Sue Harrison’s “Writing the Third Dimension” – part 5: CRASH! SMASH!

Welcome! Over the next many months we invite you to return here, specifically on the fourth Thursday of each month for the newest installment of Sue Harrison‘s teaching: Writing The Third Dimension. You can read all the segments by clicking on the page title WRITING THE THIRD DIMENSION, found under Writers’ Helps & Workshops on the drop-down menu. Please feel free to ask questions and leave comments for Sue. Now for the topic for month five:

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“Writing the Third Dimension” – part 5: CRASH! SMASH!

When my oldest brother was in grade school, he discovered the delight of racing little plastic cars on a miniature track. He and my dad would each take a car and a controller and race and race and race. The winner was always elated, but I think they had the most fun when one of the cars would accidentally fly off the track, crash into the other car, and carry it off across the room, plastic parts flying.

If you are a writer, there’s a lesson to be learned in the art of crashing. Novelists need to be experts at destruction, specifically, the destruction of their main character’s heart. We touched on this subject in my first Writing the Third Dimension post, but we need to dig a bit deeper into the process.

If you have a good understanding of your main character’s self-image issues (See Part 1 of Writing the Third Dimension: Heart Breaker), it’s time for you to take that wonderful person (or horrible person, if we’re talking about the villain) and rip his or her world apart. You have to grab whatever that person loves most and smash it to smithereens. If you have a complex novel, with several main characters and a villain or two, you need to do that smashing stuff with every one of them.

Here are a few tips about smashing:

1. Your character’s central self-image can be smashed at any time in the novel, or even before the novel begins, but I’ve found the most effective smashing usually occurs within the first few chapters.

2. If you destroy your main character’s self-image BEFORE the novel begins, avoid the temptation to TELL the reader all about it in the first chapter. Or in the second chapter. Or ever in the novel. Feed it to your reader in small tasty bites. (We’ll discuss how to do this in a future post.) Your reader wants to guess a bit about why the main character acts, talks, and defines the world as he does.

3. The most effective smashing occurs after the reader has bonded with the character. Your reader will best bond through emotions. In the first few chapters, the reader wants to know what your character loves, what your character enjoys, what your character hates. Let your reader see your character’s heart. Then SMASH! In my novel, Mother Earth Father Sky, I dedicated the first chapter to opening the main character’s world to the reader. It is a world foreign to most people because the novel takes place thousands of years ago in Alaska, but, by the end of the chapter, the reader knows that the main character, Chagak, is a young woman in love with the man who has just arranged to marry her. The reader learns that Chagak holds a place of respect in the village and is close to her parents and siblings. Then SMASH! Her whole world is destroyed by marauders, and she is the sole survivor. Which brings us to point number 4.

4. Smashing hurts your heart. Be ready for that. If you don’t shed tears for your characters, your readers won’t shed tears either.

5. In longer, more complex novels, your main character may experience several SMASH situations in his or her life. A good example of this is the classic novel, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Jane’s world crashes when, as a child, she must go live with her self-serving aunt and wicked cousins. It crashes again when she loses her best friend at boarding school, and it crashes yet again when she uncovers the great secret hidden by the love of her life. Charlotte Bronte was a master at pulling her readers in by destroying her characters’ worlds.

Likewise, your novel will pull in your readers when you make judicious use of the art of crashing.

How do you feel about smashing? Are you good at destroying your characters’ worlds, or is that difficult for you?

Blessings and Happy Writing!

Sue

*Writing the Third Dimension, copyright, 2010 Sue Harrison*

Bestselling author, Sue Harrison, has written two Alaska trilogies: The Ivory Carver Trilogy and The Storyteller Trilogy, and a middle readers’ book SISU. Prior to the publication of her novels, Harrison was employed at Lake Superior State University as a writer and acting director of the Public Relations Department and as an adjunct instructor in creative writing and advanced creative writing. For more information, click here. To inquire about booking Sue for workshops or speaking engagements this year, click here.

Thanks for joining us! Please feel free to leave your questions and comments. We invite you come back June 27, 2013 for part 6.

Sue Harrison’s “Writing the Third Dimension” – part 4: Fatal Flaw

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“Writing the Third Dimension” – part 4: Fatal Flaw

When I was in college, I overheard a young woman say to a friend, “Well, I can be friends with a girl who is smart, and I can be friends with a girl who is beautiful, but I just can’t stand a girl who’s beautiful and smart.”

