Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

How to create believable characters

Some of you might have heard the question, “What’s more important? The story or the characters in it?” When I had just started writing, I wholeheartedly used to answer that the story was more important than anything. “Take the world’s best characters,” I used to say, “and put them in the world’s most boring story ever written. See what happens then.” In part, this is true, but only in part and a very small one at that.

Imagine the best and fastest car in the world. Which is it today, Bugatti Veyron? Is it still the fastest supercar? You can probably tell I’m not into cars that much. Now imagine the Bugatti doing absolutely nothing other than sitting there, all polished and shining. But immobile. Just parked there. How long would it excite you for?

Now picture a Citroen 2CV.

It’s an old car. It’s a funny looking car. It certainly isn’t fast. In fact, its best feature is that it’s too damn hard to tip it over. But it’s moving. Or crawling, in this case. Still, it’s doing things. It’s panting up a small hill and it comes bouncing down after it reaches the top. The centre of its gravity sways left and right like a pendulum as it comes crushing down the slope at the supersonic speed of 80 km/h (50 mph). But it’s moving. I’m willing to bet that after you got your breath back from the uncontrollable laughter, and finished taking selfies in front of the Bugatti (no duckfaces please), you’d stop staring at the glamorous supercar and paid attention to the 2CV. If not for an interest in the car itself, then an interest in seeing how many parts of it would fall off by the end of its journey. And all because it’s doing more than just sitting there.

Pick a story. Any story. Remove the characters. What do you get? Not much.

So, if gasoline and petrol are the fuel that powers cars and almost every engine there is, then characters are the story’s fuel. Even the simplest of fairy tales and stories that parents and grandparents tell kids to put them to sleep need characters to set them in motion. Without them, what we end up with is a world that feels almost dead. Or a story that nothing happens.

So what does it take for a writer to create believable characters?

Some writers are visual people and require a picture or a sketch of the character they’re about to create. They need to see the character’s face in order to get a feel of their actions, their behaviour, perhaps even the sound of their voices. Some writers use Pinterest for this and create boards to help them visualise their creations, and imagine them speaking the character’s lines. A lot of readers are like that.

Occasionally, I do it too, but not in terms of the actor’s appearance, rather how I’d like the lines to sound and perhaps how I’d like my character to behave (anyone who has read my work knows I use a lot of action tags – which is not necessarily a good thing, by the way) between dialogue lines.

Disclaimer: I don’t imagine famous actors playing the role of my characters just because I want to see my work on the big screen. On the other hand, I also don’t object to it, so if you’re someone who’s on the lookout for ideas for new movies, let’s talk business.

Some of the writers who employ this technique swear that it helps them create better and more realistic characters. I can’t really tell if that’s true for the readers as well or not. Usually what us writers have in our minds is different from what a reader creates with theirs. After all, part of the magic of reading and writing is this.

Other writers interview their characters. The way this works is rather simple; writers ask their characters a long list of questions about their past, their wants and their fears, how they’d handle a situation, how they’d reply to a question etc. What those writers expect to achieve with this is not only to get a better understanding of who the (imaginary) person sitting across them is, but also, through the multitude of questions, to actually “hear” their characters talk and sketch their mannerisms out.

Some writers employ personality evaluation. I did this for my current WIP (work in progress). In this case, after having employed one or more of the other methods mentioned here, tries to understand their characters’ MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator). This instrument gives answers to questions about what kind of person our character really is. Is he/she an introvert or an extrovert? Someone who perceives the world through their intuition or through their senses? When faced with a problem, does he/she use logic to solve it?

When used properly, this indicator is a powerful tool in a writer’s hands. Thanks to it, we have a far better idea of how our characters are supposed to act when pitted against the multitude of problems we, the creators, throw at them, especially in stories that are less about the action and more about character interaction.

Another way to have a better understanding of our characters, is by answering some key questions about them. For example: what are the character’s abstract wants? For those familiar with the Snowflake Method, this question is related to the character’s motivation. The answer to this question is always related to the character’s past and has shaped him/her into the individual we see in the story. Another key question is, what are the character’s concrete wants? In other words, what are the character’s goals in the story? This is what drives the character forward. It’s almost always related to the events taking place in the story.

