Writing a Human Story

Of all the idea’s I wanted to talk about when I started this Blog, I think this may be one of the most important.  It’s about giving your story a universal appeal.  Once you’ve finished your story, and launched it into the world, you never know who is going to read it.  It’s a diverse group of readers you have out there. They will come from different races, and countries, and economic backgrounds. They may be gay or Buddhist or even Republicans. There is only one thing you can be certain of, and that is, excepting certain nosey cats with no respect for boundaries, every one of your readers will be a Human Being.  That is why it is important, when you are writing, to speak to what it means to be human.

                I remember very clearly the first time I really thought about what this meant.  A friend of mine had introduced me to a manga series called Maison Ikkoku written and drawn by a woman named Rumiko Takahashi.  This was many years ago, back in the days before the bookstores had become oversaturated with the stuff. I remember reaching a certain panel and being surprised.  I was surprised because what was happening on that page, I had felt exactly like that before.  The circumstances were a little different, but the way the character felt was me, and how did the writer know that? How did a middle aged Japanese woman from Tokyo writing about fictional Japanese characters offset from my timeline by a decade know how I felt well enough to put it in her story?  Of course she didn’t. She simply wrote a human story, and the essential humanity within me recognized myself within them.

                All of the labels that we use to identify ourselves such as race, religion, gender, and politics are really quite meaningless in comparison with what makes us human.  We obsess about these superficial things, but even though they have meaning and shape how we look at the world, they are not the most powerful things in our lives.

                Here’s an example of a human scene in a very human story.  Watch this and imagine yourself on that bench.  This is the moment, when the thing you hoped for, and prayed for, and poured your heart and soul into no matter how hard it was, and thought would never happen finally does, and the surge of emotion that rises up is so powerful you can only weep.

                                                                                    

                This isn’t just about someone getting into the college he’s been fighting for when no one believed in him. This is the same moment when a cancer test comes back negative after chemo. It’s a pregnancy test coming back positive when you thought you couldn’t, it’s finding out your brother wasn’t on the casualty list after a bad day in Iraq.  We have all felt what he’s feeling, and it binds us together.

             So think about this when you’re writing.  What about your  story is going to resonate with the reader? What will make someone in Tokyo ten years from now look at your story and say “That’s me.  How did he know how I felt?”

Don't Let Bad Yeti Happen to You

                A few days ago, I was watching “The Mummy 3” Don’t ask me why, some things cannot be explained.  I was watching the Mummy and I came upon this scene.

                                                                             

………….I know, right? What was that?  You have to ask yourself, how something like that made it into a 145 million dollar movie? What really bothers me about this scene, other than the way it damages the movie, is that it’s painfully, obviously bad, and someone made a large amount of money for writing it , while some of the best storytellers I’ve ever read, will never be paid for the work they do.  I’m not sure what is more terrifying; the idea that a Yeti Field Goal was in the original script and no one cut it, or that it wasn’t in the script, but someone said “the third act needs punching up, you know what this movie needs ? A sweet Yeti field goal!! Hell Yeah!  Or the fact that in the months that it took to model, texture, animate, render and composite this sequence into the movie, the idea that it was stupid, and hurt the movie never gained traction. What the Mummy 3 really needed was for someone to say no.

                This is why you need a good Beta reader.  A Beta reader serves many useful functions. They give you valuable feedback on your story. They might spot opportunities that you missed or have an alternate way of saying something that makes your scene funnier, or sadder, or scarier, but perhaps the most important service they provide is to give you one more chance to stop something bad from getting into the world.  When all people remember of your story is the stupid scene with the Yeti field goal, your reputation as a storyteller has been harmed. They may be unwilling to give you another chance.

                The best thing your Beta reader can do for you is to be ruthlessly honest with you about what they feel works and what doesn’t. Their reactions will probably mirror your readers. The best thing you can do for them is not take criticism of your story personally. When they tell you something doesn’t work, it’s not a slam on you. It’s not calling you stupid or saying you’re a bad writer.  It’s not about you, it’s about the scene, and if it’s not working, it’s better for you to know now than when the Ebola monkey of a scene has escaped into the wild. Also, it wouldn’t hurt to thank them in the author notes. They spent their valuable time to make your story better, so mentioning their input is just the classy thing to do, and as Ron Burgundy says, you should always stay classy.

