Ravenous Beauty: A Writer's Workshop

since this has been moved to the craft section i will offer a forward explanation of what is going on here for people who dont read the other post first. some authors will tell you it is almost an essential mechanic to make the character memorable or relatable if he is broken in some way. this can be mentally, physically, or emotionally. you can also mix and match these to your liking. in the below i cite chuck palahniuk's character from fight club (tyler durden) and craig clevenger's character from the contortionist's handbook (john dolan vincent) since they both embody one or more of the things this thread is about. if you havent read fight club, im sorry for the spoiler, but you need to know how to do this.

characters dont *need* to be fucked up, but it gives them a quirk without actually trying, and it leads to other neat advantages, like a gun hiding mechanic (see: tyler durden's schizophrenia) what i was saying is that people would generally relate to someone who has a flaw or many flaws, or is coming face to face with the grim reaper, as opposed to someone who has a holier-than-thou outlook on the world. even one of the more genius characters in recent history (that we've read) john dolan vincent, had debilitating migranes and a deformed hand. characters dont *need* to be fucked up, but they are the ones we remember.

I don't think it's necessarily the flaws that are inherently interesting to us. I think it's the inner, personal conflict that becomes intriguing. Inner conflict is something a lot of the authors we are all familiar with use extensively (Baer, Clevenger, Palahniuk, etc.). You're right, though, it does make us relate to them more because we all doubt ourselves sometimes.

Ultimately, we need to sympathize or be intrigued by the character before we can care about the conflict. If we don't care what happens to the people in the story, after all, the conflict is meaningless because we're apathetic of the outcome. Which is why I also believe making really fucked up characters with incredibly skewed moral compasses is dangerous - Phineas Poe may be a bit of a degenerate, for instance, but he surely proves a lovable one because he cares about the fucked up people around him more than himself. That's a noble quality right there. That's a major reason why I kept reading on to PD and HHA anyway.

edit: inner conflict can be described as a flaw sometimes. so, there's that too.

yeah, everything is preferable to 'holier than thou'. i dont like talking to such people and i really dont care to read about them.

fucked up, i think, is still taking an easy way. not that its bad. i think we're all pretty familiar with a lot of the same books and itd be hard to say that those are bad characters. but its not necessary.

some examples of memorable but not fucked up. ignatius j reilly from a confederacy of dunces. the narrator from the heart of the matter. dounia and razumihin(sp) from crime and punishment. richard from the beach. of course i can continue but these work well. richard, when it comes down to it, isnt even unusual. hes just like us which makes him perfect. really, anyway you can make someone interesting is the right way to go.

fucked up is just one choice of many to make. and for every fucked up character there are dozens of eccentric and almost normal characters.

but the words that come to my mind right now are from stephen graham jones. i assume everyones familiar with him. 'always put your characters in danger' or something like that. it works and definitely works as a good starting point. danger, of course, can take many different meanings or shades.

yeah, rambling. anywho, posies, i guess you have some examples to work with. and good luck with the writing. hope to see this one fleshed out.

exactly what you guys said above, i use fucked up only as a blanket term. in my experience, tom spanbauer's words "write wounded characters" is too often taken literally, and when you say "write disturbed people" you get a world of phineas poes and judes. by saying "fucked up" its totally up to the interpretation of every writer, some people will go waaay to extreme, and we'll read about serial killers who burn tally marks into their bodies and masturbate their every boner. other people though, will either try that and realize it doesnt ever work, or get it right away and only pick one or two things. a bullet wound, or paranoid schizophrenia.

i would never have more than two or three "flaws" per character, just because then they get outrageous, and the character becomes nothing but a laundry list of issues, as opposed to be becoming interesting or enigmatic.

EDIT: josh, is it possible to make a thread of our posts on this matter in the writing 101 forum. i think this is good stuff, for anyone, not just newbies to the craft.

Split some of the discussion from Posies' piece here. The others, I think, either directly or indirectly referenced or responded to Posie's story. Those I chose not to split.

i added a small explanation, since some that remained with the other post

I think it's more about how the situation you place the character in conflicts with their own qualities, be they flaws or not. When your one-armed hero has to draw the string on the compound bow with his teeth. Or the lawyer goes to prison. Or the teacher learns from her student. That kind of stuff.

Yeah, a damaged character will have a built-in underdog quality that we'll respond to and that you can exploit, but a red flag always goes up in my brain whenever I read one of these, and I tend to be more critical of them. Partly because the writing's often got kind of a "student" quality. That "write what you know" thing, like having their character be a writer, or their first film be about a filmmaker. And just for the record, I've been guilty of both.

i agree with the red flag, flash. often times when i feel like the author is pushing me to root for a character i hope that the worst things happen to that character. i always want these expectations to be shattered. the underdog scenario fills my mouth with bile. hate it. and, yeah, too, that student-esque feel. to me, it causes the author/narrator to lose authenticity and authority.

fucked up as a blanket term makes sense. i was actually thinking about this at work today and how you might not have necessarily meant fucked up as bullet wound in the head and schizophrenic. also, agree that you should keep your flaws/unusualness/fucked upness to a minimum.

nothing needs to be drastic. it could just be that they collect news paper clippings that contain the word 'soft'. quirks create realness because, lets face it, your average person is actually very fucking strange.

context is big too. if youre a serial killer in jail telling a story about being in jail we wont care. we'll expect it. you cant surprise us. unless it turns into a reform story which, unless youre fucking good, will probably be boring.

be aware of character traits then throw curveballs at your character. be consistent. be inconsistent in a consistent way. give your character a rhythm and set him free. keep him guessing and he'll keep you guessing.

Of course, the surprises and twists and inconsistencies work really, really well and actually help to define certain genres, like noir and thrillers, but they're not requisite for a good story, of course. It really boils down to making the reader care about your character enough to want to see him accomplish whatever goal is set for him. Once you do that, if you can actually bring them on the hero's journey with you, make them feel it every time he gets knocked on, wanting him to get back up, that's really what matters the most.

i should have said context can be big.
personally, i dont throw curveballs at my characters or anything like that. its kind of odd that i wrote that. that doesnt make it wrong, its just not necessary. yeah, depends on what youre trying to write.

just make us care about the people youre writing about. if you care about them, the reader probably will too.

Yeah, it's strange because what you said made me think of my own writing. And I asked myself, do my characters surprise me? Sometimes, but usually I have a deep enough understanding of them, and after a while, the story, that it doesn't phase me no matter what happens.

What you said is nice, though, especially for noir. Surprises are always something to consider as long as they're handled well and don't feel unrealistic, you know?

Once I start submitting this current novel of mine, I'm starting up another of two book ideas. One of them is noir. So, it's something to think about.

i feel like im pretty familiar with noir as a genre but ive never actually written it. the only thing that comes semi-close is the piece i put int he workshop. i think its because it tends to be plot driven. and i suck at plot. but its something im thinking about really digging into. get some twists and turns going.

for noir i think it is almost essential to have a flawed character of some kind. whether it be tragic flaw in the greek sense or just plain phinneas poe fucked up, i think some sort of weakness is necessary. really kick up the darkness.

I wrote five books before this one I'm working on, three of them were a noir trilogy. Was really fun. I've never tried the old style noir style though, like something written by a hack in that time period... I'd have to read a lot of that sort of stuff and watch a lot of the movies to get it down.

It would be fun as hell, though.