Category: character reactions

Weepy

On April 16, 2015, this came into the website from Yulia in the old blogspot days:

My main character is VERY moody. She is rather oversensitive and gets easily upset. I reread my manuscript and she’s crying in every other scene. I don’t want a main character who’s making mountains out of, well, let’s say, gnome’s hills, but that’s her character.

I tried making her more unemotional, but then she seems bland. I want her to be passionate and vibrant like she is, but what kind of reader wants to sit through a crybaby heroine?

I suspect that Yulia has finished this story and written a dozen more by now. Here are my thoughts anyway:

I had the same problem in one of my Disney Fairies books. Gwendolyn, one of my few human characters, was forever weeping and my editor was, too–in exasperation.

This was years ago, so I don’t remember what I did, but I remember her frustration whenever one of my characters threatens to become lachrymose. Here are some possibilities that don’t create blandness:

∙ Our MC can sometimes express her sadness physically in ways that don’t involve actual weeping. She can swallow back the tears, blink them away, cram her fists into her eyes. She can be cried out or be too exhausted to cry.

∙ She can recite a few words that she’s memorized to help her through hard times. If we introduce the words as her tear stoppers, the reader will know she’s sad whenever she invokes them.

∙ Likewise, she can visualize something that comforts her: a beloved face, her pet frog, a flower.

∙ She can have developed a defense against crying. Habitually, she converts her tears to laughter or to a joke. In this case, the reader may come to wish she could experience the relief of tears, so that when she finally does weep, the reader is actually happy.

∙ We can change her character in this regard. She can be someone who almost never cries. Maybe she converts her sadness to action, say, to good works that make her feel better.

∙ Or she may deflect sadness by becoming angry, which can be her most serious flaw, or which may give her the energy to keep going in the face of tragedy.

∙ She can encounter so much misery that she becomes hardened and stops weeping. Going back to the physical, she can develop other symptoms instead, sleeplessness, for example.

∙ By nature she may not cry much. A certain kind of trigger may be needed. I’m that way. I hardly ever cry, although I can feel very sad without tears. About a year or so ago, though, I had a health scare (I’m fine), and it seemed like the doctor had turned on a spigot. I wept non-stop from his office to the emergency room.

Taking another tack, we may want to look at our plot and see if we’ve created tragedy overload. Our problem may be a sad sack story rather than a crybaby heroine.

We need bad things to happen to keep our story moving. As you all probably know, I advocate making our characters suffer. But suffering can take many forms and call forth many responses.

In a chapter in Ella Enchanted, for example, Ella has to try to kiss a parrot, who keeps flying away from her. It’s absurd, not weep-worthy, though she is suffering, and the reader sees the crazy lengths she has to go to to satisfy her curse. I hope the reader suffers with her–and laughs, too.

In The Two Princesses of Bamarre prequel I’m working on, I drop my MC, Peregrine, as a very young child into an environment where she has to earn every shred of affection that comes her way–love seems to be entirely conditional. She works harder than a child should have to and suffers without understanding. Tears bring her only disapproval, so she learns not to cry.

In Anne of Green Gables, Anne breaks a slate over Gilbert Blythe’s head. She’s furious and stays furious and has to endure her own anger, another form of suffering.

We can disappoint our MC or frustrate her. We can give her the hiccups at absolutely the wrong moment, which can be funny or serious, because she can be on a first date or performing brain surgery.

Let’s say our MC’s friends turn on her. She can: cry; desperately try to win them back; over-explain herself; beg; look for other friends, and the pickings can be slim; be unhappily alone. The point is that in most situations there are lots of options. Even the death of a loved one can evoke a response other than weeping.

It’s also possible to write a weepy but likeable heroine. In my Disney Fairies books, Rani is a water-talent fairy. She’s forever weeping, because her nature is largely water. No one holds that against her. Our MC can be known for her waterworks. Her father says the family should buy stock in Kleenex. She’s weeping but she carries on. The crying doesn’t stop the action. She does what needs to be done with streaming eyes and a red nose. The people who love her, love her anyway. If they don’t mind her crying and they’re likable, too, the reader will probably go along, too. There are opportunities for humor as well. She can weep before dessert at every meal, because it’s her favorite part, and she won’t have it to look forward to once she eats it. The reader doesn’t need have to be told every time. He’ll understand and imagine a downpour. Then, if we like, when something really sad happens she can be dry-eyed, which will have an impact.

Here are four prompts:

∙ Create a hiccup crisis. Invent a situation and a character, and make him suffer. Write the scene.

∙ Create a hiccup crisis in your WIP. Make the consequences serious.

∙ In a test of her strength of will, your MC is injected with a serum designed to make her weepy. She’s taken to a laboratory. Tragic images are projected on the walls; sounds of misery blast from speakers. If she gives way and weeps, something dreadful will happen, whatever suits the needs of your story. Write the scene. If you like, keep going and write the story.

∙ Write a scene in “Snow White” that includes the eighth dwarf, Weepy.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Real reacting

Before I start, just a word to the NaNoWriMo writers: You are heroes! Sleep, eating, family, TV, normal life are all overrated. Go for it! Have fun!

On July 10, 2011, Lexi wrote, My MC in the real world is kidnapped by some strange-looking people. They kidnap him to protect him, but my MC doesn’t understand that at first so he should be freaked-out by them. The problem is, the characters who kidnapped him are good so I have a hard time making my MC dislike them. How do you make the main react realistically?

