Not much happening here. I haven't written anything except for a few tweaks here in there in SSChron. Recently, my mom bought me a few books I wanted to read about screenwriting and film making. I started reading Writing Screenplays That Sell by Michael Hauge and am quite enjoying doing so! As I'm sure I've mentioned a few times in the past, I often imagine SSChron as a TV series more so than an actual novel, so I was interested in seeing how I could improve it in that sense.
The book has provided numerous insights, I have to say, and it has prompted me to do some major edits for my book. These past few weeks, I've been wondering why my book hasn't been as gripping as I've wanted it to. And the book has helped me come to a few conclusions why. And thus follows a semi-not-so-maybe-so-lengthy reflection.
In the first few chapters (I haven't completed the whole book yet), it mentions a concept called 'outer motivation' and 'inner motivation.' An outer motivation is a "visible goal with clearly defined finish lines" or "what the character visibly hopes to accomplish by the end of the movie," or the 'what' statement. And inner motivation is defined as "the reason for the outer motivation, which the character think will lead to self-worth," the why statement (80). The author continues with outer motivation, saying how effective outer motivations consist of certain qualities: "it is visible, it has a clearly implied endpoint, the hero will pursue it until the end of the story, the hero must desperately want to achieve it, the hero must actively achieve it, it's within the hero's power to achieve it, the hero must put everything n the line to achieve it" (43). I feel as if my characters are lacking this kind of outer motivation in many senses. They were sent on a certain mission, but for the most part, none of them really know what they're doing, and so they aren't "desperately trying to achieve" their goal.
Already before, I realized that this was a major flaw in my novel and tried to somehow fix it, but I'll most likely have carefully think over how I can fix the problem more efficiently than before. After all, if the characters don't even want to do something, the reader won't particularly care about it either.
And so that leads me to another point I read in the book, concerning character development. One necessary aspect of a character, as Hauge explains, is that the audience needs to empathize for the main character(s). Hauge gives three methods for creating empathy (he also mentions that the earlier the audience empathizes with the character, the better): sympathy, jeopardy, and likability (good-hearted, well-liked, funny). My characters face jeopardy in many situations, but I don't feel as if it makes the audience empathize with them in any way, unfortunately. In some situations and with some characters, yes, but with other situations revolving around other characters... not really. Especially for the first two characters introduced. Even thinking back on them now, they don't seem particularly special in a way that I have sympathy for what they've faced, and they're not amazingly and uniquely likable either -_-. Yeah, I'll be needing to do some major character editing.
And the last thing I'll mention right now. Of course, Hauge is talking about film making from cover to cover, not writing films, but much of what he has to say concerning plot concepts and character developments is completely relevant to novel writing as well. I'll quote him to bring up my next point: "My strongest advice to those considering writing a multiple-hero feature film is simply don't. Such a screenplay is extremely hard to pull off, because multiple heroes tend to diffuse the focus of your story and make it confusing. It is also tough to sell such a screenplay, because it is often difficult for a reader to keep all the characters straight in written form... The best approach is to stick to a single basic hero— or perhaps two heroes [and then he gives examples to where that can apply]" (71).
The first thing I thought when I read that was, 'Huh. That sounds just like my book.' For that matter, I originally planned on having 10 main characters: a lot, I know. But in some sense, they would all be essential to the major plot, or so I thought. Not that I think about it, I realized that subconsciously in my mind, I realized that I didn't really need all of them. When I was talking to my sister about my book, I even told her something along the lines of, "Chara A is more important that Chara B, Chara C more than Chara D, etc. These five are more important to the plot, but the other five are also kinda important in their own sense." I briefly thought about trying to narrow the main characters to two, but I decided that was impossible considering my story plot. So now I'm considering narrow the main characters down to five. And by that, I'm thinking that I'll completely erase the other five from my book, not just make them minor characters.
I know as a fact that I tend to have too many characters to count. I've had that problem too many times in the past, such as with ROI and WOC. I like having many characters, but I've come to realize that although I enjoy creating many many characters, I doubt readers will enjoy trying to keep them all in check. So with ROI and WOC, I limited many characters down to a generic term: a Pherealen citizen, a bandit, etc. And I've found that that makes it easier for the reader. After all, in most cases, when a name appears in books, it generally means that that character will play some part in the book, but in my case, many of my characters were only there as side-plots that don't really affect the main plot in any sort of way. End of tangent :)
And so that's what's going on in my head right now. Cut off five characters that I've already established in 450 pages that aren't necessarily important but that will change the past 450 pages in several ways? I'm sure it'll eventually be worth it, but it really is going to change a lot of what already happened in subtle ways that do pile up. The dialogue that will disappear, the connection between some characters, the events that wouldn't be recorded because one character was awake while the other (more major) character was asleep, etc, etc. Or should I just write two versions of the book? >:P
And I just thought of another concept that Hauge talks about. The four categories of primary characters: hero, nemesis, reflection (character who most supports hero's outer motivation or is in the same basic situation), romance (80). Of course, a book doesn't need a romance to be good, but it definitely needs a hero and nemesis.
As it is so far, 450 pages written and still going, my main nemesis... has yet to be mentioned, seen, or even talked about! It's crazy now that I think of it, but it's true. There have been 'nemesis-assistants,' as I will call them, who work for the top bad dude, but he's never even been seen before (as I just mentioned). Yeah, I'll need to change that. : |
Alright, and I'm done with the semi-not-so-maybe-so-lengthy reflection, hurrah! :D As I said before, the book has provided many new realizations that I've already somewhat guessed but didn't really know about! And I believe that it will make my book a better one in the long run once I apply what I have learned in the past few (and by few, I mean three) chapters I've already read—man, they're LOADED with good stuff! Who says film-making books aren't for novelists? (If anyone ever said that... I don't know one haha). Peace out ~~
Louise Esli
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