“A novelist," wrote E.L. Doctorow, "is a person who lives in other people's skins." Yes, and the master novelist is one who is able to render those characters in such a way that readers bond with them. Without some sort of connection to character, it won't be long before readers set a story aside and move on to the next one in their stack. Thus the most valuable tools in your set are those that create living, breathing, memorable characters.
I’ve read books about the history of eras, and while interesting, they are nothing compared to a good biography (at the time of writing this book, I’m reading H.W. Brands’ biography of Andrew Jackson). Why? Because I am more fascinated with people than epochs. (I once heard history described as “biography on a time line.”) I think that’s true for most of us.
We all love twisting, turning plots, chases, love, hate, fights, free falls––all of that—but unless readers connect to character first, none of it matters.
Contrary to what some believe, a novel is not “all about character.” To prove the point, let’s think about Scarlett O’Hara. Do you want four hundred pages of Scarlett sitting on her front porch, flirting? Going to parties and throwing hissy fits? I didn’t think so. What is it about Gone with the Wind that makes us keep watching Scarlett? A little thing called the Civil War.
A novel is not a story until a character is forced to show strength of will against the complications of plot. Plot brings out true character. It rips off the mask, and that’s what readers really want to see.
“Blob of glup,” by the way, is a term I remember from my mom reading me The 13 Clocks by James Thurber. I always thought it quite descriptive.
Two of the most popular books in our language are about negative characters. I define a negative character as one who is doing things that the community (theirs, and ours) do not approve of, that harm other people. A Christmas Carol has Scrooge, and Gone with the Wind has Scarlett. Why would a reader want to follow them?
Two reasons: They want to see them redeemed, or they want to see them get their “just desserts.”
The trick to rendering a successful negative lead is to show, early in the story, a capacity for change. When Scrooge is taken back to his boyhood, we see for the first time, that he once displayed some compassionate emotion. Maybe he’s not a lost cause after all!
You can also show that the negative character has strength, which could be an asset if put to good use. Scarlett has grit and determination (fueled by her selfishness) and just dang well gets things done. We admire that, and we hope that by the end of the book she’ll turn her determination into something that actually helps those in her world. She does, but by then it’s too late. Rhett just doesn’t give a damn.
Yes, you have to know your character’s biography, or at least some crucial events. One question I like to ask is what happened to the character at sixteen? That’s a pivotal, shaping year (unless your character actually is sixteen, in which case I’d go to age eight).
But you don’t have to reveal all the key information to readers up front. In fact, it’s good to withhold it, especially a secret or a wound. Show the character behaving in a way that hints at something from the past. Why does Rick in Casablanca stick his neck out for nobody? Why does he play chess alone? Why doesn’t he protect Ugarte? Why doesn’t he love Paris? We see him act in accord with these mysteries and don’t get answers until well into the film.
Against the advice that you should have absolutely zero backstory in the first fifty pages, I say do what Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Michael Connelly, and almost every best-selling novelist does: Sprinkle in bits of backstory in the opening pages. But only what is necessary to help readers bond to character.
We all know about inner conflict. A character is unsure about what he’s going to do, and there’s an argument in his heart and soul that gives him reasons both for and against the action. That’s good stuff, and one way to get there is to identify the fear a character feels in each scene.
But to create even greater crosscurrents of emotion in the reader, consider having the character do something the absolute reverse of what the reader expects. Crosscurrents occur when readers are not only experiencing the surface emotion of a scene or character, but also other emotions that complicate things by running against the emotion that is primary.
Brainstorm ideas for creating crosscurrents, and you’ll often find a great one down the list, beyond your predictability meter. Put that action in. Write it. Have other characters react to it.
When Hannibal Lecter asks Clarice Starling to send her credentials into his cell, he does not merely look it over, nor give her a suspicious glare.
He tapped the card against his small, white teeth and breathed in its smell.
Those actions begin a unique and unforgettable characterization.
It was E.M. Forster, in Aspects of the Novel, who defined “round” (as opposed to “flat”) characters as those who are “capable of surprising us in a convincing way.”
