like this happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened, you'll do fine. The more you write, the better you will feel all these smart things people like to talk about, character types and novel types and genres and structures and whatever else. The lesson I learned, you can read as much about writing as you want, it will not teach you how to write. Only writing will teach you how to write. Even my blog - I keep writing it, attempting to answer your questions, but my main goal is to hold your hand, to make you feel like it's okay to just write, despite the fact that you're scared and think you don't know how to do it. I'm scared too, I don't know how to do it too, but I'm still doing it. Do it with me. Let's keep writing.

Character development, or PINK TUTUS RULE!

Photo by Leah Johnston

My heart is all atremble as I'm starting to write this blog post because until I was asked by my Twitter followers to write about character development, I didn't think about it in formal terms, not even when writing Siren Suicides. So let me gather my brain here and see if I can come up with general rules I adhere to and hope that maybe it will help you too. 

Follow the arc. I think I picked this up from some book on how to write novels, back when I was reading books on how to write novels, because I don't read them anymore. I read actual novels to see how it's done, not books about books about books... Anyway, back to the point. Every character has to go through an arc of change. If you were to draw it on a piece of paper, it would look like a curve in those math lessons, with the low point being the beginning, the high point being the middle, and the other low point being the end. Every character wants something, even if it's as simple as a pink tutu. At the low point there is no pink tutu, at the middle point the pink tutu is in reach, and at the final point the pink tutu is either in the character's hand (I got it! I got it! I will live!) or flown out the window (I didn't get it! I didn't get it! I will die!). This is as simple as it gets, yet it's fascinating to see how many writers miss this and get lost in a mire of wishes. Pick one, and at the end of the book decide how your character completes the arc, because... *drumroll* ...to get this pink tutu your character will be forced to change. To change emotionally. Let's say, she starts out as angry and then changes to happy, or starts out happy and changes to angry, whatever it is, at the end we have to know one way or the other. If we don't, we get confused and hate the book (or, we never finish reading it).

Grow it like a flower. This is not from some book, but more from my own experience. Your character starts out small and insignificant, and your job is to pour the story on it so that at the end of the book it grows and even changes color. To get back to our metaphor, pink tutu changes into a purple one. Because, often in life, when we are on hunting for something, when we actually get that thing, we also get something else. So we think we will get a new friend, but we also get a new enemy. Or we think we will get disappointment, but instead we get a newfound joy, something unexpected. I hope I'm being clear here. What I mean is, once you have established your arc, as in, what does your character want (pink tutu), does she get it in the end (YES!), and how does she change while getting it, you can add layers. Because it's never just one thing, but unless you have a very clear arc first, you will lose your reader by adding too many layers too fast, do if this is your first time writing, keep it very simple. Grow it like a flower, by watering it along with action, with interaction wit other characters, etc. Which, again, brings me to the next point.

Conjure disasters galore. Once you got your arc going, and your extra layers, look at your character development from another point of view. From the very beginning of the story, keep torturing your character, literally. Imagine it like this. Your character wants a pink tutu, and she is climbing a tree to get it. Now make this tree poisonous. Now start a storm to blow her off the tree. Now send a squad of killer monkeys. She is still climbing? Wow. Turn the tree upside down, uproot it, send it into space, make bugs eat its very core. See what I'm doing? Create a disaster upon disaster upon disaster, keep making it worse to see what your character will do (of course, as a writer, you already know that she will get her pink tutu). As readers, we might be guessing that, of course, such a nice girl absolutely must get her tutu, but we're more interested in how she will go about obtaining it, especially amidst the madness you have created. In this sense, you character is forced to develop, to grow, or else. The else here being, your story will get boring and we will put it down. Because it's what we want, to grow, to change, and we live through fictional characters to obtain this goal.

Keep it real. And that's the truth. Meaning, no matter what you imagine, no matter how complex and fantastical your story is, it's real people who will read it, so you have to keep it real. Your character has to act human, act normal, cry when it's appropriate to cry, laugh when it's appropriate to laugh, say hi and bye and please and thank you. Simple stuff like that. Little details root us back to reality (and make sure you describe them, like she has torn her knees by climbing, or she broke her left pinky nail) and make us believe that your character, she, is real. Like us. Struggling, like us. Hoping, like us. The easiest way to go about it is trusting your gut. If it feels right, do it. If it doesn't, don't. When you write, instead of focusing on what the character does or says, focus on what she feels. From there her actions and words will flow naturally. If you try to figure it out the other way around, she will seem flat and robotic. As readers, we can forgive stupid decisions and not very good dialogue, but we can't forgive cheating. I felt cheated recently when reading how Hazel Grace in The Fault in Our Stars didn't want to change sheets for Augustus, her supposed love, when he, overtaken by cancer, peed himself. She called his parents, disgusted. I wanted to put the book down that very moment. To me, that was not true love. But then, again, this is only my personal opinion, and maybe John Green precisely wanted to portray Hazel as a selfish girl.

