Character Archives - Page 3 of 4

When the Hero is not the Protagonist

May 28, 2015 By Kerry Gans 6 Comments

Disney’s Peter Pan

My preschooler has moved back to watching Disney’s Peter Pan this week. Seeing it again (and again and again…) reminded me of something I had noticed during her last obsession with it. Specifically, I noted that Peter Pan was the hero, but was not the protagonist.

Wendy is the protagonist.

Sure, Peter Pan is who the show is about—and he certainly has many heroic adventures! But Wendy is the character who changes through the course of the story, and it is through her lens that we view the story.

In my understanding, the hero of any story is who the story is about, while the protagonist is the character who changes and whose POV we use to understand the story. In the vast majority of stories, this is the same person. But in some, as in Peter Pan, they are two distinct people.

What are the benefits of splitting these functions?

Emotional anchor

When your hero doesn’t change, or is so different from the reader that the reader cannot relate to them, a separate protagonist can serve as an emotional anchor. Wendy is a typical young girl, and the viewers can latch on to her during this wild ride with a boy who never grows up and whose emotional reactions are either lacking or not what most people would feel.

Point of View

A separate protagonist provides a lens through which to see the hero. Peter does not have the emotional maturity to view life as anything but an adventure. Had we been locked into his view of life, the view would have been much sound and fury signifying nothing. Wendy’s viewpoint provides us with a different angle, where we can see the often frightening events in Neverland, and also see the value of friendship and family—things Peter does not value.

Acceptance of over-the-top heroes and actions

Finally, a separate protagonist gives us distance. We come to an unbelievable world and character with Wendy, who is a stranger in a strange land as well. Through her acceptance of Peter Pan and Neverland as real, we are able to suspend our disbelief and immerse ourselves in the adventure.

A careful watching of Peter Pan shows clearly that Wendy is our anchor. The story begins and ends with her, it follows her change, and the Disney version even hints that perhaps all the unbelievable adventure was simply a dream (the stage play does not leave this ambiguous, as the Lost Boys come home with the Darling children). Wendy is the emotional and moral compass of the show, while Peter Pan provides the swashbuckles and pixie dust.

What other stories use this split function device? Can you think of any more benefits when the hero is not the protagonist? Have you ever used it?

Under Pressure

May 14, 2015 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

View image | gettyimages.com

Putting our characters under pressure is what we writers do. Their reactions to that pressure creates plot and pushes them to change. So I started thinking about how people react to pressure.

I react to stress in two distinct ways: 1) I clean/organize and/or 2) I buy stuff.

I must not have had a stressful childhood, judging by the massive mess that was my room back then. These days when I am feeling overwhelmed, scattered, and out-of-control, I tend to clean and/or organize things. Why? Because it gives me a sense of control and it gives me instant gratification. After making a messy desk clean, things feel much calmer—I’ve accomplished something!

I hate to shop, so #2 might surprise people who know me. I don’t buy stuff whenever I am under stress—it is particular to grief. When I have experienced grief, I find that I buy stuff—usually more expensive stuff. I do not mean out-of-control spending, but simply talking myself into buying something slightly more expensive than I normally would. I think the buying is my version of “comfort food”—an indulgence in a time of pain. The object I buy is also real, tangible. Something physical I can hold onto in a time of loss.

These are two very specific reactions to very particular stresses. They are particular to me. What specific stress reactions do your characters have? Do they whistle? Scream? Cry? Run away? Every one of your unique characters will react in their own way to the same stressor. This is another way you can differentiate your characters and add depth to them.

How do you react to stress? What unique stress tics have you given your characters?

Aggravating our Protagonist’s Weaknesses

February 26, 2015 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

Our house has been The House of Plague since the end of January. My preschooler has had 2 colds and a double ear infection. She shared both the colds with me and one with her father as well. So it’s been a bad month all around, health-wise.

My daughter’s double ear infection severely impacted her hearing. She has profound hearing loss in one ear anyway, and the infection in the normal ear (then another in the bad ear) really hit her hearing hard. Lots of “what?” and simply not reacting to what we’re saying because she doesn’t hear us.

Additionally, I lost my voice, and once I regained it I couldn’t talk loudly without coughing violently. So communication became difficult (thankfully we know some sign language!). I couldn’t talk and she couldn’t hear. It was like some sort of comedy of errors.

Which made me wonder about my characters. Of course, when we create friends and allies for our protagonist, we usually concentrate on providing our protagonist with people who “fill in the gaps”—people who strengthen him by having the skills or knowledge he lacks. Thus, with their help, he can grow into who he needs to be to finish his character arc.