The antagonist (or as I like to put it, the opponent) is someone who is dedicated to stopping the lead. It does not have to be a villain, or “bad guy.” It just has to be someone on the other side of one definition of plot: two dogs and one bone.
When you have a bad-guy opponent, don’t fall into the trap of painting him in only one color. The pure-evil villain is boring and manipulative, and readers won’t fall for it. You’re robbing them of a deeper reading experience.
One exercise I give in workshops is the opponent’s closing argument. (See "Write the Opponent's Closing Argument" in chapter two.) Pretend the villain has to address a jury and justify his actions. He’s not going to argue, “Because I’m just a bad guy. I’m a psycho. I was born this way!” No bad guy thinks he’s bad. He thinks he’s right.
Now make that argument, and do it in a way that makes his case understandable to all of us nonvillains.
One of the biggest mistakes I see new writers make is putting stock characters into minor roles: the burly bartender, wiping glasses behind the bar; the boot-wearing, cowboy-hat-sporting redneck truck driver; the saucy, wisecracking waitress.
Instead, give each minor character something to set him or her apart from the stereotype. Think of:
A little time spent on spicing up minor characters will provide your audience mounds of reading pleasure.
When I ask people to name their favorite books or movies and then ask why they are their favorites, they’ll almost always name a character. Any discussion of Stephen King’s Carrie, for example, always begins with the title character.
The Silence of the Lambs? Two great characters. The absolutely unforgettable Hannibal Lecter, and the insecure but dogged trainee, Clarice Starling. Lecter delights us (because we are all a little twisted) with his wit, deviousness, and dietary habits. Clarice delights us because she’s the classic underdog who fights both professional and personal demons.
The Harry Potter series takes it to the limit with a huge cast of characters that makes a multifaceted impression. Half the delight of that series is in the story people and the colors they add to the narrative.
Truly enduring characters end up teaching us something about humanity and, therefore, ourselves. They elevate us. And that is true even if the character is tragic. As Aristotle pointed out long ago, the tragic character creates catharsis, a purging of the tragic flaw, thus making us better by subtraction.
On the positive side, I think of Harry Bosch and Atticus Finch, both on a seemingly impossible quest for justice. I’m the better for reading about them, and those are the kinds of books I always read more than once.
On the negative side, I think of the aforementioned Scarlett O’Hara. We are pulling for her to do the right thing, to get with it, to join the community of the good. Then she goes off and marries some other guy she doesn’t love and uses him mercilessly. When she finally suffers the consequences of her actions we are duly warned.
It was Hippocrates who first discerned four basic “types” of human temperament. These he designated as sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. The names were derived from the names for bodily fluids (yuck), which the Greeks thought influenced behavior.
Today most psychological typing still revolves around the four basic quadrants, though with the advantage of modern data. It works wonders for characters in fiction. To that end, I use these designations:
This is the popular personality, the one who is typically the “life of the party” and who thrives in social situations: Someone like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind is a popular.
Obviously, as the name implies, this kind of character is a fighter, one who flourishes on the battlefield of trial. Powerful is another name for this person, who is goal oriented and strong willed. Conan the Barbarian, the character created by Robert E. Howard, serves as a prime example.
Also known as particular, this character is detail oriented, schedule conscious, and good at seeing problems through to conclusion. He or she also likes visuals, such as charts and graphs. Agatha Christie’s master detective, Hercule Poirot, fits this profile.
This character, also called peaceful, is rather low-key, likes to reach solutions agreeably, and tends to draw people together. Think of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.
Each of these types comes with a set of characteristics. To make matters easy, I have a table all set for you. Play with your characters by passing them through each type. You will find colors and shades you hadn’t seen before.
As you orchestrate your characters, be sure they differ in striking ways. Use the table to help you envision fresh conflicts.
