You hear this all the time, right? Your characters must be "larger than life" to be memorable and worth reading about. Why? If you're writing about people you want readers to care about, shouldn't you make characters more like regular people, people readers can relate to?
That's the odd thing about literature. Characters written on the page will typically appear fairly ordinary to most readers without a huge amount of embellishment. That's because readers "see" characters through this gauzy barrier often referred to as the mind's eye.
Of course the mind doesn't actually have an eye, but we interpret a story through our imagination, which is like an imaginary eye. And that interpretation isn't only for what we see, but it includes what we hear, smell, touch and taste as we accompany characters through the fascinating events in their lives. You've heard that expression about the devil being in the details? Those little devils are your characters. And it's strong details I'm talking about, not the boring minutiae of day-to-day monotonous life for the average Joe and Jane. We want strong. Extraordinary. In your face. Larger than life. The details about our characters have to be or they won't be memorable.
So what's so wonderful about John Smith, the steel worker who's married and has two kids, one car, a hamster, and lives in urban Chicago? Eh. Not so special. What would make John larger than life? Maybe he's a – what's the politically correct word for midget? Dwarf? Little person? That little detail (pun intended) may not make him physically large, but it sure as hell makes him memorable. How many dwarf steel workers do you know? Do you want to know more about John the steel worker now? I do. I'm intrigued because this powerful detail raises lots of questions and you have to wonder about the challenges this guy faces in his job every day. I want to know why he chose this occupation. What does his wife think about it? Is she vertically challenged as well? What about the kids? Do they get teased at school? Do John's co-workers give him a hard time, or have they accepted him as one of the best in his field? How does this detail about John affect the story's plot? And what if John is also a spy for the CIA? Well… that may be overkill, but hey, it's interesting. Memorable. And larger than real life.
What unique detail makes your hero or heroine larger than life? It could be something in their backstory; they appear perfectly normal on the outside, but man-oh-man, they've had their lives turned inside out because... Or they have fascinating occupations. Or their personalities are over the top (in either a good or bad way). Maybe certain quirks or habits make them stand out in a crowd. For an exaggeration of the exaggerations I'm talking about, just watch one episode of Heroes (Monday nights at 9 on NBC). This show is an amazing example of characters faced with extraordinary challenges because they're ordinary people with extraordinary abilities. And of course they're all tasked with saving the world. Now that's extra large.
8 comments:
Great blog, Karen!
I think you can have an everday hero/heroine so long as they do larger than life things that make them memorable.
I'm definitely going to ponder this as I work on my wip today.
Karen--You are so right about characters needing to be larger than life. I like your examples.
I wonder if this larger than life perspective also ties into individual perspective. Books can't capture every detail of a person, esp. a minor character. They focus on the details that make that person memorable and also explain why that character does what that character does. Thus in your example of the vertically challenged steel worker, his physicality determines his view of his world.
I'm saying this poorly. I'll try again. Individual perspective is key to each character and ties into their story. The stories of a lumbering male steel worker as opposed to a deaf female steel worker would each revolve around their own particular set of circumstances.
I love the show Heroes, precisely because of what you mentioned, the ordinary man angle that fires the imagination. I like my characters to be ordinary people pushed to extremes. I like them to have a past that has helped formed their reactions to their present situations. I like them to discover they can be more than they ever thought they could be.
And isn't that what readers believe of themselves, way down deep in their heart of hearts? That they could rise to an occasion and be larger than life if they had to? Or that someone would think they were worth dying for, killing for?
Interesting blog and even if I took off on a tangent, thanks for stimulating the old brain cells this a.m. I am going to get more than a prologue on paper today for the next book if it kills me!
Thanks, Karen,
Alice
Interesting that you say that, Eli, because once that everyday person does a larger than life thing, they're no longer everyday. They're memorable because of that special thing they've done, not because of who they are.
A story about a woman who takes a taxi from the airport to her home in the suburbs. Bleh.
A story about a woman who takes a taxi from the airport and ends up pulling the driver from his burning cab after they're broadsided by a semi. Wow!
Our perception of the woman changes because of what she did, but she's still the same person. She's just risen above the status of ordinary in our minds.
Stimulating discussion, Eli! Thanks!
Karen
I struggle with this one. I write pretty much ordinary, everyday people--especially in my latest WIP and it's not jumping off the page the way I want it to. I'm realizing that if I want to keep them so ordinary, the things around them need to get more extreme--I'm often so married to realism that I think "well they'd need two weeks for this then need to wait this long for this and it wouldn't be THAT bad" or "he wouldn't really owe THAT much money or they wouldn't be THAT mad"--there's a fine line in romantic comedy between madcap and just stupid and between characters and stereotypes and I'm still trying to find that line.
Alice, that's so true! And that's why we love to read. And watch TV and movies, of course. 8^)
It's kind of the same principle as a microscope. That up close and personal inspection of a character so you can "see" that detail about them that makes them memorable.
I keep thinking of the old cherry 7-up commercials, where everything's black and white except the 7-up and the person drinking it, which are in full color. That's how our characters need to be perceived.
I'm a huge Survivor fan. Love that show. And it's because of the characters, who are all ordinary people doing something extraordinary. But it's the focus on each of them, mostly exaggerated thanks to the wonders of TV editing, that heightens the drama and emphasizes the theme of the show -- outplay, outlast, out-whatever. And what's really remarkable, what makes my point more than anything, is the fact that these ordinary people, who have done an extraordinary thing on TV, are now celebrities. How much more bigger than life can you get? 8^)
Karen
Wavybrains
I used to write humor a lot. If things got too madacp, the editors would throw a fit--you are right, there is a line and reality draws that line. So where does that leave the writer?
I think you're right about having the world around your characters a little whacky. I think that's why so many humorous books have secondary characters that say and do things the hero/heroine never would because it would distance them from their audience. But I also think it has to do with voice--and from what you read the other night at the library, you have that voice. There's a funny way to say things that injects humor without making it slapstick or fantasy and I think you do it well.
Alice
Hey, Wavy. I feel your pain. Writing is probably more about balance than anything.
In comedy, my feelings are that exaggeration is key. Oh, and timing above all else, but I'm afraid that's not one of my strong suits. I can exaggerate with the best of 'em. 8^) Maybe your character wouldn't owe THAT much money, but something else inflated it, like a perposterous interest fee or something. You can always make things worse. Janet Evanovich is queen of exaggeration, IMO. Not only does X happen to Stephanie, but also, Y, Z, and ZZ. Not to mention YY. She cracks me up.
Karen
Thanks for the great explanation, Karen. Very interesting. Makes me want to write about a little person CIA steelworker....and I've never had that urge before!
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