We had a minor kitchen accident yesterday that tied me up for the evening. So my e-zine is now overdue and I’ve been trying all day to get caught up and I’m still behind. I finally decided I’ll just blog tonight and finish the durned e-zine tomorrow.
We’ve been talking about creating characters for the last week or so, and it’s about time to wrap up. I’d like to respond to a few of the comments that have been posted here that I haven’t yet answered yet:
Diane wrote:
I guess if I had a question about characters, it would be regarding the difference between internal voice and dialogue voice for any given character. If you have a character that was raised on the streets or in a slum and speaks with a lot of slang and bad grammar and the like, I’m assuming you don’t want to write the narrative that way when you’re in the character’s pov. I’ve also heard not to overdo slang and such, even in dialogue because it’s hard for the reader to pick through. Yet, how do you give such a character a voice if you can’t write the words the way he/she would think/say them? How do you differentiate between the country boy, the kid from the slums and the scholar?
Randy sez: Oh, you should definitely write the words the way your character says them. Just be sure you spell them correctly.
Jim Bob sez: Out here in the country, we writes ’em the way we says ’em, and that’s just a fact. But we still spells the varmints correct, because it ain’t right to make us look like a bunch of tom-fool hicks who can’t spell nothin’ right.
Yoda sez: Right it is to the words write right. Wrong it is to the words wrong spell. Twisted let your syntax be, but your spelling never.
Throckmorton B. Sniffleheimer XXIII sez: We of the Harvard school agree ontologically, epistemically, and nonadversarially with these uncouth, non-Harvard persons. It is of utmost importance that word choices and syntactic structuralist principles should play the principal role in enabling the predicated reader to deconstruct the regional proclivities of the characters, even those with unfortunate non-Harvard existential modalities.
Charlotte wrote:
One question: how do men deal with guilt, as a rule? Can it haunt them until it will not stay neatly in its compartment and spills out at inconvenient times?
Randy sez: As a rule, men don’t behave uniformly, any more than women do. You’ll find that, on average, men tend to be a bit less introspective than women, but there are plenty of guys who carry a heavy load of guilt, just as there are plenty of women who don’t give a flip about guilt. So write the character the way you want him to be, but keep him consistent.
D.E. Hale wrote:
Ok, my MC is also a male, but what I want to know is how do men think? It’s not often in the story that he actually sits still long enough to think about much of anything, but there is one part where he’s been imprisoned and therefore has a while to contemplate all that’s happened. Would a man think about all the bad things that have happened, or would he just ignore his feelings and concentrate on getting out of there? Sorry guys, but I KNOW you have feelings in there somewhere whether you show it or not. But how much thinking do you actually do about things bothering you?
Randy sez: Similar comments apply here. By the way, on average, men tend to do more “thinking” and less “feeling”. But that is an average tendency, and there are plenty of men who “feel” and women who “think”.
A useful tool to use in developing your characters is the Myers-Briggs profile. There are four axes:
Introvert vs Extravert
Intuitive vs Sensor
Thinker vs Feeler
Perceiver vs Judger
This leads to 16 different personality profiles. Men and women tend to be similar on three of these axes. About 2/3 of men are Thinkers and 1/3 are Feelers. About 2/3 of women are Feelers and 1/3 are Thinkers.
Camille wrote:
Maybe Randy would let a couple of us girls post a snippet of our male internal monologue and tell us what’s right & wrong about it. Subtle hint.
Randy sez: Good thing that was subtle or I’d have missed it. Yeah, sure, go ahead ladies! If you want to post a sample of male interior monologue, do so. But you should also tell us a little about your character, because there are all different kinds of men, and they don’t all think exactly alike.
Yoda would say, “Right it is, the words to write right. Wrong it is, the words to wrong spell.” ESL learners from Spanish would write it that way, too. ;P
Hunting for a monologue proved harder than I thought – most of what I found was blatant telling of emotion, and that’s got to go! Now I’m on a manuscript hunt to find and kill all descriptions of the emotion I’ve already showed (or haven’t showed yet).
What, by the way, constitutes a true monologue? Is it the POV character’s description of events, or action, or his feelings/thoughts? And when does monologue cease to be monologe and become telling, or vice versa? What is a good size for said monologue – can a monologue be only a couple sencences long or is that just a beat?
