Stranger Than Fiction Analysis

Harold Crik is a man of infinite numbers, endless calculations, and remarkably few words. Every weekday for twelve years he lives to the timing of his wristwatch. Until Wednesday. On Wednesday, a voice begins narrating his innermost thoughts, and proclaims that a “ seemingly innocuous event” will result in his “imminent death.” In desperation, Harold steps out of his mold, hoping to find the voice and prevent his fate. He doesn’t know the story will end at the exact moment when he has the most to live for.

This is one of my all-time movie favorites, ranking up there with the Back to the Future trilogy. It’s one of those movies that become a classic in your own mind. When I’m sick, I watch this movie. When I’m depressed, I watch this movie. And most of all, when I’ve got writer’s block, I head out and watch this movie.

Sometime last year when I was still muddling through Shatterbox, someone suggested that I take a favorite novel and read it with a critical eye, looking at what made it so good. I cheated and watched Stranger Than Fiction instead. But it was worth it.

Not only is it a great story, but it’s a masterpiece in dialogue, characterization, and humor. I ended up with two pages of notes. After digging them up recently, I thought they were worth discussing here. I pretty much noted techniques used in the story and then asked myself how I could make them part of my story.  

 

Each main character has a counterpart, and most of the character’s stories are entangled. Thus one character getting what they want is detrimental to the other character.

The main plot in Stranger Than Fiction is about Harold, trying to save himself from the mysterious narrator, and a writer named Karen, trying to figure out how to kill her main character. These two are at odds. Right off you have the main conflict, and a domino effect occurs.

The question to ask: How could you create this domino effect in your story? Which characters are naturally at odds, and how could you make them rely more on each other? What events would really pit one character against another?

 

What terrifies characters should be the things that challenges them, what they must come to face, if they are to survive.

This is another way of saying that characters should face their fears.  However, what struck me in watching Stranger Than Fiction was not that Harold had this big climatic moment where he came up against what scared him most, chooses to fight it, and wins. No. The challenge is that each time he comes up against a fear, it’s an opportunity for him to grow a little, push past it a little, and face it a step at a time.

The question to ask: How are your character’s fears challenging them? Could you do more? Try thinking of a few opportunities your character could deal with his fear.  

 

Misdirection is an important part of dialogue. Have characters answer unspoken questions. Have them talk at cross-purposes. Have them hedge. Take a literal question figuratively, or vice versa.

This builds nuance and humor into dialogue. For example, Karen’s publishers send her an “assistant” named Penny to help her finish the book. This creates an immediate animosity, as Karen thinks Penny is a spy for the publishers. And Penny dislikes Karen’s habit of chain-smoking. In a clash of wills, Penny says, 

 “I suppose you smoked all those cigarettes.”

“No,” Karen says. She raises an eyebrow. “They came pre-smoked.”

The question to ask: Do your characters always respond to the obvious statement? Could you make their responses deeper, more intuitive? Try stretching the bounds of your dialogue to take other characters unaware.

 

Pick a few distinguishing details to flesh out each character. A few details are enough, but make them unique.

Each character in Stranger Than Fiction can be identified by their physical quirks. For example, Harold wears dull V-neck sweaters, and keeps all the furniture in his house off-white. Ana Pascal surrounds herself with color: floral glass plates, mosaic chandeliers, while surrounding herself with activist posters.

The question to ask: how have you fleshed your characters out? Could you give them some physical characteristics to set them apart? Be aware that these characteristics will define the person described.  Make each one unique to that person and your story.

 

And just for kicks, I thought I’d add a clip of Stranger Than Fiction.

 

-Creative A

Static Characters

I thought I’d get myself back in gear by doing a non-Nano post. So today, I’d like to talk about static characters. By simple definition, a static character is one who does not change. In How To Write a Damn Good Novel, James Frey writes,

A character can be fully-rounded yet be too passive, too mamby-pampy. Characters who can’t act in the face of their dilemmas, who run away from conflict, who retreat and suffer without struggling, are not useful to you. They are static, and most of them should meet an untimely death before they ever appear on the pages of your novel.

