Their personality<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nAnd so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And good. All this is good. It\u2019s necessary. If you haven\u2019t done this good, patient, multi-dimensional work, you need to do it. The more you know the character, the more that knowledge will flood your writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of the things you know about your character will almost certainly enter your writing directly. (Your protagonist had a hideous car accident on a level crossing when a teenager? An accident where he was at fault? Where others were seriously injured? You\u2019ll almost certainly want to let that life-defining incident seep into your story somewhere.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other things may not directly enter your writing. Your character grew up in a Wiltshire village? He can still remember the blue curtains with yellow flowers? The lumpy bed? The low cottagey ceilings? The hens from next door who used to invade their summer games of cricket? Well, some of that might get into your book, but a lot of that knowledge is simply there if you need it. It\u2019s on hand, accessible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The simple guideline is: Your knowledge of a character is sufficient, when anything you care to reach for is immediately present<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTo be sure, there\u2019s a sleight of hand involved here. It\u2019s not that you create a stock of knowledge before you start to write and are limited to that stock as you proceed. On the contrary, it works more like this: you develop your imaginative knowledge of your character to the point at which the thing you need (the memory, sensation, response, clothing choice, observation) leaps to mind the moment you need it. It\u2019s as though you reach up to get a cup from a shelf and the act of reaching creates the cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The thing that\u2019s key here is simply: is the option supplied by your imagination right for the character? For the story? Has a specificity that seems personal rather than general? So there are plenty of people, for example, who grow up in English villages, but there\u2019s something unique feeling about the exact blue-and-yellow curtains \/ lumpy beds \/ cricket \u2018n\u2019 hens combo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OK. All this is good, wholesome stuff. But what I really want to talk about is ignorance and uselessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I made a list of character traits above, you won\u2019t have balked at my inclusion of \u2018special skills\u2019 on that list. If you made some kind of character inventory before starting to write, you almost certainly ticked that box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what about ignorance and incompetence? No one is a genius at everything. No one is even ordinarily competent at everything. The great philosopher may be a dullard in the kitchen. The martial arts ninja may have terrible taste in clothes. Or (to think of a character close to my heart) a genius detective may well also be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n- A terrible cook<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- An underwhelming girlfriend<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Forgetful of extremely basic facts about her own life<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- A very undependable cleaner<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Unnervingly unpredictable in conversation<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- As infuriating as she is brilliant<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- And so on<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
The gaps are at least as interesting as the superpowers, and perhaps more so. If you create a character with one or two superpowers (a martial arts ninja who is also an acclaimed sushi chef) that character will inevitably seem a little flat if there are no deficiencies to offset the accomplishments. Your character will always have an air of fantasy about him or her, and that air of fantasy prevents proper connection with the reader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another issue is the loss of the opportunities for humour that idiocy offers. There\u2019s a particular joy in relishing a character\u2019s idiocy just a page or two after you\u2019ve relished their brilliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Really, the secret of good writing is to force a reader to engage deeply<\/em>. The deeper that engagement, the more attentive the reading, the more fully that book will satisfy its audience. And if a story keeps tacking between \u201cWow, how did they accomplish this<\/em>?\u201d and \u201cWhat kind of an idiot would do that<\/em>?\u201d, the engagement is more or less guaranteed.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNow, to be sure, I work with a highly coloured character and these things are more visible with such characters. But still \u2013 an illustration may help make the point, even for people who run with more everyday characters. So, I once wrote a fight scene that had Fiona in ninja mode: breaking a bad guy\u2019s jaw with astonishing speed (and after astonishingly little provocation.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those kind of fight scenes are standard thriller-fare. But then Fiona gets incredibly shaky. Walks to a bus shelter. Has an inane conversation with the only other person there. (Him to her: \u2018Are you all right?\u201d. She to him: \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d) Then she walks smack-dab into the Plexiglass wall of the shelter and bruises her forehead. Goes home, has a bath. Smokes a joint. Does some real detectiving (phoning round hospitals to see if she can find the man with the smashed jaw.) Keeps pressing the bruise on her forehead because it reminds her that she\u2019s real. Then calls her boyfriend and has a flirty conversation with him, which she knows is somewhat fraudulent (she\u2019s only high because of the fight and the shock afterwards.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s just not possible to steer an orderly path through this lot. You can\u2019t just go, \u201cOh, Fiona\u2019s great at everything\u201d or \u201cFiona will certainly behave like X\u201d, because the truth is that she\u2019s just not predictable that way. The deficiencies in Fiona\u2019s character keep setting potholes in the way of a more orderly progression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s the same with knowledge. Fiona\u2019s knowledge of the law and police procedure is exemplary. Her knowhow around certain sorts of law-breaking is alarmingly high. She knows plenty about cannabis cultivation. She has pockets of surprising knowledge \u2013 history, geography, books \u2013 but there are huge gaps too. She knows not the first thing about cooking. She\u2019s ignorant of anything mechanical. She has no dress sense and no interior design sense. She doesn\u2019t know anything about popular culture. (In a very early tale, she had to puzzle out, slowly, that Clint Eastwood was a movie star.) Her grip on office politics and gossip is erratic at best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The result of this is that the reader can\u2019t predict my character\u2019s journey<\/u><\/em>. Not from the start to the end of the book, but not even from the start of the page to the end. That means the reader has to pay close attention, or they\u2019ll miss something. The more predictable your character is, the easier it is for the reader to start skimming.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAnd skimming is death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s more or less it from me, except that \u2013 while we\u2019re on the subject of death \u2013 please do read the PSes below before you start setting any part of yourself on fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh yes, and it\u2019s Good Friday next week, which is an actual holiday, so I\u2019m going to take an actual holiday. That means no email from me next week. Normal service resumes the week after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Til soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harry<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PS<\/strong>: That setting yourself on fire thing? It\u2019s real. I have set my arm on fire and it\u2019s fun. I can\u2019t advise you to have a go \u2013 in fact, please don\u2019t do it, because it\u2019s obviously unsafe. But if you are fool enough to do it, then do it outside. Make sure your arm is thoroughly wet (with ordinary water, not butane-spiked water) before you start. And have a plunge bucket (again, ordinary wet water) ready for emergencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBut, yeah, better not to do it at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This email is something of a follow-up to last week, so if you didn\u2019t like last week\u2019s missive, I strongly suggest you ditch this one IMMEDIATELY before you LOSE ANY MORE OF YOUR LIFE to what I can only honestly describe as PURPOSELESS NONSENSE. If that means you aren\u2019t sure how to spend the next<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29292],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harrys-friday-email"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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I've published trad & self-pub. Love both. Best known for my Fiona Griffiths crime series. Oh yes, and I'm the capo di tutti capi at Jericho Writers.","url":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/author\/harryjericho\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}