Um…I’m not sure what to “tell”, I thought we were supposed to “show”. Here’s one snippet:
A week later, Ian still had no idea what he was going to do about his trip and his obstinate grannie. He sat in the cottage kitchen again, staring at the telephone, hammering his brain for a solution. But all he could think of was their new minister running down the drive as fast as his bony legs would carry him, with Maggie on his heels, glinting blade in hand.
God, tell me again why I’m here?
He kept staring at the telephone as though the Almighty would ring with an answer. Maybe pounding his head against the wall would silence the nagging doubts—doubts about moving back here and trying to help a mule-headed old woman who battled him every step of the way.
But deep down, he already knew why. This was where God wanted him.
Sorry all … I couldn’t decide. Here’s one more, last one, promise.
Without warning, the thought of being with her, of being loved by her unleashed an image in his mind so vivid that it took his breath away. He shot to his feet.
Don’t go there, MacLean. Noooo.
He paced the length of the windows, running both hands through his hair. He couldn’t fall for a woman half a world away. He waited too long once—never again.
And what about Jamie? It wouldn’t be fair to her. The last thing she needed was more heartache … and the last thing he needed was any more guilt.
Taking a deep breath, he stopped and stood at the window, faced with the awesome power of the sea. Even from here, he could sense it churning with energy and unfathomable strength—fierce, deep and untamable; the way God created it.
He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed.
He pressed his palms flat against the cold glass, closed his eyes, and exhaled long and slow. He’d have to be more careful from now on.
(cheesy, huh guys? Don’t forget…it’s for girls)
Ok, here’s my snippet from my historical fiction. It’s in first person of the male protagonist.
I’ve known Christophe since we were young and he has been and remains my closest friend, the only one I told about the Houghtons. Even now I don’t think he fully understands my desire to find my heritage. He says that my heritage is the homestead and that if the Houghtons had had family anywhere in England that my birth mother would have insisted I be taken to them after her death instead of giving me to the Blays to raise as their own as well as giving them the farm. That point has confused me too but I can’t help the burning desire to find where they came from and whatever details I can gleen about them.
I can’t even answer as to why I kept travelling north, only that it was like some force calling me there. I can’t explain it except to say that it must have to do with Erandin. Whether or not that is where either had come from I still do not know. What I do know is that as soon as I arrived in Erandin, I felt as though I had been there before, even though I haven’t been. It was like stepping into one of the dreams I had as a child.
I’ve been away from the blogging world a few days and am catching up today.
Just wanted to comment on Lynda’s dilemma about writing dialog in an off world setting. I’m doing the same thing, and while I was pulling my hair out trying to “hear” the people talk, it came to me that kids speak differently than adults ~ no matter what world you live in ~ so I started working on kid slang and it works!
Really knowing the people and their customs/habits also helped.
Here is the background: Raktavio is a knight (actually he was adopted by the king and titled prince, but his “work” is that of a knight), and he had an arranged marriage to Gratia (who is a valley person, despised by the mountain people of whom Raktavio is). Raktavio dutifully follows the order of his king and is sent on a mission, which entails escorting Gratia. Prior to this monologue he is starting to like Gratia, despite is dislike of her heritage and strange way of dealing with things. He presumes her dead after a terrible accident.
Raktavio’s mind wandered over the past weeks, from the time he met Gratia, to the command to marry her, and then it lingered over the time in the dungeon of Selvz’ Temple at Ekentav. In the darkness of that dungeon, he discovered his loyalty to her was more than duty. Oh, she could gall him. The corner of his mouth lifted at the memory. Somehow, though, she had captured his heart.
Agh! He pounded his knees. He had done his duty to the King. Why had not the Mountain Lion protected them last night? Shaking his head, he stood up. This is not how a King’s Knight should act, let alone one titled Prince.
Thanks for all the comments about accents lately. I wrote my Chinese character’s speech with mispellings and guess I will make some changes and tone it down. I like “mild” accents to lend authenticity, but not make the text difficult to read, like Camille’s Oregon example. I don’t agree with all her pronunciations though. I was born in Oregon and have lived here over 50 years and people I know don’t pronounce their words like that. We have regional variations too, and your parents’ background also makes a difference. For example, my dad came from Texas and so we learned to pronounce a few words a bit differently. That’s something to keep in mind for characters also.
Camille, I really enjoyed reading your work. Worked as a male voice for me.
