She threw the book at me!
I’m a writer and I don’t get no respect. Just the other day I hired an editor to help me with my manuscript, and the first thing she did was throw the book at me! The unabridged book at me. The one that defines words. You know it. D-i-k something something something.
Filed under Cartoon, cartoon by author, no respect, writing
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You just might find
You get what you need
So goes the chorus from The Rolling Stones song, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”
Those are perfect lyrics in which to briefly discuss the three elements that can help a writer build a character.
When creating a main character, ask yourself three questions:
1) What does your main character (protagonist) want?
2) What does your character need?
3) How can these two things be brought into conflict?
Despite what advertising might try to convince about having hunger pangs that only a certain hamburger can cure, there is a difference. Hunger is a need. The body needs food to live. The hamburger (Or whatever other food you wish to insert) is a want. Hunger can be alleviated by a wide range of foods, not just the one being advertised at the moment you feel hunger.
What a character needs is often more important than what she wants.
You can also think of this way: want is often an external thing; need an internal thing. The hamburger is an external manifestation of something that is an internal need: hunger. They come into conflict when you find out you don’t have enough money for that hamburger, or if having that hamburger will cause you to break out in hives, due to an allergic reaction you may have recently developed to ground beef.
The same is also often true of your story’s main character. There is something he wants. There is something he needs. The want and the need to come into conflict.
Take for example, Huckleberry Finn in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
What is it wants: to escape his alcoholic father who has kidnapped him and locked him in an old cabin in the woods, because the father wants the money that Huck is entitled to. He escapes from his dad and hides out on an island as part of his plan to keep from being kidnapped again. What he needs, though he is not willing to even admit it to himself, is an adult who will accept him for how he is (and won’t try to civilize him), but still be willing to take care of him, even guide if not raise him, and love him. Huck finds that in the runaway slave Jim, and at the point of the novel where Huck should turn Jim in as runaway slave, Huck decides not to do what society wants him to do, he sides with Jim because Jim is somebody whom Huck needs, and who also needs Huck. Much of the rest of the novel from that point on is about handling the consequences of that decision and the temptations to still turn Jim in.
There are many other examples in fiction and in film, on the stage and even sometimes in long story poems.
You can have your protagonist side with what he wants over what he needs. This often leads to more trouble or even tragedy. You can have you protagonist win by losing. He loses what he wants, but wins what he needs and is the better for it. He can find a way to make the two work together, with the want being a true outward manifestation of the inward need.
So, decide what it is your character wants (that job promotion, the girl next door, the pot of gold) and what he needs (validation of his self-worth, love, money to buy the thing he always wanted), and then bring those two into conflict.
[Editor’s update/note: click on “building a better story” in the Category listings to find several other blog pieces of information I have put together from classes, books, and other sources (including my own experiences).]
Filed under building a better story, cartoon by author, character, writing tip
[Editor’s note: Parts 1 – 6 of The Kibitzer and the Kidd are available by clicking on “Kidd” or “Kibitzer” in the tag section. This is science fiction western with more than dollop of humor and satire.]
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Al Wayne handed the Cough Drop Kidd a hot toddy. They were in Wayne’s private office off the mezzanine in the saloon.
Given the scuffed look of the saloon, this office was opulent with upholstered seats and an intricately carved fireplace mantel. There was no fire in the fireplace, and the Kidd wondered if it worked. Wayne assured him that it did, but that he rarely used it because it was an inefficient way to heat and added to the carbon footprint.
Wayne handed the Kidd a copy of his book, Global Warning. The Kidd wasn’t quite sure what to do, a warm drink in one hand and a cold tome in the other.
He laid the book on a side table by the chair, He was almost certain he heard the table sigh and mutter, “Oh, no, not another one.”
“Drink up,” Wayne said, raising his own drink to his lips and taking a sip. “It’s not often we get a toddy drinker in this town. It’s good to have a little sophistication every now and then.”
The Kidd didn’t think of himself as a sophisticate, only somebody with a sore throat from coughing too much.
“What about what the Kibitzer said. Is it true?”
Wayne smiled.
“That Bonnie can whip up some mighty powerful cough drops. Sometimes a whiff of those apothecary fumes can make you say things you normally wouldn’t.”
“So, it’s not true?”
Wayne shrugged. “Many folk around here have claimed they’ve been struck by lightning and then resurrected some time later. I don’t put much stock in it myself.”
The smile on Wayne’s face didn’t ease the feeling of disquiet the Kidd felt rippling just under his skin. Particularly since it was at Wayne’s insistence that the Kibitzer had to sleep I the stable on the edge of town. Not that it was a large town, and a few of the buildings only had facades and nothing behind them. One or two had signs that read: “Coming soon,” but nothing else. At one point in their travels together, the Kidd had heard the Kibitzer use the term Potemkin Village and he wondered if this might be that. The name of this place was Potomac. But there was no river nearby.
“You haven’t touched your toddy.”
The Kidd quickly took a sip. It was tepid now, but still tasted amazingly good. He took a second, long sip.
“Now, I have a question for you, Mr. Kidd.”
Kidd smiled. He rarely heard anybody call him Mr. Kidd. Kidd or hey you was more likely. For the moment, he couldn’t remember what the Kibitzer called him. Probably nothing he wanted to repeat.
Kidd wasn’t his real name, at least not the real name his parents gave him. But he abandoned that name shortly after he abandoned them.
“My question is in your travels have you heard anyone mention or met anyone by the name of John Gore?”
At that moment, the floor-faced man barged into the room. He spotted The Kidd and curled his lip.
“Fire. There’s fire down at the livery.” He said it breathlessly, but not in a good breathless way.
The Kibitzer, the Kidd thought.
“Save my horses. My prize Walkers,” Wayne said.
Wayne was at the door, shoving the floor-faced man out in front of him.
The Kidd put down his toddy on the book and headed for the door.
“Don’t forget your book,” the table said.
The Kidd hesitated.
“Take it, fool,” the table said.
The Kidd snatched it from under the toddy. The cup tipped over and smashed against the floor. Breaking china and escaping toddy skittered and splashed about.
“Oh, Mr. Wayne’s going to be mad. That’s not eco-friendly.”
The Kidd didn’t hear the table. He was down the stairs and almost to the saloon’s swinging front doors when two dark figures stepped in front of him, blocking his way. The Kidd tried going around them, but they would have none of it.
(To be continued…)
No April Fool this philosopher.
Filed under aging, Cartoon, eight year old philosopher, growing older, humor, word play
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