What are the character’s conflicts, what prevents him/her from reaching the goals? Also, what will the character’s personal challenge be? What will he/she learn at the end of the story?

Of course, in real life there is no such thing as perfection (being a perfectionist, this should also serve as a message to myself…), so writers need to bestow flaws to their characters, if we want them to feel real. Everything mentioned above (the MBTI, the wants, goals, and needs, the psychological traits etc) also create flaws. Characters who are introverts may go to extremes and shut themselves out from the rest of the world. Characters who think less before they act may end up getting into trouble. Those who have suffered a great tragedy in their past (character motivation) often see the world skewed and ill-perceived. Depending on your story and setting, this creates a range of problems for them to overcome, thus making them more realistic.

Much like us, characters should change over the course of the story. It doesn’t have to be something big, as long as there’s change. In my current WIP (my cyberpunk story), my main character changes his view and belief about the corporate conglomerate that governs his world, but he also changes the way he perceives the world he inhabits over time. The change doesn’t have to be a positive thing, unless your genre demands it. It doesn’t have to be something that stands out like a fly floating in milk. It can very well be something subtle, like being a little bit more confident, when dealing with a character who has self-esteem issues, or for a solitude person to accept someone else’s company. The possibilities are quite endless.

In the case of villains, writers should keep in mind that every character is multidimensional, which means that the bad guys, a) always have a reason they turned out the way they are, b) should have a redeeming quality. Which also means, even a villain can change by the end of the story. And yes, this also includes turning into a really REALLY bad guy. Remember, change goes both ways. When done right, villains dominate the story and make it so much more enjoyable.

Of course, that’s all easier said than done, which is why we very often come out of a theatre thinking that the movie was mediocre at best, despite the excellent acting, remarkable direction etc. Or we end up putting a book down and never getting back to it. See, characters are the ones who take us by the hand, turn themselves into vessels, and transport us to their world. They’re the guides. It is their stories we experience. And it won’t matter if the world they take us to is the best and the events that take place are the most thrilling anyone has ever experienced. It doesn’t matter. If the vessel is not good enough, chances are we won’t enjoy the ride.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 2 Comments

I miss reading

Admittedly, the one I thing I’ve missed the most during the past few months when I started at my new job is being able to read as much as I used to. Between commuting to work (which luckily enough in my case is under an hour), spending eight hours there, attending to issues at home, spending time with the family, taking a little bit of time for myself (it doesn’t include reading or writing), and of course editing/writing, there’s hardly any time left to read during weekdays. To be honest, there’s hardly enough time to write. I have an app on my phone, a simple counter, where I’ve added the number of books I’ve read per year. I’m not a fast reader, but the average was 20-22 books. Now? It’s October and I just reached double digits. Yeap, it’s shameful.

What makes it worse is that what I’m reading is actually very interesting (rejoice sci-fi fans – it’s The Expanse series).

A few weeks ago, I mentioned my betas gave me their feedback on my latest cyberpunk novel (still not in shape for your eyes, I’m afraid). In their notes, one point stood out more than others: some scenes were repetitive.

*GASP*

I wasn’t prepared for this. But they were right, as always.

Last week, I started revising based on my betas’ feedback. Start with the big issues, I said to myself, move on to the smaller ones (like my innumerable typos, which caused my spell checker to crush – don’t laugh, because that’s what happens when you write sci-fi and you invent words, names, and terms). Bigger issues meant tackling those pesky repetitive scenes. By creating new ones.