That’s a very good summary of how your readers are going to feel about your main character if he or she is too perfect. We know our own vulnerabilities only too well. When we meet someone who is too talented, too beautiful, or too smart, all that perfection eats away at our self-esteem. So, unless you’re writing a spoof, please give your characters vulnerabilities. Your readers need to identify with the main character. Character flaws pull your reader into your novel, make that reader stick with you through 400 or more pages of story, and – best of all – inspire your readers to buy your next book. Perfection just doesn’t cut it!

If you’ve read any of the TWILIGHT series, you know that the main character Bella is a total klutz. She’s also not aware of her own beauty and not very popular. Those flaws help make Bella a very loveable character. I have to admit that nothing makes me ‘forgive’ a gorgeous Hollywood starlet more readily for her beauty than her sincere lament about her squinty eyes or crooked teeth.

Let’s face it. We all tend to romanticize life. In mid-winter we dream of life on the beach – warm sun, snacks and cold drinks in the cooler, family time… But in real life, beach days also include ants, sunburn, and sand – all over our hands, in our food, and in our bathing suits. Even the most romantic of readers want their novels to include a bit of sand in the beach scene and, more importantly, imperfection in their main characters.

One caution – be careful with character flaws. Don’t make them so terrible that your reader turns away in disgust. For example, it’s probably not a good idea for your protagonist to be mean to children or dogs.

We all have character flaws. I, alas, like Bella, am a klutz. I also have a tendency to talk too much when I’m nervous. The main character in my current WIP (work in progress) is drop-dead gorgeous, except that her face is plastered with freckles. She’s also made some very unwise life choices. Are you working on a novel or short story? What’s your character’s flaw? Let’s share some ideas by composing a list.

What character flaws have you used within your writing, noticed in your reading, or put up with in real life?

Any questions for me? Please feel free to ask!

Blessings and Happy Writing!

Sue

*Writing the Third Dimension, copyright, 2010 Sue Harrison*

Thanks for joining us! Please feel free to leave your questions and comments. We invite you come back May 23, 2013, for part 5.

Sue Harrison’s “Writing The Third Dimension”- part 2: Cut the Puppet Strings!

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“Writing the Third Dimension” – part 2: Cut the Puppet Strings!

One of my little life treasures is a slip of paper from my uncle that is filled with handwritten notes about characterization. Uncle Bill was a composer, symphony conductor, and concert pianist, very eccentric and very brilliant. When I was in college, I worked up enough nerve to begin sending him some of my short stories. He became my coach, cheerleader, and harshest critic, exactly what I needed at that time. I finally wrote a novelette and sent that 40,000 words of drivel to him.

Uncle Bill wrote a critique of my novelette, and, when he was at the post office to mail that critique to me, he ripped a deposit slip out of his checkbook and wrote this on the back: [his words and spelling] “Your characters must be so real they even defy the author. They wake you up in the middle of the nite and spit right in your eye. You are not creating puppets that do what you want but live living beings that act their life right in front of you. You will do well to write it down fast enough when this happens.” In the critique, one of his sentences reads: “I know more about the sidewalk [in your manuscript] than I do about your main character.” My manuscript had a fatal flaw. I had managed to write 40,000 words without allowing any of my characters to step off the page and assume three dimensions. I’d written a whole novelette about people who were merely puppets, and their strings were showing.

In my first “Writing the Third Dimension” post here on Polilla Writes, we talked about carrying your characters around in your head until you know them well enough to understand what will destroy them. That’s identifying the huge center of your character, but you also have to know all those quirky little things that will make your character real and loveable and irascible, those attributes that will make your character memorable to your readers.

If you are just beginning your novel, or if, in rereading your manuscript, you feel that your characters are stiff and fake, buy, beg, or scarf up a three-ring binder. Fill it with lined loose-leaf paper, or, if you’re a techie, start a file on your computer or iPad. As you carry your main character around in your head, take notes about him or her. Don’t try to get too organized about this. Right now you’re a hunter-gatherer. Hunt for the stuff and jot it down. When you’re answering the telephone, stop and think how your main character would answer the telephone. When you’re ordering pizza, decide what your main character would like on his pizza. If you’re clicking through the channels on your television, figure out what your main character would watch. What would he read? What car would she buy? Where does he like to vacation? If you’re writing about a different era than modern times, what horse would she ride? What fabric would she choose for her new dress? What did he name his spaceship? Write it all down.

