Mar
Learning From our Favorite Movies.
We all have our favorite movies. What drives our own stories? What compels us to buy and watch our favorite movies over and over?
Well, they must all have great plots, of course. Agents and producers are in constant search mode for stories with that ‘certain spark,’ the one that sets our story apart from the others that rest in the mountainous piles on their desks (or so I’ve heard quite frequently, via the U.S Mail.)
Yes, the mountain at times seems insurmountable. But listen to these things, and know if you achieve them, you will realize your dream:
- Make sure your work is well written.
- Twist one of the infamous 36 plots in existence into your own unique voice.
- Utilize one or more of these four motivations (revenge, reunion, possession and/or escape) in your story.
- Follow the rules you’ve learned, or at least break them in the right way.
- Be patient, persistent, and in the right place at the right time.
Has anyone noticed I’ve left anything out?
Characters. We can’t forget our characters. Because if we do, all the plot in the world isn’t going to make our readers wait breathlessly for our next book.
When we develop our characters, we must make our readers fall in love with them. If our hero and heroine can’t be sympathized with, if we can’t make our reader root for them, our work will be met with a lukewarm reception at best, or described as ‘wallbangers’ at worst. Word of mouth can be the best or worst advertisement an author can get.
So many times, fictional characters, especially in the Romance genre, are ridiculed when the media and other uninformed critics discuss them. Heroes are either described as a knight in shining armor or the Ultimate Man with perfect eyes, perfect teeth, perfect body, perfect manners, etc etc. Heroines are a mix between Mother Theresa and Miss Kitty. How utterly boring!
In truth, what makes a character more endearing are the imperfections they struggle with every day. We want them to overcome internal and external conflict and obtain the prize they deserve.
So what are some examples of sympathetic characters? For this blog, I’ll use characters from movies.
Forrest Gump. Well, what can we say about good ol’ Forrest? When we first see him, in his stark white suit and buttoned up collar, we think ‘here’s a goofy guy.’ When he opens his mouth, perhaps more than a few of us laugh at him. But somewhere along the way, a transition takes place, as it should.
As the story progresses, we pity him, we cheer for him, experience
amusement at his unwitting impact on historical figures and events. We cry when he experiences the death of his mother, his best friend, and finally the love of his life, Jenny. We sigh as he protects those he loves, at his firm faith in God, and his gentle love for again his friends, family, and Jenny. We cheer as he evades bullies, overcomes his physical limitations, is awarded the Medal of Honor.
For a while, we see the world through his simplistic point of view. We experience laughter, tenderness, outrage, sadness, pride, passion, anger, devotion, faith, love and courage. Quite a lot, isn’t it?
In the end, he is rewarded with someone to love, and someone who loves him in return, without conditions-his son.
Melvin Udall , the protagonist in As Good As It Gets, is a man you almost hate to love. He is vile, his language foul, his manner is selfish. With Melvin, at first, we experience disgust, dislike, and disappointment, wondering if this is really supposed to be the hero of the story. Again, a transition takes place.
We see he can be intimidated, this is the first crack in his shell. Then we see how attached he becomes to his neighbor’s dog. Well, then, he can’t be that bad can he? We see his crush on Carol the Waitress, and know he does experience feelings of love and desire. We see him fight to overcome what we have come to know as his illness. We witness how he, in spite of himself, overcomes his prejudices.
We are moved by his generosity when he foots the bill for medical care for Carol’s son, and are amused when he covers by saying he wanted to do it so she would come back to work and serve his breakfast. True, he might have meant it, but here we again see a crack in his shell. He is confused by his own motivation.
With Melvin, we experience disgust, distaste, surprise, amusement, pity, compassion and love.
In return for learning some hard life lessons, Melvin is rewarded with a chance to live a normal life and experience love with Carol.
So how do we develop characters like these and many others we adore?
After our ideas are bestowed upon us by the idea fairies, we must decide who we want to take part in them. How the characters come to us is a personal thing, sometimes planned out, sometimes they just appear in our minds without invitation, then we build our stories around them. What can we do to make our characters lovable?
