(I'm ducking right now before the poop starts to hit the fan...)
Don't Use Real People in Your Story
One of my new writing students, a gent we shall call Wally, came by my office the other day with the first pages of a new story. I read the pages and then handed them back to him.
"Wally," I complained as gently as I could, "these characters are really not very interesting."
Wally frowned, not understanding.
I tried again: "Wally, these characters are dull. What they are flat and insipid. They are pasteboard. They have no life, no color, no vivacity. They need a lot of work."
Wally looked shocked. "How can these characters be dull? They're real people --every one of them! I took them right out of real life!"
"Oh," I said. "So that's the problem."
"What?" he said.
"You can never use real people in your story."
"Why?"
"For one reason, real people might sue you. But far more to the point in fiction copy, real people --taken straight over and put on the page of a story-- are dull."
Wally sat up straighter. "Are you telling me my friends are dull?"
"Of course not!" I told him. "That's not the point. The point is that in fiction real people aren't vivid enough. good characters have to be constructed, not copied from reality."
One of the toughest jobs we ask of our readers is to see characters vividly and sympathize with them. Consider: all your readers have to go by are some symbols printed on a sheet of paper. From these symbols, readers must recognize letters of the alphabet, make the letters into words, derive meaning from the words, link the meanings into sentences. From that point, readers must make an even more amazing leap of faith or intuition of some kind: they must use their own imagination to picture --physically and emotionally-- a person inside their own head. And then they must believe this imagined person is somehow real –and even care about him.
Readers need all the help they can get to perform this arduous imaginative-emotional task. They have a lot to see through to get the job done even imperfectly.
To help them, you can’t simply transcribe what you see and know about a real person. You have to construct something that is far bigger than life, far more exaggerated. Then, if you do your job of exaggeration extremely well, your readers will see your gross exaggeration dimly, but well enough to think, “This constructed character looks like a real person to me.”
Good fiction characters, in other words, are never, ever real people. Your idea for a character may begin with a real person, but to make him vivid enough for your readers to believe in him, you have to exaggerate tremendously; you have to provide shortcut identifying characteristics that stick out all over him, you have to make him practically a monster –for readers to see even his dimmest outlines.
For example, if your real person is loyal, you will make your character tremendously, almost unbelievably loyal; if he tends to be a bit impatient in real life, your character will fidget, gnash his teeth, drum his fingers, interrupt others, twitch, and practically blow sky high with his outlandishly exaggerated impatience. In addition, you may find that it helps your creation if you take one or two other real-life people and add their most exaggerated impatient characteristics.
What you will end up with, if you do well, will be a dimly perceived construct who no longer bears any resemblance to the real person with whom you started.
Good fiction characters also tend to be more understandable that real life people. They do the things they do for motives that make more sense than real-life motives often do. While they’re more mercurial and colorful, they’re also more goal-motivated. Readers must be able to understand why your character does what he does; they may not agree with his motives, but you have carefully set things up so at least they can see that he’s acting as he is for some good reason.
In all these ways fiction characters are not just different than life. They’re better. Bigger. Brighter. More understandable. Nicer or meaner. Prettier or uglier. And ultimately more fascinating.
To put this point another way, in real life people often don’t make sense. But in fiction, they do. The author sees to that.
[This] is just one of several ways fiction surpasses and improves upon life. And that’s a good thing, isn’t it? After all, if fiction were really just like life, why would we have to have it at all? What need would it meet? Who would care about it?
We spin tales …make up story people. None of it is real, and therein lies its beauty. In your stories, as in all the stories ever told, you must hold the magnifying glass up to your people and events for readers to appreciate them at all … and thus briefly enter a private world, largely of their own imagining –made vivid by your crafty help.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, #1
Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, #2
Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, #3
Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, #4
Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, #5
Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, #6
Don't Use Real People in Your Story
One of my new writing students, a gent we shall call Wally, came by my office the other day with the first pages of a new story. I read the pages and then handed them back to him.
"Wally," I complained as gently as I could, "these characters are really not very interesting."
Wally frowned, not understanding.
I tried again: "Wally, these characters are dull. What they are flat and insipid. They are pasteboard. They have no life, no color, no vivacity. They need a lot of work."
Wally looked shocked. "How can these characters be dull? They're real people --every one of them! I took them right out of real life!"
"Oh," I said. "So that's the problem."
"What?" he said.
"You can never use real people in your story."
"Why?"
"For one reason, real people might sue you. But far more to the point in fiction copy, real people --taken straight over and put on the page of a story-- are dull."
Wally sat up straighter. "Are you telling me my friends are dull?"
"Of course not!" I told him. "That's not the point. The point is that in fiction real people aren't vivid enough. good characters have to be constructed, not copied from reality."
One of the toughest jobs we ask of our readers is to see characters vividly and sympathize with them. Consider: all your readers have to go by are some symbols printed on a sheet of paper. From these symbols, readers must recognize letters of the alphabet, make the letters into words, derive meaning from the words, link the meanings into sentences. From that point, readers must make an even more amazing leap of faith or intuition of some kind: they must use their own imagination to picture --physically and emotionally-- a person inside their own head. And then they must believe this imagined person is somehow real –and even care about him.
Readers need all the help they can get to perform this arduous imaginative-emotional task. They have a lot to see through to get the job done even imperfectly.
To help them, you can’t simply transcribe what you see and know about a real person. You have to construct something that is far bigger than life, far more exaggerated. Then, if you do your job of exaggeration extremely well, your readers will see your gross exaggeration dimly, but well enough to think, “This constructed character looks like a real person to me.”
Good fiction characters, in other words, are never, ever real people. Your idea for a character may begin with a real person, but to make him vivid enough for your readers to believe in him, you have to exaggerate tremendously; you have to provide shortcut identifying characteristics that stick out all over him, you have to make him practically a monster –for readers to see even his dimmest outlines.
For example, if your real person is loyal, you will make your character tremendously, almost unbelievably loyal; if he tends to be a bit impatient in real life, your character will fidget, gnash his teeth, drum his fingers, interrupt others, twitch, and practically blow sky high with his outlandishly exaggerated impatience. In addition, you may find that it helps your creation if you take one or two other real-life people and add their most exaggerated impatient characteristics.
What you will end up with, if you do well, will be a dimly perceived construct who no longer bears any resemblance to the real person with whom you started.
Good fiction characters also tend to be more understandable that real life people. They do the things they do for motives that make more sense than real-life motives often do. While they’re more mercurial and colorful, they’re also more goal-motivated. Readers must be able to understand why your character does what he does; they may not agree with his motives, but you have carefully set things up so at least they can see that he’s acting as he is for some good reason.
In all these ways fiction characters are not just different than life. They’re better. Bigger. Brighter. More understandable. Nicer or meaner. Prettier or uglier. And ultimately more fascinating.
To put this point another way, in real life people often don’t make sense. But in fiction, they do. The author sees to that.
[This] is just one of several ways fiction surpasses and improves upon life. And that’s a good thing, isn’t it? After all, if fiction were really just like life, why would we have to have it at all? What need would it meet? Who would care about it?
We spin tales …make up story people. None of it is real, and therein lies its beauty. In your stories, as in all the stories ever told, you must hold the magnifying glass up to your people and events for readers to appreciate them at all … and thus briefly enter a private world, largely of their own imagining –made vivid by your crafty help.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, #1
Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, #2
Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, #3
Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, #4
Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, #5
Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, #6
) That said, I think what he's saying has merit. It's ofttimes painful to face the truth about ourselves and/or our prose. He doesnt break it to us gently or hold our hand while we figure it out. I kinda respect that he treats me like a big girl.
