The 7 Points of Write: An Essential Guide to Mastering the Art of Storytelling, Developing Strong Characters, and Setting Memorable Scenes (5 page)

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S READERS, WHEN WE CRACK OPEN
a work of fiction, we do so with the hope that we will embark on a journey that will thrill and captivate us and cause us to identify with, or at least embrace, the purpose and drive of the main character. It is your protagonist, after all, who is the captain of your literary ship, and it is he or she who will carry us through the story. That protagonist, therefore, had better be as interesting as they come. And as real as they come.

The best protagonists are the ones that are drawn from one’s own personal experiences. It goes without saying that being able to tap into the deep well of one’s own past is invaluable for a writer. Once you imbue this lead character with your own emotional traits, your own passions and leanings, you in effect inject that character with pieces of yourself. What results is a protagonist with which many readers can identify, as we are all cut from the same cloth. Through the fictional journey of your protagonist, you can elicit any emotional response you desire from your readers, depending on what it is you decide to inject into your lead.

As you consider your main character, think about the sweeping narrative you will thrust them in, and settle on your major arc from the outset. Does the character start out poor only to end up rich? Or are they insecure, self-conscious, and reserved at the start of your novel and confident and self-assured by the end? These are things you must know going in. It will allow you to season the character with the right emotions and mindset based on appropriate periods in your own life. If the character starts out poor, for instance, you’ll have to recall a time in your own life where you were without enough means, despite your best efforts to the contrary. Draw on the feelings that coursed through you at that time, the fear and worry, the dread of probably never being able to stick your head above water again. Inject all of that into your character and build your plot around it. Let your own experiences guide your character’s journey, not to the point of an autobiography, of course; you’re simply going to gather the choicest parts of your life for the sake of your character. You want to breathe life into them after all, and what better way to do that than to apply things you’ve seen and experienced firsthand: the feelings you actually felt, disappointments that have crushed you, decisions that once weighed heavily upon you?

When creating your main character, don’t try to add flavoring you think will appeal to the masses. If your aim is to please everyone, you’ll fail miserably each and every time. Instead, seek only to capture the very essence of your character, and convey whatever message your overall story will carry through his or her thoughts, actions, and reactions. Figure out what it is you want this character to say, and I’m not referring to dialogue, I’m talking about the overall theme of your book, its core message, be it redemption, forgiveness, justice, or whatever powerful moral you want your readers to carry with them.

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ONSISTENCY AND
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Consistency is important when it comes to character portrayal. Speech patterns need to be locked down and personalities honed through consistent narrative tailoring, and, following this, the protagonist should never slip
out of character
, so to speak. When certain turns of phrases have been locked in and descriptive mannerisms defined, the character begins to settle in the reader’s mind; they begin to grow comfortable with the personality you’ve created, but they can only do so if the character seems real enough to them. Just because you’re writing fiction doesn’t mean you’re not going to imbue your characters with real personalities. That’s where personal experience comes in, even if your main character is based largely on someone other than yourself. And that is something that tends to happen with writers; personalities of people who have made an impression in your life will often seep into your characters, and that is a good way to approach
Point Five
, which we will come to in the next chapter. You can do a little of this with your protagonist as well. After all, in many cases, it may not be a good idea to base a lead character entirely on yourself if you intend for that character to live things out that you never truly experienced firsthand. For instance, you might want to write a sea epic but have only been on a couple of cruises. However, you have an uncle who was in the Navy during time of war. Your protagonist, therefore, can exist with that in mind, being based largely on your uncle, who you will interview to no end—but again, your book will not be written to the point of a biography.

Once you have a view of your main character, right down to personality, mannerisms, speech patterns, and so on, you can start to create them by placing them in situations that are somewhat familiar to you. So while the character is based primarily on someone else, they will start out in a familiar situation, one that you can recount with ease. That way you can work your way up to more complex experiences outside of your own while getting to know the character intimately. So, if your book starts out on the open sea or in the midst of a major battle, you might want to hold off on writing that scene until you’ve learned your character inside out. Plot out the scene and come back to it later. The first scene you write should be fairly simple; perhaps one that starts out with one of your own experiences. It can be as simple as a conversation in bed with a spouse, which can be drawn from your own past. The character might express his fear about an unknown future or something else that has deeply affected you. Then other scenes can be worked in, such as the first conversation with the Navy recruiter, which you can flavor with echoes of past job interviews and your awkward reactions to questions posed or your confidence under pressure, whichever holds true.