1. Character Sketches. Some find it helpful to do character outlines or interviews. An example of outlines can be found several places. Another can be found in the Writer’s Digest Sourcebook Building Believable Characters. An interview would be like an interview with a regular person, only you pose the question to your character.
2. Choose your names carefully. When I first started writing, I was taught not to get too attached to titles of your work or to the names of your characters. While this is true, I once read an article by Lorraine Heath that made perfect sense. Essentially, the article says part of making our characters memorable comes in carefully choosing a name for them. Even if you have to change it later, it can help you develop your character’s personality. Look everywhere. Baby name books, books about the history and origins of names are wonderful to explore.
One favorite example I have comes from the movie When Harry Met Sally. The main characters in this film are Harry Burns and Sally Albright. Harry is a pessimistic man, one who reads the ending of a book so he’ll know how it ends in case he dies before he finishes it. A man who has literally been burned by events in his life at one point or another. Sally is described by Harry himself as being “Miss Hospital Corners.” She is eternally bright, optimistic, organized and cheerful. Burns and Albright. See how the names fit? Yet despite the oil and water aspect of their relationship, they manage to learn from each other and eventually fall into the happy ending.
3. Stop, look, and listen. Sound familiar? Become a people watcher. Before I became a writer, I used to wonder why there were always these people who sat at the mall and did nothing but watch people. Then, in a workshop, the value of this pastime was revealed to me. You can learn so much about human nature, reactions, dialogue, mood, appearance, expressions, by just taking the time to observe. Recently, I went to our Tri-State Fair. Mecca for people watchers. Parents and children (”You be at the Ferris Wheel by seven or you know what’ll happen.” “Mom, Dad, look at the pretty lights!”) Couples (”Remember when we met, right there, on the Midway?) People in it for the food (”Ribs on a stick. This should be interesting since half my teeth are missin’.”) I swear, that’s what the lady actually said to me.
4. Keep Notes. Be sure to keep a small notebook with you, if at all possible. You never know when inspiration will strike anyway, but it would be a shame if you couldn’t remember a particular phrase that is a gem. My grandmother, for example, comes up with some doozies. Once when referring to a vacuum cleaner salesman, she said, “He couldn’t run fast enough to GIVE it to me.” That one’s mine, so don’t use it.
5. Turn inward. This, my friends, is one of the most difficult things you may ever have to do. What makes you laugh? What makes you cry? What frightens you? How did you feel when someone you loved died? What would you do to protect someone you love? Did your world ever shatter when someone you gave your heart to didn’t love you back? One book that has helped me with this difficult task was the Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron. Others have read and love Bird by Bird, by Anne LaMotte.
- However you choose to develop your characters, be sure to make them real people, with real hopes and desires. Be sure to make them someone people can fall in love with. After all, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?
Great blog April.
Just because I’m curious, what is your H/H’s names and why did you decide on them?
I agree with you, in movies if they don’t have a strong character the movie will fall flat really fast. Unless your watching one of those “I’ve lost brain cells while watching this” type movie.
I think for a strong character I’d have to pick Sally Field in Places in the Heart.
March 28th, 2006 at 3:28 amHi April,
Wow, kudos on today’s blog. I can’t wait to get home to comment on it.
Hugs,
March 28th, 2006 at 9:31 amIsabel
Great blog! Wow! You’ve given me something to think about.
March 28th, 2006 at 10:30 amThanks, y’all. Well, Haven, I have to admit, this time my characters seemed to name themselves. And I didn’t argue when Maddie and Quinn told me that’s the way it was going to be!
March 28th, 2006 at 12:11 pmThis is a very interesting and thorough blog! Wow.. And I’m just going to write about a movie, and here’ we’ve got a really thought through topic *cough.. feeling like an idiot.. cough*
You’re right though, a movie (and books) depend greatly on the characters. I have to admit (and someone might want to stone me after this) that when I watched Wuthering Heights (the one with Ralph Fiennes) I had to turn it off. I could not watch it. I apologize to all Brontë lovers, but I HATED both Heathcliff and Catherine.