How can you have a well-rounded, yet static character? Is that even possible? Backpedal for a second, here, and remember that well-rounded characters are complete characters. They have motives, inner/outer conflicts, backstorys, quirks, passions. They are full. They arc. They’ve been Done Right. So…what?

WikiWizards states that, 

A static character does not undergo significant change. A static character is a literary character that remains basically unchanged throughout a work. Whether round or flat, their personalities remain essentially stable throughout the course of the story. This is commonly done with secondary characters in order to let them serve as thematic or plot elements.

Here we get closer to the real problem. A static character may have an arc – they may learn things, grow some – but it’s never a significant change. It never impacts their main personality. Now here’s something else: a static character does not change their inner person, because they do not want or feel the need. Maybe they should – but they don’t.

Right now I’m at the climax of my WIP, and I can’t write it. I want to. Just can’t. My main character, Rueben, is as static as a balloon. He’s the poster boy for static characters. He has motives, but no motivation, huge conflicts, but no passion.  He is unaffected and tortured, withdrawing in wounded silence. He fears conflict. Even when something does force him to act, he somehow turns around, and ignores it.

Understand I did everything “right” with this guy. I followed all the books and all the rules (except when I was supposed to break them.) Rueben is deep. He’s almost too deep; too perfect; too much of a tortured soul. Somehow, he’s too well rounded.

How to characters get static?

Either the author wasn’t paying attention and they have a flat, static character that just needs fleshing out – which is great because then the fix is simple – or there’s something they aren’t letting go of, something they keep avoiding; this stonewalls a character into passivity.

Whenever faced with a tense moment, Rueben always acts one of two ways. Calm and cool, or bitter and silent. All along I kept asking myself, “who is he?” I never realized that Rueben couldn’t become a person, because he was always an idea. He was Mr. Tall Dark and Tortured. It was the only way I allowed him to act.

How do you fix a static character?

Here’s the worst piece of advice ever – it all depends. There’s no formula because it changes every time. You have to realize it’s a problem, identify the crux of the problem, figure out what is creating the problem, and then you still have to fix the problem. But it is your problem.

So, start at the beginning: If your character A) is passive, B) won’t change as a person, C) runs from conflict, D) suffers in silence, or E) any of the above, he’s static. If he is so well rounded that he can’t go anywhere, he’s static. If he’s stonewalled – he’s static.

Okay. But why. Does he lack passion? Motive? Conflict? The ability to change? The realization that he needs changing? Does he adhere to some stiff idea that keeps him immobile? Which combination of things is making him static?

Then, where is this coming from? What’s the source? Look at times when you were writing and the problem cropped up. What happened in those moments? Your characters has motives, you’ve raised his stakes, and then – what? Why does he refuse to get passionate, or to struggle, or whatever his particular issue is? What’s making this happen?

All right. You have the problem, you have the source, and hopefully you understand how it’s happening. So within the requirements of your story, how can you fix it? What would break the character from his mold? What limitations can you lift?

 

I think at some point, cutting may be easier than trying to fix the unfixable. Have you guys ever struggled with static characters before? Could you fix them? I love Rueben, a lot, but he’s not my only static character. I think all my main characters are static. And that many problems often need to be scrapped.  

-Creative A

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Thinking out of the Block

Neglecting your Antagonist

A Thought on Cycles

Characters and Backstory 

Neglecting Your Antagonist: Secret Sin #6

A few weeks ago, I speculated about what makes a novel memorable. Strong themes. A suspenseful plot. Deep, cunning characters. These are all the biggies that most people think of. Nobody thinks of strong antagonists – did you? But they’re powerful. Come to think of it, lots of people like a strong antagonist.

