And quite frankly, I can't see much difference between the two.
Here I am, listening to "Breaking the Habit" by Linkin Park and puzzling over my next coo to ambush my characters with. They've proven to be deceptively cooperative lately. Andi (the MC) sits quietly in the back seat, ignoring my pleas for help and then takes a knife to my throat when I decide to go ahead and make that left turn off the highway. J.D. goes from sulking to happy go lucky and Charlie…well, I don't know what is going on with that guy.
In summation, I feel more like the unfortunate cousin who is too nice to say no to an unpaid babysitting job. I am feeling royally screwed over with these characters; like I signed on a contract without reading the small print.
And yet, I am so emotionally driven to tell their story (whenever I'm not feeling like I'm walking on eggshells trying to actually write their story). I like these people, despite their tendencies to set off bombs outside their friends' windows instead of using the phone to say "wake up".
There's this great book I always have on the bookshelf next to my desk that has a great quote on characters. (I copied it onto a post-it note and stuck it to the bottom of my second screen.)
You are going to love some of your characters, because they are you or some facet of you, and you are going to hate some of your characters for the same reason.
- Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird)
I love this quote because it's so true. When writers tell you that they are emotionally tied to fictional characters, they aren't just bucking for the great food they serve in the asylum. Most of those high and mighty authors who's names you can never remember and yet they say a lot of profound stuff—they say that writers write to tell the truth. So no matter how different our main character differs from us (for example, I cannot make someone twice as big as me kiss the pavement, but I can fold a crane in forty seconds flat) they will inevitably share some of the same views that we do, no matter if it's your preferred pelican-shaped coffee mug or the rights of women in the 1920's. And when you spend so much time contemplating a character, you learn what they can and cannot do—their strengths and most importantly, their weaknesses.
I think we become attached to characters because of their weaknesses and how they turn them into strengths. As humans, we all share similar weaknesses and yet, we believe those weaknesses to be specific to the individual. For example, I would never have dreamed that one of my friends—the most confident person I've ever met—would have had ever had a problem with body image, just like me.
I recently watched a video about Darren Brown—a "cold reader". He went to many different countries, gathered people of different sexes, nationalities and social backgrounds and had them trace their hands on a piece of paper. Their hand would then be analyzed and a print out made of their personalities. When Darren Brown came back with their profiles, they were all shocked at how correct it was. Then they discovered that they all had the exact same profile. Darren Brown had given the same sheets of paper to people in Britain, Spain, and the US and everyone responded the same way: "I can't believe how accurate it is." And as one girl pointed out, it's nice to know that so many people share the same insecurities.
That type of vulnerability is something, I think, is key when it comes to book characters. If a character doesn't share some of the same basic insecurities as the rest of us, they might as well be from Mars, and people from Mars are cool, yeah, but…they don't act like us, so where is the connection?
Andi is particularly tight-lipped about her weaknesses and insecurities. I try to change the interview environment—from a nice office to a playground where she can move around while she talks—but she's stubborn and exceptionally clever. She won't give away her secrets so easily. So as I'm writing, I find myself growling in frustration: Andi doesn't want to show herself as weak because then where will she get respect?
She doesn't want to listen when I try to explain to her that we have to show her weaknesses so people won't slam the book cover closed.
Lot she cares.
I think the fact that I battle with her at all shows how willing (and determined) I am to get her story down. I. Want. It. Written. I do not want to give up on this story the way I've given up on so many other stories—some really good ones that I couldn't continue with because I didn't have the heart to push the characters.
I need to push Andi, too, but I'm scared. She's glaring at me from the back seat and keeps toying with her knife.
Pushing characters has always been an issue for me. I have such little understanding about their weaknesses that I don't know what buttons to push in order to get them to grow as a character. When authors talk about their characters, I am envious. They make it sound like the ideas just popped into existence when it's taking me weeks to get a single thought together.
