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We Read Fiction to Make Sense of Life’s Disorder

January 22, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Life is often disordered, but fiction cannot be. We read fiction to make sense of life’s disorder, and we demand that things make sense. No matter how well ordered the rest of the plot, when a stranger comes and simply hands the hero the one element he needs to complete his mission, we feel cheated. The hero should have to work for his goals.

This same order must be inherent in every bit of the book, characters as well as plot. Foolish and spontaneous actions, arbitrary decisions and behavior make the story unbelievable. A character can’t simply wake up one morning with a desire to change jobs, or go on a quest, or hunt for a murderer. While such whims are a part of our lives, they are not part of fictional characters’ lives. All their decisions must be motivated.

A character can wake up one morning with a desire to change jobs, for example, but the author needs to add a few words to explain why: a quarrel with a boss, a promised promotion that doesn’t materialize, a backbiting co-worker. If a character must quit on a whim, the author has to establish motive from within the character. Perhaps the character always acts on whim, in which case the author needs to show that. Or perhaps it’s June; the scents seeping in the open window remind the character of the long summer days of childhood, and he has an overwhelming need to experience that freedom again.

Readers will believe almost anything an author wants them to believe, as long as it is motivated.

At the beginning of my book, More Deaths Than One, (which can be seen by clicking on the My First Chapters link off to the right) I have Kerry, a graveyard-shift waitress, showing an interest in Bob, the quiet hero, who stopped by the coffee shop every night for a hot chocolate. I always thought it was enough that she was bored and was playing games with him, trying to get him to talk, but a reader told me she found Kerry’s motivation for involving herself with Bob a bit thin.

Because Bob is debilitated by headaches and nightmares, I need Kerry to push him into action when he discovers that the mother he buried twenty years ago is dead again and that he has a doppelganger living what could have been his life. If her motivation for involving herself with Bob isn’t believable, then the whole book falls apart.

I thought I was finished with Bob and Kerry. More Deaths Than One was the first book I wrote, also the third and the fifth, and now it looks like it might be the seventh.

In life, as in fiction, we have to work for our goals, but I wouldn’t mind if a stranger came and simply handed me a publishing contract.

Posted in books, culture, fiction, life, writing. Tags: character motivation, goals, More Deaths Than One, writing, writing: characters. 6 Comments »

Creating a Character — Part V

January 10, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Interesting characters make interesting stories, not the other way around. Cardboard cutouts and comic book heroes serve the needs of many popular books today, but I want more than that for my current work. A tongue-in-cheek apocalyptic novel, it could easily dissolve into foolishness without a well-developed character to give it credibility. During my last few posts, I have been profiling this character, but he is still not fleshed out. He needs physical characteristics, though not all characters are defined by the way they look. If I remember correctly, Mark Twain never described Huckleberry Finn.

Does it matter what my character looks like? I won’t know for sure until I start writing the book, but I doubt it. He is an ordinary guy who becomes extraordinary because of all he endures. Now that I think about it, that is the basic plot of all of my books, and one I never get tired of reading or writing. I realize that to sell in this tight market, a book has to immediately capture the attention of an agent, an editor, a reader, and to do that you need more than an average guy. But I am so tired of reading about gutsy females, stone-cold business executives, leftover war heroes, beaten-down cops, bitchy/successful/beautiful/rich women, muscle-bound gunslingers, that an average guy suits me and my story just fine.

My main characters all tend to be stoic, which make them seem unbelievable or standoffish. Most people like to experience emotions vicariously, and if characters react stoically, it makes it hard for readers to identify with them. So I need a character tag: a habit or trait that helps Chip stand out from the page. It’s a simple thing, but I decided he likes candy — not just any candy, but something specific like licorice or butterscotch. He always carries a few pieces with him, and then one day not long after the world ends, he reaches into his pocket for a candy that isn’t there. This, more than anything else he has experienced, tells him that the world he knew is gone, and his stoicism slips. Does he cry? Scream? Have a temper tantrum? Throw things?

I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out after I write the book.

Posted in books, fiction, life, writing. Tags: character types, creating a character, end of the world, heroes, Huckleberry Finn, main characters, writing. 8 Comments »

Creating a Character — Part II

January 7, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Nope. Sorry. Can’t do it.

Although I’ve been telling you that to get published in today’s market you need a character who wants something desperately, I’ve never been able to do it. I spend so much time with my characters during the creation and writing of my novels that I have to like them or at least tolerate them. Passionate characters, like Scarlett O’Hara, who go after their goals with no thought for anyone else, might be interesting to you, but to me they are spoiled brats and intolerable.