Have fun with it. Let your character have a say in his development. When you start getting surprised that's a good thing—the characters are freshening up!
| Temperament Table | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Favorite | Warrior | Thinker | Mediator | |
Emotions | Appealing; | Leader; | Thoughtful; | Low-key; |
Work | Volunteers; | Goal oriented; | Schedule oriented; | Competent; |
Friends | Makes friends easily; | Little need for friends; | Makes friends cautiously; | Easy to get along with; |
Weakness | Compulsive talker; | Bossy; | Moody; | Unenthusiastic; |
If you are one of those writers who absolutely, positively feels that a complete dossier for characters is necessary before you start writing, here’s a list of questions and descriptions you should cover that will keep you happily cobbling for as long as you wish.
Name, sex and age:
Temperament type (see Temperament Table):
Height:
Weight:
Eye color:
Hair color:
Unique mannerisms:
Date of birth:
Where did the character grow up? What conditions?
Ethnic background?
Nicknames:
What were her parents like? Are they alive or dead?
What type of schooling did the character have? What course of studies?
What is the character's philosophy of life, in his words?
Current marital condition:
Children?
Current financial condition:
Current living conditions:
Main strength:
Main flaw:
What is unique about this character?
How does this character break stereotype?
What are her hobbies?
Pet peeves:
Favorite movies/books:
Favorite food:
Mode of dress:
How does this character get along with other people (family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, boss)?
What are his opinions on some important matters of the day, if any (abortion, crime, environment, politics, religion, etc.)?
What is this character's “ruling passion”? What, over the course of her life, does she want to be or do more than anything?
Is the character more than real life? How? (Story characters must have more passion, more emotion, more trouble, etc.)
What three words best describe the character?
Take each word, above, and brainstorm with them. Write some free-form notes about actions she might take, things she might do.
How does this character fit into the “orchestra”? How is he different from the other characters?
What is the character most afraid of that might happen? What does she fear in the deepest part of her soul?
How is this character vulnerable?
Inner Conflict: What are the two conflicting arguments within the character: one for his going forward and one against?
How will the character grow through this battle? (What will she think about the events of the story after they're over? What will she learn?) Try a summary thought now.
How will the character show courage?
What does this character love most in the whole world?
What is she willing to die for, if anything?
Why do you love this character?
Who would you cast in the role of this character? (Use opposite sex if it helps.)
Close your eyes, and see and hear the character. Then consider the following.
The other day I watched a thriller from several years ago, and I was enjoying it—up until the last act.
You know what I'm talking about. You get wrapped up in a neat premise until, like a soap bubble, it pops at the end through a series of missteps. Take, for example, the following scenario.
The lead character—a smart, good-looking but otherwise nondescript young woman––suddenly becomes a NASCAR-skilled driver and plows her car into a professional assassin who is shooting at her. Then she slowly gets out of her car and walks over to the splayed body and . . . leaves him alone . . . does not pick up his gun . . . does not make sure he's dead or completely incapacitated! I mean, a smart young woman would have seen a hundred thrillers where the hit man, who is supposed to be dead, suddenly shows up alive!
By not picking up the hit man’s gun, the young woman is left completely vulnerable should the main bad guy suddenly appear. Which, wonder of wonders, he does, accompanied by suspense-movie music. He has shocked and surprised our smart young woman and can now kill her instantly. But because over the last fifteen minutes this deadly, perfect-moves-each-time villain has for some reason been transformed into a doofus, our girl gets away. He chases her through a house. He corners her. But he does not finish the job because he spends valuable screen time talking to the young woman about how he is going to finish the job! (This is something I call "Overtalkative Bad Guy Syndrome," or OBGS.)
Then the smart, good-looking but otherwise normal young woman discovers her superpower ninja-warrior princess skills. These enable her to do things like head butt the bad guy and toss him down the stairs. Head butt? Really?
There is, for thriller writers (or writers of any genre), no more important rule than this (yes, I said it, it's a rule, and if you violate this rule you are taken to the craft woodshed and flogged with a wet copy of my book, Plot and Structure):
Never allow any of your main characters to act like idiots or to suddenly develop convenient powers in order to move or wrap up your plot!