Strength not Aggression

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before;

                Harry strode confidently into Dumbledore’s office, his dragonhide boots echoing ominously on the flagstones.  His piercing green eyes scanned the office, missing nothing.“Harry my boy, what a surprise” Dumbldore said, his eyes twinkling, “I don’t believe we had an appointment , but perhaps I could spare a few minutes…”“Shut up you old fool!” Harry snarled as he backhanded Dumbledore to the ground “I’m on to your bullshit!”  “Potter! “ Harry turned to face professor Snape . “I’ll see you expelled for this! You’re just as arrogant as….”Harry never got to learn who he was as arrogant as because he had already summoned his custom enchanted Glock 19 pistols carved with the Goblin runes for Bad Ass Mother Fucker” and shot the Slytherin in the knees. “If I wanted your opinion Snivellus, I’d beat it out of you” Harry stated as he sat in Dumbldores chair and propped his feet up on the great wooden desk. “We’re doing things my way from here on out. Anyone got a problem with that?

                If you’ve read any amount of fanfiction, you’re bound to have run into a few of these.   For some, they might be a guilty pleasure, because where else will we see Draco swallow a hand grenade? But there’s just no getting around the fact that these stories are bad, and there are some very good reasons not to write your hero like this.

                First, and I do not want to understate the importance of this, this hero sounds like a prick. The reader is supposed to like your hero, to empathize with him and to want good things for him, but how are we supposed to do that when he acts like such an arrogant bully? The only audience who might get behind this kind of character is these guys.

                                                                                 

                Aside from the fact that these sorts of protagonist come off as jerks, they make life harder on you as a writer. Remember, that your job is to convince the reader that your hero can lose.  If we’re not worried for him, we’re not invested in him, and we’ll probably move on to a story where we are invested. How do you create drama by putting your hero in jeopardy when he’s such a total badass that nothing can stand against him? The hero really has to be up against the ropes before he can make his comeback and give the reader that all important “Crowning Moment of Awesome".

                The important thing here for a writer to realize, as he decides how his character will approach the world, is that aggression is not strength. Strength is strength.  What does Harry have to prove in the story above? He killed a giant Basilisk at twelve, Drove off more dementors than anyone thought was possible.  Saved his friends lives, faced a Dragon, ect. Does he really need to bolster his self esteem by making other people feel small?  The truly accomplished, the Olympians, the Nobel winners, the great artist, don’t feel the need to throw their superiority in everyone’s faces. It doesn’t do anything for them.  They know who they are and what they’re worth. What other people think about them doesn’t really matter that much. And that confidence gives them presence.  Presence is what you should be going for in your hero, not bluster.  The arrogant, bullying character that throws his weight around is usually the one who gets his ass kicked when the quiet, taciturn hero whose calm, even friendly exterior, hides an iron will and unlimited capacity for destruction against those who cross him.   

           When I think of the tough guys I grew up watching,  not a one of them wasted time showing off what badasses they were, that just naturally came out in the course of doing what needed to be done.  Even well past the prime of their lives they’ve got this look about them. You say, “ ehn, he’s old, what could he do? Then they turn that cold steely gaze on you, and you suddenly remember that thing you had to do across town just now. That’s presence.

                                                                           

The Sam Gamgee Principle

                 In the course of writing a story, most authors are going to focus their efforts on the main character.   Their actions are the ones that drive the story forwards. They have the love interest and the Arch Enemies and the snappy dialogue, so naturally they are going to get our A game while what is left gets divided up amongst all the secondary characters.  Frequently these second tier characters only purpose is to give the Hero someone to talk at, rescue, or bounce exposition off of, sometimes they’ll die so the hero can find the motivation to beat the bad guy.  I feel this is a wasted opportunity.

