The Main Character

This week I will like to talk about what almost all writers out there consider to be the most important element in fiction; character. When we pick a book at the library or bookstore, we are choosing that book because we want to have a personal relationship with the fictional characters in the story. The greatest letdown in any story would be characters that feel bogus, and are unable to stir in the reader that sincere feeling of connection regardless if we like the character in the story.

 

This week I will focus on the main character of the story. Writers, teachers, and critics also call them the protagonist or hero. The most difficult task for the aspiring writer and even for the experience writer is to create compelling characters. But, how can we go about creating characters that will remain in the reader’s memory forever? I believe that in order to create round characters is important to understand three principles:

a)     Desire

b)    Obstacle

c)     Change

 

The writer and literary critic John Gardner asserts that, “no fiction can have real interest if the central character is not an agent struggling for his or her own goals but a victim, subject to the whim of others.” The first thing I do when I’m thinking about stories is to give my characters a strong desire for something. Once I do that, it’s much easier to know what I want my story to be about. This shouldn’t be a hard thing to do. Think for a minute in your own life and the things you want to accomplish: an education, a better job, a girlfriend, a prettier house, a Ferrari, etc. I mean, the list can go on for weeks. So, first thing would be to give your main character a strong desire for something.

 

You all know that life is hard. For the most part we have to work hard to get what we want, and sometimes no matter how hard we try we don’t get what our hearts desire. Consider how many times your dreams didn’t come true as you expected. We must put obstacles on the path of our heroes. Why? Because, otherwise your story will turn out as boring as watching a chess match on TV. Who wants to read a story where everything works out perfectly for the main character? So your character wants a new car so he can take the girl at school he likes on a date. Obstacles? He is unemployed. His parents don’t want him to work but to focus on his education. He works but he makes little money, not enough to pay for a new car. You get the point.

 

And the third principle to consider is Change. In his book “By Cunning & Craft,” Peter Selgin www.peterselgin.comsays; “Characters who don’t grow or change or surprise us in any way we call flat characters.” In order to create believable characters you must, at least, for your main character experience change. This change is not achieving the desire goal per say, but the emotional and psychological transformation the character experienced to get his goal regardless if he get what he wanted or not.

 

Well I hope this little lecture on character may help your writing. Let me know your thoughts and comments.

“no fiction can have real interest if the central character is not an agent struggling for his or her own goals but a victim, subject to the whim of others.”  John Gardner. 

 Two books to check out with unforgettable characters: The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink

The Cement Garden, By Ian McEwan

Ideas for stories

Many of us, more than once, after we’ve finished a novel or a short story we have probably made ourselves the question; How in the world this guy came up with this story? I believe the great authors of literature have created their books in a combination of a tremendous literary influence (in some way the thousands of pages read by these guys alter their creative unconscious) and the perfect execution of an idea.

            This week I’d like to talk about where writers get their story ideas from for and also I would like to know where you get your ideas. For me a story begins with an idea. This idea has to be a sort of mini-story. Perhaps, for many of you the seed that will sprout into a story is just a mental picture, a word, or just the simple craving to write something. A writer should always trust his/her creative spontaneity when it comes to get ideas for writing. Some of the best works in literature have been born out of flash of spontaneity. Consider for example The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. This great American novel began with a mental picture. “The picture was of the muddy seat of a little girl’s drawers in a pear tree, where she could see through a window where her grandmother’s funeral was taking place and report what was happening to her brothers on the ground below. By the time I explained who they were and what they were doing and how her pants got muddy, I realized it would be impossible to get all of it into a short story and that it would have to be a book.”

            This week I was reading that Garcia Marquez inspiration to write One Hundred Years of Solitude was his childhood’s memories. How fascinating is to think how these colossal and magnificent works of literature started from a simple thing. Ideas are everywhere, floating in the air, waiting for you to inhale them into your creative brain. Just this past week I thought about this great ideas for a story. I was at the library the other day reading when I overheard this woman teaching English to this old Mexican lady. I wrote this dynamic (American lady teaching ESL to this old woman) in my little notebook I carry everywhere for ideas and thoughts on writing. Whenever I have the time to write, probably after this semester, I will go back and develop this image into something more complex. Where do you get your ideas? Let me know.  

If you have time for a good novel check this one out; 

Greetings to all the writers out there who are trying to get their stories published (I’m including myself in this group) and, those who have already savored the sweet taste of reading their own written work from the soft texture of paper. I have decided to create this blog with one goal in mind; share with all of you writers my own personal perceptions about the art of writing fiction, hoping to get feedback from you and thus improve our own prose.

            Every week I’ll write a brief post about a particular element on the art of fiction offering a tip for the week. You are more than welcome to make comments, share your own impressions, and contribute your feedback on the week’s topic. So, this blog isn’t just to help me improve my own writing, but to improve yours. I believe we can all become better writers with this blog and who knows perhaps one of us could write the next American classic.

See you next week,

Felipe Cárcamo Díaz 

"..write and don't worry about what the boys will say nor whether it will be a masterpiece.."

                                                                                                                    Ernest Hemingway