Yes, characters can make mistakes. Characters can make a wrong move. Just don't let it be an idiot move. And don’t create a deus ex machina.
There’s a simple technique you can use to avoid this issue. Before you write any scene, pause for a couple of minutes and ask yourself two questions:
Every character in every scene must have an agenda. Even if it is only—as Vonnegut once said—to get a glass of water. That's how you create conflict in a scene, after all. Then, after noting the agendas, determine the best move each character would make in order to get his way.
Remember, while you are writing a scene about your protagonist, there are other characters, like the bad guy, who are alive and kicking somewhere else. What are they doing? How are they advancing their agendas? Answering this question will provide you with some nice plot twists and turns.
I got an e-mail from a writer who asked the following (used with permission):
Dear Mr. Bell,
Ok, so I'm big on stupid questions. I just had a thought as I was musing about my latest book. I know the main character has to change. That's a big deal. But what about secondary characters? What about the bad guy? Do the secondary characters change, but less? or something ... And I want the bad guy to go from neutral to really bad ... Does that make sense? Not something I can Google ...
First off, that’s not a stupid question at all. In fact, it’s a great question with good instincts about the craft. Here are my thoughts on the matter.
In my book Write Your Novel From the Middle, I explain that not all main characters have to change from one state of being to another. That kind of arc is, of course, common in fiction.
For example, Ebenezer Scrooge. He starts out as a misanthrope and ends up a generous, compassionate member of the community. Martin Riggs, the suicidal cop in Lethal Weapon, changes from self-destructive loner to close friend of his partner, Roger Murtaugh, and Murtaugh’s whole family.
This type of change comes only through the fire of Act II. A life lesson is learned. Why is a lesson learned here? Because Act II is where the struggle with death (physical, professional, or psychological) takes place. It’s learn or die!
At the end, the main character is a new person with something of value for the community. As my friend Christopher Vogler (author of The Writer’s Journey) puts it, the hero returns home with an elixir: He has new wisdom and insight to share with his ordinary world.
Of course, as I also note, the main character can change in the opposite direction. Michael Corleone goes from a loyal American soldier to the soul-deadened Godfather of the Corleone family. That’s because in Act II his father is nearly killed by members of another crime family. At the crucial “mirror moment” (see the next section), Michael realizes he’s the only one of the three brothers who actually knows how to exact revenge. Thus begins his negative slide.
But that’s not always how a character changes. There’s another way. That’s when the main character retains the same basic nature but grows stronger because of the life-and-death challenges of Act II.
An example is Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive. He’s the same decent man at the end that he was at the beginning. But he had to learn survival skills. He is forced to grow stronger because he was wrongly convicted of murdering his wife. When he escapes from a prison bus, he has to stay alive and out of the law’s reach so he can find the real killer.
Marge Gunderson, of Fargo, is the same decent, small-town policewoman at the end as she was at the start. But she has to ramp up her skills to bring a vile murderer and a devious scam artist to justice. These are unlike the misdemeanors she’s used to!
So consider what kind of change your main character is going through: change of nature, or growing stronger?
Also consider this: A character can resist change. He can be “offered grace” (Flannery O’Connor’s term) but turn it down. That’s what makes for tragedy.
In Act IV of Othello, Emilia, Desdemona’s attendant (and, unfortunately, the wife of Iago) pleads Desdemona’s innocence to Othello in no uncertain terms. But when she exits, Othello mutters that she is a “subtle whore” and refuses to believe her. He kills his wife instead.
Finally, change can come too late, which is also tragic. Think Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind.
A powerful trope is the change of secondary characters, brought about by the courage and example of the main character.
Here is where The Fugitive rises above most action films. The opposition to Richard Kimble is Sam Gerard, the lawman played by Tommy Lee Jones. He makes it clear early on he has only one job: catch Kimble. When Kimble has a gun on him and insists he’s innocent, Gerard says, “I don’t care!” Because it’s not his job to care. At that point Kimble thinks, “Oh, crap” (my interpretation of Harrison Ford’s facial expression) and so he dives off that spillway and goes kersplash in the waters below.