But wouldn’t it be interesting to have a friend or ally who enhances our protagonist’s weaknesses instead? A protagonist who doesn’t hear well can be hampered by a friend who cannot speak, for instance. Or someone who is lazy can be enabled by a friend who is afraid of confrontation. Not every friend or ally could do this, of course, or the protagonist would probably fail the “quest”. But having one or two who hinder even as they try to help can add some tension and conflict to what might otherwise be “chummy” scenes with the protagonist and allies.

So next time I think about the allies I have surrounding my protagonist, I’ll think about having some that bring out the worst in him, as well as the best. Someone who complicates rather than facilitates. It should bring more depth and realism to the story and the relationships.

It will be fun to try.

How about you? Do you add people who aggravate a weakness to your protagonist’s circle of friends?

Top 10 Goose’s Quill Posts of 2014

January 1, 2015 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I always love seeing what posts spoke to my readers each year. It is no surprise to me that 2 of the posts were about Gavin Leong, a little boy who has changed the world without ever uttering a word. I hope you enjoy all the posts here, and check out ones you might have missed.

10. Old Fashioned: Writing With Pen and Paper

9. What’s Your Observational Intelligence Quotient?

8. When a Bridge Phobia Isn’t a Bridge Phobia

7. Why Disney’s Captain Hook is a Great Villain—and how yours can be, too

6. Gavin’s Playground Project

5. The World Lost a Superhero: Farewell, Gavin

4. Kids’ Questions #1: Does Novel Writing Ever Get Boring?

3. The Writing Process Blog Tour

2. The Literary Toolbox: Writing Simultaneous Action

And the #1 post of 2014 was:

1. CreateSpace vs. Ingram Spark

Thanks for reading, everyone! Happy New Year—I hope 2015 brings you peace and joy.

Parallel Lives

October 9, 2014 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

Things have happened lately that have made me very aware of the parallel lives we humans live. So often we present one face to the world—confident or happy or calm—while inside we are dealing with emotions or events that have left us scared or sad or frantic. Even in this age where people habitually over-share, we all carry secrets we hide from most people.

This sharp contrast has made me realize two things: 1) We should never be hasty in judging someone, for we don’t know what is happening behind their smile, and 2) even the most honest person wears a façade.

This façade is not being dishonest or “fake.” Sometimes your real feelings are not appropriate to the situation or to the people you are currently with. For instance, a client meeting is not the place to sob and rant about a breakup. Also, the façade serves a protective purpose, hiding our vulnerability from people who would use those feelings to harm or manipulate us.

This is not only a good life lesson, but a good writing lesson. Our characters will be much deeper and more interesting if they live the parallel lives we real people do every day. Have a character that has to smile all day as a customer service worker? What if that character is dealing with an illness or death in the family? Or if your worker ends up serving the man she recognizes as the man who murdered her friend? Or the ex-boyfriend she still loves shows up with his girlfriend?

These parallel lives make your character and scene more interesting because it increases conflict and is the very definition of tension. And as most editors will tell you, you virtually cannot have too much tension in your book. Tension drives the reader to keep turning the pages—and who doesn’t want to write a page-turner?

So next time you want to spice up a scene or a character, think about the hidden emotional life going on inside your character at that moment.

And next time you’re annoyed by the behavior of someone in the real world, give them the benefit of the doubt—things may not be what they seem.

Have you made use of parallel lives in your work?

Why Disney’s Captain Hook is a Great Villain–and how yours can be, too

August 21, 2014 By Kerry Gans 11 Comments

My daughter has been obsessively watching Disney’s Peter Pan (1953) the past few weeks. And it struck me suddenly that I like Captain Hook, in spite of his villainy. I’ve seen my share of Disney movies, and he’s the only bad guy I empathize with. As a writer, I started to wonder why.

First, I compared Hook to other Disney villains and their main emotional drives. Showing my age, my examples are ones from my childhood. Some modern Disney villains may also employ the techniques that make Hook a great villain, but the lessons I gleaned from Hook still hold true.

Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty) – revenge
Stepmother (Cinderella) – greed
Evil Queen (Snow White) – jealousy
Cruella De Vil (101 Dalmatians) – vanity
Hook (Peter Pan) – revenge

On the surface, Hook seems much like the others, driven purely by some dark emotion. But although I enjoyed the other villains, I never empathized with them on any level. I identified 2 things that set him apart.