Knowing the end from the beginning will help you ground your character as well. What I mean by this is that if you plan to have them end up rich but start out poor, their attitude has to reflect this; bitterness and resentment should be tamped down as the story progresses, but at carefully marked intervals that coincide with the narrative. If we take the proposed sea epic, for instance, we would want to explore something in your main character at the beginning of your story that will eventually shift in an entirely new direction, thus creating a character arc. Your Navy man might express a certain fear of the unknown while in bed with his wife, and he probably cites reasons for this. Perhaps as a child he saw his father succumb to a terrible illness that was the result of a grueling job, like coal mining. Naturally he fears he’ll share the same fate, because his father was the sum total of his view of the working man. But the Navy opens him up to a world of new experiences, and he comes into contact with at least one character—a commanding officer or the like—who in effect acts as a father figure. This officer, unlike his real father, is a take-charge individual, striking out at life on his own terms. While emulating the officer, your main character will begin to embrace a new life with greater confidence, crushing his fear of the unknown even in the midst of a war, because the future, despite the present odds, is bright. And the horrors of war make him realize this, as does the experience and even-keeled nature of his commanding officer.

So while you want your characters to be consistent in manner, speech, and overall personality, you also have to account for major character arcs, which will show them in a new light as the arc unfolds. Consider your character arcs prior to writing your story, and make sure each is settled and established. The main purpose of the character arc is to alter the viewpoint of your protagonist via a series of events in the story. If he or she starts out one way, they will end up another upon the resolution of their personal journey. This is important to each and every narrative, but it doesn’t necessarily have to conclude within one story. You can have the character arc play out across multiple stories or books. For instance, through 711 Press (
www.711press.com
), a publishing company I co-own with author and vocal coach Jaime Vendera, we publish what we call TV Books, which are episodic stories that comprise a full season, much like a traditional television show. Each season is roughly 13 episodes long, and character arcs are expressed over the course of a given season and sometimes extend through the show’s entire run. One example is a TV Book we produced called
Mafiosi
.

The show starts out with Vincenzo Abruzzi, a young, out-of-work Italian-American male in 1950s New York who is approached by his cousin Paul after a neighborhood wise guy puts the word out that he needs to seed a few new spots. A chance meeting with this made man leads to a world of crime and excess after Vincenzo is given the chance to prove himself with a test run. Along the way, he meets both a nice Italian girl who could turn out to be wife material as well as a seasoned “woman of the world,” who opens him up to new possibilities. Juggling these women while concentrating on furthering his criminal career without getting whacked by a slew of new enemies proves to be more difficult that it first seemed, but the allure of mob life is also too irresistible, especially when he begins to rise up the ranks with unprecedented speed. And it is this swift rise that causes our main character to go from a broke, unsure, and carefree individual to a seasoned, shrewd, and calculated businessman of sorts, and one that is extremely well-paid. But it is the various people he meets within the organization who shape his outlook the most. The main thing to consider here is that character arcs can work in any given situation and with any kind of character you can think up, so don’t feel limited.

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ROTAGONIST’S
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HREE
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SSENTIALS

There are three essential things you must explore throughout your story concerning your protagonist, and all three must encompass your entire narrative. They are as follows:

The first question isn’t necessarily one that the main character has to know the answer to at the outset of your story, nor is it one the reader has to know. But it is highly important that you, the writer, know up front. For instance, a story might start out with a main character who is so wrapped up in his daily routine, perhaps as a farmer, that he has no idea what wild adventures await him. Then a visitor stops by, a stranger by all accounts, but during the conversation this stranger seems to know more about our protagonist than meets the eye. Then we learn from this visitor that danger approaches, and before long our farmer must head out on a quest to find something or someone at all cost, since the fate of the world might hinge on this very thing or person. Of course, the first thing that prevents our supposed hero from venturing out might be himself. Reluctance might be our first answer to question 2. But once our hero does decide to embark on a quest you can hurl all sorts of obstacles at him, and you can raise the stakes with each one, until the final nail-biting one that might mean the end of our hero or the end of life on earth as we know it.

Once he figures out a way past this final obstacle, our story can come to an end. Some solutions may require the life of our hero, and some might lead us into a sequel, wherein we would rinse and repeat all three questions in a new adventure.

If you are a student of storytelling, you’ll recognize these three questions in practically every play, movie, TV show, or book you’ve experienced, from
The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife
to
Showtime’s
Dexter.
I urge that you study these questions carefully, look for them in your daily reading or viewing experience, and apply them in your storytelling.