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THE CHARACTERS
You will need characters who are larger than life to cope with high dramas which is what BIG books are all about. The place to find their models is in every-day life.
Seize on the obvious externals: how he likes to dress, eat, spend or withhold money, and use his leisure time; how hard he works, plays or lusts; how likely he is to laugh and joke or be depressed and complain; to what degree he loves or hates his family-members, friends, enemies, and others in his life, and how they in turn feel about him.? (All this might be about her of course . . . many women enjoy a well developed sense of the dramatic as much as anyone, and usually like more family turmoil than most males do.
You can also watch out for interesting habits, phrases, idiosyncracies in your friends.
But do ensure you make of them a different mix, or you may no longer have friends.
Once you've mixed your own recipe, then stir it again, and add more.
Your main characters are going to be powerful, cunning, inscrutable and/or hysterical. All of them are likely to have large libidos.
The novelist has to let us see the longings, hopes, carnal desires, ambitions, fears, loves and hates that reside privately within the soul of his character and that (much as in life) other characters may know little or nothing about. The writer must view the environment of the novel (both physical and human) through the eyes and sensibilities of the character. In so doing he achieves within himself and for the reader a closeness akin to love for the character.
How to portray all the powerful characteristics you have assembled ?
Our 'How-to' author reminds us that a fictional character is defined and portrayed by his actions. You must disclose what your character wants most, or is obsessed by; what he/she dreams of for the future, for the rest of his life, or at least for the time span of the story. (It can't always be sex; the porno movies have cornered that consumer demand.) Get inside your character's guts, where you can speak his dialogue or reveal his thoughts. Bare the very soul of the character and in so doing draw the reader close?.
But don't treat him/her as if he/she were Moby Dick, or even the whale's hunter. You need to make room for several major characters in a modern book. Introduce them one at a time, allowing them to betray their own emotions; ambitions, lusts, lies (and lays). If a character is there merely to move things along - a cog in the plot - move her/him along afterwards with a little (passionate) problem of his/her/its own. Or send u-know-who off on a mission, so that the real protagonists can hog the stage. The main BIG characters should all get into the act early.
Points of View
As our How-To Author points out : in films it is the camera which has the point of view. Fiction allows readers into the hearts and minds and gossip of many points of viewing. With scenery, for instance, fiction adopts its colour through the mood and eyes of the characters; the scene depends on how they describe or 'feel' it.
Your BIG- book does best with a number of powerful points of view which can sustain tension at various levels. So don't let the single great character you invented carry you (or him or her) away. You have the option of inventing several main characters who can each do their own seeing, hearing, feeling and misinterpreting - or having an omniscient narrator who can see, hear and feel what all the characters are feeling,seeing, hearing.
The omniscient narrator is your easiest choice - but he's very likely to become a bore. And he knows too much. The more difficult option is the best, as usual. Remember to reserve point-of-view for the main characters only, and sustain those characters. Let each in his/her own way see,smell, say, think - you get the picture - but keep it tightly contained. Do NOT 'stop the story dead' with a journalistic history of a character's life and opinions. Let her (I can't go on with this him\her business!) express those points of view which reveal his (of course I mean her) emotions. Let her emotions push the story forwards. You will receive much thanks for that. Choose few characters and decide which propel the action. Choose differing sexes of different ages and, these days, cultures. BUT, you must 'empathise' as modern fiction likes to today. "Character is important, but never at the expense of emotional power?" says our expert.
He also suggests that you can clear the decks to a degree by "Tightening Character Relationships" by inventing a strong emotional/sexual/filial etc relationship between perpetrator and victim. "All great stories are family stories", he says, but if you cannot connect the main characters, let them be friends, lovers etc, (even if they're all going to kill each other. That's fictional life.)
Now its time to create a scene. |