So there I was, back on my ancient PC (thank you autumn for remembering to visit Greece and for allowing me to turn my PC on once more), trying to come up with a couple new scenes. And…

*crickets*

Seriously, nothing. If you want to know the truth it scared the $h!t out of me. Why couldn’t I write? My intention was to change the chase and escape scenes, since most of the betas comments about repetitive scenes was about them. It shouldn’t have been too hard, since the betas didn’t have a problem with the plot per se, which meant the beginning and the ending of those scenes were set. All I had to do was change the setting and I’d have a basic draft to work with. On the other hand, escape and chase scenes don’t offer much in terms of variety. Something bad happens, the hero has to run for his/her life, and either makes it or not. The only thing that can limit a writer is the world the writer has created for the hero. In other words, you can’t have a dragon saving the hero if you’ve created a hard sci-fi cyberpunk story and you haven’t included dragons in the first place. It took me two days to come up with an inkling of an idea. Which, of course,  in the end created a plot hole.


Luckily, the first idea created another, and another, and another, until the problem was solved, but I mean, come on. Two days?! For one idea? A bad one at that?!

Did I exhaust my storytelling skill after two books? Did the pool of ideas writers supposedly have dry out after two novels, a dozen short stories and poems, and a few hundred thousand written words?

No. well, I don’t think so, anyway.

What was the reason? I believe it was because I hadn’t been reading enough. I hadn’t had enough mental stimulation these past few months, even though I managed to save a couple of hours during the weekends for reading. It just wasn’t enough. Add to all this that I haven’t read a good cyberpunk novel for a long time to get inspired, you can see why there was a problem in my inspiration and idea reservoir.

Not to mention the creativity leech.

So, dear readers, fellow writers and other creative people, the answer to such problems is immerse yourself in the work of others. Learn from them, make them part of you, take them apart, study the way others created their stories, their songs, their painting, and recreate something unique, something that could have only been done by you. Allow the creator to transport you to new and wonderful places. Let the ideas of others inspire you. If you want to write, then you have to read a lot. I imagine the same principle applies to all other forms of art.

For the record, after I managed to tap into my inspiration pool, I wrote 2000 in three days. It’s not a lot, if you consider that I used to write 2000 words a day when I had the whole day to myself and nothing else but writing and reading to do, but it feels good nonetheless.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

Getting back on track + poll

Quick reminder that the giveaway, Bad People With Guns, will end on September 5, so if you intended to read one of the available books but haven’t obtained one yet, you should hurry, especially if you’re a fan of thrillers, suspense, mystery, or crime fiction in general. Go here and download stories from Anna Willet, J. L. Stowers, Sara Cobb, and Simon Royle.

In other news, I’m happy to announce that the last of my betas got back to me. Unfortunately, they didn’t manage to finish Through Stranger Eyes. In their words, “I haven’t had the chance to start it yet. Sorry, but I can’t do it.”

It happens. Life always gets in the way of things and sends our best intentions down the drain. That’s why it’s important to reach out to more than one beta reader, and to have a decent personal relationship with them, so that they don’t feel that they’ve put themselves in an uncomfortable or awkward position when they have to tell you, “sorry, I don’t think I can make it.” Remember, betas are hard to find, they want to help, and perform an important task for us writers for free. Cherish them and understand that they too lead demanding lives.

So, what this means is that as soon as I get back to my computer (still waiting for you, summer, to bugger off and let me enjoy some cool days), I’ll go over the notes the rest of the beta team returned (I was lucky enough to get (feedback from four people!). I expect to have a hard time going over one beta’s notes in particular, since they gave them back handwritten, which means I will have to transfer them into my digital copy. And I have their thoughts recorded on a couple of audio files, so I’ll have to transcribe them too. Which is good, ’cause I can’t make out most of their handwriting. Oh well.

This is one of those moments where I sympathise with all editors out there.

However, here’s the thing: the first thing I noticed, from almost all the betas who gave me feedback, was that they enjoyed one of my secondary characters more than the protagonist. In fact, they liked that character TOO much. I’m not sure if there’s an underlying problem with this. What I mean is, I’m not sure if my main character is badly written or if that secondary character is so dominant that overshadows everyone else in the story. If the latter is the case, I’d have to figure out a way to trim her dominance a bit, which I’d rather not do (the truth is, I too enjoyed writing her scenes). If the problem lies with my main character and he is badly written, then I have the feeling I’ll need to rewrite A LOT of my story in the next months.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever read a book that, to you, one of the secondary characters stood out far more than the protagonist? Did this bother you at all? I’ve made a poll for your convenience. I would appreciate it if you could share this with your friends, as this will save me not only time, but part of my sanity.

