MAKE LOVE WITH YOUR CHARACTERS

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Let’s play a quick game called “So You Think You’re In Charge”.

Scenario:

Here you are with this great, fresh, stellar story that you just can’t wait to start on. You’ve got your hero in mind. He’s this gorgeous alpha male with a bod that makes us pant – I mean come on, really, why else would we write about him then? He’s everything we secretly fantasize about. – and he’s going to just sweep your heroine off her feet. And here you have your heroine. She’s intelligent, funny, independent, everything we secretly wish we could be. To your thinking, they are perfect for each other. You get to working, whip those pages out, and have them meet.

But wait, she’s not supposed to think he’s a jerk, well, not really to that extent. And he’s not supposed to act like a jerk. Why is he doing that? And I don’t know about you, but it seems she’s becoming quite the bitch.

So you go back and edit your first couple chapters. You think you’ve got it right now.

OK, he’s way too much of a pansy now. He’s practically drooling at her feet, sprouting proclamations of love. And she’s . . . well, in truth, she’s still a bitch but one who’s trying to pretend she’s not. She’s a bitch in denial. Her actions are fake and her responses are not quite to your liking.

So after the fifth or sixth time editing these characters, you find yourself hating them more and more because they just won’t cooperate with the grand plan you have for them. Their actions seem staged, their emotions too childish and stupid. You bang your head on your keyboard and scream, “Why won’t they do what I want them to do?” while your family members look on as if you’ve just hit the roof and maybe had one too many coffee.

And then in their naivete, they innocently tell you, “But you’re the writer. You can make them do whatever you like.”

Sorry to break it to you, but you birthed them. They are 100% real, albeit two-dimensional, and have a mind of their own.

So what do you do now? Well, what would you do with a rebellious child you just don’t understand?

You try to understand them. You become their friend and get to know them. And then you let them do exactly as they want with hopes that with your new understanding of them, their actions will make more sense to you. And you pray that as their friend, they will take your needs in consideration go in the right path that you want them to go.

And you thought you were God with your characters.

If you’re anything like me when it comes to writing, halfway through your book you’re screaming out in frustration about your characters. You thought you knew them. You thought you had them all figured out. So why the heck won’t they do as they’re told? And you flood your critique partners with stacked on emails of venting. Bless critique partners for putting up with your antics.

The truth is perhaps you did know your characters, but they’ve changed throughout your story. Or perhaps you really didn’t know them to begin with. You wanted them to fit a particular mold that satisfies your needs but not theirs. They can’t be a mold. They need to be individualized.

When you see all those new developments springing up with cute little identical houses all faced the same way and in the same color scheme, do you think, “Awe, I want to live in a place that that.” Or do you shudder to yourself, the cardboard houses reminding you of such movies like “Edward Scissorhands” and “The Cat in the Hat”. Overdone. Boring. Lacking of originality.

For all intents and purposes, let’s hope you chose the lather.

So now your quest is to get to know your characters. OK. Now what do you do? Simple. How do you get to know a person? You ask questions. You get nosy. You dig. If you could, you invite them to happy hour one night and get them as drunk as you can to loosen their tongues. But you can’t. You’re a writer. You’re characters are only two-dimensional. So how do you get to know your characters?

GMC. Goal, Motivation, Conflict.

Correct. GMC plays an important role in getting to know your characters, but it goes further than that.

Let’s start planning. For this exercise, I will use the hero of my WIP, Prince Kym’rin Rainyll, a man cursed with an evil darkness inside him that waits for the perfect moment to take over his soul.

GMC. Kym’rin’s goal is to ward off the evil for as long as he can. His motivation is because he doesn’t want to be this great evil being. He believes himself to be good. His conflict is that he’s slowly losing the battle with the darkness. Ultimately, he will be faced with the dilemma that the only way to save Anoria, my heroine, is for him to give in to the darkness and lose his soul.

OK. That’s a good start, but not good enough. I like to go three layers deep, or three why’s deep.

Start from the beginning.

Kym’rin wants to keep the darkness at bay. (1) Why? Because he’s a good person. He doesn’t want to be evil. He doesn’t want to lose his soul. (2) Why? Because his father is evil and he hates his father. He doesn’t want to be like his father. He doesn’t want to believe that he’s anything like his sire. Ah… now we’re getting somewhere. We are creating dimension to him. (3) Why? Because he blames his father for the death of his older brother, Alain, and because he witnessed his father murder his mother, whom he was extremely close to. BINGO. We can even go one step deeper. Why? Because he’s hurt and angry that his father never loved him.

That is the core of the subject. It all boils down to emotions. Big, strong emotions. Hurt. Anger. Love. These are powerful emotions.

If you can do this, then you’ve knocked off the goal and motivation already. All that’s left is the conflict. Add some turmoil. Make what your character want most conflict with his/her goal. This is your monkey wrench. You can throw in a few good ones, but for our purpose today, we’ll talk about the BIG one. What does your character have the most to lose?

Kym’rin is faced with a choice. Anoria’s life, or his soul? Which is more important to him? Which matters most to him? Which is the right choice? Is there ever a right choice? In order for you as the writer to figure out what choice your character will make, you have to dig deeper into your character. But why? you might ask. Wasn’t that what we just did?

Yes, and no. Yes, because we did just go deeper into his psyche, but no, because we haven’t gone deep enough. That’s where most writers make their mistake. They have the GMC figured out and leave it there.

What do we know so far about Kym’rin? He doesn’t want to turn evil and lose his soul. So, the choice would be to save his soul, right? Right??