But observing this, and Kimble’s other behaviors––as well as seeing what a lousy job the Chicago cops did on the original investigation––Gerard does begin to care. In the end, he helps Kimble get the real bad guy.
Another example is Louis, the corrupt French police captain in Casablanca. Watching how Rick gradually begins to take sides against the Nazis, Louis finally finds his conscience at the end, letting Rick off the hook for murdering Major Strasser. To the arriving police force Louis says, “Round up the usual suspects.” Not only that, Louis walks off with Rick to join the war effort. It is “the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
This kind of change enhances the theme of a story. We like to see justice and honor prevail. When they do, it ought to be powerful enough to inspire secondary characters, too.
There is no reason you can’t show a villain growing more villainous as the story moves along. You can show this via a parallel plotline from the villain’s POV, or you can make it the “shadow story.” (See "The Power of the Shadow Story," chapter four.) What happens offscreen with the villain? How is he altering his plans, ignoring his conscience, falling further and further from his humanity? Give it some thought and weave that material into the narrative as you see fit.
A plot is about a character who uses strength of will against the forces of death––be that death physical, professional, or psychological. No one goes through such a crucible without changing or becoming stronger.
It’s your job to show the change and make readers glad they stuck around for a whole book to see it.
In my book Write Your Novel From the Middle I describe what I call the “mirror moment.” This is a powerful beat I saw happening in the middle of solidly structured movies and novels. (Referenced in the previous section, as well as chapter two.)
In brief, there is a moment in well-structured and memorable stories, right in the middle, where the character is forced to reflect. That reflective moment becomes the real meat of the story. It’s what the story is “all about” in terms of character.
There are two kinds of mirror moments:
The mirror moment informs everything about the novel, from the pre-story psychology to the final transformation. It’s the plumb line. The tent pole. Every scene you write will have an organic connection to it.
Some time ago I received the following e-mail, reprinted with permission:
Hi James,
I own so many of your books, so I want to e-mail you about a small epiphany I had. I recently bought Write Your Novel from the Middle and, jaded as I am about writing books, read it with some interest but not much conviction.
Two weeks later, I'm elbows deep in the guts of a novel I wrote seven years ago, and cutting. I mean, I'm slicing and dicing like Freddy Krueger, blood and guts everywhere. I took 20K out of a 127K novel.
And there was that weird passage where my main character has a health crisis (he essentially screws up his immune system from overwork, but he thinks it's something worse) and basically lies flat on his back in his bedroom, waiting to die.
And he realizes that due to the path he's chosen, he's completely alone on the planet, in London, and nobody cares if he lives or dies. It's a moment of great weakness, self-pity, and the existential crisis that propels him—once he gets better—to really work that human interaction, make friends, network. (He's in finance, so being good with people is important.) Long story short, I really gutted the book, cut that scene down by at least half, and some editors said I should cut it entirely, but for me it was weirdly important. It felt powerful, and it wasn't the typical “kill your darlings” kind of vanity on my part. I knew it was important, so I only condensed it and kept it in place.
The book then went to layout. It was exactly 400 pages in PDF.
Guess where that scene fell? Pages 202 and 203. If you take out the front matter/cover, it's SMACK BANG in the middle.
I admit I guffawed.
Thank you for putting your writing advice out there. You definitely blew my mind this time.
The reason I share this is that this writer's reaction is one I continue to experience in my own writing as I utilize the mirror moment and writing from the middle.
Which brings me to Kevin Costner.
Some time back, my wife wanted to watch the thriller No Way Out with Costner and Gene Hackman. We hadn't seen it in ages, so I got the DVD from Netflix and popped it in the player.
Halfway in, there's a critical scene involving Hackman and Costner. I paused the DVD. I looked at the timer: We were in the exact middle of the movie.
I turned to my wife and said, “Kevin is about to have his mirror moment.” I did not know what it was going to be or how it would be shown. I just felt it was coming.
