As you may know, I ride the train every day.  There is a conductor who I often come in contact with, let’s call him Jake Spinner.  The first time I saw him, he was chewing out a man who was smoking in the restroom.  He actually kicked the man off the train.  My first thought, “I don’t want to tick-off that guy.”  That was more than six months ago.

Jake has been nothing but nice in the last six months.  If he knows you use a monthly pass, then he can help you out on days you forgot it.  If you have forgotten your lunch money, he might offer some of his lunch or a loan of a few dollars.  Jake jokes with you.  Most importantly, he goes out of his way to let you know he remembers you.  Jake is an all-around great guy.  That was Jake until today.

Today, a senior citizen who was in good health (possibly better health than I am in) tried repeatedly to sit in the ‘senior seating.’  This particular train doesn’t have ‘senior seating,’ it has seating for the disabled and seating for everyone else – he wanted to sit in the disabled section.  Jake was having a hard time explaining that ‘the disabled section wasn’t a senior section’ to the elderly gentleman, and it quickly escalated.  The argument was classic – both scary and funny at the same time.

The elderly gentleman repeatedly said, “I understand way you are saying, but…” or “Your right, your right.  However…”

By the end of the argument, we were halfway to my stop.  For most of the second half of my trip, Jake was going up and down the aisle mumbling to himself – occasionally I could make out a word or two, like “senior seating.”  Jake never said “Hi” to me, he never checked my ticket, and he never even looked my way (at least not while I was watching).

If I had not witnessed the argument, then Jake’s behavior would have been out of character.  I would have wondered, “What happened?”  There would have been an information gap that would have nagged at me.  In real life, I can ask, “Hey Jake, something bothering you?”  In a book, I can’t.  I only see what the author presents to me.

To keep readers engaged in a story, an author has to keep characters in character.  A big part of that is making sure to include the events that shape the changes in their life.

This may seem like a strange post, so bare with me.  Keep in mind, I am 6’2″ – the same size or shorter than many characters in current fiction.

I just got a new showerhead – one of those with a cord.  It sits in a cradle making it about 7 inches taller than my previous showerhead.  This is the first time since I was 12 that I had a showerhead as tall as I am.  An inch higher and I could stand under it, something I haven’t done since I was 11.  What I realized is that I’m not really used to showering with the water coming out at face level.  Sure, I don’t have to bend or crouch to get the shampoo out of my hair, but I’m use to the water hitting my chest – to having dry eyes unless I go out of my way to alter that.

So why did I bring this up?  Because details like this are missed in a lot of novels and movies.  Height alters a lot of things.  A male hero does some deed and takes a shower, letting the water run across his face to clean the sin away.  That’s got to be a short hero or an uncommonly high showerhead.

These details are missed, a lot.  There are plenty of places where you see accommodations for shorter people (my favorite is the bar in Silverado), but writers seem to forget accommodations for tall people.  I don’t fit on a single or full bed – queen and up for me.  I can’t push the average stroller without bending, same goes for lawn mowers.  I have to bend down to walk into most sheds.  Chandeliers and ceiling fans are always a point of concern, at least until I verify I can or cannot make it under them.  Head rests on recliners often push on my shoulders in a very uncomfortable fashion.  My knees normally push against train, bus, and theater seats.  I couldn’t drive most of the early mini-pickups.  I’m not saying life is bad for me, just a little different than someone who is three inches shorter.

These details (notice the repetition from the above paragraph) can bring a reader into a story when done well, or out of a story when done poorly or ignored.  Height is just one detail.  What about people who are colorblind, suffer through arthritis, are obese, fight (or give into) addictions, have allergies, is missing a limb, lost sight, can’t hear, suffer fears, acts impulsively, has ADHD, and so on?  Do you really know the details that matter?  When creating a character significantly different than yourself, don’t hesitate to find someone similar to your character and observe them, ask questions, and maybe even let them read a scene or two.

Don’t let something as simple as a showerhead ruin the realism you have built.

It is commonly held belief that actions speak louder than words. However, writers are often trained to bring a character’s personality out through dialogue. I would almost have to argue that both are completely out of line with reality. We (I’m assuming the rest of humanity does this) evaluate real people by listening to what they say and comparing that with what we observe them doing. The two sides give us a full picture of the person.

