Do you remember the kinds of books we had to read in our high school English classes? Classic novels like A Tale of Two Cities, The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, and To Kill a Mockingbird? Whether or not you remember the specifics of these kinds of books, you probably remember the assignments you had to do for them. The lengthy papers, the tests, the notes in the margins, the in-class discussions. By the time you reached the back cover, you probably had dissected the entire book.

 

Classic novels commonly read in American high school English classes

 

Though I’m not the biggest fan of notetaking or writing papers, I generally enjoyed these books. They gave me the opportunity to unravel a bigger story and reveal more nuanced details, symbols, and themes. I really enjoy taking movies, books, songs, poetry, and other kinds of storytelling and picking them apart. I like to see how and why things work and so I enjoy literary analysis.

 

The books most high schoolers read in their English classes are full of symbols, parallelism, motifs, allusions, and other literary techniques that make them rich in meanings and messages. Not only do these books lend themselves well to analysis, but they are clearly written with meaning and purpose. You can tell by reading them that the author had a distinct vision of what they wanted to communicate through their work.

 

When a story is written with meaning, this message is conveyed both explicitly, through the actions and words of the characters, and implicitly, through smaller less obvious details. Stories written with meaning are complex and layered, and in my opinion, generally make for more enjoyable reads. When a writer fills their story with these kinds of small details, it allows the audience to make connections on their own and invites them to more fully immerse themselves in the piece.

 

I think that creating layered complex stories is something that all writers should attempt to do in their works. Though high school reading lists usually contain the most prevalent examples of stories written with meaning, not every complex story looks and sounds like a Charles Dickens’ novel. It only takes a quick look to see numerous examples of modern stories that are complex in nature. For instance, Gravity Falls, a TV show that aired on Disney XD from 2012 to 2016, used numerous visual details, symbols, metaphors, and even hidden puzzles and ciphers to gradually foreshadow events, characters, and major plot points. Another example of modern meaningful writing is the Youtube horror series, The Look-See.  Posted by the channel, Crypt TV, The Look-See relies almost exclusively on symbolism and metaphors, containing little dialogue and few recurring characters. Each video in the series contains the cryptic phrase “If you yourself cannot release, then it will come to take a piece,” inviting viewers to take a deeper look into the events and visuals featured in the video and to explore how the phrase applies to that episode in particular. These two series are just a few of countless examples of modern complex storytelling.

 

 

Both Gravity Falls (above) and The Look-See (below) use meaningful writing and complex storytelling to engage and immerse their audiences

 

 

Although complex storytelling looks different when using different mediums, all complex stories that are written with meaning generally use the same kinds of techniques to yield similar results. When a writer writes has a clear message or theme in mind when they write, the story produced has the potential to delve into the different layers of that message or theme. By carefully and intentionally including subtle details and literary techniques in their works, a writer can allow their piece to take on a depth that wouldn’t be possible if it were written without meaning.

A writer works hard on a story and gives it to a friend to read. A few days later, the friend gives the writer feedback.

 

“I couldn’t stand Mary Sue as a character. She was really annoying. I would change a, b, and c about her in your next draft.”

 

“Oh, well she’s supposed to be super annoying. Everybody hates her.”

 

“They do?”

 

I’ve heard of several scenarios similar to the one I listed above. A character is supposed to annoy other characters in a story, but instead ends up annoying the audience. A common misconception is that if the character was supposed to be agitating and the audience is irritated, the writer’s done their job.

 

No. No, no, no, no, no, no.

 

Me, internally, whenever I read or watch something that is completely and utterly lacking in awareness.

 

While this is a very specific scenario, the principles that cause it can be applied widely to creative writing. Usually, when something like this happens, the issue is rooted in a lack of written awareness. Written awareness is the acknowledgment of a character’s faults somewhere in the story, whether it be through an omniscient narrator, a second person narrator, the narration of the main character, or stated or implied through the words or actions of another character. The purpose of written awareness is to create a sort of buffer between the impact of a character or event and the audience. That way, audiences experience the interpretations of characters and their actions through the lens of the story’s setting, rather than get the full brunt of the character’s bad qualities. In the above example, the friend doesn’t realize that a character was supposed to be characterized as irritating because there was no written awareness of the character’s fault. While the character of Mary Sue is annoying, no one around her seems to be annoyed by her, but the reader sure is. This comes off as a lack of awareness on the author’s end, which isn’t ideal.

 

I can’t stress how important it is to have canonical in-story awareness of the faults of characters and their mistakes. This is especially important when the resolution of these flaws is what comprises that character’s arc. Depending on the story you’re writing, written awareness can look different.

