CHARACTERS

It's my extremely biased opinion that characters are more important than plot. They are more important than anything in story telling, perhaps bar writing style (see Part III soon, for more extremely biased opinions on that point)
First of all, if you have no plot, but a random character just popped into your head and you've given them five minutes of your time, you already have a plot. You may not know it, but you do.These two elements depend on eachother, but the proportions are relative. Personally, I think a character has more power to create a plot than the other way around. Once you have a basic relationship between these two parts, you've set up a sort of system that will, to some extent, end up telling the story all by itself.

Bad Apples

Another point to consider is that flawed characters are interesting. If you've just created a perfect, flawless-in-all-aspects-of-existence character, you've created the right conditions for having nothing to write about. One of my favorite examples to illustrate this point is Greek mythology: if you take a look at most of the Greek pantheon, you will probably discover they seem unable to find their own backsides with a map. They are power hungry, jealous, lustful, prone to excesses and the source of a few excellent stories.

Alternatively, you could try venturing into Scandinavian mythology a little. I spent my first four years of studies in a Waldorf elementary school, where Scandinavian mythology was an actual subject, taught to a contingent of six year-olds through story telling. After a few months, the god Loki was pretty much the class mascot and everyone's sweetheart: he was clever, mischievous, funny and a prankster. We all knew he was a bit of a meanie, but essentially harmless... until we hit third grade and read about how he sailed forth in a ship made of human bones and pretty much brought about the end of the world. Talk about the element of surprise.

Where do I start?

I think the question of writing a story can be reduced, in a certain sense, to the author asking themselves ’What should I do with/to my characters?’ One of the most interesting and useful books I’ve ever read is Aristotle’s Poetics, which, among other things, covers just that. Being one of the earliest surviving works dealing with dramatic theory, it analyses what Aristotle refers to as poetry – plays and lyrical or epic poetry in general.

Now, Aristotle has a lot of useful things to say on the subject of genres, dialogues, mood and so on, but I’m going to stop at two very specific aspects regarding characters:

- What a character should be like;
- What instruments the author has at their disposal for ’building’ their characters.

The Poetics explain that a character should display several traits. They should be:

- good – this is interesting, albeit a little tricky. Aristotle says that an audience will not like it if, for example, a villain found personal gain in others’ misery at the end of the story. This is a matter of morals and the way people relate to the story in general. ’The bad guy shouldn’t be allowed to win in the end’ isn’t exactly a recipe (it can happen, and it can make things interesting or unexpected), but it will leave your audience feeling uncomfortable. Unless, of course, this is what you want.

- appropriate – briefly put, a character is expected to act according to their conditions and skills. This is especially important to remember if you’re trying to avoid coming up with a Mary-Sue or something to that effect.

A popular clichée in manga, for example, is causing extraordinary and rather traumatizing things to happen to highschool students, in order to awaken some hidden supernatural power that just happened to lie around their psyche as a result of blood heritage/tragic accident/Being Special. The point here, is that the author creates a certain background that makes acquiring these powers plausible. But if you have an average highschool girl/boy who has never studied martial arts, it’s very unlikely that he or she will learn to fight well enough to save the world in the space of two weeks.

Similarly, a character cannot be expected to be very wise or experienced if they are very young. Or, if you are looking for something like this specifically, consider the side-effects. For example, there is a character called Alia in Frank Herbert’s science-fiction novel Dune, who became conscious while she was still in her mother’s womb, due to a substance her mother ingested. Alia inherits all of her mother’s memories and experiences, as well as those of many other women - this makes her appear far more intelligent than many grown-ups, even though she still looks like a baby. However, because of this, she is considered an ’abomination’ and this sort of stigma stays with her for the rest of her life.

- consistent – this relates to the point above. In Aristotle’s example, if a character is an experienced soldier, he is unlikely to become frightened at the sight of blood. If he does, there should be some explanation as to why this happens. A character should also maintain his opinions, on a very general level, lest the audience become confused. ’On a very general level’ is the key term here.