Cut out photographs from magazines or eZines and save them until you have a composite picture of what your main character looks like. Here’s a huge secret about writing that I’ll tell you now and also tell you again in later posts. If your visualization of your character (or a setting or an item) is fuzzy in your mind, it will be visually fuzzy to your reader. That’s one of the few rules of writing that’s pretty much set in stone. Learn to see your character in action in your mind. How does he run? Like Harrison Ford? How does she smile? Like Julia Roberts? Close your eyes and visualize until you see that character so clearly you could be watching her on television.

Last month, we were looking at the big picture – the center of your character’s being, his self-esteem, her reason for living. This month, we’re talking about the details, figuring out all the small stuff that makes people real. Next month? The whole picture. Remember, the stronger your characters, the better chance you’ll have to be published, which means that I’ll get to read your books. I can’t wait!

My questions for you: What color is your main character’s hair? What does your main character love to do in his free time?

Any questions for me? Please feel free to ask!

Blessings and Happy Writing!

Sue

Thanks for joining us! Please feel free to leave your questions and comments. We invite you come back March 28, 2013, for part 3.

Sue Harrison’s “Writing the Third Dimension” – part 1: Heart Breaker

Welcome, everyone! Have you ever wished you could sit in on one of Sue Harrison’s writers workshops? Now you can, a few minutes at a time. Over the next many months you are invited here for a writers workshop, the fourth Thursday of each month, for Sue Harrison‘s teaching about Writing The Third Dimension. Sue invites you to ask questions and leave comments, to which she will gladly respond. If you miss one segment, you can still have access to them all. Just mouse over Writers’ Helps & Workshops on my drop down menu, then click on Writing The Third Dimension.

When I asked her what it means to write the third dimension, Sue explained, “Basically, the concept is for writers to write their characters, scenes, and plots in such a way that they “pop” off the two-dimensional page and assume a three-dimensional presence in the reader’s mind – as if the reader had actually lived the story.” Now we are going to learn how to do that. 🙂

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“Writing the Third Dimension” – part 1: Heart Breaker

I love the story about the elderly Athabascan woman who was asked how to make moosehide moccasins. Her reply? “Well, first you kill a moose.”

In other words, have a seat. This is going to take a while.

When I’m asked, “How do you write a novel?” My answer is, “Well, first you break a heart.”

And not just any old heart, but the heart of the main character. When an author writes a novel, his/her goal is to tell a story so compelling that the reader doesn’t want to put it down. That means the novelist must establish a strong connection between the reader and the book’s main character. The only sure way to do that is through emotions.

I might not know what it’s like to live thousands of years ago in the Aleutian Islands, but I can relate to an Aleut woman who loses the man she loves in a vicious raid. I feel the emotional connection, and I want to read her story, live her life, and discover how she finds love again. Because she and I are sisters. We both know what it is to have a broken heart. (Okay, I admit it. I’m advertising one of my own novels, Mother Earth Father Sky.)

So, if you’re a writer, how do you go about breaking that main character’s heart? You do it by knowing your main character so well that you understand what is at the center of her soul. Ask yourself these questions: What is most important thing/person/belief in her life? What is the foundation of her self-esteem? What does she love most? Once you know that, then you’ve solved your problem, and what you must do is take that most precious thing away from her. Then she’s in the fight of her life as she tries to survive and win back what she’s lost. Suddenly you have a plot; you have a story. You’ve pushed your character off the two-dimensional page and made her come alive in your reader’s mind.

Tell me about your main character. What is at the center of his or her self-esteem? What does he love the most? What will break her heart?

Bestselling author, Sue Harrison, has written two Alaska trilogies: The Ivory Carver Trilogy and The Storyteller Trilogy, and a middle readers’ book SISU. Prior to the publication of her novels, Harrison was employed at Lake Superior State University as a writer and acting director of the Public Relations Department and as an adjunct instructor in creative writing and advanced creative writing. For more information, click here. To inquire about booking Sue for workshops or speaking engagements this year, click here.

Thanks for joining us! Please feel free to leave your questions and comments. Next installment February 28, 2013.