Is "Character-Driven" Being Used As An Excuse For Bad Writing?

Before we get this week's entry started I'd like to let all my readers know that I'm having a holiday giveaway! If you want to get a rare, out-of-print title from yours truly all you have to do is email and ask. Full details of the giveaway can be found right here on Improved Initiative.

Now, onto this week's entry!

I love meeting fellow authors. Whether it's at a convention or a coffee shop, a reading or a talk it's always a pleasure to meet someone else who feels strongly about the same passion. Over time I've learned to understand and admire writers of other genres and styles. That said, red lights and alarm bells still go off whenever someone opens a conversation with, "I write character-driven stories."

Say that again, I'm not sure I heard you right the first time.

What's Wrong With Character-Driven Stories?

Nothing, and everything. You see the problem comes when you examine what the term actually means, and what a lot of writers think the term means.

What the term character-driven actually means is that the character is driving the story. Whether it's a meth-addled rock star riding the roads on an iron horse to try and find himself again or a young girl questioning the teachings of the religious cult that's raised her for her entire life, you have a setup that only exists because the character is changing somehow. The character is creating a story, rather than being acted on by outside forces. That is fine and dandy, a-ok and no issues here.

The problem is this is not often the definition that people are using. To hear some writers tell it a character-driven story is a story that has been scrubbed completely clean of all that nasty plot. It's a story about a person, and that person's internal struggles and revelations. About life, the soul, and the universe... things that would only be cheapened by expecting the character to take any sort of action or achieve any kind of goal.

You keep using this word. It does not mean what you think it means.

Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts

The problem with many authors who actively use the term character-driven is that they think it's one or the other. Either you sit and plot out everything that happens and you jerk the character along your plot rails or you focus on what that character is thinking, feeling, and about his or her development. You can't do both!

In fact it's just the opposite. You have to do both in order to have a complete story.

You might decide to sit down and write a story about a homicide detective who has to delve into the life of a victim that reminds him of his daughter. On the one hand the book might have the internal journey the detective takes, showing us how his views of the world are shaped and how the nature of his calling have warped his soul out of true. That's compelling stuff... but he's still got to pursue the killer. He has to view crime scene photos, interview witnesses, run down clues, make deductions, and do things in order for the book to continue on. He doesn't have to catch the killer, but if all he does is sit around his desk and navel-gaze for a week then he's going to lose his shield in pretty short order.

It's perfectly fine to have a story that focuses on a strong, engaging character. In fact it's a great idea if you want us to see how this character grows and changes, developing in ways that take us on a journey. On the other hand people have to actually do things, otherwise the only ride we're going on is following their daily commute to work, watching them write poetry, or tagging along on an endless series of social events. While not every novel has to be about black ops agents averting nuclear war, or death-defying quests to toss magic rings into volcanoes before an ultimate evil destroys the known social order and installs absolute tyranny, it helps if all of the character development is actually because of something. It could be training to run a local marathon, getting a better job, or working through a sticky marriage full of secrets, but no character is an island. They will do things, and things will be done unto them. It's how they react that matters, and how they change that makes them drive the plot.

You might have a supercharged engine, but it won't go anywhere suspended in midair. It needs to be in a car, and only then will the two halves result in a ride someone will actually want to take.

Thanks again for dropping in on The Literary Mercenary! If you have comments about the blog feel free to leave them below or send them directly to me via the form on this page. If you'd like to support me in my endeavors then stop by my Patreon page and become a patron today! Lastly if you want to make sure you get all of my updates either submit your email address using the form on the right, or follow me on Facebook and Tumblr!

Profanity in Fiction: When it's Okay to Say "Fuck"

Anyone who loves banned books week as much as I do (at least partially because it always sneaks up on me) is aware of what the top three reasons for books being deemed "objectionable" are. In no particular order they are; sex, violence, and profanity. While we could go on endlessly about the first two, let's focus on the third. Profanity.

What's the Big Fucking Deal?

If I had a nickel... I sure as fuck wouldn't put it in there.

Profanity causes a lot of arguments in fiction. On the Don't Say That side of the line we have people who consider profanity to be low-class, cheap, and offensive. These readers may shut a book and refuse to finish it if the author uses profanity in the book, and they may also attempt to get the book banned from a library. Readers on this side of the line also tend to trumpet the defense of the young and impressionable, claiming that if they aren't old enough to use that kind of language then they shouldn't be reading books with those words in them either. Whether one agrees with these sentiments or not they're important to consider because there are a lot of readers who feel this way, and pissing off readers is a good way to shoot your career in the foot.