For example:

• Dialogue: If someone keeps talking about all the government spending, the wasteful political excursions, the pork barrel legislation, and so on, then you get a certain feel for the person. This is a fiscal conservative.
• Actions: If someone votes to expand benefits to the disabled, pushes for large government projects in their neighborhood, and signs checks that exceed current tax incomes, you get another impression. This person is quite the opposite of a fiscal conservative.
• Interaction of Action and Dialogue: If someone flies around on taxpayer funded private jets to make speeches about fiscal conservative policies, then you get a completely different impression. This is a two-faced politician (and no, I’m not thinking of any politician in particular). It isn’t that he/she is lying on purpose, but they’re not living by the same standards as their dialogue projects – and there can be many reasons for this.

Seeing the whole person is about seeing how someone wants to present themselves and layer that with their actual actions. This is where result is greater than the sum of the parts. If you add in their thoughts or history, then you get even more layers with a better understanding of the character, but I won’t go into that in this post.

• If you have a character where the actions are in line with the speech, then you have an honest character. Actions or speech alone cannot give you the same feel as seeing someone in harmony with oneself.
• If you have a character where the actions and speech are not matched, then you have a dishonest character. Depending on how you slant it, it can be either dishonest with others or dishonest with oneself.

For me, the most interesting characters in fiction and real life have been those that have sworn and preached one belief system then have backed down from their talk when faced with a challenge. Later, after some reflection, they realize that what they were originally saying was an ideal they latched onto but didn’t really believe.

Just about everyone has parts of their lives that are honest and parts that are not – it is a part of being human. It is the analysis of someone’s actions paired with, or against, their words that provide a complete character.

The train was a funny place today.  Nothing was as it normally was, or maybe it was and I finally noticed.  What I saw on the train were people, personalities, and events, not just the groggy masses trying to make it from point A to point B without noticing the time in between.

Before the train took off, I was already asked for my ticket.  Most of the conductors know me and don’t ask for my ticket after the first week of the month (I ride with a monthly pass).  The other strange part was that the stop was only 45 seconds, I had just barely made it to the upper level to an open seat, and the conductor wasn’t in my car at the time I boarded; how he appeared made me think of the Polar Express.

Shortly after the train left, a man was escorted back to his seat, the seat directly in front of me, and was lectured (almost yelled at) by the ghost conductor who didn’t know me.  Even though his fare was to take him 90 miles down the track, his smoking addiction earned him an early exit at the station just 20 miles away.  By the strong smell of smoke, I could only guess that he had locked himself in the bathroom or other confined space and had burned through at least two cigarettes.  The look of the smoker, at least from behind, reminded me of my father-in-law.  I felt sorry for him (not because he looked like my father-in-law, but possibly because I envisioned my father-in-law in the stranger’s place).  I hope the man makes it home.  Being 70 miles from home is a far place if you don’t have a car, money, or a friend.

Nearing the end of our trip, I went to the bottom of the car and stood next to a college student who often rides to the same station I do, both of us queuing for the doors to open.  The train stopped seven blocks from the station, waiting for a delayed train to move out of our path.  I’ve always thought this student to be a little OCD, and I was proved right – we got to see someone who was VERY OCD.  Up and down the stairs the man went, mumbling, counting, checking his watch, talking non-sense to the student each time he was at the bottom step.  It was funny to me, though I held in the laugh, when the mildly OCD student whispered, “Crazy,” behind the stair climbing mumbler’s back.

While all this was happening, I was trying to remain unnoticed, trying not to speak for fear of coughing or irritating my already sore throat, and trying not to alter my breathing for fear of having my nose run, again.  I tried to appear like the groggy mass, going from point A to point B without noticing the time in between.  However, I made mental notes of the people and events I saw… potential material for stories in the future.

I started this topic over a month ago and I never dreamed it would take so long to get back to it.

For this post, you can take what you like and apply it how you want, but I am thinking of side characters – one-time only characters and maybe some infrequent reoccurers (yes, I made that word up for this blog).  For these guys, I would recommend you steal liberally from your own experience, people you observe, and people you read about.  But don’t look at every behavior; these aren’t your main characters, look at the behaviors that will define a character in just a few words.