For instance, let’s assume a certain character is very proud of his looks and considers physical beauty to be the best characteristic anyone can have. He despises ugly people and he thinks they are also likely to be stupid, clumsy, bad mannered etc. As the story goes, one day this person gets into some sort of trouble, and an ugly character comes along to help them. During the time they spend together, the first character will become persuaded to consider that the lack of physical beauty does not necessarily imply the lack of any sort of positive characteristics. An ugly person may well be intelligent, compassionate, funny and loyal. By the end of the story, the first character will begin to accept these things and find himself well on the way to changing part of his outlook on life. The lesson here also deals with morals and could be summarized as ’Do not judge a book by its cover’. This sort of shift in opinions is acceptable and, what’s more, expected by the audience.

However, if, let’s say, the main character (the ’hero’ ) begins the story by being convinced that slaughtering innocents is a terrible thing, it is not acceptable for him or her to finish the story by thinking it is a good, moral and responsible thing. Or, again, if this happens, there should be a plausible explanation for it.

Of course, all of these characteristics may appear to come in conflict to the point I mentioned above, about flawed characters being more interesting to write about. But ’good’ doesn’t necessarily mean ’flawless’. A character may be considered ’good’ by the audience if he or she has the potential to become ’good’. Let’s consider the previous example for a bit: if you start reading a story about our beautiful character, in the beginning, you are likely to find something along the lines of ’I am beautiful. I think this is the best trait a human being can have. I enjoy surrounding myself with beautiful things and other beautiful people, and I enjoy being complimented. My life is quite alright as it is, and I have no interest in ugly or common-looking people. If they do not possess the best quality a human can have, that probably makes them bad and stupid as well.’ But you, as a reader with realistic life experience, will start thinking ’Wait, that’s wrong. You can’t assume people are bad just because they aren’t good looking. Of course, there are people who are both ugly and bad, just as there are people who are both beautiful and bad. I hope the rest of the story proves you wrong.’

You will keep reading because you’re curious to see this happening. This means that you already think the character has the potential to change his opinion to something you find acceptable. In other words, you already think the character has the potential to become ’good’.

Here, Have Some Destiny

When it comes to character-building instruments, ’destiny’ (and a small associated toolbox, which I shall discuss below) is a powerful thing.

Aristotle talks about something he calls 'hubris', which is considered the center piece of all Greek tragedies. The context refers to a limit that is set upon humans by a higher power. It's their very nature as humans - they cannot live forever, they cannot return from the dead, they cannot rise to a godly condition, they cannot exhibit certain powers etc. In short, they cannot transcend their human condition by exceeding these limits. (I've sometimes seen 'hubris' interpreted as 'excessive arrogance' - as Wikipedia will certify - but I'm going to stick to the Aristotle version, because it makes a lot more sense. I will explain why in a second)

Now, as you know, Greek tragedies focus on heroes who do exactly that - transcend their nature, by a certain act or condition. This usually has two types of consequences: one is called 'nemesis' (retribution) and is probably the most popular in classical drama (think Achilles, Oedipus etc.) This is in direct relation to the character, and it means that he or she will be forced to pay for their 'hubris' - rule breaking or arrogance - usually with their lives, or with something very precious.

The other is called 'catharsis' and it relates to the audience. Briefly, 'catharsis' refers to a state of purification the audience experiences after witnessing the story. Aristotle says that, in real life, people tend to be interested either too much or too little in things like pain or suffering, or strong emotions in general. The role of a play - or story in our case - is also to induce 'catharsis', which balances that tendency to be either overly emotional or too uncaring. In short, it's a sort of purification of the soul, if you will.

In the example we already discussed, ’catharsis’ is applicable. You, as a reader, will feel satisfied that an arrogant character has been taught something you consider to be common sense. Because we’re talking about a positive lesson and a character who is ’redeemable’, there is no need for nemesis.

But what happens if we turn the story around a bit? Let’s say our beautiful character is the ruler of a large kingdom. One day he decides he doesn’t want any sort of ugly people in his country, so he orders them to be rounded up and slaughtered. Who decides what ’beautiful’ and ’ugly’ means? They are very subjective terms. In this case, both are defined by the character who is powerful enough to impose rules – specifically, the king. At this point, the character is no longer ’redeemable’ in the eyes of the reader. You will not want him to be taught the same lesson he would learn in the first case – that ugly people can be good, compassionate etc. – and then just go on living with this new perspective. At least not when he has already caused the death of thousands on a purely arbitrary basis. You will want him to get punished: maybe killed, or maybe mutilated and forced to live in this new condition for the rest of his life. This would be ’nemesis’.