The other side of the argument is made up of the That's How People Talk camp. Think about when you watch a rated-R movie on TV, and the hero's profane one-liner is turned into a kid-friendly ad lib. Cleaning up the language characters are using in a book is sort of like that; readers know what they mean, but the characters are denied their preferred forms of verbal punctuation. I call this pulling the punch, and it refers to taking any action that alters a story with no intention other than making the person reading it feel less uncomfortable. Generally it doesn't serve to make the story better, and many times it can make what was a poignant exchange seem juvenile. This side of the line tends to be readers who admit that while the use of profanity is vulgar, it is still a tool that can be used to great effect in a book.

How Profanity Has Changed Over The Years

There was an old piece of writing advice from Mark Twain that suggested writers replace every use of "very" with the word "damn" because the editor will simply delete all the unnecessary terms. It was meant to show that "very" is a lazy word choice (which it is), but it also let people know that "damn" would rarely if ever be allowed into a completed manuscript.

That changed in the 1960s.

Along with pretty much everything else.

Somewhere between the beat generation and the creation of the hippie language was allowed to be more honest. Rather than characters "swearing oaths" or "cursing under their breath" the author would simply tell us what was said. People said "shit", and "goddamn", and even the previously-unpublishable "fuck". The spirit of the times was reflected in the books produced, though as mentioned in this article by Jo Walton featured on Tor.com here, it took genre fiction until the 1980s for space opera soldiers and fantasy knights to say fuck with some real confidence. Part of that was that people dropped metaphors that had commonly been used in fiction up to that point, and part of it was that profanity was much more commonly used in day-to-day language. So there was really a two-pronged evolution going on in regards to the profane.

So What The Fuck Should I Do?

Oh for fuck's sake...

What you should do as an author when it comes to profanity varies depending on the book you're writing. For instance, if someone is writing a modern-day story then it's important to use the language of the day, complete with slang. If you're writing from the perspective of a character then the observations we see will be colored by that character's personality and thought process. On the other hand, it's entirely possible to make characters that are terrible people without making them vulgar. Annie Wilkes, the main character of Stephen King's Misery is a horrifying character whose abuse of the lead Paul Sheldon borders on the level of atrocity. She never swears though, and in fact finds the whole notion of putting profanity into a book to be offensive even if she's perfectly willing to cut someone's legs off so he can't escape.

If you've invented your own world though, then what is considered profane is also up to your discretion. Whether it's the manufactured swear word "frell" in the television show Farscape or it's the particularly vicious swear word "bags" preferred by the wizard Zedd in the Sword of Truth series, you don't have to use a real-world four-letter word to let the reader know what's going on.

Put the "Profane" in "Profanity"

In 1944 the infamous observer of American culture H.L. Mencken noted that cursing had been going out of style since the Civil War. According to Mencken the problem was the anything truly profane had been seeing less use, and that people were replacing blasphemous oaths with short, four-letter words that lacked any real profanity in them. Sure "fuck" and "shit" are short, punchy words that can be easily barked, but are they really profane?

Where the fuck are you going with this?

One way to avoid a lot of the fist-shakers and wrist-slappers is to get truly old-school with your oaths. Whether you're writing fantasy or sci-fi, historical romance or a period piece, take a few gems from this article on old-timey swear words. Phrases like "Gods wounds" (shortened to Shakespeare's infamous "zounds") or one of my favorites "God's nails" are unique and visceral. Other old-fashioned oaths starts with "by the", which is part of the formula of someone actually swearing to do or not do something to a divine figure. This is particularly poignant in fantasy, where such oaths can be binding ones.

In order for something to be profane it has to invoke the divine somehow. Worlds with more colorful divinities will simply have more colorful profanity to go with them.

Profanity is Just a Tool

I've referred to profanity as verbal punctuation, and that's very true. To paraphrase Lewis Black, these are the words that adults use to express rage, frustration, and anger. As an author it's important for you to paint as honest a picture as you can. Does that mean you need to linger on every torn apart corpse in a murder scene, or every moment of passion between two lovers? No, not if it isn't making a point.

Profanity is the same way.

Do you have to use profanity to make a point in a story? Is it required to make a character properly repulsive, or hard-ass, or rebellious? No, you don't have to, but sometimes profanity is just the simplest, most straightforward way to make a fucking point.



Thanks for stopping by the Literary Mercenary. Have an opinion on this week's topic? Leave a comment! If you'd like to help keep me going then feel free to make a donation at the "Shakespeare Gotta Get Paid, Son" button on the top right, or drop by my Patreon page to help fund this blog. If you want to keep up to date with the latest from the Literary Mercenary then stop by my Facebook and Tumblr.

