What happens if you’re a plain old ordinary person trying to write a novel with characters who are anything but plain, old, or ordinary? Can you write great fiction if your own life is boring?
Tammy posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:
Hi Randy,
Just a quick question and one that’s been bugging me a lot since I finally decided to stop dreaming and start writing.
What if you think your life is boring?
I understand it’s a necessity to draw on experiences you’ve had in your own life to enrich your novel, but I honestly think my life has been dull, run-of-the-mill everyday toast with butter boring. I have a vivid imagination and I’ve been relying on that to get me where I want to go with my writing but I’m starting to find that characterisation is the bane of my existence. Is it because I’m a ‘never bungee jumping’, ‘won’t smoke or drink’, ‘can’t bear the thought of short-changing someone’, kind of plain Jane?
I’ve tried some psychology books about different habits in different personalities but I still can’t turn my character from a stick figure into a fleshy Mona Lisa!
Help!
How do you take mundane and make it something magnificent?
Randy sez: Join the club, Tammy. I know a lot of writers. The vast majority of them live tofu lives and still manage to write hot curry fiction.
I know a sweet and gracious Southern lady who regular murders people in her novels. I know a guy who preaches in his church every Sunday and writes novels with alcoholics and pimps and . . . lawyers. I know a mild-mannered mom who writes werewolf erotica.
Your characters are not you and they don’t have to be like you. They can do all the bizarro things you’d never do. That’s probably why most writers write — so they can vicariously do all those things that they’d never do.
Tammy, I’ve never bungee-jumped either. I don’t smoke or drink. And I do my best not to short-change people. Are you telling me I’m . . . boring? Not possible. I’m a geek, and geeks are the new cool.
I haven’t seen your writing and I’ve never met you, but my bet is that the problem isn’t with you. If you’re like most writers, the problem is with your writing.
Which is good news, because you can make improvements to your writing a lot easier than you can make changes in yourself.
In fact, the real problem appears to be pretty simple: Your characters are underdeveloped. There’s a cure for that, and it comes in three parts:
- Read up. There are plenty of good books on characters. I recommend Brandilyn Collins’ book GETTING INTO CHARACTER. Also, Margie Lawson’s course on EMPOWERING CHARACTER EMOTIONS. And while I’m passing out recommendations, chapters 7 and 12 of my book WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES are pretty decent too.
- Write on. There is no substitute for getting words on paper. Every day. You get good at brain surgery by doing brain surgery. You get good at writing by writing.
- Get critiqued. Every writer is her own worst critic, so you have no business critiquing your own work. You need a second opinion — preferably from somebody who is one part nice, two parts honest, and three parts well-trained in the art of fiction. A professional novelist can see problems that you’d never find on your own, if you’re willing to listen and not argue.
So Tammy, don’t worry about being a Plain Old Ordinary Person. You’ll probably live longer not smoking or drinking or jumping off bridges or whatever it is you think would make you more exciting. If you want to write about something you’ve never done before, the information on what it’s like is only a Google away, and you can probably interview online twenty people who’ve done exactly the thing your character wants to do.
If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.
Nice entry.
My life is pretty hectic at the moment. I’m doing a journalism program and contemplating a career in the field. It’s daunting, because I feel like it might be a really stressful career, but man, can you think of a better career to grow as a writer in?
On the other hand, in response to Randy’s post: I agree–you can certainly pull off writing awesome fiction if your life is dull. There are many ways to draw inspiration from the world. I like the example of the priest who writes about darker issues, because it makes sense in a funny way: who better to speak know about all the morally perverse things in life other than the one who knows how to live morally proper?
Inspiration can come from more places than your social life, but it does help to have interesting social experiences. If your life is a little boring, I’d recommend trying something new. It’s almost always beneficial to get out of your comfort zone and explore new perspectives, and that’s one of the main reasons I love this site.
Your fiction does need to pull from some real-life experiences, but a lot of fiction is making things up. Look at all the fantasy writers writing about wielding magic and flying on dragons. None of them have ever actually done that, but they write about it. Some of writing is experience, but a lot of it (in my opinion) is letting your mind go places your body can’t or won’t.
One reason I read is to go places I’ve never been and do things I’ve never done. I’d have to live to be three hundred and seventeen to do all the things I’d like to do. Thank goodness, I can read about them in a whole lot less time.
But when I read, I want to smell the air of the place, taste the foods of the place, see the sights of the place, hear the music of the language of the place. You get the picture.
So when you are Googling the information you want, be sure to get all the information you need. All those sensory experiences will round your characters and set your scene.
What I wouldn’t give to have had a completely vanilla life. Some the the extraordinary things that happen can be very bitter.