In any case, these three concepts create an interesting starting point, for both plot and character development.

Conclusion

I’ve mentioned a lot of ’rules’ in this post – a character should be such and such, the audience expects this thing, or that thing. As with many other situations, though, rules can be broken if you do so in a logical, plausible way. An experienced soldier may become frightened at the sight of blood if he has seen something terrible in the past that forced him to swear he would never shed it again, or fight again (at least, until the story begins). A morally ’good’ character can become ’bad’, say, for the sake of revenge (in which case your readers would probably like a sequel). The point remains – as long as you can offer a believable explanation, such twists will probably not affect your story in a negative way.

REFERENCE

Aristotle's Poetics - [link]
Wikipedia article - [link]

INDEX

Part I: The Bare Necessities – Plot - [link]
Part II: The Bare Necessities - Characters
Part III: Writing Style and Lessons Learned
Part IV: Show, Don’t Tell and Other Literary Conundrums
Part V: Recommended Reading/Viewing

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#Romanian-fairytales

Founded and maintained by ~raluca-z and myself. At the moment it's still in the works, but we will post more information and activities soon. If you have any specific ideas or feedback, please feel free to share it with us.

On a separate note, the second installment of What Makes a Good Story will also be posted sometime this week.

CSS Journal Coded by =FleX177

Just a quick note to point out an affordable alternative to Copics:

[link]

They are essentially identical to Copic Orignial markers (small and broad tip, refillable), but considerably cheaper. I ran into them at Hanu cu Tei recently and they cost 16RON each (as opposed to 22RON) and they can be refilled with Copic ink, since the only thing that varies in the colour scheme is the coding. The colours are pretty much the same for both brands.

In more good news (or bad, depending on what your wallet tells you) for marker users is that there are several new accessories finally available in our side of the backwaters([link]), albeit for scandalous prices. The Opaque White is a wonderful, wonderful invention though. I had the chance to test it courtesy of ~raluca-z and I daresay it's actually worth the money.

Happy colouring, kids.

CSS Journal Coded by =FleX177

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

I've been thinking about the theoretical side of writing and story telling for some time now, partly due to my prolongued talks with ~raluca-z on the subject, and partly because I'm currently in the process of extracting a story from the depths of my own imagination, and do it properly. This series of essays is meant to help me put some thoughts in order. It is also an invitation to discuss issues you might find interesting regarding this subject. Please feel free to share your thoughts and input.

DISCLAIMER

The term essay comes from the French verb essayer, which means to try. It is a piece of writing that typically reflects the author’s personal point of view. In other words, this article shouldn’t be interpreted as anything more than a collection of personal thoughts and ideas regarding the writing process.

INDEX

Part I: The Bare Necessities – Plot
Part II: The Bare Necessities - Characters
Part III: Writing Style and Lessons Learned
Part IV: Show, Don’t Tell and Other Literary Conundrums
Part V: Recommended Reading/Viewing

PART I: THE BARE NECESSITIES – PLOT

First of all, what makes a story? The simple answer is probably: plot and characters. A rather more elaborate answer (and a more correct one, in my opinion) would be: plot, characters, writing style and lesson learned. While the first two may seem quite obvious, I think the other two play an equally important part in the overall effect of the story.

But let's discuss the simple answer first.

A story can be captivating. Or not. It can be terrible or simply mediocre, but its general quality has less to do with the plot than we may be inclined to think at first. An author can write a fantastic story about Character A's brief journey to the grocery store, or mangle a complicated and otherwise exciting plot about an intergalactic was based around whose great-great-grandfather pushed whose next-door neighbor down the stairs.

The Mysterious Case Of The Missing Plot

Of course, it's a rather instrumental bit in the story telling process (by way of being the actual story), but what I'm trying to say is that some authors can manage without it. For example, one of my favorite plays is Iona (Jonah), written by Romanian author Marin Sorescu. Nothing happens in Iona, aside from Iona sitting despondently in a giant fish belly (i.e. empty stage, no props) and wondering about life, while two mute fishermen ocassionaly carry things in the background. Admittedly, the whole thing is painfully post-modernist and makes little sense half the time but, and this is important, it kept me wanting to read on. This has a lot to do with the writing style - a point to which I'll return a little later.