"Sexy" and Other Words Writers Need to Stop Using

As an author who doesn't have his own marketing department, I tend to use a lot of social media. This means I belong to a lot of promotional groups on Facebook, I follow a lot of writer-themed blogs on Tumblr, and in general I try to stay plugged into what my fellows in the field are doing. The advantage is that sometimes I find really intriguing books, such as the Gonji trilogy by Ted Rypel, or Ghosts in the Yew by Blake Hausladen.

Because holy damn, that's why.

The disadvantage is that my feed gets crammed with promotion for a lot of books I'd really rather not see. Books that, when I pause to read the description, give me barking fits. After destroying a dozen chew toys and getting a calming belly rub though, I finally figured out what all these bad book summaries I keep seeing have in common. It isn't genre, it isn't plot, and it isn't even the target audience. It's the shallowness of the language used to describe the story.

Huh?

That's what I thought you were going to say. Since examples tend to work best, and I don't want to name names and earn the enmity of fellow authors, I will give you a paraphrased version that I keep seeing over and over again. It goes something like this.

Sexy female lead, getting involved in a dangerous or personally distressing situation, must seek help and join forces with sexy, alpha male lead. Will the two of them find the answer, and will their raging libidos get the best of them?

If you don't feel this is an epidemic then I urge you to go to your local bookstore and read some dust jackets. Romance, erotica, mystery, thriller, suspense, modern fantasy, classic fantasy, science fiction, it's showing up everywhere. The pacing might be slightly different, the plots might vary, but there are certain buzzwords that are showing up repeatedly. This is a plea to my fellow authors, and a warning to future ones; stop it. You're making us look stupid.

What's Wrong With Sexy?

As a concept, not a damn thing. Some genres are predicated entirely upon telling sexy stories about sexy people. The problem is the word itself. What is sexy? I guarantee you that whatever you're thinking, the next person to pick up the book and read the same sentence will not be thinking the same thing. It's lazy writing, pure and simple.

What is it that makes someone an alpha male?

Don't get ahead of me, stock photo philosopher. The term alpha (it's just assumed that the character is male, which goes to show we need more alpha females in our fiction) has the same problem from a completely different angle. What is an alpha? Is it a man involved in the leather and BDSM scene? Is it a wolves-of-Wall-Street type in a ten thousand dollar suit with a watch that cost more than most people's cars? Or is he a muscle-bound noble savage, free from the constraints of your society who makes his own rules? Those are just three images that came to mind off the top of my head, and there are likely a dozen more where they came from.

So What Do You Suggest?

I'm glad you asked that, bolded, italic type face. My suggestion for all my fellow authors out there is when you're coming up with your dust jacket hook that you cut the fluff. Language that tells us nothing about the characters, or is misleading, sensational, or flat out lazy needs to go. Period. It's the modern day equivalent of saying "and she meets a tall, dark stranger." Even if she does (or he, let's be inclusive here), could we perhaps come up with a better reason for us to care? Do a little more showing, a lot less telling?

What more do you want?

I want character descriptions that tell us who we're actually dealing with. I want robust language that draws me in and makes me want more. Honestly I'd prefer if writers stopped trying to be edgy and let their stories speak for themselves, but I'm not asking for miracles. Mostly I'd like a carefully crafted hook that makes me sit on an uncomfortable floor in a bookstore for hours just to find out what happens. What I want to see less of is writers using empty shorthand to convince me that these characters are different from every other pair in the genre. I'm also tired of my fellow writers showing off their leads' toned abs and curvy hips just to persuade me to buy their books. I have the Internet, I can see all the sexy I want any time on demand. What the Internet isn't providing me with are deep characters that inspire me, and whose stories I genuinely care about.

Next time you're describing your plot or your characters, sit down and ask yourself how you'd feel describing real people this way. Is the most noticeable feature of a dedicated, hard-nosed police detective that she's sexy? Or is it that she takes dangerous assignments and never quits until the job is done? Is the most dominant personality trait of a business tycoon that he's mysterious? If so, you might need to dig a bit deeper because you've only scratched the surface. If there is more to them, then show us. Give us an elevator pitch that makes us skip our floor.


As always, thanks for dropping by the Literary Mercenary. If you'd like to help us keep going then remember to like, share, discuss, and follow us on Facebook and Tumblr. If you'd like to take a more direct hand in helping us out there's now a Patreon page for you to pledge a certain amount each month, or you can click the "Shakespeare Gotta Get Paid, Son" button in your upper right hand corner. Now go forth, and write well!

