Charisma: Does Your Main Character Have the “It” Factor?

I went to see The Amazing Spiderman last weekend and I really enjoyed it. But why? I mean, I wasn’t expecting to. I already knew the story, had enjoyed the first two movies of the Sam Raimi interpretation so this reboot seemed unnecessary to me. The villain wasn’t especially scary or fascinating to me (a Lizard?? Really?), the special effects were on par with other superhero movies franchises, and the script was just okay (with more than a few moments where belief had to be suspended (genius Peter Parker using Bing as a search engine one of the funnier, minor examples). So, then, what sold this movie for me? Andrew Garfield’s portrayal of Peter Parker. He put the ‘amazing’ in The Amazing Spiderman.

Now, I was a big fan of the first two Spiderman movies (let’s forget the third ever happened) and I thought Toby Maguire did a great job. Until I saw what Andrew Garfield did with the angsty teen character of Peter Parker. He imbued Peter with such emotion, sweetness, and anger I completely forgot about the earlier movie version. It was a pleasure to see an actor so accomplished and still so young (and, yes, the scenes between him and Emma Stone are filled with chemistry). It’s hard to put a finger on exactly what it was but the best word I can use to describe his performance is ‘charismatic’. And it got me wondering about the main character in my current WIP, Jake, and thinking what I can do as a writer to make sure he is as charismatic as possible.

Webster’s dictionary defines charisma as “a special magnetic charm or appeal”. This doesn’t mean every main character in every story has to have this magnetic factor but I argue that your main character should definitely have a special ‘appeal’. Every character who is the star of the show/story needs to be able to have that special something in order to draw people in to them and their problems. Even mean or nasty main characters need that charm. Scarlett O’Hara is a vain, selfish, sometimes mean main character but she has that ‘it’ factor, that charm, that something in the way she sounds that makes her compelling to the reader. Hannibal Lecter is the most disgusting killer yet he is fascinating to the reader because his intelligence, his wit, draws people in like a beautiful, yet deadly, Hemlock flower.

So, then, what are the keys to charisma? Well, if it were as simple to define as all that, everyone would be charismatic and it wouldn’t be ‘special’ would it? But here are some things that make a main character charismatic to me. Others may disagree but charisma is very dependent on the connection between the character who has ‘it’ and the reader who is reading ‘it’. So while these factors may do it for me, they may not do it for you.

1. Shows Emotion

Like Andrew Garfield’s tearful response when he comes in battered and bruised and his Aunt May embraces him, a character must be able at some point to show his pain, happiness, anger, so the reader can feel what he is feeling. So the reader can sympathize with him. So it shows that your character is not a robot. Don’t be afraid to have your main character laugh or cry.

2. Shows Humour

Like Spiderman’s snarky jokes to those trying to capture him, a sense of humour shows a characters wit/intelligence. The ability to make a reader/viewer laugh draws someone to a character. I bet comedians have a lot of friends!

3. Shows Vulnerability

Andrew Garfield perfectly captured the loneliness of Peter Parker’s orphaned, friendless self. His yearning for Gwen Stacy and his wonder at realizing she likes him makes him sweet and creates viewers sympathy and their wanting to protect and help him. Your main character needs vulnerability to draw the reader in. Make sure he isn’t Mr. or Ms. Perfect. Nobody can sympathize with perfection.

4. Shows Strength of Character

I’m not talking physical strength here but rather the ability to make difficult choices when the world is going one way and your character needs to go another way. Peter Parker eventually chooses to use his powers for good and not selfish reasons. He can walk away from helping others since he gets no reward and more anguish/pain than most but he chooses the right path. Even if your main character makes mistakes, eventually, his strength of character – his ability to make the right choice despite the difficulty of it – that creates a special charisma and appeal for the reader. After all, don’t we wish we all had the strength of character to always do the right thing?

Well, I could probably come up with a few more, but for me, those are the ‘it’ factors for a main character. So, tell me, does your main character have ‘it’?

