Writer to writer: From think to ink - Gail Carson Levine 2014
Fear of flat
Character building
When my first and excellent editor, Alix Reid, would edit my manuscripts, she used to sprinkle the word flat here and there—at random, it seemed to me. Flat was the edit I most hated to see. What’s wrong with this? I always thought and never asked. I just tried to make the flat words plumper, rounder, better. Whatever I’d written usually did get better, just because if you pay close attention to anything, you can improve it. But Alix’s meaning eluded me.
In time, however, I’ve come to understand what she meant. A sentence like I’m scared would warrant a flat. I’m scared is a summary statement, not specific, not very interesting. The reader might reasonably want to know how this particular character is scared.
Along these lines, a writer who called herself F commented on the blog: “I have difficulty in ’feeling’ for my characters.” She added that they seem “just the little bit too flat, and too listless.”
There’s a reason the word feelings is a synonym for emotions—we feel our feelings in our bodies as well as in our minds. Once, when I wanted to show how a character was scared, I hunted online for new ways to reveal fright and brought up images of terrified people. I discovered that we all look a lot alike when we’re scared. Although I’d hoped for more variety, these are the signs I saw: mouth open in a scream or partially open with the lips curving down, curled hands near the neck or mouth, a lot of whites of the eyes, raised eyebrows. Then I typed “fear response” in my search engine and read about fear. We all look much alike when we’re afraid because the same processes are going on in the brains of all of us. Or most of us—the article didn’t mention trained assassins or the insane. When terror strikes, several parts of our brains get into the act to make blood rush from our skin (so we pale) to the muscles that can fight or carry us away. Our hearts speed up; our blood pressure rises. This inner brouhaha causes the reactions I saw in the photographs.
As I learned about fear, my heart started racing, which is the effect we want to cause in our readers. When we write fear well, they’re likely to be scared too.
If our POV character is Patrick again and he’s afraid or in the grip of another strong emotion, he can reveal his feelings in thoughts or physical responses—and when he does, they will no longer be flat. If he’s running from a bully, he can report that his legs are burning and his heart is galloping a mile ahead of his body. If Kaylie is the one who’s frightened, Patrick can relate how she seems to him, that her face is pale except for two dots of pink on her cheeks, that her eyes look watery, that she’s panting and her voice sounds breathy.
Notice that Patrick experiences what’s happening to himself internally. He won’t know he’s pale unless he’s looking in a mirror or unless somebody tells him. He may assume that Kaylie’s heart is pounding, but he can’t be sure unless she says so.
Possibly, what makes Kaylie vibrate with terror leaves Patrick unmoved. Or vice versa. And this is how emotion contributes to character development. When we find out that hearing a raised voice causes Patrick to shudder, but crossing a rope bridge over a thousand-foot chasm doesn’t speed up his heart in the slightest, we know him better. We also grow more interested in him. We wonder why shouting is so frightening. Did something horrible happen to him, something that was accompanied by yelling?
Then there’s the duration of a feeling, which also varies from person to person and character to character. Patrick may take an hour to calm down from an overheard shouting match, or it may trouble him for only a minute.
Let’s switch from fear to anger. Some characters blow up and blow over. They explode. Then they’re fine. Others cannot let go of their fury. Patrick thinks he and Kaylie are back to being best buddies. A week passes and something tiny sets her off, a misunderstanding. She realizes that it was nothing more, but the rage returns. She may want to get past it but she can’t. When we discover this about her, we understand her better.
Duration applies to thoughts, too. Some characters never drop an idea. For good or ill they pursue it. Some flit from notion to notion, rarely holding on to a thought long enough to examine it.
And there’s a character’s resting state, the emotion he lives in, his usual mood. Patrick may be generally cheerful, fearful, trusting, suspicious, angry, calm, or anything else. Likewise Kaylie, or any of our characters.
Writing time!
• Your MC is about to travel alone for the first time. Make up the circumstances that occasion the trip. Everybody packs differently and faces a departure differently. How does your character do it? What are his or her thoughts and feelings about it? If the story grabs you, keep going.
• Elinor arrives for the second week of her training as a scout for King Aldric in his war against the cruel dwarfs of Akero. When she gets there, she’s told that she’s been dropped from the cadre. Write three responses from her. If you like, choose your favorite and continue the story.
• Bonnie is depressed. Action seems hopeless. Nothing will do any good. Her alarmed parents start making her wishes come true in order to cheer her up, with results that are temporary at best. Give her a problem that activates her and lifts her depression. Write the story. At the end she can be sad again, or not.
Have fun, and save what you write!