I found her self-absorbed and uncaring, and he was spoilt and crazy. He killed some fledglings because she wasn’t there to watch them with him!!
I’m sorry, if I’d continued watching maybe they redeemed themselves. But I just couldn’t watch them anymore, I didn’t see any endearing qualities in either of their personalities.
The same problems can be with books. If you don’t find any endearing or interesting quality in your protagonist/s, then you won’t like the book.
I have to admit that I like the ‘no brainer’ movies sometimes. It’s good for when I’m too tired to concentrate. But then other times I need to see the proper thing. I want well thought out characters with believable reactions and goals. I want to feel what they feel (so I also want good actors *g*) and admittedly I’m a real weeper when watching movies, but there does need to be some credibility.
Now, slightly changing the subject. I’m just curious now, speaking of names and all that they imply… For writers; what names do your hero/heroine have, and do you have a reason behind it? For anyone; do you have a favourite name, and a reason for it?
March 28th, 2006 at 2:30 pmAre you asking me? I definitely have some thought-over names in my ms.
My hero’s name is Jonathan Hart, Lord Rader: Jonathan, because that is the only name I could see him with. It has to do with the person I modeled him after…he can only ever be Jonathan. Nothing else sounds right. Hart, because I knew a guy in college who was VERY hot, and since we were in ROTC and everyone got called by their prefix & last name (Miss K sounds so great being screamed across the courtyard) we all knew him as Mr. Hart. People who have read my WIP are nodding and going. Ohhh! And then Rader, still being debated as his title, is the last name of the guy I was supposed to marry. Ha. He never saw it that way. But in a perfect world, I would be Mrs. Rader. Lovely.
Then my heroine, her name’s been a real b*tch. I originally named her Annabelle, after my best friend from when I was like 2 years old until middle school. I think you can all guess why I changed her name–there’s soooo many “belle” names out now. Then I named her Senna, trying to get more American Indian. I chose the name from a list of American wildflowers. Here’s the thing: the medicinal property of senna is that it can be used as a laxative. Ok, go ahead and laugh. Hardy-har-har. I figured no one knew that and I’m a gambling kind of girl.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, since it didn’t get published that way), I found out that is common knowledge because I nearly got beaned with a gigantic yellow box labeled SENNA LAXATIVE one sick adventure in Target. Obviously, I had to change it. Now her name is what it should have been from the start, had I not been so long in deciding what tribe of Indian she would be: Kisahthoi (alternately Kitha and Kit in the ms). Her last name is simple: Wallingford. I’m not going to talk about how I got that name…it was too easy. Anyone else?
March 28th, 2006 at 6:35 pmWell, for my WIP character names…
My Heroine’s name is Delia Muir. And yes, Muir is a Scottish name, look it up.
She, and the hero Damian were secondary characters in the first book, and now they’re having their own story.
Delia’s full name is Cordelia Muir, and I started writing it as Cordelia, but it got shortened to Delia, which I like personally, it rolls off the tongue.
March 28th, 2006 at 9:12 pmNow, my hero is Damian Fraser. The oldest of 6 children. I had seen the spelling of the name in different ways. From Damien, to Demiem. I like Damian with an A.
I have the notebook in my purse, which I take with me everywhere, just in case I need to write notes, or inspiration strikes.
Michelle
To answer my own question…
I can’t really remember where I got my names from. The reason for this is that for my MSs I’m using characters that I created when I was maybe 12-14 years old. My story is actually a merge of two short stories that I started writing when I was young (just really really fleshed out and changed to fit where needed).
I had a story of four sisters - the Howertys (and each girl was meant to get her own story, but I only ever got started on the first one.. I did that a lot. I have probably 200 short stories started and never finished). That one was a Regency historical. It was about the eldest sister - Jessica - and a man named Jacob.
The second story was actually a contemporary, about Angel (who was being abused by her boyfriend) and her brother’s friend Nathaniel.