The July 7th week had a couple enlightening news stories… human stories: 

Sacramento Bee ran a story initially advertised as “Hot Tub Hero” and was formally titled “Neighbor in hot tub spots blaze, saves Elk Grove families.”  This story showed a side of humanity we can really get behind, be proud of.  This guy sees an explosion, tells someone to call 911, races to both houses to wake the sleeping residents, then takes a garden hose and battles with the fire so much that me loses the hair on his right arm.  Then he had some humble remarks, “Just being neighborly,” “It’s just fate that I was in that hot tub and happened to be looking in that direction,” and “You would’ve done the same thing if you’d seen a fire.” 

CNN ran a sad story about a woman who, two years ago, accidentally left her baby in a car, “Tragedy in the backseat: Hot-car deaths.”  The story was from her viewpoint, a viewpoint I don’t here often.  Beyond her own grief and guilt, she talked about how her family handled the situation and the charges which were filed against her.

The week of August 4th, there was another great human story:

The Daily News reported about a gunman’s girlfriend dealing with the aftermath: “Kristi Hannah, girlfriend of Omar Thornton, recalls gunman’s goodbye, racism concerns.”  This is an article that shows the dynamics of a relationship, while giving your glimpses of both the boyfriend and girlfriend.

Right now, there are enough articles about Shaquan Duley to make a fairly good character profile/sketch/outline/whatever you want to call it.  She killed two of her three children to be “free.”  From these stories, you can see her life three years ago, before those two children were born.  You can see her life change, and know about the lectures she was receiving.  Then, you read her own words about how and why she took her children’s lives.

In each of these stories, there is enough detail and dialogue to base a character.  Maybe not a main character, but a side character – an interesting, dynamic side character.

Now, if I were doing a crime novel with a PI or detective, I could make a scene where there was a mother who, intentionally or unintentionally, kills some of her children.  A humble bystander saves the last of the children from this event.  Plus, there is the reaction of the spouse afterwards.  You have a nice set of scenes for your detective to walk through, setting up his/her personality for the remainder of the novel.

Whenever possible, borrow from reality.

Originally, I wanted to put a lot more work into this post, but a sinus infection has robbed me of a week so there will be a second part to this post next week.  However, this cursed infection has given me material, real life material, which is what this post is supposed to be about, so here we go.

Every fiction author wants their story to have characters realistic enough to hold the reader.  For main characters, this is paramount; this is who your readers are sharing the adventure with.  To accomplish this, I recommend you steal liberally from your own experience.

I recently saw a doctor who seemed confident, smiled, shook my hand before washing his, sat on his rolling chair and listened to me describe all my symptoms, made eye contact as he asked me a series of questions about my symptoms even though I just covered all that.  These traits are boring – common.  However, he had two traits which I think would set off flags in people’s minds as to what type of doctor he is: he always said “I see” after every statement I said, and he didn’t describe anything about the medicines he prescribed me – he really was going to boot me out the door without explaining what I was supposed to be taking.  With just a few lines of dialogue and using these two traits alone, I can have a doctor who sparks interest with the reader.  With just a few tweaks in the dialogue, I can make him the anal doctor without time for his patients or the absent-minded doc who would like to go home to deal with some personal issue.

Right now, as stated earlier, I have a sinus infection (the reason for my doctor’s visit).  This is new ground for me as I have had many of the symptoms before, but not all at once and not this bad.  So, now in misery, I have material.  It isn’t just the pain I can describe (pressure, stuffy nose, sore throat, pressure, nose bleeds, chills, pressure) because that just gives the ailment, but the thoughts going along with my condition give personality.  On Sunday, I wanted to put my head in my wood vice and crank away, and yesterday, I would loved to have taken a drill to my left eyebrow and maybe also to the left side of my nose.  Someone who has had a sinus infection before is probably going to relate to my pain, but my reaction to the pain, my thoughts, tell something unique about me as a person: I know woodworking tools.  I never said I was a woodworker, but I hope most of you would think I am just from dreams of how to deal with the pressure.

So, in a fairly bad week, I have come up with some ideas for future character development.  I would encourage you, bad week or good, observe everything you can.  Don’t just look at others, but examine yourself as well.  Find what clicks; find what sticks.  Practice.  Get feedback.  Observe more.