One reason I read is to go places I’ve never been and do things I’ve never done. I’d have to live to be three hundred and seventeen to do all the things I’d like to do. Thank goodness I can read about them in a whole lot less time.
But when I read, I want to smell the air of the place, taste the foods of the place, see the sights of the place, hear the music of the language of the place. You get the picture.
So when you are Googling the information you want, be sure to get all the information you need. All those sensory experiences will round your characters and set your scene.
What I wouldn’t give to have had a completely vanilla life. Some the the extraordinary things that happen can be very bitter.
I’ve heard several authors say the worst writing advice is “Write what you know.” As Jordyn said, it’s good if your fiction pulls from your real life, mostly in terms of emotions. To write a convincingly sad or upset character, think about the last time you were sad or upset and draw from that. However, fiction is fiction, and most of it will probably come from your imagination.
My life is fairly plain as well, but I find it gives me ample time to improve my writing (using much of Randy’s advice) and let my imagination wander.
This is a great topic, because it’s scary to invent people. I’m afraid a reader would either psychoanalyze me to death or laugh at the idea that I could possibly get into the head of someone so different than me. But if I had to write about stuff I KNOW about, I’d be writing my autobiography: “And then the dog ate the last loaf of bread and upchucked all over the kitchen floor, and then I went and picked up the carpool kids, and then I felt sorry for myself.”
“I’ve tried some psychology books about different habits in different personalities but I still can’t turn my character from a stick figure into a fleshy Mona Lisa!”
Sounds like you may have a similar problem I tend to have – you are going too deep and trying to build characters based on psychology theory.
Sure, understanding the deeper psychological reasons for behaviors or different personality types can be helpful, but it’s 100 times more helpful to read personal accounts directly from other people. In many areas of my writing, I have a tendency to try and understand the deeper theory in order to generate believable traits & facts. However, I can find countless direct examples of believable traits & facts MUCH faster than trying to generate them from theories.
For example, for my PhD, I am studying a lot of neuroscience and psychology, and one aspect I have been looking into is autism. I have been reading journal article after journal article on all of the differences neurologically and in cognitive abilities and so on. However, then I found a blog written by someone with autism. The first 20 minutes reading that blog taught me more about what it was like for an autistic person than spending the past year reading the latest research.
It’s sort of like trying to understand theoretical physics and structural engineering so that you can describe a plane crash. It is FAR easier (and more likely to be realistic) to cut out the middle man of theory and just research actual plane crashes. You want corporate intrigue, you would just read through the many examples in the news rather than going out and getting an MBA and reading book after book of business ethics, right?
So for realistic characters very different from yourself, just read personal writing by people different from yourself. You can learn far more far faster that way than by reading all sorts of psychology books and trying to build characters based on psych theories. Thankfully, in this day and age, there is certainly no shortage of people talking about themselves. 🙂
Show character traits by their actions not by back story or description.
James Patterson’s insane villains slaughter victims mercilessly while his hero negotiates calmly with the villain, then takes care of his ten sick kids, and makes a perfectly toasted, buttered bagel for his grandfather, the parish priest.
The contrast is so completely over the top but hell, it works.
I am going to confess right now that I can’t write the hero in my current wip from experience and must rely on research & tons of imagination to create a 6’4″ 270 pound oil rigger and all his backstory.
I often find research a frustrating challenge! Randy mentioned interviewing people online. I’d love to hear some tips on going about finding these sainted people. Also on researching fields and details of “how things really are” in general. I often exhaust my untrained, limited ability to search online for what I need. My fear is that I’ll have to find & study dozens of textbooks or technical (= foreign lingo to me) books and articles for one nugget of solid info. I can’t tell you how many medical articles I’ve read to find out about a genetic disease, most of which I didn’t understand and wished for a cardiac geneticist to translate. I’m afraid that I’ll be halfway to a degree in diesel mechanics or social services before I find what I need and overload my tiny wee brain (& novel) with stuff I don’t need. I would love to see some articles or workshops devoted to teaching the basics on how to research without causing brain damage.
And I couldn’t agree more on getting critiqued. Some of us would send absolutely everything we write to the recycle bin if it weren’t for others who find the work passable (or so I’ve heard). Others send untested work off to an agent or publisher and suffer crippling rejection whiplash.
For Camille:
What I’ve seen:
1. The acknowledgements page in the various novels (often mystery or detective genre, such as Grafton or Paretsky), where they thank the various individuals they’ve run stuff by.
2. Somewhere Stephen King wrote about one of his novels (the one about a space portal in the trunk of an old Chevy that was parked in a police garage). He basically said that he made up the police procedure part of things until he finished the novel. And then he talked to local state police. [I don’t read a lot of King, but that one is very good.]