Beyond the Purple: Dealing With Purple Prose in Your Fiction

Books are a unique kind of magic. They use words, sometimes written by people thousands of miles away and decades in their graves, to reach into the hearts and minds of readers to tell stories. The best books will run their fingers through the readers' minds, and play merry hell along their heart strings before grabbing hold of their collective guts and yanking. Good books do this by creating realism, using beautiful language, and many times through particularly vivid imagery.

Bad books, on the other hand, tend to fall victim to the disease of purple prose.

What is "Purple Prose"?

A three-lobed burning eye.

Generally speaking purple prose refers to a style of writing that is far too flowery and overdramatic. It's characterized by unnecessarily complex words, long running metaphors, and multiple spurts of description all in the same sentence. Purple prose, like pornography, is often tough to define. Most writers know it when they see it, though. So for that reason, here's an example.

"Jack stepped forward, punching Rob in the face."

This is normal prose. It's simple, straightforward, and it lets the reader know exactly what happened. It might be a little bland, but sometimes that's the sacrifice a story has to make to get the point across.

"Jack brought his right fist down, smashing Rob with a hammer-blow to the back of the head."

This is a little more vivid, and it gets the blood flowing. It's more specific as to the type of blow, where it landed, and the amount of force behind it. It's edging toward pulpy wording, but it's meant to excite the reader. This kind of language is typically good for action scenes.

"The blond giant snarled, the war cry of a lion, before swinging a mighty blow at his enemy that left his opponent staggering, reeling, blood spattering from his nose and mouth like a crimson rain."

Ummm... what? Because you read the previous two incarnations of this sentence you can take a guess what's happening. However, in this throbbing, turgid third sentence we have no names to describe who is doing what. There's entirely too much symbolism and description packed in, and the whole thing has become one big mess. That is typically what people mean when they're talking about purple prose.

Kill Your Darlings

With the strictest of prejudice.

Sir Arthur Quiller-Coach originally gave this fantastic, three-word piece of advice. It's since been repeated by William Faulkner, and it was the constant refrain of Stephen King's book "On Writing". These and other writers have fully endorsed pen monkeys the world over putting all of the pulsing purple prose they want on the page. Writers just need to delete it once they've gotten all that purple out of their systems. No matter how proud you are of a sentence, a turn of phrase, or a really great metaphor, you might still need to drown it in the Editorial River.

How Much Purple is Too Much?

Just give me a goddamn checklist already!

One person's purple prose is another's vivid imagery. It's why there are still arguments about whether authors like H.P. Lovecraft or Robert E. Howard were literary geniuses, or pulp-magazine hacks. As with so much else in writing it's largely up to the writer, the editor, and the beta readers to come to an understanding over how much purple is too much. It often comes down to personal style, the genre someone is writing in, and a dozen other factors.

That said, there are some things writers need to watch out for to make sure they don't bruise their language too badly.

#1: Does it Make Sense?

Whenever you finish writing something, leave it for a few days. A week if you have the time before a deadline. During that time start a different project, read a new book, watch a movie, and then come back to your story. It will shock you how many phrases or descriptions you used that were brilliant at the time, which completely snap the thread of your narrative and leave you asking "what the hell does that even mean?"

#2: Does it Fit With Everything Else?

Have you ever been reading a story or article, and right in the middle the writer gets really erudite for no reason? That happens a lot in purple prose. It feels like the author learned a new word, and wanted a chance to show off that he or she knew it. If you're writing about high school kids chances are you should use the word "backpack" or "messenger bag" instead of "valise". By the same token, if you've been using very straightforward prose for everything, don't start slapping a bunch of metaphors and similes down on the page.

#3: Does it Add Something?

Perhaps the most important question concerning pulsing prose is whether or not it adds to the story. In a fight scene or a love scene this kind of language might be used to increase a reader's pace, and to get the blood pumping. In a chase scene, or a confrontation with a squamous monstrosity, getting a little purple might churn readers' stomachs, or make sweat pop out on their foreheads. But if a writer is using this kind of language to describe getting ready for work in the morning, catching the city bus, or going out to get a newspaper then it can quickly become boring. Much like exclamation points, writers shouldn't go beyond the purple too often. Doing so will reduce the power this kind of prose possesses.


As always I hope that my readers found this installment of the Literary Mercenary helpful. If you want to plug in and follow all of my updates then drop by my Facebook or Tumblr pages. If you're curious about my own published work, stop on by my Goodreads page and show me some love. Lastly, if you'd like to support the Literary Mercenary then please share the blog with your friends and family. Or drop a few cents into the tip jar on the top right of the page. Or both. That would be good too.