1) Motivation backstory – for most Disney villains, we never know why they are driven by these dark urges. Did Maleficent snap over a lack of invitation because she was a nerd in high school? Did the Stepmother grow up dirt poor and swear “never again”? Was the Evil Queen so insecure about her looks because her mother always told her she was ugly? Did Cruella De Vil want to stand out so much because she had always been overlooked as a child? We never know the backstory—we only see the results.

With Hook, we do know why he is driven—and it is a nuanced why. He’s not seeking vengeance for Peter cutting off his hand—no, he wants revenge because Peter threw the hand to a crocodile, causing the beast to stalk Hook constantly.

2) Vulnerability – The other Disney villains are pure evil. Chilling. The stuff of nightmares. And they have no human weaknesses.

Hook, though, has a glaring weakness—he is terrified of the crocodile. Not just nervous, but scream-like-a-child, jump-into-Smee’s-arms hysterical whenever he hears that clock. Such blatant vulnerability in a man who casually shoots his own crew when they annoy him opens up a very human side we can access.

These 2 techniques (combined with a touch of comedy) give Hook accessibility that many Disney villains lack—and therefore allow us to empathize with him.

I’m going to keep that in mind for my villains. While I have always known they need to be 3-dimensional, I have focused more on making them strong enough to push the hero than on making them accessible to the reader. By giving them nuanced motives that I allow my readers to see and by adding a vulnerability the reader can relate to (who wants to be eaten by a crocodile, after all?), I can make my villains stronger, deeper, and more memorable.

Do you have any tricks for making your villains relatable to the reader?

A Pantser Plots: Bringing Old Friends to Life

August 14, 2014 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I am usually a hybrid when it comes to outlining. I know my beginning and ending and a few of the big points in the middle, and then just let the words rip. For my current Work-In-Progress (WIP), I wanted to plan ahead more.

This is my first “from scratch” novel since my daughter was born. I know that I have much less free time to write, so I wanted to be able to make the most of the time I had. I figured if I knew what needed to happen next before I sat down to write, I could use my time more efficiently. So this time around, I decided to plot more.

First I just did the four major beats: turning point (end of Act I), midpoint, black moment (end of Act II), climax. That was enough to get me to the end of Act I, because the beginning had been very clear in my head. Then I looked ahead and realized I would need a more detailed outline—something new for me.

This book is new for me on many levels—in particular, it is dual point-of-view (POV). I realized after getting to the end of Act I that I needed to plot so that I could see the flow of POV chapters. During the messy middle the POV characters are separated (thus the need for 2 POVs). So I had to make sure one storyline was not much shorter than the other. And in doing so I realized I needed to bring in a third POV to make it all work.

The third POV is a spirit that possesses the female POV character, and the female POV character cannot see or hear what is happening while she is possessed. But the reader needs to know. So in essence the third POV takes the place of the first POV character at times. Confused, yet?

Yeah, that’s why I needed an outline.

Finally, this WIP is based on a complete but very poorly written novel I wrote about 30 years ago (yes, I was only 14). I always loved the characters and the premise, but I am a considerably better writer than I was as a freshman in high school. A year or so ago, these characters came back into my mind and would not leave. I got so enthused about writing them again that I had to do it.

The old manuscript had pretty much everything wrong with it, but it served as a rough guide. One big problem with it was that it was written in omniscient POV, which I had no intention of using in the new book. So when it came to the big battle scenes in the middle/end of Act II, I could not jump from POV to POV to POV of all these minor characters. Wrestling the main events of the battle (and events leading up to it) so my male POV could be in the key places was another huge reason I needed to outline.

Although based on the same premise as that old manuscript, this WIP is vastly different plot-wise, and vastly better craft-wise. I am so excited to be writing these old friends again and finally being able to do them justice.

Have you ever gone back to an old work and given it new life? Or has an old work given you new life?

Achilles’ Heel: A Physical Weakness Beyond Our Control

March 27, 2014 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

We all know the story of Achilles, the Greek hero of the Trojan War. His mother dipped him in the river Styx to make him immortal, but where she held him (his heel) was left vulnerable. He was later killed when Paris shot him in the heel with an arrow. Had Achilles been intelligent enough to wear a boot or some sort of protective gear over his heel, the legends might have been quite different!

Everyone has an Achilles’ Heel, some physical weakness they cannot control. Some people faint at the sight of blood. Some fall to pieces at the slightest pain. Some have panic attacks (which have a mental aspect but can be triggered by purely physical stimuli).