I think this sums it up. Any other thoughts or ideas on the topic? Let me know in the comments.

OUTGROWING your book

Photo by Joel Robison

This has happened to me, as it turns out, a few weeks ago, but I failed to see it. Moreover, I was too chicken to talk about it, to admit it, and to be okay with it. What happened was very simple but it struck me so hard that it took me a few days to process. I outgrew SIREN SUICIDES, not in terms of the story, but as a writer. I stared writing it full time on May 15th of 2012, so it will be exactly 1 year very soon. It's my first novel, well, 3 novels, because it turned out to have too many words for one. I took too long to write it, and I wanted to share this experience with you because it taught me a lot. I realized why it was harder and harder to start editing each morning. After my breakthrough I completed 2 Chapters in 1 day. That's 35 pages, not too shabby, right? In a way, my slowing down was my own version of being stuck, call it writer's block or something else, and, in a way, I won over it and I want to show you how, in case you're battling the same problem.

My characters are locked in. My biggest struggle (and biggest fear) is writing is dialogue. English is not my first language and I'm constantly afraid of not being able to capture the nuances of spoken English authentically enough so that my readers will believe me. As I kept writing, and reading, and writing, and reading, I developed a better sense about how to write good dialogue, even blogged about it. I kept applying my lessons to my own writing, and kept seeing it improve, until suddenly it couldn't improve anymore. I'm on Draft 5 now, and I was increasingly frustrated at how my characters talk. In general, it's very brisk and to the point, sometimes too short, too torn. I couldn't figure out why I can't change it. Especially frustrating was the fact that in jotting down notes for my next novel, ROSEHEAD, the dialogue would flow better. I was tearing my hair out, until I saw the problem. I can't change a thing. My characters are fully developed, and they talk the way they talk, it's too late to change anything, and when I tried, it didn't sound authentic. So I let go, stopped trying to improve it, because there was nothing to improve. And my dialogue soared.

My story is very personal. This was the hardest thing to admit. My novel is very personal to me. I'm very close to it, emotionally, that's why it takes so much to write it, and that's why it's harder and harder to keep going, because I'm forcing myself to go into my personal pain. What I realized is, a story needs to be simply that, a story. I'm invested too much into the characters to be able to step away and see them objectively as a writer. So I end up semi-talking to them like to real people who serve as the base for the characters. And again, after I realized this, I also realized that it's too late to change the tone, and I stopped battling myself. The result astounded me. It started flowing again, because I let the fear go. Yes, it's personal, and it's okay for this particular book. Yes, it's very raw, and it's okay for this particular book. Yes, it's unpolished, and it will stay this way no matter how many drafts I do, so I might as well stop now and let it be. The story thanked me by pouring out of me like crazy. As a side-note, I found that many first time novels are very personal to first time writers, so it's okay. It just seems to be the path to growing as a writer.

My style has solidified. By reading my previous drafts, I could pick out places where I would somewhat imitate Stephen King, or J.K. Rowling, or Chuck Palahniuk, or Haruki Murakami. I couldn't help it, I was unsure of myself and kept borrowing sentence structure or prose styling from my favorite authors. Now that I'm on Draft 5, I noticed that there is a certain rhythm to my words and it's different from the very beginning of the book, because as I wrote, I kept calming down and being okay with my own way of writing. What I saw today was the fact that I shouldn't try to change the quality of the book by imposing my new calm self on it. I was in a tumultuous place when I wrote it, and I should preserve it, it's part of the story now, part of the book, and it's okay. It was like an eye opener. I was astounded to see it. And, again, the result was the same. It started flowing again, I was afraid I won't be able to type fast enough. The lesson here is not to keep rewriting until your fingers bleed, but to let go and let your story be as it is and move on to the next story, applying newly asquired skills there. In a fresh narrative, with fresh room to learn even more. This freed me from my nagging need for perfection. It felt wonderful.

There, these are the three big things that I saw. In fact, like I said, I sort of felt them weeks before, but it took a while for me to clearly see what they meant, and the result blew my socks off. Have you had a similar experience?