character development | Rebecca Thomas Designs

The Pointless Main Character

character development, creative arts, writing View Comments

Aug 182010

Character development is a known issue of mine. With very few exceptions, the majority of my main characters are uninteresting. They lack something. Some lack a backbone, which is odd given that I’m the one writing them. An amazing number of them lack any sort of drive or goal. Others just flat out lack personality.

Alexandra Williams, the main character of my favorite NaNovel that I’ve ever worked on (the one I’m currently trying to beat into something readable), falls into that second category. Originally, these weird guys roughly her age asked her to help them find one of her contemporaries, and she was only too happy to go along for the sake of going along. She had no other reason for being interested in the case.

Actually, she kind of reminds me of a character I once played in a pick-up game, one who could have happily remained at the tavern eating her dinner because there was absolutely nothing interesting to her about the events going on.

Unlike that character, though, Alex played her role well within the plot of the story. It could have been any other archaologist in the world, but Alex really made it her own little quest. Eventually, I revised things to a point where she was suddenly a decent choice for the job because the missing archaeologist was her father’s old friend and colleague, but Alex herself had little to do with the choice. If she’d had a sibling who was also an archaeologist, that sibling would have been just as valid a choice.

Even with the family connection, Alex’s only real reason for working on this particular case is because she was asked. And she comes out of it with a broken ankle and a better understanding of an obscure culture she’d never heard of prior to the story. Alex is a strong, confident young woman who makes it clear early on that she pretty much does whatever she chooses to do, and she just goes along with first a research assistant and then some scary guys roughly her age.

And she’s the protagonist.

I think Alex illustrates a lot about where my main characters fail, and she gives me a lot to think about while I’m trying to make her into a better character and trying to research character development. I sometimes wonder if I stay with this manuscript because I can see so many opportunities to learn more about crafting a good story.

This Novel Isn't Working

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May 312010

I think there are one or two of you who know I’m working on editing one of my early NaNoWriMo manuscripts. I’ve been wrestling with it off and on for the last year. At first, I thought the problem was that the bad guys and artifact that serves as the entire point of the story both vanished for 95% of the story. Unintentionally. And without good reason. So, I broke out Writer’s Cafe, deconstructed the existing manuscript into a storyboard, and then figured out where and how I wanted the bad guys to pop up occasionally. I wrote the new script, and found there was still a problem I couldn’t put my finger on.

I decided going over the story scene by scene would be the best approach (after a friend convinced me that the original opening was the stronger opening), so I read through the opening scene, dutifully making notes and figuring out the best parts of the original opening scene and its rewrite in the new manuscript so I could merge them together. Things were going well. I was finding some good places to make the story stronger and to lay down elements to be picked up later in the story.

And then I found the problem.

There is absolutely no reason for my main character to be in this story. Outside of her father’s connection to another character, there is nothing about the character herself that would provoke her into joining this little adventure.

Every time I’ve opened the manuscript or my notes over the last couple of months has been with an eye to figuring out what my main character wants and why she would be willing to go along when a creepy spirit girl tells her to. I’ve realized I can’t continue editing until I find this character’s place in the world, and in the story.

Really…maybe it’s a sign that I need to just clean up the section I’m working on as best I can and then let it go and work on something else for a while until the character decides that seven years is really too long to go without letting her writer in on more of her little secrets.

Create365: The Reluctant Hero

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Apr 162010

“The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.” – Umberto Eco

Recently, I started listening to the Writing Excuses podcast. When Rhythmbox downloaded the feed, it caught part of third season as well as all of the current season, and there was an episode on anti-heroes and the debate surrounding the term in writing. The day after I heard that, one of the freelancing sites pointed to tutsplus’ new area: Creative Sessions. Lessons designed to help you grow a creative skill. The first one is creating the anti-hero as a character illustration. There are a series of articles to help you grow your skills (they’re about halfway through for this first session), and a project. But everything wanted me thinking about anti-heroes, so off I went.

My project reflects my writing background as it came out as an anti-hero of the reluctant variety. (I’m trying to decide if my drawing skill is improving at all.)

I even realized that a story scrap I wrote last year while working through Gotham Writing Workshop’s Writing Fiction would go well with my poor character:

Sam wasn’t sure if it was a wonderful sign or a sign of disaster, but Sam knew it was worth noting. And it was probably best walked away from. Why court disaster when one could just as easily avoid it? She started putting one foot behind the other, slowly backing away and casting shifty glances to the shadows around her to make sure no one saw her, the light, or her cowardice.

But each step became more difficult. Each time she tried to lift her foot, it felt like she was trying to pull it out of tar. She refused to look down for fear she’d find herself sinking in a pit of quicksand more common to the desert regions of the south. But she kept going, fighting the ground and her own body as she went.