Five Do’s and Don’t’s of Good Critique

Every time I agree to judge a writer’s contest (like I'm doing now) I get very mixed feelings about it. Part of me is thrilled to do it as it gives me an opportunity to give back to writers since, when I was starting out and entering contests, I received valuable, thoughtful advice and words of encouragement when I really needed it. Part of me is also terrified that I might write something that is too critical and will end up wounding what can be a very fragile writer’s ego. That’s happened to me too. Where the critique felt not so much as advice/guidance but more like little cuts to my skin, exposing all my weaknesses, feeding my doubts and telling me I wasn’t good enough. 

That is the power of giving critique: the power to help elevate a writer’s craft and grow his/her confidence and the power to tear down that confidence with one or two comments that might seem innocent to you, the one giving the critique, but actually slicing a writer’s confidence in himself or his writing down to the quick. Since I’m in the middle of judging …argh. hate that word so I’ll substitute critiquing. Since I’m in the middle of critiquing a contest right now, I thought I would jot down some key things to remember when giving good critique.

            1. Do Start with the Positive

I don’t care if you have to dig through every page six times but, like most everything in life, there is always something good to be found in it. Find something you like about the piece, whether it is the endearing character, the lush descriptions, the snappy dialogue. Make sure the writer knows that there is something to celebrate in his/her writing. Those are the comments that feed the ego which is just as important as feeding the craft.

2.   Don’t Be Afraid to Point Out the Negative

Well, of course, you say. What’s the point of critique if you don’t point out what’s wrong with the piece? But not everyone is comfortable pointing out the negative. I always say that I prefer getting a critique filled with things to improve rather than a gushing “Everything is just perfect!!”. I once had a critique partner who was so sweet and supportive and never had a bad thing to say about my writing (great for the ego, for sure!) but I stopped sending her stuff because I wasn’t getting what I needed – I needed to hear what I had to do to improve. Every writer does. That’s why good friends and family usually should not be your critique partners because they will care about your ego more than your writing. 3.

3.  Don’t Re-Write the Work

It’s very tempting to suggest alternative dialogue or a change in style when you see an awkward turn of phrase or dialogue. I’ve been guilty of doing this myself. You think you’re helping the writer by offering another option to how he/she has written that scene. But, really, what you’re doing is injecting your own voice/personality/style. Don’t do this! Point out the awkward turn of phrase. Ask a question. Suggest that the dialogue perhaps sounds more mature than what a fourteen-year-old girl might sound like and the writer might want to read it over to see if they agree. Your job as a critiquer is to note the things that make you stop reading and your reactions to it. Their job as the writer is to re-write that phrase or scene (if they want to).

4.  Do Be Aware of Your Biases

We all know that reading fiction is a subjective experience. I’ve read stuff in contests that I would never pick up on a bookshelf because it’s just not my thing but, sometimes, there were so many entries in one genre that I was asked to step in to help the overloaded judges. So I know it can be difficult to review something and provide useful commentary when you aren’t into high fantasy or murder/mystery or whatever. But sometimes you are reading things that aren’t your preference and you have to put that aside so you can critique the writing. You can still make comments on whether you think a pace is too fast or too slow, or whether a character is sympathetic or not. Try not to be overly critical because you don’t like the genre. It’s like a good teacher who must teach to 30 different personalities – we expect the same professionalism/treatment from her for each child – no matter their behaviour.

5. Do Remember that Each Writer is At A Different Stage

You might be reading the first draft of the very first story a person has put to paper. You might be reading the ‘polished for the 100^th time’ work of a veteran writer. Each critique you give must adapt to the level you can see the person is writing at. That beginner writer may need more commentary and encouragement but don’t assume that the polished work of the veteran just needs a “Great job!”. They too need to be told that the main character is working for whatever reasons (funny, sympathetic, driven, etc.), they need to know whether the pace is going well. Point out what stands out as exceptional if there is nothing really negative to critique.