                The thing about heroes is that the exceptional qualities that make them so interesting to read about separate them from us.  They inspire and amaze us, but because we know deep down that we can never do what they do, most of us will never even try.  Even when we feel connected to the hero on a level, such as when Spiderman struggles to make rent there is always that ability gap that excuses us from following his example.  This is why, even though the Hero gets the bulk of your efforts, you should not neglect the sidekick. Circle back for him. Develop him. Give him something real to say and do, because ultimately, the Sidekick is your reader.

                Most of us probably have times when we do not feel like the heroes of our own stories.  We are not gifted athletes, or prodigies of any sort. We rarely feel like the coolest person in the room.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, how chaotic would the world be if everyone was an Alpha type? But what are the qualities of a good sidekick?  They are loyal. They are frequently braver than they ever thought they could be. They stand to be counted, even if what they have to contribute to the cause isn’t much.  When the hero falters, as he will at some point if he has any depth at all, when he loses faith or hope or confidence, the sidekick encourages him and gets him through it. When the hero has exhausted his last reserves of strength, the sidekick says “Take mine.”

 When you think about it, these are not just the qualities of a good sidekick. They are the qualities of a good friend, and they are all things that I can do even though my abilities are not exceptional.  A Hero can inspire you. He can give you hope and purpose. But a sidekick can teach you how to be a better person, and that’s not an opportunity a writer should miss.

                                                           

Your Hero is not an Edgar Suit

                                                                              

           Some of you may remember Edgar from the 1997 Blockbuster “Men in Black”.  He’s here to help me talk about a mistake a lot of amateur authors make when writing their protagonist.  I say amateur authors because writers who do this rarely get paid for it.  When the character says the words you put in his mouth and performs the actions you lay out for him it can be easy to see him as a sort of avatar.  He becomes a second skin that you put on to interact with the universe of the story.  The hero becomes your Edgar Suit.  You’ll see this happen in a lot of stories that are characterized as “Mary Sue” or Mary Stu’s”.  When the story stops being about the journey your hero takes and becomes about wish fulfillment for you, then you’ve lost the ability to make the reader truly care.

                An actor can wear a characters skin and inhabit the story without ruining it. Even an actor who is also the director as Mel Gibson was in Braveheart can keep the character real. But in the Universe of the story, the writer is God. What happens then, when the character is really the writer? The character is also God, and there can be no real drama.  This is something I may circle back to in the future, because it’s that critical. One of the most important jobs you have as a writer is to convince the reader that the hero can lose.  A hero’s worth is determined by the difficulty of the challenges he faces, but when you feel like the hero is representing you, you have a conflict of interest.  Can you convincingly batter the hero down? Humiliate him? Have him rejected by the love interest in favor of his hated rival when you’re doing it to yourself? The better story would have you bring the hero low so that it’s that much more inspiring when he digs down deep, summons up all his courage and finds a way, even though he’s just hopelessly outgunned, outnumbered and outclassed.

                I believe it’s best for a writer to find a balanced perspective to tell the story from. You need to be close enough to know what happens, and to care about it enough to convey the proper emotions to the reader, but far enough to keep your ego out of the equation.  That way when the girl next door goes to the prom with the quarterback stud instead of the hero, it’s not you standing in the rain in your powder blue rental tux with the soggy bouquet of flowers.  The epic opening monologue from the movie Conan the Barbarian is a perfect example of good narrative distance.

Between the time when the Oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryus

There was an age undreamed of. And onto this, Conan

Destined to bear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow.

It is I his chronicler alone who can tell Thee of his saga.

Let me tell you of the days of High Adventure!

                In other words, I saw this. It was awesome. Let me tell you about it.  Be Watson to your heroes Holmes.  Keep your distance so you can keep your objectivity, and don’t steal your hero’s glory fixing his fights so you can feel like a winner. It will make you a better writer.

In conclusion;  Edgar suits, good for Intergalactic Cockroach Bounty Hunters bad for writers.