Bruce Campbell from Evil Dead 2

Writers answer here

 

Readers answer here

 

Thank you 🙂

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 4 Comments

Elements of Horror

I’m in the process of publishing my second short story, most likely in a month’s time. It’s a horror story, titled At Horizon’s End. Horror is a genre I feel more comfortable with, primarily, I think, because it allows me to play
with darker and grimmer settings and endings, which I love. Now, to be clear, I don’t write the gory, splatter type of horror. I’m happier writing the psychological type, the subtler one.

Which made me wonder, what does a horror story need to have to be effective? Of course what follows is my take on it, as I understand it and the way I write it. It doesn’t mean it’s the only way.

First of all an effective horror story needs a strong setting. Regardless if your story takes place in a room, a town, on another planet, on a dark spaceship, over frozen forests and mountain ranges, setting can be your best ally, because it creates mood and sets the tone. Take Stephen King’s IT for instance. It’s the simplest setting one can get; a town with a sewer system. But with something sinister in those sewers. When I was reading the story a few years ago, and I was at any point where the heroes were walking or cycling on the streets, I kept thinking that something may pop out of one of the sewers. Even where there was no mention of said sewers at a particular scene. Why? Because King’s descriptions of the sewer in that early scene (I’m trying to avoid any spoilers, which is why I’m being so vague) made me keep it at the back of my head, and made me expect something nasty to come out of there at any moment.

Depending on the story and a writer’s style, a horror story needs to play with some keywords that will draw the reader in. I can’t give you specific examples, since it depends on each writer’s style and how each story evolves.
But when the writer transports you to a dark room with dripping sounds all around, it adds a little something when said writer describes the sound of dragging feet or the sound of creaking floorboards as the house settles along
its beams. The choice of words (dragging and creaking in this example) have a greater impact than writing that someone walked upstairs and sounds came from the house. The choice of words in the latter example is poor.

One of my favourite things to use in horror stories include characters and situations who are contrasting the general idea of the story. For instance, if my story involves Death (personified) at some point , then I will most likely choose a child for a main character (as is the case of At Horizon’s End). Why? Because on one hand we have a child’s carefreeness, which also represents life, and on the other we have the grimness and the frailty of life.
In my mind, it can’t get more contrasting than that. When I was brainstorming for my first novel, The Darkening, the idea of pitting a survivor of an apocalyptic event against the shadow he could cast at any given moment (which is one of the most natural things to occur, since our world is full of light and we rely so much on our sight) was extremely intriguing. For the past year, I’ve been struggling with a horror short story (that keeps getting bigger and bigger, by the way) that takes a married couple, who at first glance love each other. As the story goes on, the events that unfold strip away their humanity and love, while at the same time exposing their secrets and their view of each other, by forcing each of the two to do something horrible in order to carry on living. Selfless love acts versus survival.

Of course all the above are pointless unless the writer uses a villain who is a million times stronger than the hero. That villain could be the world, a phenomenon, something out of this world, or, if you aim for the gory/slasher type of horror story, perhaps another human who is wicked (make sure to give them wants and fears – you want the villain to appear like a real person after all). And all this because the writer wants to evoke fear. No unbeatable villain, no fear. No fear, no horror.