Those are just some of the main things I think about as I go through a critique exercise. What I also need to point out is that doing critique helps me with my writing in a thousand different ways. It makes me think about what I’m doing right and what I need to improve on. I think giving critique is absolutely essential to ensure a writer develops in his/her own writing.

How about you? What things do you think about if/when you critique?

Bookshelves Make a Home

As some of you may be aware, we’ve undergone quite a massive reno to our home the last year. I haven’t posted pictures of the reno because I’m a bit private about certain things and one of them is the space I live in. While many of you who read this blog are friends and family and I would have no problem showing you pictures of my kitchen or my bedroom, for the general public it kind of freaks me out. But I have no problem writing about the reno and one of the things I haven’t really discussed is my addiction to incorporating bookshelves into the new space.

Making sure we have a few bookshelves in various rooms is probably not surprising given the fact that I’m a writer and I love books. But part of this reno was done so that we could de-clutter and use our space efficiently. I’m trying to downsize the number of books I have and I got a Kobo Vox at Christmas for the sole purpose of downloading e-books so that I wouldn’t have to keep lugging books from shelves to make room for even more books. So what's with my obsession with bookshelves?

Well, I’ve always loved the way bookshelves warm up a room. I love searching through the titles to see what people have read. It tells me a little bit about who that person is. One of the arguments my husband and I are having is whether to incorporate many of the hardcover books he inherited from his dad. While they are quite impressive I have not read nor do I intend to read the collected works of Winston Churchill. If I or my husband haven’t read it (or glanced through it if it’s a coffee table type book) then I have no interest in seeing it on the shelf.

I love bookshelves that are cluttered and crammed, or colour coded, or neatly stacked with occasional nic-naks and photos interspersed among the books. I love any kind of shelf that has books in it!

So while I won’t post pics of my personal bookshelves I can give you an idea of the type of shelves I’ve got by showing you reasonable facisimiles.

I’ve got bookshelves in the kitchen (with cookbooks displayed, natch).



I’ve got a built in bookcase in the den which will have neatly stacked books (hardcovers) interspersed with art work and photos.



I’ve got a bookcase in the second floor landing nook that has all the YA books my author friends have written arranged in colour coded perfection by Daughter One.





I’ve got an entire wall of built-in bookcases surrounding my window seat in our bedroom that will, I’m sure, eventually be crammed full of every paperback and odd and end book that has come into our home (interspersed with photos and collectibles we’ve inherited from family).




Art, comfort, warmth. That’s what bookshelves in homes mean to me. How about you?

5 Critical Things to Make a YA Story Stand Out

I was recently invited to speak to a children’s writing class taught by the fabulous Bev Katz Rosenbaum. Bev suggested that if I had any tips on writing YA novels the class would appreciate hearing them. I have no idea if what my two cents is worth but when I wrote down what I thought five critical things to make a YA story stand out (to me anyway) were I thought it might make a good blog post. And since I haven’t blogged in a dog’s age here they are. Like I said to the class: Take what you want, throw away the rest, simmer on the back burner but ultimately cook your own recipe. :)


1. Write Believeable, Age-appropriate Dialogue

If a teen sounds like someone who is fifty-years-old you better have a solid reason why that teen sounds like that. Very formal language, using words that the teen wouldn’t know unless they went to a graduate class in English Lit., pull a reader, especially a teen, out of the story because it doesn’t sound real.

By the same token, try not to make dialogue sound too ‘teen’ – or what you think ‘teen speak’ sounds like. Trying to do teen lingo can work but use it sparingly. It can also date a novel pretty quickly. If you don’t regularly hang out with teens, you will more than likely get it wrong anyway. I wouldn’t recommend peppering every other conversation in your story with “like” or “totally” or “whatever”.

