Authors: Lisa Cron
Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence (16 page)
And then there’s the other school, with members like Katherine Anne Porter, whose philosophy is Ms. Wharton’s polar opposite: “If I didn’t know the ending of a story, I wouldn’t begin.”
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Or how about none other than J. K. Rowling, who had very carefully plotted all seven Harry Potter books by 1992—when she began writing the first one.
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“I spent an awful lot of time thinking about the details of the world and working it out in depth,” she says. “I always have a base plot outline.”
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Is either camp right? Or does this simply illustrate that it’s up to each writer to decide whether outlining fits into his or her writing process and leave it at that? Probably. Then again, there’s another way to look at it. Some lucky pups are simply born with a natural sense of story, the way some people have perfect pitch. They can toss off a laundry list and it comes out so nuanced and moving that you’re weeping over the plight of poorly sorted socks. If you’re one of those writers, you don’t need me. Go forth and prosper! But most writers—including most successful writers—benefit from puttering around in their protagonist’s past before tackling (or, having learned their lesson, rewriting) page one. Especially because it helps avoid two major pitfalls:
1. The most common problem with stories that haven’t been outlined is that they don’t build. How can they? Without a premeditated destination based on the battle between the protagonist’s inner issue and his longstanding desire, they wander, taking the scenic route to who-knows-where. Thus, when the writer begins revising, something seminal needs to happen on, oh, about page
two
. And once it does,
everything
that follows becomes largely irrelevant. Which basically translates to what’s known as a “page-one rewrite”—think of it as pretty much starting from scratch.2.
Hey
, many writers think,
no biggie. I expect to rewrite. Everyone says that’s a huge part of the process anyway
. Very true. But in this case there’s a much bigger problem. It’s extremely difficult to acknowledge that the first draft has been rendered largely moot. It’s one of those hard-to-admit mistakes we were talking about, the kind we tend to work overtime rationalizing down to size. Thus new material is crafted first and foremost with an eye toward how it will fit into what’s already there, because our unconscious allegiance is to what we’ve already written, rather than to the story itself. Ironically, the “new” draft is often a big step backward—what was flat in the prior version remains flat, now it just makes less sense.
Have I convinced you to give outlining a chance? Good. But before visions of rigid Roman numeral outlines fill your head—or worse, the thought of plowing through one of those endless one-size-fits-all “character questionnaires”—let me reassure you that outlining can be an intuitive, creative, and inspiring process. Not to mention one that’s often surprisingly shorter than you might think. Let’s take a look at why.
MYTH: You Can Get to Know Your Characters Only by Writing Complete Bios
REALITY: Character Bios Should Concentrate Solely on Information Relevant to Your Story
When it comes to getting to know your characters, there is definitely such a thing as Too Much Information. We’re not talking about details that are way too personal. In a story, way too personal is a good thing. But irrelevant is not. Yet writers are often told that in order to really get to know their characters, they must fill out a detailed character questionnaire longer than the book itself, answering questions like these (and for the record, I’m not making these up):
• Does he like his middle name?
• If she’s stretching out in her backyard to sun herself, what kind of towel does she lie on?
• Does she have a favorite room?
• What color evokes strong memories for her?
• Does he have a birthmark?
• Does he have matching china?
• If he has a birthmark, is it by any chance in the shape of China? (Okay, I made that one up.)
• What is his opinion on euthanasia?
Now while the answers to all these questions might indeed be interesting, chances are they won’t have anything to do with your story. The same goes for writing a general from-birth-to-the-present bio. The whole point of a story is to filter out the kind of unnecessary information such bios are full of. The trouble is, long character bios tend to be
so all-encompassing that, ironically, they obscure the very info you’re looking for. Here’s the secret: you are looking
only
for information that pertains to the story you’re telling. If a story is about a problem, then what you’re looking for is the root of the problem that will blossom on page one. This means that if the fact that Betty is a virtuoso harpist doesn’t enter into or affect the story, you don’t need to make note of the grueling years she spent mastering the harp. Because if you do, you’re likely to then waste time agonizing over where this fact should pop up in the story (when the truth is, it shouldn’t), or worse, writing an entire subplot so Betty can show off her harp-playing skills at a holiday office party, which, because it has nothing whatsoever to do with the story you’re telling, stops it cold. To add insult to injury, the harp problem doesn’t end there; it lingers in the reader’s mind, leaving him wondering,
Gee, I wonder where that harp playing thing is leading
.
That’s why, when writing your protagonist’s bio, the goal is to pinpoint two things: the event in his past that knocked his worldview out of alignment, triggering the internal issue that keeps him from achieving his goal; and the inception of his desire for the goal itself. Sometimes they’re one and the same. For instance, in
It’s a Wonderful Life
, this telltale moment is when George watches his father being beaten down by Potter. This leads George to believe that he can’t be a success if he stays in Bedford Falls (skewing his worldview) and spurs him to want to be the success his father wasn’t, by building big things somewhere else. The story then forces him to reassess his worldview until he slowly realizes that it—and his external goal—have been way off the mark.
While in many stories we wouldn’t actually see this “telltale” scene, it’s often referenced while the protagonist struggles with the havoc it wreaks on his life. It may not even be mentioned at all, its presence merely implied by his actions. So, although the reader doesn’t see it, they feel its effect, because you, the writer, understood it so clearly that you were able to weave it through everything the protagonist does.