Donna, I was really drawn into the mystery posed by your story. I can’t identify exactly why, but although you let us know that “I” was male, I heard the character as female. I don’t think the feelings and desires were particularly female, but maybe a male would express them differently? I’ll be interested to see what Randy says.
Lynn’s bit leaves me curious about her story. Raktavio strikes me as manly, plus he has a very cool name.
I’m in a writing class and when we critique each other we refer to “the writer” so as to differentiate between the person and the person’s work. Hard to do it that way here.
Thanks for letting me practice peer critiques.
~bonne
I agree with Bonne on Donna’s piece. Something about it made me hear a female character, too. I thought that you had misunderstood the “assignment” until I reread the piece, Donna.
Of course, being thrown a scrap of prose outside its natural world can be disorienting. Unless this is your opening passage, it may not be a real problem–only perceived.
I asked Hubby (an educator) how men think. He said, “They don’t.” 🙂
Jae is a man’s man, a star athlete, and a physician on planet Olim in a time far past.
He caught her wrist as she stood. “I’ve seen that guy—Ir—hanging around. Is he the problem?”
“Jae, I really need to go.”
He released her and watched her limp up the path. It was true. He placed his head in his hands. His heart ached. Bad.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that it’s the run-on sentance in Donna’s that’s getting the gender blurred. It sounds like something one of the Gilmore Girls would say. It conveys all the information we need, but not in a very manly way.
Guys seem to like shorter sentances, jokes, and insulting each other. I’m also pretty sure none of them admit to people that they have burning desires, so your narrator probably shouldn’t either. Ok, Elvis can say it. That’s why he’s the King, baby.
Camille’s is great, but I’m not sure a man would think of himself as being in a cottage kitchen. It sounds cute.
Lynn’s sounds about like what I’d expect a man to think. I don’t know if that means it’s right, or if it just means we have the same assumptions about men. 🙂
Once again I’m arriving late to the party. In case anyone is still following this thread- here’s the first time we read my male protags POV. The first chapter takes place on a Sunday night, when the heroine’s brother has been killed in a car accident. The next morning, her boyfriend, Ben, is going over to just “be there” for her.
OOps- Didn’t mean to make this two entries. Sorry. Here’s the snippet:
Ben closed the last zipper fastening the top of the Jeep. Today’s weather would have been perfect for letting his bushy mop blow in the breeze. But that didn’t seem proper for the occasion. What was the right thing for the day after your girlfriend’s brother died?
Yesterday, they’d all attended the morning church service as usual, then eaten their pot roast or fried chicken and napped to the background noise of NASCAR on TV. Ben had picked up Julie for the evening service, and all the way home fought the urge to blurt out a marriage proposal.
He knew the moment should be right, with candlelight and flowers at some really nice restaurant. But he’d waited long enough. This past year as she’d helped him through their first year of college classes, he’d become more certain. Julie was meant to be the wife of Dr. Bennie Daniel Barrett.
This is an extremely emotional moment in the story. After hiding for about 15 uears, the MC has arrived on a new planet and is safe for the first time in his life. This is his first moments when he leaves the airport with Gil, a man sent to greet him.
Robert’s first contact with the outside atmosphere of Haven was anticlimactic. It was late spring and the air was warm, but humid. There were no skyscrapers visible to shine against the night sky. Looking around, Robert couldn’t see any building more than four stories high. The area around the airport didn’t look any different from earth.
Then he looked up into the sky. His eyes were overwhelmed by what he saw. The sky was full of stars, big bright stars; stars that blazed red and stars that blazed blue along with white and yellow stars. Gil touched his arm and pointed to the horizon. There was a bright glow there, and above it he could see one of the moons. It looked about the same size as earth’s moon.
His feet stopped moving as he realized the glow on the horizon was the second moon rising. He watched as the silvery globe moved up into the dark sky. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He felt tears forming, unbidden in his eyes as his heart swelled in his chest. He was really free, and this planet was beautiful. He turned his head to quickly brush the tears away, hoping Gil hadn’t noticed. He looked over to see Gil as entranced by the beauty as he was.
“It never fails to touch me.” Gill said after a moment of silence. “The big one is Alpha and the smaller one is Beta. The man who named them didn’t have a lot of imagination. We have a Gamma and a Delta also, but those moons are very small and hard to see.”
Mary Leona