Also remember that when you are writing commercial YA or commercial YA with a literary bent (I would put John Green novels in this last category) you can have very different writing styles that will influence your dialogue. The key is making sure your character (what makes up the personality of that character) is saying what he or she would say at that particular age in his/her life. Dialogue is as much about the words being used as it is in the cadence and tone of the sentence structure. Make sure each character sounds distinct and not a carbon copy of their best friend or, God forbid, their mother.

2. Make the Pace and Conflict Fast and Plentiful

Good YA stories throw you into a situation quickly with not a lot of lead up and keep that pace going at a pretty good clip. Pace was one of the hardest things I had to learn. What ultimately helped me were two things:

Jack Bickham’s book Scene and Structure

and

Donald Maass’s workshop on How to Write a Breakout Novel

One gave me the structure I needed to know how to get into and out of scenes quickly, and how to develop scenes that were action oriented and then followed by a breather/time to contemplate what had just happened kind of scene.

The Maass workshop gave me the best advice for creating a page-turning story – Make It Worse.

You think things are bad for your heroine if her parents ground her? Make things worse by having her sneak out of the house and get caught by police for something she REALLY shouldn’t be doing. Illegally Blonde had my heroine getting deported, then buying a fake passport, working for people she likes to help pay for that illegal document, then having to help someone commit a criminal act against those people she likes if she wants to get that passport. How far is your character willing to go to get what they want? Escalating conflict isn’t just about external obstacles. It’s also about the internal conflict those obstacles create in your heroine. Lucy likes the owner of the house abd doesn’t want to hurt them but she wants to go home very badly and wants that passport – so a conflict of conscience is created.

3. Make Your Main Character Likeable

Make your character likeable – I can’t stress this enough.

She doesn’t have to be perfect but I learned the hard way that if you have a snarky, surly heroine and you put her into a situation that you think would engender sympathy does not necessarily make HER sympathetic. The author needs to show the reader elements of the main characters personality pretty early on that would engender sympathy – is she vulnerable or funny or sweet in some way? Can you show them having affection for another person or an animal? Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games would not be a very likeable personality if she didn’t love her sister Prim so very much and that was shown so clearly at the beginning of the story.

4. Make the Hero/Heroine’s Goal Worthwhile

Whatever your main character wants must be important enough to the character for a reader to believe everything he/she does from that point on and to care enough about the character and goal to stick with him for 200 plus pages.

Teens feel so passionately about things that your heroine must be passionate about what she needs to do or obtain as well. Make it clear what the heroine wants or needs to do and why she needs to do it.

Remember, too, the goal can be denied or not achieved or even change mid-way through the story – if it leads to the heroine’s personal growth.

In THE BREAK, Abby is determined to keep her Nonna out of a senior’s residence and home with her where she thinks Nonna belongs. She wants to show her mother that she is wrong about putting Nonna in a “seniors bone garden” as she calls it and that she is responsible enough to take care of her grandmother. That goal of hers is continually thwarted. Abby ultimately achieves her goal but it comes at a great sacrifice and not in the way she envisaged. The other goal Abby had never articulated to herself or the reader is her deepest wish - reconciliation with her mother – that goal was ultimately achieved because her first goal failed so miserably.

5. Be Honest to the Character, the Story and the Reader

If you are writing YA to give teens moral lessons just stop now. Teens can ferret out when adults are trying to impart ‘life lessons’ on them very easily. I’ve got 3 teens of my own and they hate being given obvious and constant advice.

If you are writing YA because writing about teens is an opportunity for you as a writer to explore a fabulously energetic, dramatic, conflicted, angst-filled, hope-filled time in a person’s life then you will write honestly and passionately and that is the most important piece of advice I can hope to impart to you.

Write Well. Write Often. Write Honestly. Write Passionately.

What are the critical things in a YA novel that makes it stand out for you?

Good Writerly Things

This week is a good week to celebrate writing. Why? Because with all the angst of writing, or not writing, or worrying about the book that's out or the book that's about to come out or if you're doing enough, not enough, too much, whatever, we tend to not celebrate the good things that do happen. What are my good things this week?