So let’s dig. What are the stakes here?

Kym’rin has been fighting his darkness for thousands of years now. Only once did he let them control him, and that had resulted in his father’s death, right after witnessing his father murder his mother. He was horrified at what he’d done, and at his loss of control. If he gives in now, all those thousands of years of struggling to maintain control over the darkness would have been for nothing. If he gives in, it would mean becoming the one thing he hates most, his father. If he gives in now, it would mean the destruction of his kingdom because nothing will be able to stop the darkness from using him to destroy the kingdom. If he gives in now, it would mean eternal damnation, one of his biggest fears.

Big stakes on that end. So he can’t give in and let the darkness take over and strip away his soul.

OK. Let’s take a look at the other side. If he doesn’t give in to the darkness, it means no chance at saving my heroine’s life, whom he loves utterly and completely.

And therein lies the core conflict of any romance. Love, or self-preservation. This is why writing romance is so fun (and difficult) because our job is to define what we feel the concept of love is. Is it worth eternal damnation? Is it worth facing every single fear you have run from your entire life? Is it worth every sacrifice, any pain, any humiliation? That’s why it is so important to give our main character a partner worthy of that love and sacrifice. Who the other character is will justify whatever decision your main character makes.

If Anoria was a bitch (and there are some heroines out there like that, believe me!), I would be cheating my reader by making Kym’rin choose her life over his. Think for a moment. What does the partner mean to your character and why?

Anoria is everything Kym’rin sees in the world that he can never have. Life, goodness, simplicity, purity, and light. Why? He sees life in her. For thousands of years, as part of his curse, he had to live in complete darkness. The darkness had killed off every living organism in his kingdom. He craves for the fresh smell of grass and the sound of children’s laughter filling the long vacant hallways of his crumbling castle. He sees goodness in her. All he’s ever known was hatred from his father. She was the first person that made him feel like a person and not a dirty doormat. She was the first person (aside from his mother) who was kind to him. He sees simplicity in her. She’s a royal princess to the most powerful kingdom in their land, yet she doesn’t care for status or power. She finds (and prefers) enjoyment in nature and leading a quiet life. He needs her simplicity to ease the constant hatred and greed that surrounds him from his father. He sees purity in her. He feels tainted. Cursed. There’s a great evil growing in him. He wishes that some of her purity will rub off on him and cleanse the deed of his parents’ death from his soul. He sees light in her. Again, this goes back to his curse to darkness. Naturally, he will crave her light. She is like a beacon in his darkness.

OK, that’s a start. But is all that enough to have him give up his soul for? Why should he give up all for her?

Dig deeper. Hone it down to one instance in time. What has she done to make her deserving of his sacrifice? Sometimes, love is simply not enough. You have to have something to back it up.

Kym’rin was cursed to darkness. Anoria believes it only fair they share the same fate, so she curses herself blind live in darkness too. One point for her. She challenges the wrath of the Fates and both his kingdom and hers for him when he could not. Another point. She saves his life on more than one occasion. Kudos of points. She loves him … but that goes without saying. So as you can see, she does a lot for him, but we must narrow it down to one big reason.

Now earlier, I mentioned something about big. Emotions, correct? Big, strong, powerful emotions. If you look at all the examples listed above, they all have one common, underlying factor. Anoria believes in Kym’rin, full-heartedly. How that makes Kym’rin feel is the deciding factor in his decision. Her trust in him makes him feel worthy, something he’s always wanted, something that he never received from his father. She makes him feel worthy of love, worthy of redemption, worthy of life and goodness. That one emotion is strong enough to face any fear and make any sacrifice.

Find that one reason that makes your character choose love over life, love over material goods, love over money … love over anything. Remember, the core of writing a romance is love over self-preservation. Remember the movie “Titantic”? Jack chose love so that Rose could live. In “Armageddon”, Bruce Willis’s character sacrificed himself to save the world – or at least that’s what it looked like. In truth, it came down to his life, or his daughter, Grace’s fiancé’s life. As a father, he didn’t trade his life to save the world. He traded his life so that his little girl can have her fiancé returned. It was her happiness that mattered most to him. It was her life that was worth dying for.

And it doesn’t have to end in death, because what is love but life, right? A good example of this is the movie “50 First Dates” with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, where because of an accident, Drew’s character cannot remember past the day of the accident. When she wake’s up to a new day, she thinks it’s the day of the accident again, which happens to be her father’s birthday. She doesn’t recall that there had ever been an accident. Adam’s character finds her, the perfect woman. They hit if off great and the next day, he’s devastated that she cannot remember him at all. So everyday, he tries to make her fall in love with him all over again, knowing that she’ll forget him come the morning. When Drew’s character realizes that her relationship with him is keeping him from fulfilling his dream of sailing the world, she cuts if off and destroys any reminder of their love. Because of all he’s done for her, it made his dream all that much more important to her than their love. Her decision had been to hold onto a man with the patience to try to win her heart everyday, or to forego that love so that he can accomplish his dream. To hold onto her happy ending, or give him what she believes is his happy ending. Self-preservation, or love (in this case, not their love, but simply her love for him; she cuts off their love because she loves him). And yes, it’s a happily ever after ending. They find a way to make it work where he can achieve his dream with her by his side. And yes, Kym’rin and Anoria gets a happy ending too. I’m a romance writer, remember?

We have just done some pretty deep thinking. This doesn’t even cover character arc, but just a color in the spectrum. Stay tuned for Part Two of “Make Love with Your Characters”, where we will go deeper with POV and emotions.

          - Not to be reprinted without author’s permission.