When it comes to pacing, the writer needs to be crafty. In my understanding, there needs to be an exponential escalation of negative effects from beginning to climax. If your story deals with only one negative event, then
you need to build up to that moment, and when it comes, hit the reader as fast as possible, as hard as possible. For example, if your whole story revolves around a character’s choice about whether or not he/she should stand up to Death and challenge him to obtain something very important, then play with the anticipation your pacing can create. Build it up throughout the story, perhaps by having the hero questioning the effectiveness of such a choice, then when the moment comes, have your character make that choice. From there on, take your reader on a roller coaster unlike any other. If it’s a series of bad things happening, make sure each is worse or scarier than the previous, then hit the reader with the worst, the epitome of nastiness, in one swift go. Anticipation depends on pacing. Much like the roller coaster I mentioned earlier, you could start your story slowly, and leave the reader constantly wondering what will happen next, always hinting at the worst (foreshadowing). The writer can also allow the reader to get a glimpse of a positive outcome for the hero, but it has to be snatched away for the negative climax to have the greatest impact. Another way to do it is to hint on how terrible the outcome of the given choice will be, and at the same time, force the hero into a corner where that choice is a one-way road. The writer can also allow the reader to settle at a state of relative peace by having the hero overcoming minor negative effects, in order to amplify the negative outcome of the climax.

If the writer uses anticipation properly, then it creates the next important thing for a horror story: dread. The writer can allow a constant underlying question of “what’s going to happen to the hero next? What will the cost to
the hero’s soul be?” My understanding of dread is that it usually works best if the writer sprinkles a little mystery in the horror recipe. If it’s a given that the hero will die at the end of the story, and the reader knows this, dread is vital to make the story appealing. In the short story I’ve been struggling with for so long, it is an undisputed fact that the heroes will not come out at the end of the story the same way they walked into it. The reader knows this. The reader also knows that things will get better, if the heroes do one thing, which will be catastrophic for the other. So the question becomes, “who’s going to come out with the least damage and how will they do it? What will they have sacrificed in the process? What will the villain do to keep them from succeeding?” The reader knows something the characters don’t (or simply refuse to acknowledge) and that builds dread, which adds to the anticipation.

All the above (dread, anticipation, fear) are visceral emotions the writer needs to play with and ultimately, exploit and amplify. But the writer needs strong descriptions for this, which takes us back to setting.

Finally, the writer could also use tragedy to his/her advantage, and/or drama (but drama only in its modern Greek sense, which means unpleasant effect or unwanted situation, which is different from what ancient Greeks meant when they used the term, and vastly different from what nowadays passes for drama in the western world). If the writer aims for a sense of tragedy, then it’s important to bind it with character flaws and poor choices, and perhaps make use of strong contrasts, like I mentioned earlier. All this should add to the empathy the reader develops for the hero throughout the story, which also allows readers to “experience” what the heroes feel.

So, what are your favourite horror stories?

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 2 Comments

Readjusting a writing routine

For the past few weeks, certain life events (all of them unforeseen, as life tends to make them, but not all of them bad), have made me unable to write. No, I’m not going through a writer’s block. I want to write and edit and revise my work, and I have material to work on, but, alas, someone decided that each day should only have 24 hours. I don’t know who it was, but I don’t like that person. I used to like them, but not at the moment. And, to make things harder, I also got a job. For the record, I’m not a lazy bugger, but as it’s the case with most jobs, it takes up a great part of my day. One third of it, to be exact. However, it’s a nice place and, get this, there’s another writer there. Another one from the tribe!

And yet, it adds to a problem that has been going on for the past few weeks, one that leaves me with either not enough time to spare to write or not enough energy for it. Everything that has been going on for the past month or so has messed up my writing routine (which I took great care to protect, but when family health issues arise, what can you do?). So I’m trying to come up with a new routine, at least until my placement is over (which will be around February 2018 – unless they fire me before that *shudder*).

I’m sure most of you have faced similar life changing events, so how did you cope? Did it take you long? Was the transition to a new writing routine easy? Did you have a routine in the first place? What steps did you take to be productive (writing-wise) again?

I have a few ideas, and once I put them into practice I may write a post about them, but until then feel free to share your take on this. I’d really like to see how other people deal with this issue.

I’m hopeful this changes in my life will not affect this blog. But it may happen, since I usually draft these posts a few days in advance and go over them as much as I can each day, before I publish them. If it does happen, know it’ll only be temporary, that you can reach me through social media, or through the contact form (at the top).