Me, it’s my stomach. Overall, I have a strong stomach. I never got stomach bugs as a kid. Threw up twice my entire life, and both were because of food poisoning. So when my stomach does act up, I shatter. I can’t concentrate and everything becomes a huge effort. I can handle pain or limited mobility (although gore makes me queasy) but when my stomach goes crazy, I just want to curl up and cry.

And my stomach goes haywire for no reason. What I assume is acid reflux blindsides me from time to time. No change in diet or exercise, just severe reflux of unknown origin. At those times, I feel like I can’t even force water down, the upward pressure is so bad. And the nausea and burning in the throat make me cry. When this idiopathic acid reflux strikes, it can take me weeks to get back to normal.

Which of course makes me think that my characters all should have an Achilles’ Heel. A food allergy. A fear of needles. Vertigo. The Achilles’ Heel should be picked with care—something that seems harmless at first, but eventually plays a major role in beating the overwhelming final obstacles.

When thinking of weaknesses in characters, I tend to think of mental or emotional wounds. But I can increase conflict by adding a physical weakness out of my character’s control—a betrayal of his own body.

What are some more Achilles’ Heels that would be fun to use in a story?

Finding Time but Losing Depth

February 20, 2014 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

As a stay-at-home mom, my schedule revolves around my 4-year-old daughter. This often means that my writing time is fragmented. I grab 15 minutes here, a half hour there. I have read tons of blog posts about how to squeeze the most writing time out of your day.

I never used to think I could write this way, but you do what you need to do when faced with reality. So I wring words out of my day, and usually manage to get a decent amount of writing done each day. I’m happy and left with a sense of accomplishment (no matter how small) when I see that at least one of my projects has progressed.

But. (You knew there was a “but,” didn’t you?)

I worry that I am sacrificing depth in this scattered writing style.

Pre-child, I could spend several hours at a time writing. I could “go deep,” getting lost in the world and the character. I would often finish a writing tear and look up, blinking, wondering where I was, what time it was—much like the feeling when you leave a movie theater.

I can’t do that anymore, and I think my writing has suffered. I find it hard to lose myself in my world or character in short spurts of time. No sooner do I feel comfortable than it’s time to leave. And since much of my snatched writing time also involves having my child around, my mommy ear is always listening for cries or yells that might indicate she needs help—or that ominous silence that means I really need to go see what she’s up to. So my full attention is not on my writing.

My biggest struggle at the moment is character. Readers do not connect to my characters. I used to do character well. I suspect that my “stolen time” model of writing is keeping me from plumbing the depth I used to in my characters, keeping me from finding their voices. If I can’t get lost in my characters, how can I expect my readers to?

I have also found that—for me—it is very hard to find that voice in revision when it is not present in the first draft. Character deepening in revision (and I like revising!) has never come out right. Perhaps I’m too caught up in the existing words on the page to want to change them enough to bring the character’s voice to the front. I don’t know.

All I know is I have three options: 1) find larger chunks of time to write (ha!), 2) learn to go deep faster, or 3) learn to deepen character in revision. I’m not sure which will happen. I’m not sure which will be successful. But something’s got to change for me to solve my character problem.

How about you? Do you find that writing in fragmented time lessens your ability to go deep? If you’ve mastered this technique, please share some tips in the comments!

Whiteout Conditions: I can’t see my characters

February 13, 2014 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I’ve said before that I am struggling with bringing my characters to life on the page. Every time I think I’ve got it nailed, my beta readers shake their heads–they’re just not connecting with the character. But I don’t know exactly what’s wrong, so it’s frustrating.

My brain knows all the techniques I’m supposed to use to create that character-reader connection, but I just can’t seem to get it onto the page. Even more frustrating is that I used to think that character was what I did best. But I seem to have lost the knack, unable to find it amid the blizzard of other craft details I have to keep in mind.

Whiteout conditions: I can see no way ahead.

In the Little House books (I think), during one winter blizzard the family strung a rope between the house and barn so that they could find their way back and forth without getting lost in the storm. I needed a rope, a guide to help me find my way back to character.

So I went backward.

If it was true that I used to do character better than I do now, then older works might provide me with clues to the way forward. I dug out a short story I had written during my Masters degree, revised it, and gave it to my critique partners.

It worked. The character-reader connection bloomed.

So now I have my guide rope. I can look at that story and see what I did then that I don’t do now. More importantly, I now know I can do it. The answer to my problem is inside of me somewhere.

All I have to do is hang onto the rope until I get through the blizzard.

What about you? Have you ever “lost” a skill you thought you had nailed? How did you get it back?

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