Actions can show a character’s course through an event, dialogue can pass along information, and thoughts can fill in gaps, but finding the correct traits will give personality and history.  Whenever you get a chance, borrow from reality.

I recently have been thinking about gender roles, both in real life and in fiction. 

Like many, I grew up watching children’s programming – for me it was the early and mid-80s programming.  I watched Sesame Street, Smurfs, J.I. Joe, Transformers, Duck Tales, Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers, Inspector Gadget, Scooby-Doo, Scooby and Scrappy Doo, Ewoks, and Richie Rich.  My babysitter’s daughter watched Care Bears, so sometimes I saw the intro of that cartoon before heading to school.  What I can’t help but notice now is how many male influences there were in those cartoons and how few females, and most of the females were in traditional roles.  I had even started to notice this ‘conditioning’ by the age of 12 or 13.

I also read many of the classics as an adolescent.  Once again, most of the major characters were males.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, I saw an article talking about driving and genders.  The article was quick to point out how many more accidents men get in compared to women, yet the article didn’t talk about the amount of driving men do compared to women.  I posted a question: “How many accidents do men get in per mile compared to women?”  It was an honest question, but it turned some people into very mean (evil) posters.  I was accused of being a sexist who belongs in the 60s, I was told to shut up, I was called things I won’t repeat here, and yet I was praised (maybe that’s an exaggeration) by some for bringing to light the real issue.  But I hadn’t said anything; I only asked a question.  Only one person tried to answer my question; the rest thought my question was a statement, reading more into what I had asked than what I meant based on their stereotyping and prejudices – and their assumptions about my stereotypes and prejudices.

People understand gender roles now in more complex and confusing ways than they have in the past.  Women are often expected to work outside the home but are still expected to take care of the same chores they always have had in the home.  A man’s role in children’s lives is starting to become acknowledged, yet the man is rarely the one blamed in child neglect cases.  More women are in college now than men, but the term “CEO” still brings a man’s image to most people’s minds.  Women are starting to make careers out of athletics, but if you turn on a sports channel you probably expect to see men’s sports.  Women have made up 60% or more of the voting public in the USA for the last 20 years, yet we still haven’t had a woman president or vice president.  What does all that mean?  I don’t know.

I have heard someone say, “Beware making a woman weak in fiction unless you also have an equally strong woman with a larger role in your manuscript.”  And you can add, “Don’t have a working father who does both dishes and laundry unless you can handle people saying, ‘This isn’t realistic.’” 

In reality, there is still a large group of people who see traditional gender roles in their daily lives, or people, like me, who grew up watching 80s cartoons or other programming that conditioned thought patterns.  There are also people who have no idea what ‘traditional gender roles’ means, people who have never known an outdoor dad and indoor mom.  How do you write to both groups?  I don’t know.

Like with the responses to my question about driving stats, readers will bring their own personal biases and make assumptions when you challenge what they see or desire in regarding gender roles.  You must think about how you want to approach your characters.

This post isn’t about telling you the solution, but to get you to think about the questions:

• How do I want to portray gender roles in my manuscript?
• When is my manuscript taking place and how should my characters reflect that?
• Who is reading my manuscript and what are they expecting?  What do I want to tell them?
•  How does my handling of male and female characters reflect on me?

Lately, there has been a lot of discussion in my circle about speech.  Not just word choice, accents, or colloquial, but speech as a whole.

• This is too robotic
• No one talks like this
• He’s over-the-top cheesy
• I don’t like this accent
• I can’t see this word used here
• This phrase takes me out of the setting
• Where are the accents?
• It’s hard to write accents and it’s hard to read them
• A few colloquial words help a story
• Who says this?
• These new/strange words take me out of a story

Without dragging you through all the conversations and arguments I have had, and without pulling you (kicking and screaming) through my thought process (scary – don’t want to go there), I will give you my conclusions about speech use, and I open my comment section for opinions and (civilized) debate. 

Word choices, accents, colloquial words, pacing, contractions, and slang all give characters, and the narrator, a voice (yes, voice – I can’t think of a better term).  A properly chosen voice can put a character into a specific time and place while a poorly chosen voice can ruin a moment or a story.