Thus when you write your protagonist’s bio, the goal is to find those seminal moments and then trace the trajectory of events they triggered, culminating in the particular dilemma your story will revolve around. Once you’ve done that, if you’re still dying to write an in-depth tell-all bio for your protagonist, who am I to stop you? But be forewarned: if you’re not careful, some of those juicy-but-irrelevant details you’ve uncovered might then creep into your story on their own. The good news is that by using the techniques in this book, you’ll be able to weed them out before they choke the life out of your story.
Then again, you just might find that once you’ve written your focused character bios, you’re aching to dive into the story itself. With that goal in mind, when on the hunt for the telltale moments buried in your protagonist’s past, it helps to remember these four do’s and don’ts.
1.
Do keep in mind one utterly-obvious-when-you-say-it-but-otherwise-easy-to-forget truism: story is about something that is
changing
. Things start out one way and end up another—this is what is meant by a story’s arc. The story itself unfolds in the space between the “before” and the “after.” It chronicles the exhilarating time when things are in flux, giving the reader the illusion that it really could go either way. Thus what you’re looking for when you write your character bios is the specific
before
that leads to the moment when suddenly everything is in flux. This
before
will yield information you’ll then seed into the story you’re telling so the reader understands what the protagonist is changing
from
. Look at it this way—a butterfly may be beautiful in and of itself, but what makes it
interesting
is that it used to be a caterpillar. The “before” is the yardstick that allows the reader to measure the protagonist’s progress toward “after.”
2.
Don’t be uncomfortable about digging deep into your characters’ psyches
. Don’t hold back on account of decorum. You have an idea, going in, what their issues are—it’s what you’re writing about. Ask them embarrassing questions about it—the more personal, the better. Seek out the good, the bad, and especially the ugly, the messy, and the secrets they’d really rather keep to themselves. Nothing can be off limits. Rather than overlook their flaws, you want to pinpoint each one and then examine it under a high-powered microscope in light of their internal issue and their goal.
Your
goal is to allow them to be full, complete flesh-and-blood characters who, like us, are doing their best to muddle through against all odds. The essence of a story lies in revealing the things that in real life we don’t say out loud. This is why, as cruel as it may feel, you can’t allow your characters any privacy or mercy when exploring their past. Sure, they may demand it anyway; they may hide things from you; they may even lie to you. But if you
let
them hold back, if you let them hedge, the resulting story won’t have the ring of truth. And don’t kid yourself; the reader will know. We’ve been around the block, and since we automatically use our own default knowledge base to understand others—whether real or fictional—we have a pretty good idea where you are leading us when we start reading your story.
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Hell, it’s why we signed on in the first place. Veer away and we’ll know it, lose interest, and go see what’s on TV.3.
Don’t try to write well
. The good news about writing character bios is you can do it in a linear, straightforward—plodding, even—progression. Or you can jump all over the place if you like. It’s your call entirely. Plus, there’s no need to worry whether the first line hooks anyone or there are too many adjectives hanging around or even whether it’s well written. All you’re interested in is content; how it’s presented is completely irrelevant, which,
ironically, often leads to stellar writing. Probably because it temporarily disconnects the often snide, hypercritical editor’s voice in your head that sounds suspiciously like your second grade teacher who was sure you’d never amount to anything. Ha!4.
Do write short bios for every major character, even though most of what you write in these bios will not make it into the narrative
. This is often the most important part of the process, because it unearths the motivation that lies beneath what your characters do, giving it meaning. It’s what Fitzgerald meant when he so famously said, “Character is action”—meaning the things we do reveal who we are, especially because, as Gazzaniga reminds us, “Our actions tend to reflect our automatic intuitive thinking or beliefs.”
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Story is often about a protagonist coming to realize what’s
really
causing him to do the things he does, at which point he either celebrates, because he’s better than he thought, or begins making amends, because he’s worse.
Now that we’ve talked the talk, let’s walk the walk through the development of a set of interwoven thumbnail character bios that magically spawn a budding story outline.
Most writers begin with a premise; something along the lines of, “Hey, what would happen if …?” A premise can be spurred by anything—something that happened in your life, something that leaps out when you’re reading the newspaper, or even wishful thinking. To wit: you go to the movies. The hero is an actor who’s getting a little long in the
tooth (read: so old they probably aren’t even his real teeth), yet his leading lady has just finished cutting hers (read: is young enough to be his granddaughter). On the way home, you’re bristling. How come when the man’s much older, it’s business as usual, but when the woman’s older, it’s
Harold and Maude
? (Forget
Cougar Town
.)
Of course, this wouldn’t bother you so much if you weren’t about to turn forty and, what’s worse, you’re mortifyingly infatuated with none other than Cal, the young actor who played the aging hero’s son. Even the fantasy makes you blush. Then it hits you—you can’t be more than thirteen, fourteen years older than Cal, whereas the age difference between the hero and the leading lady has to be at least double that. Is that fair? But since in real life there’s not much you can do about it—after all, having things turn out exactly the way you want them to is pretty much wishful thinking—you’re left with one surefire alternative. Write a story.