The Play’s the Thing? - July 2011 - BS-C

The Play’s the Thing?
Using Scriptwriting Techniques to Create Stronger Characters

By Pauline Baird Jones

Pauline Baird Jones is the award-winning author of ten novels of science fiction romance, Steampunk, action-adventure/time travel, suspense, romantic suspense and comedy-mystery. Awards include an EPPIE (Out of Time), Dream Realm (The Key), Bronze IPPY (The Key) and a variety of Reviewer’s Choice awards and nominations. Her science fiction romance works are The Key, Girl Gone Nova, and Tangled in Time. She also has short stories in a variety of anthologies.

Her non-fiction includes: Adapting Your Novel for Film and Made-up Mayhem. She also co-wrote Managing Your Book Writing Business with Jamie Engle. Her web site – The Perils of Pauline – is: http://www.perilouspauline.com/

When Hamlet tells audiences that “the play’s the thing,” he wasn’t talking to writers, but I never overlook any source for making my prose better. I started my adventures in writing with playwriting, so it was inevitable that I’d bring those techniques into my fiction prose. It wasn’t until people started to ask me how I created such memorable characters that I took a closer look at my process and I realized that I still used those scriptwriting techniques in my fiction. While I’ve read a lot of how-to write books along my path to publication, the book I go back to again and again is Playwriting: The Structure of Action by Sam Smiley.

There are many useful techniques one can import from both playwriting and screenwriting, such as how to pitch, and story structure, but I’d like to focus on how it has helped me with character creation.

Both playwrights and screenwriters have to take an “inside out” approach to character creation, because they don’t always know which actor or actress will bring their character to life. And sometimes circumstances can force their characters into unscripted gender changes when a big name wants the part, so a scriptwriter directs most of their focus on internal clarity and consistency. Focusing on the inside first, building your character from the inside out, can help you avoid the dreaded cardboard character syndrome, also known as Pinocchio-itis. We want to infuse our stories with characters that come across as real to readers.

Of course, having said that “real to the reader” is the goal; we need to keep in mind that, quoting Smiley (and the obvious): “Characters are not human beings.”

The people we create, the actions they do are human-like, but they aren’t the same as real humans. If you find yourself defending a character critique with the words, “But that’s how people really act,” then you are probably aiming at the wrong target. Locking our characters into reality can result in tedious prose and, oddly enough, characters that don’t feel real to readers. Yes, it is ironic, but true.

So how do we hit our mark? Smiley tells us that “a character is a closed structure.” What he means is that real people are different to different people (my husband is one person to the people he works with, but another with me), but your character will be the same, or almost the same, to everyone who reads your book (taking into account the variations in personal experience). We’re not talking about change within the story, but how we create a consistent, believable character for the reader.

It’s sort of a semi-Frankenstein process a writer goes through. We assemble the pieces of our character puzzle, but in this approach, we start by looking for the best combo of internal/external characteristics that will propel the plot.

In his handbook, Smiley identifies six basic character traits, from the simple-tangible to the complex-intangible. He believes they are not only key to effective character creation, but also present in good plays and novels, even if the author didn’t consciously plan it that way.

The basic traits are: biological, physical, dispositional, motivational, deliberative, and decisive. By understanding and using these traits, you can avoid cardboard stereotypes and wooden characters. Let’s take a closer look at the traits.

Biological traits are the most basic. Is my character animal, mineral, vegetable or machine? Male, female, androgynous, something else? For your minor characters, you might not need to know more than their biological designation. For major characters, you need to add more physical detail, though as I mentioned before, scriptwriters tend to focus more on defining characteristics, such as clothing, employment, characteristic movement, physical limitations, quirks and nervous habits, rather than detailed appearance. The shadow and spirit is allowed to take shape, decreasing the risk that the character might get confined to an ill-fitting exterior, and fail to spring into full, vibrant life. I’ve found my characters won’t come out and play until all the pieces are in the right place.

When I start from the inside, I am often surprised at how the physical appearance forms in my head as the internal character begins to come alive for me. Because of this, I spend most of my time with the intangible traits, because these are where the heart, the soul, and the mind of a character take shape. It is within these traits that I discover what they want and what they will do to get it.

The first intangible trait is the dispositional, which Smiley defines as the “prevailing mood or life attitude.” Is the character an optimist or pessimist? Fast or slow? Reflective or impulsive? Remember the Seven Dwarves? They are dispositional traits at their most basic. Dispositional traits are your foundation for the deeper levels of motivation and deliberation that will follow as you get to know your character better. You can also use dispositional traits to create contrasts and conflicts between your characters, making it easier for the reader to remember who is who and better identify with your characters. Think light and dark, funny and sad, and then give them a spin to avoid stereotyping. No one is all one disposition.