Perhaps if I could have overcome this prejudice and followed my own advice, I’d have found a publisher by now. Unfortunately for me, all of my heroes have been reactive rather than proactive, at least in the beginning. Seems like I’m going to be making the same mistake again, but I have to go with what feels right.

I just don’t see Chip, the hero of my work in progress, as a driven fellow. Except for his problem with his mother, he seems to be satisfied with his life. He does have a long-term goal: he would like to buy a ranch or farm and take care of old and unwanted animals from zoos and circuses, but since this goal is negated when the world ends, it can’t be a desire that drives him throughout the book.

Still, there has to be a unifying characteristic that is with him throughout all of his adventures. He is distrustful of women because of his mother (and perhaps because of past relationships). That distrust could be his motivating factor, until at the end he finds a woman he can trust. It would also suit his temperament.

In The Writer’s Guide to Character Traits, Linda N. Edelstein, PhD, lists styles of behavior and explains the psychology of each. Reviewing the list, I can see that Chip does not have an adventurer’s personality, nor is he bossy, conventional, creative, a conformist, dependant, eccentric, a fall guy, fearful, flamboyant, hyper, a loner, a man’s man, passive-aggressive, a show-off, a victim.

But he is resilient. According to Edelstein, this means he has the ability to recover from losses and disappointments. He is generally happy and productive. He can face his problems and cope with adversity. He is an effective problem solver. He has high ethical standards and takes responsibility for his own life. He has a sense of humor. He is interested in others as well as himself and maintains a strong support network. In the extreme, his independence can become an inability to depend on others, which goes along with his distrust of women.

Maybe he is not an exciting and passionate character, but he sounds like someone I could live with for the next year while I am writing the novel.

Of course, this isn’t all there is to him. He does have special strengths and weaknesses that cause the plot to thicken at times, but I don’t know yet what they are.

I’ll have to get back to you on that.

Posted in books, writing. Tags: character traits, character types, character's psychology, creating a character, Scarlett O'Hara, work in progress, writing. Leave a Comment »

Cook’s Cutting-Edge Plots and Cookie-Cutter Characters

January 5, 2008 — Pat Bertram

I read a Robin Cook book the other day. Doesn’t matter which one — they are all similar with their cutting-edge plots and cookie-cutter characters. After more than three decades of writing, he should have learned a bit about characterization, but apparently he doesn’t need to. He is a bestselling author.

That’s right: an author. Not the practicing physician he seems to want us to think he is, but an author. Wearing the accoutrements of a physician, he smirks at us from his book jackets, which announce that he is on leave from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. Can you imagine his poor patients? After thirty-five years of hanging around his waiting room, they are getting blinder and deafer as the nurse says for the ten-thousandth time, “He’s on leave. Just be patient and he’ll get to you when he can.”

One point in Cook’s favor is that, ignoring what his picture says about him and concentrating on his books, he is an unpretentious author. He doesn’t expect us to believe he is a literary genius. He is what he wanted to be: a bestselling author.

When he embarked on a writing career, he read one hundred bestsellers and dissected them, then began writing his own. He is good at being a bestselling author, but he is terrible at characterization. Not one of his characters has ever leapt off the page into my imagination. They are simply types fulfilling specific roles.

I want more than that for my books. I may never be a bestselling author. I may never even be a published author, but by gum, I can learn how to write characters that people will love or love to hate. (And so could Robin Cook, if he wanted to.)

I am starting to write a new novel, one that has languished in the back of my mind for the past year, and I need to create a hero. A reader of this blog commented, “Why not blog a character? It will help you with thinking about personality, motivation, history, yet you won’t have to worry about where the story is going, and it won’t have the pressure of having to write a whole book.”

I’m not sure I know what “blogging a character” is, but I can certainly begin creating one here.

I’ll start tomorrow.

Posted in blogging, books, life, writing. Tags: bestselling author, characterization, Robin Cook. 3 Comments »

Unblocking Writer’s Block

January 4, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Writer’s block is a term, like chronic fatigue syndrome, that covers a multitude of ills. Sometimes it means an inability to begin writing that book, sometimes it means a stoppage in the flow of words or ideas, sometimes it means a lack of desire to write. It is only a critical condition when the blocked writer is on a deadline, otherwise time or a change in writing habits can help.

For me, writer’s block generally means that I have taken a false turn in the story, that I’m heading in the wrong direction. This often happens in the middle of the book when all the ideas that I had in the beginning have been used up, and I need to fill a hole in the plot. The only thing I can do is go back through the story, make sure every action is motivated, every scene necessary, every character operating at his or her full potential. Usually I can find where I went wrong. After I change it, I continue in the proper direction with renewed vigor.