My wife looked at me the way Jack Palance looks at Alan Ladd in Shane when he says, “Prove it.”
I started the film up again. And this is what we see next: Kevin Costner staring directly, angrily into a mirror. He has just received information that completely flips his situation on its head. He is caught up in something where there may be “no way out.”
I stopped the movie and smiled at my wife.
She said, “Don't let it go to your head.”
If you were writing this scene in a novel, you would give us the inner thoughts of the Costner character. He's thinking along the lines of, “This is too much. I'm dead. There's no way out of this ...” That's one of the mirror moment tropes.
Remember, the other kind is a reflection like, Who am I? What have I become? Is this who I really am?
An example of the latter is from the movie Sideways. This is a buddy-road picture about two friends, Miles and Jack, who go off for a golf and wine trip before Jack is to be married. In the middle of the film they have taken their double date back to one of the girl’s homes. Miles, who is insecure and uncertain about everything except wine, opens up to Maya, whose body language is saying, kiss me.
Instead of following the signal, Miles excuses himself to use the bathroom. He looks in the mirror, and Miles says to himself, “You’re such a ******* loser.”
That’s what the movie is really all about. Will Miles transform from loser to winner, or at least into someone who is willing to take some chances in life and love?
It's my contention that knowing your book's mirror moment illuminates the entire novel better than any other single technique. And the great thing is you can do this at the beginning, middle, or end of your draft. You can use it whether you're plotting or pantsing your way through.
The poets say, “Variety is the spice of life!”
The writers say, “Minor characters are the spice of stories!”
At least they do if they want their stories to sparkle. And if you want the same, you must spend a good amount of time making your minor characters come alive.
First, we have to answer the following question: Just what is a minor character?
Simple: anyone who is not a major character!
What, then, is a major character?
Simple again: anyone who has a stake in the story and is actively pursuing a goal related to the story question. That means your hero and his opposition.
That leaves us with the minor characters, and we can distinguish between two types: those who are allies or irritants to the major characters, and those who are required to move the story along. Let's take a look at each.
The hero of your story will need some help to attain his goal. He will need people who act as close friends and confidants, or experts in some area or other. There may be a love interest for the hero as well, someone to motivate him to action.
These are allies.
An example of an ally is Han Solo in Star Wars. He is there to help Luke Skywalker. He is therefore a minor character, but since he's given a lot of screen time, Solo could very easily be a major character in another story.
Irritants, on the other hand, get in the hero's way. They may actually be allies of the villain or simply people in the story who make the attainment of the hero's goal more difficult. In the Star Wars trilogy, Jabba the Hutt is a major irritant, though a minor character.
As you can see, allies and irritants can have rather large roles. They are almost always in more than one scene. So it's important that you make them memorable.
Some characters are crucial to moving the story along. They can be simple or complex, depending on the need. The doorman at the hotel, for example, is simple. He is there only because the hero has to get into the hotel. The doorman does his duty, and that's that.
But what about the cab driver who can't stop talking? The hero is desperately trying to get to the other side of town to stop a nuclear device from going off, and the cab driver wants to drive and chat leisurely about the Jamaican bobsled team. This character obviously has more to do than some other minor characters, and the reader will expect him to have more characteristics, accordingly.
So it is with all your characters. They exist on a sort of story continuum, with stark simplicity on one side and fair complexity on the other. Where they fall depends on what they do in your story.
No matter who your minor characters are, though, you can add pleasure and spice (and everything nice) to your stories by making sure each one is individualized.
How do you do that?
By giving each character tags.
A tag is something the character does or says, something other characters (and the reader, of course) can see. It distinguishes one character from another.
Tags include patterns of speech, dress, physical appearance, mannerisms, tics, eccentricities, and so forth. These set characters apart. And because there are an almost infinite variety of tags, you can make every single one of your characters a unique individual.
Just like life.