 

In certain stories, it works better for the characters surrounding your protagonist to acknowledge their flaws in a way directly visible to the audience. A good example of this can be found in the 2004 film, Mean Girls. In the movie, there are several scenes in which the protagonist, Cady, talks openly about the film’s antagonist, Regina, and gets her peers to admit times when Regina had wronged them. Later on, Cady’s friend, Janis, calls Cady out for her own insidious behavior, telling her and the audience that Cady had become similar to Regina. When written awareness is used in Mean Girls, it tends to be the focus of the scene. These instances of written awareness are essential to the plot of the movie and distinguish Cady’s growing arrogance as a flaw that should not be accepted.

 

One of the many instances of written awareness present in Mean Girls (2004).

 

For other stories, written awareness is better shown through flashbacks and subtle reactions. For instance, in the 2016 film, The Edge of Seventeen, starring Hailee Steinfeld, the protagonist, Nadine, is a heavily flawed character. Insecure, angry, and lonely, she doesn’t talk to a lot of characters throughout the film besides her favorite teacher. Because of this, her flaws are explored mainly through the reactions of those around her and through a few flashbacks. While I wish there was a bit more written awareness in this film, it has a good amount of scenes that address Nadine’s flaws and mistakes in clever subtle ways. Its method of incorporating written awareness is often smoothly incorporated into the story, which prevents audiences from being taken out of the movie while also making clear that Nadine’s flaws are seen as such within the setting.

 

Nadine’s teacher, portrayed by Woody Harrelson, indirectly addressing Nadine’s insecurity, one of her central flaws in the film.

 

Incorporating written awareness also varies by medium, but at its core, the message conveyed is the same: a character has flaws and they are acknowledged as such. In addition, characters who acknowledge this flaw need to react accordingly. If the narrator acknowledges that character is nasty to everyone, but is genuinely beloved by every single character in the book, this is arguably worse than refusing to acknowledge the flaws to begin with.

 

Written awareness can be the deciding factor for audiences in distinguishing between a character with noticeable flaws and a writer who doesn’t recognize a character’s behavior as flawed. It is a necessity that should exist within every story. Choosing not to include written awareness is never a good idea. At its best, a lack of written awareness can irritate your audience, like the friend in the example. At its worst, a lack of written awareness can imply that you, the writer, condone or perhaps even share the flaws, behaviors, and attitudes of your worst characters.

If you’re familiar with the world of anime, then you may have heard of light novels. If you haven’t, a light novel is a particular style of young adult novel that originated in Japan. Many popular animes, such as Sword Art Online and Free!, are actually adaptations of light novel series. As a middle schooler, I was really into writing and anime. When I found out about light novels, I was interested in trying to write one myself. So I did my research and kept coming across a similar recommendation: write with purpose. Each and every word has to push your story forward. If it doesn’t, then it needs to be nixed.

 

 

A light novel display in a bookstore

 

This advice, while a bit harsh sounding, makes sense. What primarily distinguishes light novels from other YA books is length. According to Wikipedia, the average length of a light novel is 50,000 words. Compared to a lot of Western YA books, this is pretty short. To put that into perspective, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins contains 99,750 words (source), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling has 76,944 (source), and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green has 65,752 (source). Because of their short length, it’s crucial that light novels make use of their limited word count. It makes sense why this is such a common suggestion made for those who want to write in the style of a light novel.

 

Popular Western YA novels

 

Still, I think that this advice extends beyond writing light novels. I like to argue that whenever anyone writes a work of fiction, whether it be a novel or a script, that it is essential that they write with purpose and eliminate things that could potentially detract and distract from the story they’re trying to tell. Now, I’m not saying that stories should be bare-bones, void of everything that does not directly link your characters to the central conflict. That would be a summary, not a story. Rather, the writer should use their own discretion to separate out the key components of the story from what hinders it.

 

A common misconception about writing with purpose is that it creates a story with events and characters that work only to serve the plot. This would presumably feel unnatural, simplistic, and bland. However, what those who make this misconception often fail to consider is that a well-written story typically has at least one subplot that is interwoven into the main plot. Character development and the development of relationships between characters are two of the most common subplots. Subplots, if done correctly, serve not only to flesh out your story, characters, and world, but also to add emotional weight and investment to the climax of the story.

 

Writing with purpose isn’t creating a concise story; it’s helping audiences to take away the writer’s intended message from the story. Think of it as decorating a themed room. You want the room you’re decorating to remind people of the beach, so you paint the walls blue, add some nautical decorations, and matching furniture. Still, there’s still a bunch of things in there that don’t match with the theme. If you keep a telescope and books on astronomy on the shelves, the room might remind some people of the night sky more than the beach. If there’s a bunch of random stuff lying about the room, a theme might not be recognized at all. While there’s no way to guarantee that everyone who walks in the room is going to think to themselves “Hey, this room makes me think of the shore,” you can do your best to steer others in this direction.