My latest attempt at writing, however, stalled at the beginning. I wrote three and a half pages almost a year ago, then nothing. It seems ludicrous that I could have taken a wrong turn so early, but I must have, otherwise I would be well on my way to finishing the novel. Ironically, it was supposed to have been fun to write, a take-off on the apocalyptic fantasies that have been so popular in recent years. Then why is it so hard to get going?

Perhaps the story isn’t worth writing. Perhaps my characters aren’t strong enough. Perhaps I begin with too many characters or too few.

I decided that the story is worth writing. I have a great hook, high stakes, and a delicious ending. So the problem has to be in the characters. I was going to tell the story from two points of view — a man and a woman who come together in the end — but the problem seems to be that one of their viewpoints is superfluous. Showing both of their reactions to the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it would be repetitive, like those lawyer books that rehash the entire story during the courtroom scene. Yawn.

The man has the stronger story and will have to make some of the more poignant decisions (for example, he is a devout vegetarian who will be forced to kill to feed those dependant on him) so today I deleted the woman. She didn’t even have a chance to come to life before I had to do her in. Poor thing. May she rest in peace.

Now maybe I can get going on the book.

Posted in books, writing. Tags: is this story worth writing, writing, writing: characters, writing: writer's block. 2 Comments »

Writing Without a Reader is Like Kissing Without a Partner.

December 31, 2007 — Pat Bertram

Print on demand publishers and publish on demand printers. Co-op publishing ventures. Ebook publishers and self-published ebooks. BookSurge and Lulu. Content providers for websites, personal websites. In this brave new world of publication, there is a way for anyone and everyone who has strung words together to be published.

What is lacking is readers. In fact, I would be willing to bet that many writers read less than one or two books a year, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that there are more writers than readers. Whether we like it or not, reading is considered to be entertainment, and the money spent on movies, music, games means less money for books.

The traditional publishing industry is answering this trend by promoting authors rather than titles. If your book is one of a series, you have a much greater chance of being published than those of us who prefer starting with a whole new set of characters for each novel. The publishing industry is also continuing their move toward more blockbuster novels, which stands to reason. It is cheaper to promote a single author than several. They still do publish books from new authors, but it is harder for you as a new author to attract the attention of a publisher, and if by chance you do attract their attention, for the most part they leave you to sink or swim on your own. This could be why so many people are publishing their own books. If you have to do your own promoting, why not reap all the rewards?

The sad truth is that while the self-publishing business is growing, the money earned by most individuals barely counts as an allowance. On average, a self-published book sells between four hundred and five hundred copies, which means that a few people who are good at self-promotion will sell a lot, while everyone else will only sell a few.

The only sane way to deal with this insane situation is to write for ourselves, but many of us feel the same way as John Cheever, who said, “I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss — you can’t do it alone.”

The next best thing is to write a fabulous novel that is so entertaining and well-written that any reader who sees it will immediately fall in love with it and spread the word.

It could happen.

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Posted in books, writing. Tags: getting published, POD publishers, readers, self-publishing, writing. 7 Comments »

On Writing: Basic Story Structure

December 23, 2007 — Pat Bertram

It bears repeating: you can write your novel however you wish, but if you are a first time writer looking to get published, there is a certain structure to which you must adhere. This structure is not a new convention; it stretches all the way back to the epics of Gilgamesh. It is the structure of myths and fairy tales, Shakespeare and Dickens, Gone With the Wind and most bestsellers.

It is a simple structure. Start with a character who wants something desperately. Throw obstacles in her way and keep throwing them at her until, in the end, she gets what she wants or what she deserves.

Though I am giving you a formula, I am in no way advocating formulaic writing. Your writing should be beautiful and out of the ordinary. Your ideas should be startling and show life in a new light. Your main character should be someone we have never before met. Your obstacles must be fresh and exciting, your ending ingenious and right for the story.

The formula is merely the scaffolding upon which you build your story. Because it is so familiar and satisfying, it becomes invisible, drawing readers into your story world and creating for them the illusion that it is real. If you deviate from this scaffolding, which you have every right to do, you must be aware that all of those sharp edges poke at your readers, reminding them that what they are reading is a fabrication. It takes them away from the sheer pleasure of experiencing another world, another life, another possibility. And if you take that away from them, you take away their reason for reading. Some might continue to read in admiration of your cleverness, but most won’t.

Is that a risk you’re willing to take?

