Monthly Archives: May 2024

Catalyzing Character Chemistry

Forget your high school chemistry classes. We’re talking fictional character chemistry here—human reactions. More complicated, more dramatic, and potentially more explosive.

You know it when you see it on TV or in the movies. Two actors with great chemistry. Somehow, their interaction sizzles and sparks, even ignites into figurative flame.

Written stories, the good ones, portray this chemistry too. When a reader knows two characters separately, and they’re about to get together and interact, the reader anticipates something big will happen.

As a writer, you serve as the catalyst for this chemical reaction. You make it happen, and the only things consumed in the process are your time and some Kleenex.

How do you concoct that chemistry? Author K. M. Weiland wrote a marvelous blogpost explaining the process and giving wonderful examples. After reading my brief summary below, study her post for a better and more complete description. What follows is her process, abbreviated and put in a different order, and in my words.

Connect to the Plot

K. M. Weiland listed this last, but to me it comes first. The scenes where your characters interact must serve the plot. They must move the story along. If you write a scene with great chemistry, but it doesn’t advance the story, you’ve taken an unnecessary tangent and written a darling you must kill. Whether you’re a plotter or a pantser, make sure the scenes propel the action forward.

Put Engaging Characters in the Crucible

The chemistry works best with well-defined characters. If you’ve introduced the characters by themselves earlier, then the reader anticipates the coming interaction. Give your characters different (and very clear) motives, desires, and personalities. These traits needn’t directly oppose each other, though that helps. Perhaps the characters share a common goal, but differ on the manner of achieving it. Exploit all differences.

Alternate the Give and Take

As the characters banter, fluctuate between agreement and disagreement. Give one character the upper hand, then the other. You’re striving for equal yin-yang balance here. Weiland calls it ‘the dance of opposition and harmony,’ a perfect metaphor.

When catalyzing this chemistry, don’t limit yourself to dialogue alone. Give your characters things to do, actions to take. These actions can illustrate and emphasize what they say, or tend to contradict their words, depending on your intent. For example, if a character says something harsh, perhaps she can do something pleasant to soften the impact.

Allow an Out-of-Character Moment

Consider letting Character A say or do something unexpected, beyond A’s usual role. Not only will this surprise the reader, but it will jar Character B, forcing B to adapt to the shifting dynamic.

Let Them Grow

The interaction may well expose character flaws, forcing self-examination. One or both characters may change as a result of their confrontations, which may serve to round out the rough edges of their personalities. A great example of this is C.S. Forester’s 1935 novel The African Queen, and the 1951 movie of the same name. In the course of the story, Charlie Allnutt becomes more confident, daring to accomplish actions for a cause greater than himself. Rose Sayer backs off some of her strict religious intolerance. Both grow as people.

This concludes today’s chemistry lesson. All you mad scientists—er, I mean, budding writers—can now follow the formula for creating great character chemistry, as revealed by K.M. Weiland and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 12, 2024Permalink Leave a comment

Write With Fervor

You long to write stories like the ones you enjoy reading, but doubt you could. Writing seems tedious and you think you lack the required expertise. You just know you’d get bored and disillusioned after a few pages. The late author Ray Bradbury offered some advice that might help you.

In his 2001 lecture at The Sixth Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University, he provided great tips about writing, including these two gems:

  • Make a list of ten things you love, madly, and write about them. Make a list of ten things you hate, and write about killing them. Make a list of the ten things you fear, and write about them.
  • Don’t write self-consciously, commercially, what will sell. Find the deep stuff, your inner self. Don’t ask what will sell. Ask who am I?

Exercise

First, you’ll be jotting down three lists of ten items each—things you love, things you hate, and things you fear. No one else will see these lists. Think of ten as a minimum number. Bradbury chose ten to prod you to think beyond the first few easy ones. You’ll be stretching to reach ten, and that’s the point. He’s trying to get you to dive down to your essence, your core.

Given that introduction, I suggest you do the exercise now. Really. Now. Stop reading this and generate your three lists of ten each. I’ll wait until you finish.

Intermission

After the Exercise

All done? Good. You’ve got lists of things you love, things you hate, and things you fear. For every item on all three lists, you feel some level of passion. Positive feelings of adoration accompany each item on the ‘love list.’ Feelings of anger boil up in response to those on the ‘hate list,’ and feelings of dread ooze out of those on the ‘fear list.’

The lists, then, provide two things you’ll need—subjects to write about, and feelings to sustain you while writing.

Subjects

As a fiction writer, you don’t have to write about the exact objects of love, hate, and fear you listed. Perhaps it’s better if you don’t. Use a stand-in, a metaphor, something to represent one or more of the specific things listed.

Say you wrote ‘my spouse’ on the list of things you love, and decided to write on that topic. I’m suggesting you shouldn’t write about your own spouse, but rather write about a character’s love for that character’s spouse. Readers won’t know it’s really your own spouse—they’ll just note the tenderness with which you convey the love.

Caution

I offer a quick note about the list of things you hate. Don’t turn your writing into an angry manifesto. The list should serve as a catalyst for writing, not a prelude to violent action. Take out your vengeance on fictional characters only.

Feelings

The real power of Bradbury’s advice comes from the intense emotions you feel about every item on each list. Those emotions should make it easier (1) to write ‘in the flow,’ (2) to know, at any point, what to write next, (3) to stay enthused about the project until completion, and (4) to infuse your writing with spirit. Your strong feelings about the subject will pass through to readers.

Digging Deep

The other piece of Bradbury’s advice really nails it. “Find the deep stuff, your inner self. Don’t ask what will sell. Ask who am I?” By listing things you love, hate, and fear, you’re getting at your essence, your basic humanity, your soul. Write from out of that core, and your words will ring true. They’ll shine.

Writing from the heart, with fervor, gives you a better chance of reaching readers, too, especially those who care about the same things, readers whose own love/hate/fear lists—if they made them—would reveal some commonality with yours.

Thanks to Ray Bradbury, you’ve got the tools you need. Your lists have fired the coals of an inner boiler. That high-pressure boiler powers a potent writing machine—you. The steam is up, the throttle is open. Go! Nobody can stop you now, least of all—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 5, 2024Permalink Leave a comment