Think Of The Kids

A rather less philosophical approach comes from the world of fairy-tales. I grew up with traditional Russian fairy-tales, because my grandmother read them to me (almost literally) for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You want solid, simple, no-nonsense story telling? Look no further than these little gems.

Most of them follow the typical line of 'Great Ruler wants something-or-other done and promises daughter's hand in marriage to whoever does it. Ivan, who is a young clever peasant/poor orphaned boy/proud son of Other Great Ruler, decides to do it. He goes through three difficult trials, travels to the end of the world on his magical talking horse, proves he is worthy, returns, marries daughter.' I still own a book chock full of these and sometimes leaf through it fondly. The reason they are written so simply is that they were meant to be read to and by children.

But no one is stopping you from picking up this sort of linear plot and turning it into whatever you want, starting from basic points: how does the Great Ruler's daughter feel about being offered as a prize? Maybe Ivan decided to take up the quest on a dare, or because his poor mother is ill and him, having little money but a heart of gold, promises to take up a dangerous task in exchange for a cure. Or maybe the guys got him drunk in the pub and signed him up while he was busy throwing up in the gutter. The possibilities are pretty diverse.

Really Big Books

Finally, there's the more frequent case of the MLP (Monstrously Large Plot). This baffles me. Especially when I look at the fantasy and sci-fi sections in most bookstores around here and invariably come to the conclusion that it must be quite easy to write an epic novel five volumes long, since so many authors seem to manage it. To be completely honest though, monstrous plots are my guilty pleasure. A few months ago I went through the 1500+ pages of 'Mists of Avalon' in the course of a week and I'm presently in the process of hunting down its prequels.

However, creating and writing them is a completely different, aha, story. Probably the best comparison I can think of for designing a MLP is trying to code a complex web page in html. Using Notepad. You've just finished 90% of it, decide to check what it looks like and discover, to your great horror, that you forgot to close a tag somewhere, the whole code is messed up AND YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE IT WENT WRONG. Likewise, you might end up with loose bits of plot flapping away into the breeze of narrative logic and annoying the hell out of your readers.

The best way to tell a good story is probably to try and find some measure of balance between the second and third types of plot. I think a point very much worth remembering is that yes, stories are essentially created for children, and (however corny this may sound) a good story will still appeal to the child in us, even if the story is a complicated saga filled with moral conundrums and the 'child' is in his forties.

To Be Continued

Part II: The Bare Necessities – Characters will cover several aspects of character building, what a character ’should’ be like (i.e., readers’ expectations, consistency etc.) and the apparent appeal of flawed characters.

CSS Journal Coded by =FleX177

First and foremost, this hasn't exactly been the best year of my life.

I've been away from DA for an unacceptably long time, but for good reason and an even better cause.

In February I am moving out to my new apartment, which is actually my grandparents' old apartment, currently treated to a slightly tectonic equivalent of a facelift. I also have two on-going contracts which are going to pay for the new kitchen. I don't, as yet, have a regular nine-to-five paying job, and it depresses the hell out of me.

In the light of things not going exactly the way I expected them to after graduation, I decided that four simple, broad decisions are enough for 2010. Two of them are rather private and do not involve art. The other two, who do involve art, go like this:

1. Work traditionally for an entire year. I already more or less started doing this out of vague curiosity, and have been doing it for a month. Coloured pencils turned out to be an especially interesting and versatile medium. I am experimenting at the moment, but this decision was eventually made when I realized it will finally help me define and settle into a style. I'm starting to grow out of the manga-ish phase towards something a little more illustrative and cartoony. I both like and am curious where it's going.

2. Write and illustrate a story whose (very much) working title is currently 'Bart the Naturally Unlucky'. Apparently my brain feels I should absolutely create a children's story in this lifetime (in blatant disregard of the fact that I dislike children in general and children anywhere on a 500 m. radius around me in particular) It was an idea that first visited me a few weeks ago and hasn't gone home since. I might as well see what I can make of it.

So that's it. No actual resolutions other than what I can actually manage. In the mean time, I'm going to try and make time to scan and fix my current works before I post them. I might also open a few comission slots soon, but the details remain to be settled.