Would the Jedi be so exciting if they battled womp rats instead of the Sith? No way. You fear for the Jedi because Sith are stronger, threatening, seductive. How about the new Batman movie? I heard more chatter about the Joker than I did Batman. People are attracted to these films because of the villains that inhabit them. But pick ten books at random, and tell me how many compelling antagonists you find. A handful, at the best?

It’s said that the average antagonist – those classic evil bad guys – are flat. Following this accusation comes a miracle-cure: “he’ll be compelling if you make him believe, in his own twisted way, that he’s doing the right thing.” Or, “If you make a villain conflicted, we’ll relate to him more than if he’s evil just for the sake of being evil.”

These methods help, for sure. But they’re just that – methods. I’ve seen flat villains who believed they were doing the right thing, just as I’ve seen the classic villain turn out to be compelling, well-rounded, and credible. So. If it’s not the type of antagonist you create, then what is it? In a word: characterization.

The neglected antagonist.

Antagonists are underdeveloped. Since villains are created with a purpose in mind – to hinder, threaten, or thwart the hero – it’s easy to assume that filling this purpose is all they need to do. A protagonist is developed over the course of a whole novel. Scene-by-scene, moment after moment, they grow and share, fail and succeed. How much time do you spend characterizing your antagonist? A few scenes each novel? A prologue? A character worksheet?

Antagonists don’t get the same kind of attention that protagonists get, but they’re just as important. Without going overboard, I would say that your antagonist and your protagonist are the two main characters. Your good guy is only as good as the bad he has to fight, yeah?

A compelling antagonist gets us involved. Either we care about him, and feel conflicted, or his unpredictability keeps us tense, insecure. We don’t know what to think about this person. Is he really bad? Or, what’s he really planning to do?

On the flip-side, a neglected antagonist is predictable. If we know what to think, we don’t need to get involved. It’s not any more compelling than the last evil dude we read about. So, ask yourself:

How do you feel about your antagonist? It will translate directly to how the reader feels. If your antagonist doesn’t surprise you, he won’t surprise us. If you don’t like him, we won’t like him. Whatever you want your readers to feel, you have to feel first – so develop it.

Is your antagonist sympathetic, surprising, conflicted, compelling? Sympathy happens when we relate to a character. We see a side of ourselves that we didn’t expect to see, a glimpse of humanity, of truth, of weakness. Surprise comes with unpredictability or by a reversal of what we expect.

Make your antagonist act in ways he doesn’t understand. Make him lost in denial. Give him issues he doesn’t want to confront – give him conflict. This happens when your antagonist wants two opposing things with an equal passion, and doesn’t know which to choose. If your antagonist has a purpose in your novel, give him an equally compelling reason why he doesn’t want to fulfill that purpose. Any of the above will make your villain compelling.

Think of key scenes in your antagonist’s side of the story, then write them. They’ll help you get inside your antagonists head and force you to think of him like a real human being, not just some force of evil. You don’t have to keep the scenes. However, do find a few places somewhere in your novel to develop your antagonist.

 

Every human being can relate to two things: the need to do good, and the urge to do evil. Everyone has tried to be good. Everyone has been bad. This is a huge part of what makes fictional characters so compelling. One character is good; we root for him. One is bad; we’re jealous. We want it both ways.

The fight between the protagonist and the antagonist is one we fight ourselves, in a minor way. The only real difference between your villain and your hero is that at the end, one tries to change, and one does not. Make readers feel this struggle. Make them experience it. If you do, they’ll continue to remember that struggle long after the book ends.

 

 – Creative A

Characterization and Backstory: Secret Sin #5

It’s vital that readers understand our characters. These are people to us, with faces we can see and voices we can hear. We know everything about them, down to the lint in Richard’s pockets and the cracks in Damian’s bathroom mirror. If we can see them, our reader should too, right? In truth, too much description can dumb our character’s down in the reader’s eyes.

