Killing off

Any minute now I'm going to go into my study, sit down at the pc and kill someone off. I'm not looking forward to it, because really the character doesn't deserve it. But that's life, as they say. Life in 1544, anyway, if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, say between a rock and the English army in Edinburgh. I've killed people off before in books, and didn't mind. Usually they were baddies, like Moddan in Banners of Alba. In fact I did a shipboard battle scene in that book, with axes, shields and swords. So it's not the bloodiness of it all that worries me, but something else. This death is going to hurt my protagonist, and because I like him, I'm wary of writing the scene. Odd, isn't it? He doesn't even exist outside my imagination, and yet I don't want to hurt him. I've avoided this scene for about two weeks now, but I'm going to have to do it. Today. Now. Well, I'll have a shower first....and then maybe a cup of coffee... The pic is taken while driving over Hartside summit on the Pennines, looking down on Cumbria

He's a hero?

My current hero is approaching a very tricky moment in his life. Matho has escaped Arran’s imprisonment, hotfoots it to Edinburgh to rescue Phemie, and is unaware that the Queen Dowager Marie de Guise has put out an order for him to be brought before her to atone for a previous crime. The threat of losing his life would, I imagine, focus his thoughts in a way nothing else would. This led me to thinking - What Does A Hero Really Need?

Willpower, Persistence, and to be Empathetic. These are essential. He needs a goal, plus an unconscious desire, usually the antithesis of what he thinks he wants. He cannot be passive. His goal, or desire, must be realistic so the reader can believe he might succeed, and the author must give him a chance to attain his goal. He must be likeable, though perhaps not always sympathetic. Some of the most wonderful heroes can be less than sympathetic, as in Dorothy Dunnett’s Francis Crawford. Yet the reader still empathises with him and his goals.

What reveals character? The choices he makes under pressure in pursuit of his desire. Choices made when nothing is at risk don’t amount to much. Does he tell the truth when a lie would save him? If he does, then we know he’s honest. Maybe stupid, but honest.

Writing experts say that a good, complex and truthfully written character should be revealed in the story as something more than he presents to the world. Easiest example: James Bond as rich playboy, but spy extraordinaire when the chips are down.

Most stories concentrate on the hero when he is initially thwarted in something. (If everything falls at his feet, there is no conflict, and thus no story. Give him a problem, watch him struggle with it.) What if he doesn’t succeed? What are the risks? What’s at stake? The bigger the stakes, the higher the risk, the better the story.

Women and Fiction

For International Women’s Day, lets think about the female in fiction.

Girls grow up reading about adventurous girls – think of George in Blyton’s books, Nancy and Peggy in Ransome, Hermione in the Potter books, Lara in the Pullman stories.

But when puberty strikes, the spirit of adventure seems to depart, and the heroines swop their dungarees for slinky frocks. They turn their gaze to the womanly arts and yearn to earn the love of a Good Man. Maybe real life takes over, their hormones change or we simply can’t have both men and women going out into the world and doing feats of derring do. For men, and books with male heroes, do keep up the adventurous fictional life long after their childhood and teenage years end and real life takes over.

Why don’t we do the same for women? Read the article in the Guardian: click

High Stakes

You have to have something for a hero/ine to aim at. I understand that. Start with the inciting incident, preferably on page one, and go from there. Small problems get worked out and larger difficulties follow.

Some people call these high stakes stories where the hero/ine is absolutely bound to face hardship, danger, and emotional pain before s/he gets to that happy resolution. If the story is not in the romance genre, then the resolution may not be pain free, either.

We’ve all read about common themes in storytelling. For heroes, one event leads to another, and as he nears whatever it is he’s striving for, the difficulties get higher, larger, and hurt more. At the moment I’m trying to decide where my hero goes next and my musings led to thinking about the delicate art of storytelling balance.

The problem for the writer is in keeping the imagination within the bounds of what is possible. For example: Events have to be believable, and the hero must, in some weird way, like David and Goliath, be equipped to deal with the things that confront him. These days it’s not everyone’s good luck to be a whiz with a slingshot, but you take my meaning.

If the winning shot that fells Goliath also costs the hero in some way, that’s excellent from the writer’s point of view, otherwise it all seems too lucky to be credible if he got away with a wry grin, and a shrug of the shoulders. That belongs to the cartoon character. Or maybe Indiana Jones.

No, I take that back. Indie suffers physically and from his fear of snakes in almost every film, and sometimes Dad steals his girl. That's the thing about Indiana…a writer needs to know when enough is enough. Indie doesn’t; he goes on chasing the demon until he himself verges on becoming a cartoon character.

If we once ask ourselves if a man can survive all this pain, then we’re very close to the borderline of believability, where a thumping good storyline will suddenly be taken over by cartoon characters like the feminine creation in the film Salt I talked about a few posts back. And unless you are writing for movieland, then personally, I think cartoonland is a bad place to be.

Yippee! Being Human is on the way back! Next time I'll have to write about how BH gets away with being a high stakes story (hee hee) and avoids the cartoon trap.

Heroes of the day

Rafa couldn't be here to defend his title so the Wimbledon final seemed a bit flat this year.

Roger was there, looking cool and trying hard . Andy Roddick was there, looking uncool and trying hard, sweat dripping from the peak of his cap from the second game. Neither could break the other's service game. Tie-breaks became the order of the day.

Until the last set of course when tie-breaks are not allowed. It went on and on, until I began to fear that one of them would fall down and not get up again.

Tennis is the gladiator sport of this day and age. One on one, for anything from forty minutes to over five hours without a break unless it happens to rain. Heroes are made in this sport, some seem born to be heroes.

Footballers may think they are fit, but they should try this for a living. Enter a tournament and any given day five sets are a possibility for the men. A team chase a ball on a football pitch, one man on a tennis court. He doesn't just want to beat his opponent, said one retired professional on tv last week, he wants to destroy him.

Roger looked worried, but never raged or threw things as so many do. And amazingly in these days of females grunters, trillers and screamers, this match was silent. The crowd made the only noise, and the audience at home could hear the racket strike the ball. There is no sound more redolent of summer and strawberries, unless it is the sound of leather on willow. Beautiful day.

Roger won. I'll save that pic for tomorrow.