Going to Jocelyn Shipley's book launch for How To Tend A Grave tomorrow at Ben McNally Books. So excited for her and this book!!

THE BREAK got its first review - and a really nice one at that! - from the Winnipeg Free Press and so did fellow Great Plains author Brenda Hammond! Yay for good reviews!!

THE BREAK is starting to be ordered by libraries (thanks Hamilton Public Library and Oshawa Public Library!) and its on the shelves at Chapters/Indigo (Canada's major book chain) across the country (never a sure thing in these days of shrinking book shelf space)!

So, all in all, a pretty good writing news week. What about you? We need more celebrations and less worry!

Summer Writing Goals

The May 2-4 weekend approaches (yes, I know it’s not always on May 24th but here in Canuck land the Victoria Day weekend is known as May 2-4 because of the ubiquitous celebration of the start of summer with a case of beer (24 bottles) at the cottage.) and it symbolically heralds the official start of the summer season even though summer doesn’t begin until June 20th. Now usually I don’t do goals for summer. Goals in my mind mean pressure to accomplish something. The only things I usually want to accomplish in the summer are reading a stack of trashy magazines and getting my legs tanned. But this year I need to have goals because, honestly, I have been running around like a crazy lady and feeling like I’ve not accomplished much lately.

I may be being a little harsh on myself since we did finally move into our house after over a year of reno’s so that was a huge accomplishment. But there are still so many things to do and never enough time to do them. What I have been most lax about has been my writing. I have had bursts of writing over the last year but not the steady, progressive output that I usually produced. So, beyond my neverending list of household goals (e.g. get a den couch! Paint the blanket chest! Get a dining room light fixture! Build a fence! – don’t exclamation points make things sound exciting rather than the pain in the arse they really are?) I have a few writing goals that I need to accomplish by September so that I can once again feel like I’m making progress in that part of my life rather than stagnating or falling backwards.

For better or worse, here are my summer writing goals for 2012:

READ MORE
I know, I know. I said writing goals. Not reading goals. But wait a minute. Every serious writer knows that to re-energize, to get better, to learn craft, to revel in the joy of story, one must read other writers. I have a slew of amazing books to read this year –my fellow Great Plains Teen authors books (How To Tend a Grave by Jocelyn Shipley

, Cape Town by Brenda Hammond

and The Green-eyed Queen of Suicide City by Kevin Marc Fournier

); my fellow Torkidlit author’s books (some on my list include Hunted by Cheryl Rainfield

, Real Mermaids Don’t Hold Their Breath by Helene Boudreau

, Under the Moon by Deborah Kerbel

and more coming after the summer – especially Maureen McGowan’s Deviants (Dust Chronicles Book#1), Debbie Ohi’s I’m Bored and Natalie Hyde’s Hockey Girl.) Torkidlit authors are so prolific and the group is expanding so much I can hardly keep up with all the amazingness coming out of these writers. But I know that whichever book I pick up I will learn and be inspired by in my own writing.

WRITE REGULARLY
I used to write almost every day, every time I got on the subway in the morning and again on the way home from work, then I’d put in another hour or two (or more) that evening. While that was an intense schedule – sometimes I wouldn’t get to bed until 1:30 in the morning – and I won’t be able to keep up that pace in my current semi-exhausted state - whatever I write (and I currently have an almost finished WIP and a just started WIP) I need to strive to write something for either of those two books every day. Just like I need to take my vitamins every day to stay healthy, I need to write every day to keep my writing healthy.

GET BACK ON TWITTER REGULARLY
Now this sounds weird, but Twitter actually is not a distraction for my writing. I mostly follow other writers and I need to hear what they’re up to and get a kick in the pants by following the #amwriting hashtag and celebrating their successes and commiserating with their struggles. The children’s writing community is one of the most helpful and encouraging ones out there and I need that to kick start me again.