Be careful about giving too many characters the same disposition, though. For my directing class final, I had to direct a short play. It got lots of laughs from the class, but my instructor homed in on the basic weakness that I hadn’t noticed: all three of my female characters delivered their lines the same way. If I’d closed my eyes, I wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart. It was a good lesson to bring into my fiction prose. People—and characters—don’t think, act, perceive, talk, or move the same. Even two cheerful friends will have subtle differences. Make sure you know what they are and that you highlight them for the reader.

If you are having trouble finding those differences, help is on the way with motivational traits. What do they want? How far will they go, what will they do to get it?

Smiley points out that motivation occurs on three levels: instinct (subconscious), emotion (semi-conscious) and sentiment (conscious). This is where what your characters want and need comes into play. Remember what we want is sometimes different from what we need. Your characters might not know the difference, but you should.

Characters that have layers of motivation have greater depth, believability and humanity, particularly when their subconscious needs are at odds with their conscious desires. The writer who creates these delicious conflicts within their characters will find it easier to propel their characters into deliberation.

Smiley believes that “deliberative traits refer to the quality and quantity of a character’s thoughts.” Disposition and motivation reflect your character’s “living, acting, feeling, and desiring.” Deliberation is your character thinking. Think about those two words: quality and quantity. Real thought will be a mix of both, and fictional thought should resemble it, but without the boring parts. Quality thought is the type that will drive your plot, while limited quantity thought will reveal character.

Quality thinking occurs at expedient and ethical levels—if you want to crank up the emotional impact of your prose. Ethical thought is about what is right or wrong within the world you’re creating, while expedient thinking deals with reactions to pressures from other characters and the clash of the characters wants and needs. This is where you can really connect with your readers by creating an environment where your characters wrestle with their “human” condition.  Emotion gives your prose heart and this is where you mine for it.

Just don’t have them wrestle so long that they fail to act.

It is action; it is characters making choices and decisions, that provokes active conflict. It is action that creates complications, crisis, and satisfying climaxes. All my characters have to do something to move my plot forward. So make sure you push your creative process all the way to the decisive level with your main characters.

The part that has surprised me the most, when I use this process, is that my characters can, and do, surprise me, but that surprise is within the internal logic of my story, because the characters are on solid ground with the traits I’ve given them.

A word of caution here. As you are mixing up your characters and tossing in traits, be careful of overloading them for the sake of complexity. Only use the traits that matter to the story you are trying to tell. As you proceed through your first draft, you will find that some traits will rise to the top, while others will fall away or become redundant.

It is also important, during the rewriting process, to test your characters for the proper balance between your main characters, and to a lesser degree, within your supporting cast. Is your hero a proper match for your heroine? Is there some parity in what they both want? For instance, you wouldn’t want one character to have life or death at stake, while the other is worried about a job. Are the sidekicks too much alike? Is everyone too funny or too sad? Remember your goal is to create an experience that feels real to the reader.

To help us achieve balance and parity, Smiley provides a character soundness checklist that includes: volition, stature, interrelation, attractiveness, credibility, clarity, and diction.

Volition is simply the will power or the ability to act. When I was in the initial stages of writing Girl Gone Nova, I realized early on, that my lead character, Doc, was reactive, not proactive. I took her back to the drawing board and discovered she had much to teach me about who she was and what she could do. When we both came back to the story, it kicked into high gear in ways that both surprised and delighted me.

Stature measures the strength and intensity of your character. Is your character strong enough, intense enough to propel your story forward? Is your villain bad enough to cause real, sustained problems?

Interrelation involves character interaction. How involved are they in the story and each other? Are they “on stage” enough? Do they interact appropriately with others? Are they too different to be believable?

Attractiveness has more to do with “wholeness” than beauty. Is your hero too heroic? Temper with flaws. Is your villain too villainous? Balance with a smidgen of virtue. If your characters are too annoying, too quirky, too anything, the reader may toss the book—assuming your project makes it past an editor.

Credibility asks the question, are character motivation and outward action consistent? Take time during and after key scenes for your major characters to react and reflect on what happened and how it has changed them. Let the reader in on important actions and reactions to what’s happening to your important characters. This is sometimes called scene and sequel.

Though you may think diction is not applicable to fiction writing, it is a mistake not to check to see if your characters sound the way they should. No one uses words in exactly the same way and your characters shouldn’t either. During the revision process, I go through and read all dialog, internal and external, for each character, looking for consistency. I also make sure my dialog sounds like dialog and not prose.

With any “process” or “sure-fire way to do xyz” remember that something only works if it works for you. I grab ideas from any and all sources, so that I can get words on the page and my books into print. But, the measure of a book’s creation is reaching a reader (or hopefully a lot of them). If a reader can act out my story in their minds, if I give them a well crafted “script” and great “players,” then I have a better chance that they will stay with my story until the curtain rings down and the credits roll. And maybe they’ll tell their friends.