Your First Novel Page 7

  If you need to communicate that it's winter, show us cold weather or Christmas decorations. Snow, fire in the hearth, coats, and hats.

  If your protagonist's family is poor, show us shoes worn thin, only potatoes for dinner, broken windows taped up.

  Exposition can be narrative as the above examples or set in dialogue like the following passage from the first page of Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire.

  "But how much tape do you have with you?" asked the vampire, turning now so the boy could see his profile. "Enough for the story of a life?"

  "Sure, if it's a good life. Sometimes I interview as many as three or four people a night if I'm lucky. But it has to be a good story. That's only fair, isn't it?"

  "Admirably fair," the vampire answered.

  Whenever you can, show rather than tell us what we need to know. In some cases telling the reader certain information might be part of your narrative style, or part of a character's personality, but never tell us things you could show us just to save yourself time. Let us find out what we need to know naturally.

  BACKSTORY

  Some exposition is just the present facts—we're in a meat factory, it's 1955, it's 33°, it's Valentine's Day. Some exposition is about the past—background information—which is called backstory. If the style of your narration is enhanced by giving the reader backstory up front, as in the opening of Chocolat, go ahead and start with it. But if you find your story is slowed down by walking the reader through something like the main character's childhood or most damaging trauma, save the backstory. Bring it out later in bits and pieces to add suspense. Carefully withheld backstory can be a powerful tool for tension. Backstory, like general exposition, can be conveyed through narrative or through dialogue.

  When you decide to reveal a glimpse of your protagonist's past, place it strategically. The timing of the revelation should tell us something about the character. If she's a runaway, afraid that she's killed her abusive father, give her a trigger. Something makes her think of her past—a sight, sound, smell, taste, a cue for her bad memories to flare up. Perhaps he played a recording of Aida while he was beating her. Now opera brings back memories of his fists. The trigger could also be emotional. Whenever she feels trapped, or feels angry, or is thrown off guard, she remembers feeling afraid of his voice.

  Try to include exposition and backstory in the most natural way you can. Sometimes you can sneak it into dialogue if your character is meeting someone new, but be careful you aren't forcing characters to say things they wouldn't say naturally. Also, be warned that withholding certain information can work against you. If you are telling your story with a first-person narrator, don't wait until the last page to say, "What they didn't realize was that I myself was the serial killer!" That's cheating. (And it's already been done.)

  Here's an example of backstory revealed through dialogue from Toni Morrison's Beloved: Both the fact that Sethe, the second speaker in the example below, was scarred in a near fatal beating, and the fact that she is now able to talk about her life as a slave with such calm, show the reader a great deal about her past and who she has become.

  "What tree on your back? Is something growing on your back? I don't see nothing growing on your back."

  "It's there all the same."

  "Who told you that?"

  "Whitegirl. That's what she called it. I've never seen it and never will. But that's what she said it looked like. A chokecherry tree. Trunk, branches, and even leaves. Tiny little chokecherry leaves. But that was eighteen years ago. Could have cherries too now for all I know."

  Get inside your protagonist's head—when and how would he reflect on his backstory? Does he have a trigger that brings up a certain memory? How does his past come back to him? In flashes at inconvenient moments, in a continuing conversation with the ghost of his brother, as hallucinations, as nightmares? List all the important pieces of backstory and search for the most powerful way to interweave them.

  RECOMMENDED READING

  Conflict, Action & Suspense, by William Noble. As you define your moments, try this book for tips on conflict, suspense, and mood.

  How to Grow a Novel, by Sol Stein. Among other things, this brilliant book outlines how to capture your audience, how to use conflict to heighten drama, and how to give the reader an experience that is different from, and better than, everyday life.

  Story Structure Architect, by Dr. Victoria Lynn Schmidt. This book on story structure includes unusual topics such as "complication motifs" and how to avoid getting bogged down in the middle of your book.

  Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, by Patricia Highsmith. This fascinating book, by the author of The Talented Mr. Ripley, is full of detailed advice on creating tension in plot and character.

  Plot and Structure, by James Scott Bell. This book offers advice on such topics as what to do when your plot is off track, achieving believability, and the LOCK system (Lead, Objective, Confrontation, Knockout).

  CHAPTER FOUR:

  fleshing out your story

  CHARACTERS_

  Your characters, the people through whom you tell your story, are what make your novel worth reading. Your characters need to make the reader feel love, hate, fear, empathy, joy. The characters have to be accessible. If they aren't—if the reader cannot relate to them, if they are unlikable, if they are boring—your novel will fail, no matter how nicely you string together words and no matter how intricate your plot.

  Before you create wonderful characters, let's review the terminology. Your protagonist is your hero or main character. Your antagonist is your protagonist's opposition. Often the antagonist is a villain, but not always. In Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer, Garnett discovers that his antagonist, Nannie Rawley, is actually an ally. In Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio's antagonist, Kate, becomes his true love.

  Your protagonist or hero should be a character your readers will connect with, someone they can cheer for, worry about, and love. Someone they wish they were. Someone that seems enough like them to make them forget they are reading a story and feel like they are living one.