This is a tricky sin. The issue too much/too little description is hard to define. There’s nothing wrong with fleshing out your protagonist. There’s nothing wrong with creating a clear image of how they look. And a bundle of quirks isn’t going to upset anybody. The sin is not how many traits Richard has, but how you reveal these traits to the reader.

There’s two ways of characterization. You can reveal things about your character, or you can introduce them. An introduction is just how it sounds: “Look, this is Richard. He wears leather jackets and likes flexing his biceps in not-so-subtle ways.” Revealing someone is subtler, more gradual. “Damian tugged the edge of her skirt farther down her calf, wishing her legs weren’t so long, and that this skirt wasn’t quite so short.”

It feels natrual to introduce – a new character walks on the scene, and we want to know what they look like. What kind of accent do they have? What clothes are they wearing? How about their hair, skin color, eyes?…

If you tell us everything you know right away, you’ve simplified the character. There’s nothing to discover. The character become a grocery-list of quirks, looks, and metaphors. Try too hard to one them round, and it actually becomes flat. (This isn’t a bad thing – as long as that’s all the character was meant to be.)

A similar dumbing down happens with backstory as well. I have noticed a lot of novels that dump the backstory on you like so many rocks. It’s a very blatant, “I’m screwed up, and here’s why” type of thing. Either that, or the writer throws you a rubber ducky. This is when a character’s actions are explained by one simple event from their past. People are shaped by series of events and reactions; a rubber-ducky backstory make us loose respect for the character.

Backstory is a powerful tool. If you dumb it down or simplify it, we loose respect for the character. It’s a subtle thing that needs to be revealed piece by piece.

I remember one of Robert Crais’ characters, Joe Pike. Pike has a less-than-astounding backstory: he had an abusive father, spent a few years in the Marines, became an LA cop, and then a private detective. Now he’s a sort of Zen, enclosed, quietly dangerous guy that wears sunglasses and never smiles. In every book Crais peels back another layer of Pike’s psyche. The revelations are simple, non-dramatized, and very honest. Flashbacks relate to previous scenes. When the epiphany comes, it’s an understanding of how Pike has been shaped by his collective past.  The backstory is effective because you learn about it in digestible increments, the same way you get to know Pike.

 

Effective characterization.

I know I’ve presented a problem here: you can’t go about avoiding all character descriptions, or put off developing the backstory. So how do you introduce a character? What if they need describing? What if the backstory is essential to know about right away, up front? How do you avoid these sins and still work in the important stuff?

First: avoid dumping. Yup – “dumping” as in “info-dumping.” Spread things out so they feel natural, revealed. Avoid the systematic head-to-toe method of describing, and don’t insert descriptions just because you can.

Use flashbacks that add depth as well as explanation. A good flashback presents as many questions as it answers. Avoid epiphanies and rubber duckies that dumb down the real effect of your backstory.

Second: You’ve heard me say this before, and I’m saying it again – use only what is pertinent to a scene. Make sure the backstory you uncover relates to your previous scenes, and upcoming ones, in surprising ways (if possible.)

Try to write how your character would actually think. For example, when you play with your hair, you don’t think how it’s blond and luxurious. But many characters do just that. It forces the description out into the open, making blatant and fake. Try rooting out as many of these as possible; re-write a scene in first person if you have to.

 

One final point about introducing vs. revealing: when you introduce something, that’s all it’s supposed to be. There’s nothing more to learn, nothing more to discover. But when you reveal something, the revelations keep coming. You continue to peel back layers and add dimensions. It’s like getting to know someone: at first, one or two things about them may strike you; a funny hat they wear, or the way they always shrug one shoulder. Then as you get to know them better, this first impression gives way to a deeper understanding of who they are. Effective characterization takes you on this same path of discovery.

Similar posts:

More on Duckies. (This isn’t from my blog, but it’s a great follow-up to the rubber ducky post I linked to before.)

  

- Creative A