YA character advice

by Stacey

I am a big fan of the PNWA (Pacific Northwest Writer's Association) and their annual conference, which I attended a few years back. Their website, newsletter, and blog are full of really informative advice for unpublished writers, as well as often inspirational stories of authors getting published. This recent piece from their website by book doctor Jason Black talks about a very important distinction in paranormal YA fiction between a character's success in the story coming from ordinary human qualities versus some type of paranormal ability. Black claims Harry Potter worked so well on an emotional level that resonated so deeply with readers because many of his most important moments came from noble human qualities, like self-sacrifice, rather than his other wordly abilities. He poses the question if you are writing a YA novel, does your protagonist need to possess these paranormal qualities, or could he/she succeed without them? Black argues that having a character's success come from a supernatural ability can send a discouraging message to readers because it makes it less inspiring for ordinary kids. An example he uses is James Patterson's Maximum Ride series, where the characters would fail without their powers. This series has not had the kind of impact or success that Harry Potter has. He concludes, and I agree, that without his powers, Harry Potter would still be a hero. This is an important distinction to consider when drafting your character sketches and plot points.

It's worth thinking about what he has to say, even if you choose not to follow his advice. Seeing your work from a different or new perspective is always a good way of gauging its success. For those of you writing paranormal YA or thinking about it, take a read and let us know what you think.

Gender Talk

by Stephanie

Lauren brought this link to my attention this morning, and I had to share with you.  The people at OverthinkingIt.com created a fantastic flowchart representing the one- and two-dimensional female characters that repeatedly appear in contemporary fiction.  First of all, I never met a flowchart I didn’t like.  But I really enjoyed this one because it puts a tongue-in-cheek spin on something that manages to appear over and over in literature.  And as the accompanying article points out, while there certainly are male stereotypes out there, there seem to be far more female characters whose development gives in to the stereotypes.  Which makes me wonder if it is, for some reason, more challenging to construct a female character not entrenched in these stereotypes. What’s the deal with that?

via PW’s Genreville

The unsympathetic protagonist

by Jessica

I just finished reading Ian McEwan’s Solar, which is smart, spare and unlike most McEwan novels, funny. At its center, however, is a pompous, self-absorbed, appetitive Nobel Prize winning physicist, whose faults are many and endearing qualities few. That he is painted as such a unredeemably selfish guy, a serial philanderer (five wives, countless affairs), flagrant plagiarist, and a monstrous—even criminal—liar, means that readers are not encouraged to develop much of a rapport with this great man of science. Instead, his weaknesses and flaws are anatomized with devastating accuracy. His self-justifications, moral elisions, and robust self-esteem are completely recognizable. That a man who is a poster child for all seven of the deadly sins does not come across as a caricature of Vice in a morality play is impressive. Yet much as I admired McEwan’s mordant wit and obvious flair for satire, Solar points up the problem of the unsympathetic protagonist. Though I don’t require my main characters to be likeable—the prickly, the badly-behaved and the wicked are usually more interesting than their more blameless counterparts—when the point of view rests entirely on the limited perceptions of the Unsympathetic Protagonist, it takes a skilled writer to craft a satisfying, engaging, emotionally resonant novel. The thought of spending so much time in the company of so unpleasant a person (even when said person is imaginary) can be off-putting.

This is a conundrum that agents and editors encounter most every day. An agent or editor’s inability to connect with or “root for” a main character is one of the most frequently cited reasons that he or she will pass on a submission, so be advised that placing a thoroughly awful person at the center of your narrative will likely make your job even tougher (though mostly awful can work). Even a critical darling like McEwan seems to have trouble managing his creation—most reviews were lukewarm at best, and while McEwan’s thieving glutton was not the novel’s only problem, most critics cited his odious personality as a considerable hurdle, so keep an eye on your own Frankenstein’s monster.

This is not to say that fiction should be peopled by the virtuous; there are plenty of wonderful, awful characters that carry a novel. Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair, Tom Ripley from The Talented Mr. Ripley, Max in Where the Wild Things Are. Fans of Lolita point to Humbert Humbert, or Bret Easton Ellis’ titular American Psycho, though these two fellows leave me cold. What do you think? Is an unsympathetic heroine a turn off? Who are some antiheroes worth getting to know?

The emotional life of a character

by Stacey

With a strong interest in psychology combined with a more obvious interest in books, I thought there were some interesting pearls of advice in this piece. It suggests using a well-known psychological concept, "The Five Stages of Grief", to create a character's response to anything they might be going through in a meaningful, believable way. He coins the stages for the purposes of character development "The Five Stages of Misfortune", a clever way of spinning this to apply to fiction. I read so many submissions where I find the characters don't handle their emotional life in a satisfying or realistic way, and it definitely impacts the overall success of a story. Like Jason Black, I'm not convinced that each of these stages of misfortune needs to be followed in every case, since not all misfortunes are created equal and you don't want an overly dramatic reaction to a relatively minor problem, as his example of stubbing a toe illustrates. But I do think it's important to keep reminding yourself as you are writing that all your characters need to be fleshed out in big and small ways depending on what they are going through in their emotional life. Using these guidelines as a reference is a good tool for that.