  (I don't use the word heroine for a female hero because to me the term sounds like an ingenue, a sweet young thing, a romantic maiden who is rescued, the pretty woman who stands at the elbow of the male protagonist. A hero, on the other hand, sounds like a brave, powerful, central character who drives the plot. So I will refer to all main characters as protagonists or heroes, regardless of gender.)

  Your protagonist might be an antihero—a protagonist who is not heroic in the traditional sense. One example of an antihero is the narrator from Patricia Highsmith's novel The Talented Mr. Ripley. Tom is a sociopath and yet, experiencing the story through his mind, we're invested in what happens to him.

  Your villain, or antagonist, should be a character your readers will fear or want to deck with a good uppercut. Someone that they believe is powerful enough to be dangerous. Your hero needs a good villain to make the story stronger. Balance your villain and hero so the fight your reader paid to see will be worth every penny.

  You can have more than one protagonist or antagonist, of course. In Marathon Man, by William Goldman, the story is told, at least at first, through two main heroes, Levy and Scylla—the separation of these two story lines and their dramatic fusion is very powerful.

  In E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime, there are at least ten main characters: a black pianist, his sweetheart, the white woman who takes the girl and her baby under her wing, the woman's old-fashioned husband, the woman's fireworks-expert brother, a model who has been sculpted in the nude, her husband (who is on trial for murder), a bigoted police officer, a wise police commissioner, and an immigrant artist. Each of their stories is so gripping that any one of these characters could have generated an entire novel.

  But if you are new to writing, it's simpler to limit the cast of your story to one hero, one central antagonist, and a few vivid secondary characters. Types of secondary characters include:

&nb
sp; The Love Interest: the sweetheart for the protagonist

  The Sidekick: a comrade for the protagonist

  The Secondary Antagonist: the second-string villain

  The Wrong Love/Antagonist: the person the protagonist should not get together with, sometimes an antagonist and sometimes not (For example, if the Wrong Love is a sweet person who is simply not the right match for the protagonist, he is not an antagonist. If the Wrong Love is lying to the protagonist, has only his own interests at heart, or has murdered the true Love Interest, he is an antagonist.) The Ally: a friend or moral refuge The Mentor: a teacher or moral guide

  Here is a short list of well-known stories and some of their characters:

  BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY Protagonist: Bridget Jones Love Interest: Mark Darcy Wrong Love: Daniel Cleaver

  THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ Protagonist: Dorothy Antagonist: Wicked Witch of the West Sidekicks: Toto, Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion Ally: Glinda

  DOCTOR ZHIVAGO

  Protagonist: Yuri Zhivago Antagonist: Victor Komarovsky Love Interest: Lara

  CINDERELLA

  Protagonist: Cinderella Love Interest: prince Antagonist: stepmother Mentor: fairy godmother Secondary Antagonists: stepsisters

  THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD Protagonist: Robin Antagonist: Sheriff of Nottingham Love Interest: Maid Marian Sidekicks: Little John, Friar Tuck Secondary Antagonist: Prince John

  Know who the most important person in your novel is and choose your point of view (POV) with care. (See chapter three for more on POV.) Remember that in most cases your hero is the person who has the most at stake in the story, who is the most active in it, the most central to it. Usually it is the protagonist who will give you your best POV.

  When you listened for your idea at the beginning of this book, you might have discovered your characters right away. If not—if your idea came as a plot or a set-ling—you will need to create characters who fit your idea. If you choose to pattern your main characters after real people, don't be too literal—unless, of course, you're writing about famous people. When Caleb Carr includes the character of Teddy Roosevelt in The Alienist, he wants to be as accurate as possible.

  If you want to create characters from people you've known—your third-grade piano teacher as your villain and your favorite uncle as your hero—fictionalize them. Harper Lee might have used her own childhood as a foundation for the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, but Atticus is not literally her own father. The same is true for novelist Pat Conroy—the families in The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides are not identical, yet both have emotional material derived from his own past.

  Combining characters can help free you from fixating on any one real person's specific actions or words. If you feel drawn to use real people as models, try creating a character who is a cross between two or three of them—a hero who is a cross between your track-star brother, your deaf cousin, and the guitar player you idolized in high school will probably end up richer than any one of those alone. This might help with villains, as well—imagine the antagonist standing in your hero's way as a cross between your dreaded gym coach, your best friend's flirtatious stepmother, and Caligula.

  The most important thing about your characters is that they engage the reader. The protagonist needs to open your reader's heart. The antagonist needs to frighten or infuriate him. And the reader has to care what happens to these characters or he'll stop reading. Here are some examples of great heroes:

  • Sir Percy Blakeney from The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy

  • Merlin from The Cyrstal Cave, by Mary Stewart

  • Jane Eyre from Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte

  • Frodo Baggins from The Lord of the Rings trilogy, byJ.R.R. Tolkien

  • Mr. Chipping from Goodbye, Mr. Chips, by James Hilton

  Now for some great villains:

  • Bill Sikes from Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens

  • Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey

  • Mr. Hyde from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson

  • Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris

  • Greg Stillson from The Dead Zone, by Stephen King

  INGREDIENTS FOR A GREAT CHARACTER

  If you are not patterning your characters after real people, you can start from scratch. Choose the sex, age, occupation, ethnicity, and social seat that would work best for your idea. For example, it might be more interesting if the doctor in your hospital drama were a low-income Egyptian woman instead of an upper-middle-class white male. It might be interesting if the nun in your convent murder mystery were seventy instead of twenty-five. Look at what the plot requires of your characters, then experiment with other aspects to see what might spice up your story. Should the hero's father be blind? Should the antagonist's son be a lawyer? Should the homeless murder victim be from a wealthy family? Should the sidekick's spouse be male or female?