I don’t know where the names came from. Nathaniel is a name I’ve always liked, so I’m not too surprised about that one. The rest of them just kind of… fit.
Anyway, I merged these two stories.. and now I have the Howertys - Nathaniel and his three sisters (Jessica is one). And Angel is a sister of Nathaniel’s friend. Jacob is a friend of Nathaniel’s as well (not related to Angel!)
Confusing? *lol*
About the names, my Howerty siblings are Nathaniel Howerty, Marquess of Pensington and the sisters are Jessica, Miranda (Rain) and Nicola (her first name is actually Hero, but since that’s a bit off they call her Nicola, or Nick). I realised at some point that three of the siblings (incidentally) had names from Shakespeare’s plays. So I gave Nick a Shakespeare name too, since obviously (cough) their mother loved Shakespeare and named them all from his writings.
Jacob… Hmm.. I dunno, he’s just Jacob. At this point I seriously cannot think of him with any other name. Same with Nathaniel. But Jacob, he’s special. He already had a bit of character from the short story, but when he appeared in A ROSE FOR ANGEL (Nathaniel’s and Angel’s story) he took form fully, more so than I had expected. I have a crush on this character. I can’t help it.
Ok, going to stop writing now. Sorry for boring you all!
Anyone else want to share something about their characters?
March 29th, 2006 at 5:17 amI do, I have something to say on character names…but I can’t comment ’til I get home.
Pls, be patient and check back after tonight
March 29th, 2006 at 10:52 amIsabel
As for my WIP character names…
My heroine’s name is Amelia Scott and she goes by Mia. Amelia is my aunt’s name, and she also goes by Mia. That was simple.
My hero, on the other hand, started off as Jack. But then I read so many books with Jack as the hero. I changed it to Gabriel, but it just didn’t “fit” him. Now it’s Nicholas, or Nick, because that name is just so HOT…and it fits him, too. His title (which could change) is the Duke of Armwood. Armwood being where my husband graduated from high school. LOL
I have pulled a lot of names and titles from streets, neighborhoods, sports players, etc. I won’t use them unless they sound right together.
My two cents.
March 29th, 2006 at 12:15 pmAndrea
Brava! April, this blog has been so helpful to me. I’m printing it and adding it to my book of resources.
Ok on names: I have the most difficult time naming my heroes. I’ve actually typed “Hero Last Name” because I can’t come up with a name that is “just right”. Don’t get me wrong, I use several websites including http://www.babynames.com for help in this department but I have yet to come up with an idea for a story where the hero has his name ready to go.
Has this happened to anyone?
March 29th, 2006 at 9:25 pmSo for my current hero I chose Devon it’s of English origin and it means “Poet”.
Now, because I’m writing my story during Regency England I make sure to use popular names of that era. I’m not about to name my hero Anakin or Shaquille because (feel free to correct me if I’m error here) those names were not popular in Regency England. Another important thing to keep in mind is to come up with name that doesn’t confuse the reader or are difficult to pronounce.
With that said when I finally had the a name and peerage title picked for my hero, I realized that one of my favorite authors had used the title name a few books ago. I panicked! So I abandoned the title name and started my search all over again. Names are not copyright protected but still, I felt uncomfortable having a hero with the same title in his name as another hero from a favorite author. No wonder I couldn’t figure where I came up up with that title, until I read that author’s book.
No wonder I couldn’t figure where I came up up with that title, until I read that author’s book.
I meant to say “re-read” that author’s book.
Isabel
March 29th, 2006 at 9:28 pmIsabel, I realised just recently (as I re-read a Julia Quinn book) that I had the same title for a secondary character in my MS that she does for her hero *lol* And that was actually after I’d changed it from something else that was in another book.
It seems the authors out there have grabbed all the good titles already
I was actually quite horrified to see that Eloisa’s new book is called THE TAMING OF THE DUKE, since I’ve been working on an MS with the working title TAMING OF THE RAKE for the past year! I guess my title just shifted into the obsolete column *lol*
Emily
March 30th, 2006 at 1:34 pm