Everyone writes with a specific voice, even if they don’t think they do:

• contraction usage (“We’re not going in there” is different than “We aren’t going in there”)
• spelling (“dialog” compared to “dialogue”)
• modified words (“I don’t want to go to…” as “I don’t wanna go to…” or “I don’t want ta’ go to…” or “I ain’t goin’ to…”)
• word choice (“One meter” versus “One yard” versus “One and a half cubits” versus “A walking stride”)
• slang (“Wicked” versus “The bomb” versus “Kickin’” versus “Cool” versus “Awesome” versus “Bomb Diggity”)
• expletives (won’t go there)

The list goes on.  To assume you don’t write in a voice, and therefore refuse to understand you are placing your characters in a specific time and place, is to deny your readers the full experience of the story being told.  You must change your characters voice if they are not from the same place or time as you or the realness of the character (and the story) goes away.

Now, if you are on board with me so far, I have to push the other way a little.  If you are intimately familiar with another voice than the one which is natural to you, then, by all means, write it out.  However, if you are not gifted that way, hold yourself back from going too far.  Using a voice you, and maybe your readers, are unfamiliar with is a matter of balance.  If you use too much slang and modify too many words, it may (will) do two things: be hard for the reader to read, and prove how much you don’t know.

When using alternate voices, you need to pick certain clues that can give the feel you want without distracting from the actual story.  For these clues, go to YouTube or Bing’s Video search, and find people who talk the way you want to have your characters talking.  Trying searching for someone explaining accents and slang in certain areas.  If possible, call the Chamber of Commerce or a University in the area of interest and just chat with someone.  Pay attention to what they are saying, how they are saying it, and which differences are important for giving the right feel. 

Once you have what you think you need, practice.  Try saying the lines aloud.  Try writing the lines and having friends and family read it.  Quiz people you are trying it on to see if it is too much or too little.  If you aren’t getting it right, go back to your sources and find different clues.  Experiment!

You don’t need to include everything, but giving a taste of an accent, a localized slang, or anything that puts the character (and the reader) into another time or place is well worth the effort of research and experimentation.  Putting the correct voice on a character is as important as the clothes they wear or the fears they hold – it is a part of who they are.

For more, read Guest Blogger: Ninja Cups and the Path to a Better World on P.D. Wright’s blog (by David Oliver) and Balance on C. Michael Fontes blog.

Other resources are:

“Using Slang and Accent When Writing Fictional Dialogue” by Todd Eastman

“How to Write Dialogue for Fictional Characters With a British Accent” bye Valerie David

“Do You Have an Accent?” on Readable Blog

Have you ever vacationed by the ocean for an extended weekend and not seen a single wave, just gentle ripples in the water for hour after endless hour?

Have you ever been caught out in the desert when the wind picked up?  Had sand pelt your face, forcing your eyes to shut and your arms to rise defensively?

Have you ever expected a light dusting of snow on a romantic weekend getaway and received 42″ (without having chains)?

These are not just the mishaps of my vacations, but metaphors for stories too heavy on characters and/or plot.  Characters are what you see, like water.  Plot is the power behind what you see, like wind or storms. 

Without plot, the story can become drudgery instead of enjoyment – characters bobbing up-and-down without ever cresting or curling in exciting fashion. 

Without a good set of characters to connect to, the story arc is dry and it slaps at the reader’s face. 

When there is too much, dozens of characters who never get a chance to recover from the hundreds of plot elements, the reader is overwhelmed and misses the chance to fall in love (because they are thinking, “Where are my chains?  I can’t get traction.”).

Make your characters interesting, colorful, and dynamic.  Make your story arc full of action, adventure, or intrigue.  Give your story room to breathe, and in turn give your reader the same chance.

Give your reader the chance to experience the ebb and flow of your story with time to enjoy the crests, curls, and splashes of your characters’ experience against the driving power of the plot.

It’s time for my weekly post on Character Development and Introduction, but I’m not going to do one this week.  Instead I will be piggy backing off of a friend’s post, Roh Morgan’s “Characters Who Impact.”  Instead of working with your own characters, Roh is asking you to step back to acknowledge characters who have had an impact on you.  One great part about this post is, if you participate, you can win prizes, and who doesn’t like winning prizes?  So venture over to her site/contest and jump in.