Tags will also help you avoid the biggest mistake writers make with characters—writing them as clichés. You know what I mean: the stocky, macho truck driver; the tough-talking waitress; the cigar-chewing New York cabbie; the shy, mousy accountant. I could go on and on.
Don't take the easy route. You can change a tag here and there, even going to the opposite extreme, and come up with a fresh character every time.
You can also decide to give a minor character a trait that adds a different tone to the story. The most common example of this is comic relief. In Star Wars, we're delighted that C3PO and R2D2 are not cliché robots talking in monotone, but unique characters who make us laugh. The former is a fussy valet; the latter is his squealing sidekick. They break the tension of the story and make it richer.
So each time you have to come up with a minor character, ask:
Let's go back to our doorman. Even a dinky character like that can be more than a cardboard cutout. Perhaps he twirls his whistle like a conductor leading an orchestra. Or maybe he's not a he at all—it's a doorwoman, and she gives a little wink to the hero as he passes by.
No matter who the “doorperson” is, he or she will be happy you spent some quality time mulling over the possibilities.
Your readers will be happy, too.
In chapter nine of my book Conflict & Suspense I write about inner conflict. I define it this way:
Think of this interior clash as an argument between two sides, raging inside the character. Like the little angel and the little devil that sit on opposite shoulders in a cartoon, these sides vie for supremacy. For inner conflict to work, however, each side must have some serious juice to it.
I had a chuckle rereading that, which I must now explain.
Some time ago I was in Minneapolis for the annual Story Masters Conference. Donald Maass, Christopher Vogler, and I spent four solid days with a roomful of writers, digging deeply into this craft we all love.
I enjoy Story Masters each year, not just because I get to hang out with Don and Chris and a whole bunch of motivated storytellers, but also because every year I pick up valuable writing information.
That year, during Chris's talk on The Hero's Journey, I was struck by something he said about how we feel stories. This came to him, he explained, during his years as a reader for the studios. He noticed that strong emotions hit him physically, at certain points in his body. There were different points for different emotions.
He connected this to the concept of chakra. What happens is that certain emotions immediately fuel a secretion of chemicals in areas of the body. Chris realized that the best scripts, the rare ones that really knocked him out, were hitting him in more than one place.
With a playful gleam in his eye, Chris announced to the class what he calls “Vogler's Rule”:
If two or more organs of your body are not secreting fluids, your story is no good.
This got a laugh from the crowd. Thus my reference above to the serious juice of inner conflict is apt.
As Chris's session went on, I continued thinking more about this idea. What Chris suggests is that when our “fluid centers” are activated, we are not being rational. Thus a great form of inner conflict, perhaps the best form, occurs when the character's rational mind is assaulted by a strong emotional, er, fluid.
And how human that is! Think of the traveling salesman. He has a wife and children he loves. But at the bar in Wichita he sees a cocktail waitress whose sultry walk and Lauren Bacall-voice unleash inside him an immediate animal lust. The fight is between his mind, which reminds him of all he has at home, and his body, which doesn't care what he thinks at all.
Or what about a sheriff with a high and honorable sense of duty? That's his mind. He's thought this through his whole career, lived by that code. But then killers come after him, and he cannot gather a posse to stop them, and his body starts feeding him fear—of death, of losing the woman he's just married, of being a coward. This is the inner conflict that throbs throughout the entire movie High Noon—it's head versus body.
I was reminded of something Iago, who has all the best lines in Othello, says to Roderigo:
If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most prepost'rous conclusions. But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts.
Shakespeare was describing this very thing, the battle between reason (the mind) and all our bodily “raging motions.”
It's such a great way to think about inner conflict, because you can create this tension at any time in your novel. Just arrange for something to strike your character on a strong emotional level, and put that at odds with something he strongly believes.
Thus I came up with “Bell's Corollary to Vogler's Rule” as it relates to inner conflict:
You must have at least one hot fluid fighting your character's head!
This is where you have so much potential for ratcheting up the readability of your novel. We follow characters not because of what's happening to them, but because of what's happening inside them. Make it real and full of churning, roiling inner conflict.