3. The famous career change guide “What color is your parachute” has a great section on research. Apply that to writing fiction.
Lastly, didn’t Hemingway live the way he did on the theory that doing so was useful or even necessary to be a great writer? Though judging from the end, maybe not a great model for living.
Tammy, be a people watcher, especially if they’re not like you. Watch what they wear, body language, how they talk and then start wondering how they got like that. Start talking to people you never would have talked to before. Do things you’ve never done. Get out and live. Write about it.
Dig way down inside of you somewhere and you will find you have a lot of far from boring experiences to apply to your characters.
Dwight Swain says in his excellent book- Techniques of the Selling Writer: The writer is a man (or woman) who seeks a larger world. When he finds it, he passes it along to others.
Such a good post – and completely disproves the old saying ‘write what you know’. If I wrote what I knew, it would be very limited. However, I write what I am fascinated by, what I want to know and understand, what takes me to the edge and makes me ask ultimate questions. I know it emotionally but I’ve never lived it – not would I want to.
Wow! What a great question.
In my writing group we are coming to terms with challenges writing believable/likable/just-plain-interesting characters, right now. You might be interested in one of the cool exercises we’ve tried:
– To start, create a Quick Note list of one character’s attributes (physical, main beliefs/world view, a couple of defining life moments)
– Next, write a scene from that character’s point of view (it could be anything from taking a bath to knifing someone)
– Finally, read this bit out to your writing group, and be prepared to answer questions as if YOU were that character. If you’re lucky you’ll get questions like: “But why did you knife that guy when you had access to your father’s gun collection?”
Then you’ll answer something like: “I just…hated him. I wanted to feel his blood on my hands.” And suddenly you’ll know more about this character than you ever thought possible. The character is given real breath, and the opportunity to come alive – which is great, because it’s much easier to write a character when you “just know” how they’d react in any given situation.
An advantage to knowing your characters well is that you can avoid having the action part of the writing hijack the show (I’m sure you’ve seen movies like this; they abound) because now the characters will actually influence what happens in the story in a real and believable way.
Good luck Tammy! Loved how you phrased your question; you’re a writer for sure.
I love this topic because I believe that in many cases, you will have a hard time being a writer if your life is ‘interesting’. Novel-writing requires enough stability and emotional equanimity to be able to analyze and craft. If you’re a poet or a short story writer, you may get away with living like a wild creature, but not if you’re a novelist.
I have known talented novelists who self-destructed by falling off the straight and narrow. They decided they wanted their drama in their personal lives instead of in their fiction. This did not lead to increased output or professional success.
I’m grateful that I have an interesting past to inform my writing now that I live a much happier, more stable life. But you don’t have to own a colorful past to be a good writer. You just have to be sympathetic and observant, as Randy and the other commenters have said.
Another thing is to draw on what you have experienced and tweak it to fit what you are writing about.
For example, writing about someone who has just experienced the death of a loved one. I have yet to lose someone really close to me, so I have never experienced that. However, I just had to put my 12 week old kitten down after he suddenly became paralyzed and could not move. I used the feelings I felt of helplessness, of anger towards a broken world, and aching grief that I could not help a little kitty (yeah, I love cats) to write a scene where my character asks the same things about God.
I think maybe Randy may have missed the boat here on Tammy’s question. Randy’s right about the under characterization, and you should follow all of Randy’s advice–every writer worth his or her salt should.
But Tammy is taking to heart the “write what you know” catch phrase, and she views her life as boring. The unique trait a writer must develop is the ability to see the ordinary and boring in a new and interesting light.
Some of the short stories I’ve written in the past: a pack of cigarettes thrown in the trash because the wife was upset about the husband’s smoking habit, a grown son’s realization of his father’s vulnerability, planting mums in a flower bed, walking the dog through the local neighborhood, a lost pre-engagement ring, etc., etc.
All pretty innocuous, but it is the spin we as writers add to the everyday to bring about a greater truth. It is the everyday, the ordinary that allows the reader to connect with the character. Even Camille’s oil rigger, no matter how different from her own personal life, is somehow–if she really thinks about it, I believe–is somehow rooted in the ordinary–even if it just the emotional backstory of the character.
Anyway, just my two cents worth of IMO. 🙂
Hi I read this article because I liked the title. And guess what – my life is pretty boring too! Aren’t we always told to write what we know. For years I thought great, I don’t know anything other than ordinary every day stuff and who would want to read about that? Then I heard some of the best advice ever – write what you know to be emotionally true. Even if our lives are boring we all know what it feels like to be in love, angry, frustrated, etc. So we can tap into what we know that way and write convincingly. I agree with the above comment about writing about the ordinary. If you actually analyse some of the best short stories, often not a lot actually happens.