REVAMP THE BLOG
There’s old info and old pictures and I need a new background. Plus I need to get back to blogging regularly. ‘Nuff said.

TALK UP THE BREAK
I need to connect with some other bloggers about doing interviews, send some info out to some groups to let them know about THE BREAK (especially the Alzheimer’s Society) and other writers who are generous about spreading the word on new books. Publishing with an independent Canadian press means an author has to do a little more work in getting the word out there about their book or else we get lost in the noise of new books from the larger presses.

JUDGE CONTEST ENTRIES
The last couple of years I took a break from judging the Toronto Romance Writers annual contest for unpublished writers but I agreed to do it again this year. Judging contests is an amazing way to hone in on craft and voice and the things that work and don’t work in the beginning of a book. While I can’t commit to a writing workshop or conference this summer, judging a contest helps to get the analytical side of my writing brain working which always helps the creative side of my brain.

FINISH THE DAMN WIP
I’m almost 45,000 words into a planned 60-65,000 YA contemporary that I think is not complete crapola (that is high praise for me for a WIP). If I can just finish the darn thing!! Another 100 pages will do it. If I just write a measly two pages a day I can finish it in less than a couple of months. Here I have to invoke one of my favourite quotes from Nike: Just Do It.


PREPARE TO QUERY AGENTS
This is more of a September goal but by the end of the summer I want that WIP polished and a query letter ready to go. I need to get back in the game and I need to be ready to do it. My home life may be crazy but it is no longer SUPER crazy. Another quote I like: No More Excuses.


So that’s it. I know I should have added one more goal: DRINK MORE RED WINE but that makes me sleepy. And I need to be energized, not lethargic. How about you? Any summer writing goals for you or are you taking a wee bit of a break to enjoy sun, sand and water?

Mood and Creativity

I always believed that whole idea of being in the ‘mood’ to write was poppycock (aside: I believe that is the first time in my life I have written the word ‘poppycock’). I was/am a firm believer in BICHOK (Butt in chair. Hands on Keyboard) no matter what – rain, shine, happy, sad, inspired or not just get the words down and do it every day and presto (well, presto may involve months of BICHOK) you have a workable first draft of a book. But lately, especially with this last year of highly stressful personal life and emotions going through the wringer and the myriad of decisions, decisions, decisions that I’ve had to attend to, my BICHOK approach has changed to BIBHOC (Butt in bed. Hands on Chocolate) more often than not. I have come to believe that mentally – emotionally – I have to be in a good mood to write, to create something.

I’ve even looked up some articles to justify this shameful revelation of mine. See the following story about how being in a positive mood boosts creativity at work.

 http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/12/16/positive-mood-improves-creativity/21879.html

You’d think this would be a no brainer. Of course you have to be in a good mood to create! How else can you access all those wonderful areas of the brain that surprise you with their inventiveness unless you are relaxed, open, stress-free? But …

What about those grumpy, unhappy, miserable, hermit-like writers who create masterpieces yet seem to hate everything in the world?

What about all those writers writing on a deadline, who have ill relatives, had their car break down, lost their wallet etc. etc. and still write and create amazing books.

Why can some people do that? Why can’t I???

I wonder if it has been because my environment (my home) has been in such disruption lately that (homebody that I am) I have been unable to adjust as well to that stress as I could have to the litany of stressors I just listed above? I think, for me, my environment directly affects my mood thus my ability to write.  And by environment I don’t mean I have to be sitting in my living room chair with the lamp on and my favourite pillow behind me. No, I can write on the subway, in cars, at skating arenas, in doctors offices – anywhere really. I can tune out the outside world. But if I don’t have that refuge to escape to at the end of the day or if that refuge is so disrupted that it is no longer a refuge but someplace I dread going, then that seriously affects my ability to write.

So for me, environment affects mood which affects my writing. Or lack of it. What about you? Do you need to be in a good mood to write well? Or does angst and stress actually bring out the creative beast inside you?