  Some characters are complex, some are simple. If you are new to writing, and you're starting from scratch, first pick the basic elements of your character and dress him up with a few extras. Every important character

  should come loaded with at least one large piece of baggage, one small carry-on, and one surprise in his pocket.

  The big bag is the character's main drive—this is what makes him who he is. For instance, Indiana Jones's big bag is his quest to uncover history—in the case of his first story, the Ark of the Covenant. The carry-on bag is another important issue or characteristic that adds tension to the first. The carry-on for Indy is his love for Marion. The surprise in the pocket is some fact or characteristic that is in such contrast to the main baggage that it alters our perception of the character or deepens our understanding of him. For Indy this is his fear of snakes. The fact that a hero who travels the globe, risking his life at every turn, has a phobia that is shared by the rest of us makes him suddenly human and endearing. Here is a list of the big bags, carry-ons, and pocket contents of a few famous characters:

  ATTICUS FINCH, HERO FROM TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

  Big Bag: fighting injustice as a peacemaker Carry-On: raising children on his own Surprise: he's an ace marksman

  NARRATOR, PROTAGONIST FROM REBECCA Big Bag: in love with Max but jealous of Rebecca Carry-On: wants to fit into world at Manderley Surprise: can actually stand up to Mrs. Danvers

  MISTER, ANTAGONIST FROM THE COLOR PURPLE Big Bag: abusive to Celie Carry-On: in love with Shug

  Surprise: by the end becomes Celie's sewing buddy

  When you choose a character, and put together his luggage, think of it this way; the big bag drives the story, the carry-on makes the story trickier or more difficult, and the pocket contents add dimension. Indiana Jones goes searching for the Ark, which creates the foundation for the whole plot; he loves Marion, which creates the foundation for important scenes

  and turning points; and he's afraid of snakes, which creates the foundation for a couple of great moments.

  Describing a character is a delicate process. Don't generalize as if your hero had a cardboard sign duct-taped to his chest reading "Heartbroken" or "Running From the Law." Describe him as if you were spying on him unawares, focusing your telescope on one drop of sweat on his temple, one trigger finger held still in his pocket, or one tear at a time.

  CONFLICT AND CHARACTERS_

  We talked about conflict in chapter three. As you create characters, remember that conflict and tension keep the story moving. There needs to be conflict in your protagonist's path and conflict in your protagonist's soul. If your protagonist is a lawyer and the key piece of evidence to prove his client innocent is thrown out, that's conflict in his path. If he finds out that the witness he's about to put on the stand might be lying and he can't decide whether or not to proceed, that's a conflict in his soul.

  MOTIVATION_

  The reader must believe your protagonist's motivations, so after you've created a character, review her motivations carefully. Why does the protago
nist go back to that cemetery? Why does she call the villain? Why does she refuse to read her father's letter? How does she react to the situations and other characters? Knowing her as you do, or should, is that realistic?

  An otherwise great story can be ruined if the reader thinks your hero or villain is acting out of character. If your plot requires your characters to make large leaps in behavior, set up the actions in a convincing way. Even little actions need clear motivation. Why does the villain come to her door? Why didn't he know where the key was—couldn't he have just asked the housekeeper? Why did he tell the hero his real name?

  If you need your protagonist to show up early at her daughter's school to make the plot work, set it up. She has to come to her daughter's school before the killer has left the gym? Find her an excuse to make it a reasonable action. Perhaps she is required to turn in her daughter's vaccination card. Imbed the setup in an earlier conversation and surround it with other plot pieces. During a scene where the husband and wife are arguing, have the school call about the vaccination card. During a scene where the sidekick is arriving at the door unannounced, have the mother searching her files for the card. By the time she shows up at the school before the bell rings and turns the card in to the office, it will seem normal.

  CHARACTERS AND EXPOSITION_

  Details in characterization—dialogue, habits, clothes, body language—can be extremely useful in exposition. When you need to know something about the setting, plot, or backstory, use a character. Instead of someone telling us we're in a hospital hallway, have the character wearing a white lab coat and pulling a stethoscope off her neck when she answers the phone. Instead of telling us George's family is blue collar, show the father peeling off his stained coveralls and washing the black grease off his face and hands when he comes home from work.

  The more you understand about your characters, the more natural it will be to write exposition. One exercise to get to know your characters better is to interview them. Write down questions your protagonist (or antagonist) is meant to answer, then fill in the responses. But don't ask questions as elementary as What's your favorite color? What's your favorite food? unless those facts are connected to the plot. Ask things like, What is your greatest fear? What makes you angry ? If you could change one thing in your past, what would that be ?