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Posted in books, writing. Tags: formulaic writing, reason for reading, story structure, story world, writing. 8 Comments »

On Writing: How Not to Begin Your Book

December 19, 2007 — Pat Bertram

The best-known first line of a novel is “It was a dark and stormy night.” It’s also considered to be the worst first line ever, though why I don’t know. Possibly because it’s a weather report and tells us nothing of what is to come. Readers do like to know a bit about the weather, but instead of reporting it we can weave it into the story. Mentioning the glare of the sun on the snow, the dampness of a brow, water dripping off the umbrella gives the reader a hint of the weather without us belaboring the point.

Even worse than beginning a novel with a weather report is to begin with a dream, which is the most common mistake beginners make. One fourth of the entries I tried to read in the Court TV Search for the Next Great Crime Writer Contest started with a dream, and I couldn’t get beyond that. I know that many bestselling authors do use such a trite beginning, but new authors cannot get away with it. It is a sign of an amateur and guarantees that no agent or editor will ever read the story.

It’s hard to get away from dreams completely — in More Deaths Than One I used dreams to show how Bob’s unremembered past was starting to affect him. I wish I could have figured out another way to do it, but I console myself with the thought that at least I didn’t begin the book with a dream.

The only thing worse than beginning with a dream is to continue it until at the end of the story the character wakes up and discovers it was all a dream. That is the coward’s way out and a sign of an unconfident writer. I know what you’re thinking: The Wizard of Oz. Okay, be honest. The very first time you read the book or saw the movie, didn’t you feel the slightest bit cheated? I know I did.

So, my advice to you is don’t cheat your readers. Think of a better beginning to your opus than a dream, and keep the dreaming to a minimum.

Posted in books, writing. Tags: amateurish writing mistakes, beginning a book with a dream, Wizard of Oz, writing. 4 Comments »

And Lydia Loretta Stark Was Dead. Again.

November 16, 2007 — Pat Bertram

Court TV and Gather.com are searching for the next great crime writer.

My novel, More Deaths Than One, is not a detective story, and it certainly is not a cozy mystery, but it is the story of a crime: identity theft. This theft is an actual theft of a man’s identity, not a paper one.

When Bob Stark returns home after spending eighteen years in Southeast Asia, he discovers that his mother Lydia Loretta Stark is dead again. When he attends her second funeral, he sees his brother, his college girlfriend, and . . . himself. Accompanied by a baffling young woman, he sets out to discover the truth.

I am not asking you to vote for me; I am begging you. There are a lot of great entries in the contest, and I need every vote I can. (A vote is a rating of 10 stars; nothing less counts.)

Thank you.

You can find my entry here:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977138910

Posted in books, fiction, life, writing. Tags: Court TV Search for the Next Great Crime Writer contest. Leave a Comment »

Writing is About the Choices We Make

November 13, 2007 — Pat Bertram

When we choose to write, we are faced with a universe of choices where all things are possible. Many would-be writers never put a single word on the page because the number of choices to be made seem insurmountable. First, we have to choose what to write about. The topic can be anything: love, abuse, super novas. Next we have to choose how to present the topic. As fiction or nonfiction? As a blog? A poem? A short story? A novel?

By making these decisions, we begin to limit our universe of choices. A blog has certain criteria to be met; it must be brief and interesting or we run the risk of losing our readers. A short story can contain complex ideas, but a novel has the scope for us to develop those ideas more fully.

Suppose we choose to present the topic as a novel. Now there are more choices to be made. How are we going to write it? First person or third? Sassy, sarcastic, serious? Who is going to be the main character? What does she most desire? Who or what is stopping her from fulfilling this desire? What does she look and act like? What are her internal traits, both her admirable ones and less admirable ones? Who are her allies? Who are her mentors?

And those choices lead to other choices. What does the character need? (As opposed to what she wants.) Is she going to get what she wants or is she going to get what she needs? For example, maybe she wants to be a homebody, to marry the boy next door, but what she and the story need are for her to become a senator and possibly leave the boy behind.

And so the choices continue, each choice narrowing the story’s universe a bit more.

Some writers love the choosing, the creating, but I love when the weight of those choices become so great that the answer to all future choices can be found in past ones. The character might need to fight off an attacker, and when we try to choose between success and failure, we realize there can be only one outcome. Because of who she is and what she has done, she cannot succeed. To succeed might mean to kill, and she cannot kill anyone even to save her own life.

When the story gets to the point where it seems to make its own choices, it takes on a feeling of inexorability, as if there was always only one way to tell the story.

But, in the end as in the beginning, writing is about the choices we make.

Posted in blogging, books, fiction, writing. Tags: writing. 4 Comments »

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