I’m thinking a lot about realistic reacting as I’m writing Beloved Elodie, not only for Elodie and the other POV characters (I’m writing from several points of view), but also for the secondary characters.

Of course I haven’t seen your story, Lexi, so I can’t be sure, but you might approach this by sticking close to events. For some reason or no reason, I’m thinking of these kidnappers as aliens, so I’ll give them alien names: Fllep and Yunk. Suppose Fllep and Yunk enter Keith’s house in the middle of the night and tie him to his bedstead. They leave him, and a minute or two later he hears bumps and crashes from his younger sister’s room. The situation seems clear, at least to him. They’re baddies, and, depending on his personality, he’s terrified or angry, or, I suppose, if he’s evil too, amused. Or amused if he happens to have some secret weapon or if he knows his sister can handle an alien duo. The possibilities multiply fast even in the simplest situation.

Now, suppose before leaving Keith alone, Fllep and Yunk bring his stuffed elephant over from the bureau for him to cuddle with. What’s Keith’s realistic reaction to this? Could be confusion. The reader is likely to be unsure how to understand this surprising development. Keith can have other responses here too, depending on his nature. For instance, he could be annoyed that these aliens think he’s so babyish that he needs his elephant – even while he clutches it to his chest.

So, realism depends on action and personality and probably a few hundred other factors, like, for example, what else has been going on in the story. Obviously, if we’re in the middle of the tale, Keith is likely to have some ideas about the aliens.

I often interview my characters to learn their take on events. In this method I might do this:

Me: What do you think of the beings who just broke into your home and strapped you to the headboard of your bed?

Keith: I’m terrified. They weren’t wearing masks so I can identify them. What are they going to do to me? I’m freezing even though it’s warm in here, and I can’t seem to put two thoughts together. I wish I could untie knots with my toes.

Or,

Keith: Some costumes on those dudes! Wait till Sis sees them. She’ll laugh her head off while she’s decapitating them. I hope she remembers to check on her big brother afterward.

If it’s early days for your story and you don’t know Keith well yet, interviewing can flesh him out. He may answer your questions in surprising ways that will help. So you can ask him how he’d feel and what he’d do in a Fllep-Yunk situation.

Interviewing characters doesn’t always work. Nothing works every time, but usually this is a good technique for me. Characters who lie in my story don’t lie in the interview; they know we’re having a behind-the-scenes conversation.

When interviewing a character fails, I can ask myself how I would respond in Keith’s place, knowing what he knows and doesn’t know. If he’s anything like me, I can be a reasonably reliable guide. And I can ask other real people. When I was writing The Two Princesses of Bamarre the character of Addie, who’s very shy, sometimes eluded me, so I would ask my writing buddy, Joan, who’s also shy, and she’d tell me how a particular situation would affect her.

Character responses take three forms, or I can’t come up with more than three: emotional, thinking, and physical. In Keith’s first reaction, he says he’s scared, his emotion. He’s cold in a warm room, a physical reaction brought on by emotion. He says he can’t think, which is thinking, likewise wishing for more flexible toes is thinking. You don’t have include all three each time, but remember the possibilities.

You’ve set up the situation that creates the reaction. A question you may want to ask yourself is whether you’ve given Keith enough information to go on. Maybe the aliens have deposited him somewhere. He’s gagged, blindfolded, and tied up. He’s frightened, yes, and you can write about that, but it can’t go very far without external input. What clues are you giving him (like the stuffed elephant, also possible sounds and smells) to build a response on? It’s these clues, the objective data, combined with Keith’s personality that will get you a realistic response.

And realistic doesn’t necessarily mean predictable. Keith may be happy when one would expect him to be scared. He may be thinking more about something surprising a classmate said that day than about the aliens.

Beloved Elodie, many of you know, is a mystery, and my secondary characters have hidden motives and backstories that are unknown to the reader and to Elodie, and these motives and backstories come into play. What’s more, I’m not entirely certain who my villain is, although one particular character is looking more and more likely. In any given situation I’m asking my characters how they would respond if they’re innocent and how if they’re guilty. I’ve been suspecting that the solution to the whole story hinges on realistic reactions.

Masteress Meenore, the dragon detective, presents a special challenge when it comes to realistic response, not only because IT’s a dragon but also because IT’s brilliant. Can I think of everything IT would? Am I drawing all the conclusions IT would? This is another case of the character’s nature shaping a response.

Enough about me. Prompts time. When you do these, think about including all three kinds of reaction, physical, emotional, and thought.
   
∙    Let’s start with Keith, tied to his bedstead, elephant on his lap, bangs and crashes reverberating through the house. Write three different reactions for him and make each one believable.

∙    Fllep and Yunk enter Keith’s sister’s room and find her wielding a sword, waiting for them. How does each alien react? Remember, they’re good guys.

∙    Erisette arrives for the second week of her training as a scout for King Aldric and is told that she’s been dropped from the cadre. Write three realistic responses from her. If you like, choose your favorite and keep going.

∙    Victor’s best friend, Caylie, texts him that he’s never there for her, that he’s selfish, and thoughtless, and everyone agrees with her, and she doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore, and he shouldn’t even text her back. Write three responses. Again, if you like, pick one and finish the story.

Have fun and save what you write!