The light seemed to chase her, or at least grew brighter, as she went.

“No,” she whispered, “you don’t want to come with me. I’m nobody. I promise. At best, I always have my nose stuck in a book, or I’m in the library helping to sort and shelve the books there. I’m boring.”

The light continued growing. The trees around her cast longer, darker shadows that bent around the light to create a cave-like shape.

Sam didn’t know what to make of it. She had spoken the truth. As far as her village was concerned, she was the bookish, awkward girl who had just last week thrown a heavy volume of Tandor’s history at the boy every girl fawned over. She wasn’t far from being like that girl in the traveling bard’s story, the one who fell asleep reading by her fireplace.

Sam had no delusions that some fairy godmother was waiting to wave her magic wand or that she was fated to end up with some charming prince, but the fact she couldn’t shake was that this light was causing her to start questioning her beliefs.

Classic Characters

animation, character development, writing View Comments

Mar 092010

I’ve often read that what makes a classic cartoon character is the character’s ability to fit into any time and space. Bugs Bunny could walk the streets of France, sing an opera, and run away from a (rather inept) hunter. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles can face the Shredder in modern-day New York, New York of the future, and cyberspace. Mickey Mouse can drive a steamboat, enchant brooms, and still find time to court Minnie Mouse.

It works that way in books, too. Look at the Nancy Drew books. Nancy solves cases all over the world, and has for decades. Children’s picture books like the Arthur series feature similar timeless characters who can move naturally between very different situations.

These characters are strong in their own personality. They’re defined more by what they do and how they do it rather than by where they do it, and that gives them a flexibility that allows them to draw viewers or readers in and drag them along on their adventures. That, in turn, gives them a timelessness that allows them to reach out to different generations, making them truly classic.

But guys get a bad rap, too!

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Jan 292010

As I pointed out the other day, for all the ways we girls complain about how hard it is to get anywhere because we’re girls, the guys really don’t have it easier. Sure, there are a lot of ways in which society favors guys, but there are also points where guys can (and sometimes do) cry foul.

For example, if a guy is emotionally sensitive (and isn’t funny that we’d call a guy “emotionally sensitive” while we womenfolk are just “sensitive”?), he gets picked on for being weak. If he’s gentle and compassionate, he’s derisively called “effeminate”. And if he aspires to “women’s work”, then his sexuality gets challenged (and if he’s lucky, that’s all that happens to him).

The guys just don’t have it any easier when their actions and dreams lead them in a path not traditionally considered “masculine”, and they have to fight to prove that what they’re doing, the choices they’re making, don’t make them any less of a man. They’re just trying to be who they want to be.

Sound familiar, girls?

And like us girls, guys are getting bad messages from media, too. It’s the tough, strong guy who gets the pretty girl. Or it’s flawless Prince Charming. One of my favorite examples comes from a Lifehack article showing how boy-targeted action figures have changed since I was playing with Star Wars and G.I.Joe action figures. What? Now in order to save the galaxy, you have to look like He-Man? I don’t think so!

Oh, and being a smart guy? You’d better be smart in just the right way, or you’re a nerd looking to get pushed into a wall of lockers…or the wall of the conference room. Whatever’s handy for the resident tough guy.

So, we women have a fight on our hands getting the right to become the people we want to be…but we’re not alone. A lot of guys are right there with us, fighting for their own right to be who they want to be, too.

It’s something to think about…

Reverse perception

animation, character development, writing View Comments

Jan 262010

Last week, I focused on the messages media can inadvertently send girls. And that’s where a lot of people stop: “Oh, no! Look at what media is doing to our girls!”

Yeah, well, girls aren’t the only ones affected. Look at action/adventure cartoons with a mostly-female cast, and then look at the token guy. Yep, I said it: token guy. It’s like someone decided that the only way you can create a girl-centered action is by inverting the boy-centered action cartoon structure. A bunch of strong girls and a wimpy or subservient guy.

Really, what happened is that they wrote the base of the cartoon with the characters in their “traditional” gender roles, and then just swapped the genders of all the characters. (I want to say I’m kidding, but I have actually seen this technique recommended. I can only hope no one has ever taken it seriously.)

Assuming that there’s even a hair of truth to it, though, male characters don’t have to be weakened to make the female characters around them look strong. In fact, to do that creates a whole new problem. It starts sending the lesson to both girls and boys that it’s okay to turn the tables rather than find equal footing, a mindset that has failed repeatedly throughout history.

Why can’t we promote characters who are strong and capable, regardless of their gender? Why does one side have to be put down so the other can be promoted?

Hope for princesses

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Jan 212010

This morning, I came across some links that fit in nicely with my post from Tuesday.

First, I came across an entertaining video on Target Women about the Disney Princesses. I balk at the inclusion of Mulan, who is not a princess, and I feel that Briar Rose/Aurora’s situation wasn’t well-explained, but other than that, I couldn’t stop laughing. What I did like, and what might have been a sheer accident on Target Women’s part, is that Sarah Haskins does point out how formulaic the Disney movies are.

Hopefully, I’ll have time over the weekend to watch more of the videos.

The other link brings a small ray of hope. In wondering how harmful these princesses are to our little princesses, Eric Steinman included this wonderful quote from Peggy Orenstein:

“there are no studies proving that playing princess directly damages girls’ self-esteem or dampens other aspirations. On the other hand, there is evidence that young women who hold the most conventionally feminine beliefs–who avoid conflict and think they should be perpetually nice and pretty–are more likely to be depressed than others and less likely to use contraception.”

So, while little girls love to play princess, it might not be as harmful to their self-image as it could be. That’s great!

Of course, in watching and reading this morning, I started thinking about my own childhood. I loved Disney movies, but Mom made sure I had access to the fairy tales these movies were based on so I didn’t see the world through a Disney Princess filter. I was also an assertive girl from the get-go. I was the princess who ran off into action with everyone else. In fact, it wasn’t until I was an adult in a LARP that I suddenly found myself playing the Damsel in Distress on rare occasions.

I think there’s something to Orenstein’s quote. How the Disney Princesses affect you, what lessons you absorb from them, are dictated to some extent by the kind of girl you already are.

The Token Girl

character development, gaming View Comments

Jul 242009

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been keenly aware of female characters in the everything I read or watch. I love a good strong female character, but was always very aware that there just weren’t that many, protagonist or otherwise, in the action series I was fond of.

I was so aware of how few girls there were that by middle school, I was calling characters like Gloria Baker and R.C. “token girls”, a term I still apply to the girl character in a group of guys. I was keenly aware of the token girl in every cartoon I watched or book I read. I resented when Gloria was knocked unconscious and one of the men had to rescue her. When Artemis Entreri took Catti-Brie hostage, I was nearly ready to walk out on IceWind Dale.

Playing with my boy cousins, I was invariably the person who got kidnapped by the “bad guy”. (I was always fairly well-treated by my captor, too.) When I grew up and fell in with a LARP crowd, I often found myself the only girl around and therefore the damsel in distress during games. Sometimes, both as a child an an adult, I didn’t really care because it made sense with the storyline of the game. But then there were times where it was clear that the caveman thinking went: She’s a girl. Girls always get kidnapped by the bad guy. Let’s go to great lengths to kidnap her in favor of a more easily snagged guy. And I protested.

There are plenty of examples where the token girl is allowed to just be part of the team, but there aren’t enough of them to have a strong impact on children, their games, and the stories they create.

Become indispensable

character development, finding my path View Comments

Jun 192009

These days, people are concerned about their job security and with good reason. No industry is safe from it. At my current job, we’re all facing reduced hours just trying to get through this. It’s tough to do your best when you know that tomorrow you might lose your job. You can guard against downsizing by making do with what you have and by acting the role you want to move to. You can also protect yourself by becoming the person the staff can’t imagine functioning without.

Now understand, being the “go-to” person is rough in many ways. You have to keep your ears and eyes open so you know what’s going on, even if no one has told you. You have to provide timely and beneficial advice, ideas, and work results. This doesn’t mean you have to be the best at everything, but it is helpful if you can produce consistent, high-quality work. It even helps to get along well with your co-workers. You don’t have to make them your best friends, but you should at least be cordial, know their names, etc.

Of course, once you’ve become that person no one wants to make do without, be careful. If you don’t set clear boundaries, people may start taking advantage of those skills and attitudes that made you indispensable to begin with, and that only leads to burning out. Do it with the same thoughtfulness and respect, and it should be smooth sailing for you and for those you work with.

Fake it till you make it

character development, finding my path View Comments

Jun 172009

Being thrust into an unfamiliar situation can be rough. You have no idea what you need to know or are expected to know, and sometimes you’re pretty sure your current skills aren’t enough.

Relax! The first step in making yourself believe you belong there is acting like you have every right to be there. A little projected confidence goes a long way toward making everyone (including you) that you belong there. You can be a complete mess on the inside, but no one will ever guess that as long as you act with confidence.

The second step is to keep up the act. It sounds crazy, but maintaining the act requires you to learn and practice the skills you’re pretending to have. Before you know it, you’re no longer acting. You’re doing.

You can even move yourself into that dream job by pretending you already have it and doing what others in that role already do. You pick up the skills and attitudes you’ll need.

With a little confidence and a lot of learning, you can turn things around and make a more successful situation for yourself.

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But guys get a bad rap, too!

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