 

When the room was decorated to remind people of the beach, multiple components went into conveying that. Like that room, there isn’t just one thing that gives your story its message. Each character, event, conflict, setting, and interaction should ideally relate to your overall message. This can be done by selectively adding detail (you can read more about this in last week’s blog), making sure subplots reach natural conclusions, and only including characters, objects, events, and places when there is a specific reason for them.

 

By writing with purpose, a writer is conveying the most concentrated and impactful version of a story. If everything put into a story has a reason for being there and has a reason for being how it is, chances are, the story has enough depth that audiences can completely immerse themselves in it. Stories are diluted when they contain filler material, unnecessary characters and scenes, and loose ends. While it may seem intimidating to write and make each and every word count, it is well worth the challenge.

Think about the last book you read or the last story you listened to. Could you describe how the story’s setting looks, feels, sounds, and smells? The characters’ appearances and the tones they set? Would you be able to paint a picture of major events in the story? Chances are, you probably didn’t read or listen to a story with visuals. Still, you are able to provide the answers to the questions above using your own visualizations.

 

A writer’s use of description can play a major part in the mental images their audience creates. While it’s possible for audiences to visualize without the use of descriptions, the goal of storytelling is typically to allow your audiences to see what you envisioned when writing the story. While some stories, like urban legends, can engage audiences while giving little detail, most stories rely on details to convey the author’s vision. A story void of descriptions can generally be assumed to feel bland, yet a story jam-packed with descriptions can come off in numerous ways. Some authors, like Charles Dickens, are able to write pages upon pages of description and not detract from the story. Others write descriptions similar in length and come off as inexperienced and cringey. The key to writing with descriptions is thoughtful moderation, but this can sometimes be difficult to determine. I’ve listed here two common scenarios where descriptions are often used as well as some do’s and don’t’s for using descriptions in these scenarios.

 

Scenario 1: Introducing the Main Character

Don’t:

• List every piece of clothing they are wearing
• Describe them blatantly as “cool,” “bad-ass,” “the sweetest person you’ll ever meet,” etc.
• Use cliches to describe their physical attributes

 

Do:

• Only describe physical details that are or will be relevant at some point in the story
• Note these details in an organic way
• Demonstrate their personality through their actions
• Be realistic with the amount of information taken in

 

The first time the main character is introduced should be significant. This is the person that will guide the audience through the world you’ve created. Using description here is great, but only if used in a way that will be impactful. Descriptions like those listed in the “Don’t’s” are probably the most commonly called out types of descriptions. They are typically associated with bad fanfiction. It’s a common mistake that a lot of people make when they first start writing. I know I’ve been guilty of telling my readers how about my heroine got up one summer morning to put on her neon yellow tank top, her black yoga pants that stopped at her mid-calf, and her pink sneakers with green shoelaces.

 

Besides coming off as a tad cringey, these descriptions also don’t really have a purpose. In the story where the girl was wearing bright colors, I had her lounging around her haunted house in them. It didn’t matter what she wore to do that and so the lengthy description was completely irrelevant. Now, if my heroine had gone for a night run and had almost gotten hit by a car, which stopped just in time because the driver noticed her brightly colored clothing, all of these aforementioned details would make perfect sense.

 

But even if I were to change that story so that noting my heroine’s choice of clothing made sense, I’d still have to edit my original description. It feels clunky and unnatural. Do you look at your friends wearing casual clothing and spend a solid two minutes in silence noting every detail of what they’re wearing? That would be weird. When we see people in real life, we don’t spend time taking in all of these details individually. To translate this into writing, we simply give a sentence or two to this description and move along with the story.

 

A non-example of a normal human interaction (original)

 

Finally, when describing characters, you want to show not tell. Say I flat out told my audience in my writing that my heroine is athletic. Doing this takes readers or listeners out of the story. This is because, by telling instead of showing, I have started talking directly to my audience in the middle of my narrative, rather than letting them fully engage in the story. A better way of establishing this trait would be to have my character introduced in a way that insinuates her athleticism. I could introduce her during that night run or as she’s coming home from the gym. This way, I’m conveying the message I want without breaking the flow of my story.

 

Scenario 2: Describing Events

Don’t:

• Use only passive language
• Over-embellish

 

Do:

• Use active and impactful language
• Be specific and selective with certain details

 

When describing actions, it’s common to make these mistakes. I’ve heard many authors say that too many added details, like the sentences of additional description, can choke out your story, like weeds in a garden. This is especially true if you’re writing an action-packed scene.  You want to use active language, or language that uses active verbs and conveys specific meanings. This is the difference between “John was hit by the tree branches as he fell down.” and “The tree branches slammed against John as he fell.” Both sentences convey the same message. However, the second sentence uses the active voice and more precise language, causing it to have more of an impact on audiences. If your main character, John, is falling out of a tree or falling through trees, you can assume a) that must hurt and b) John is probably not cool with his potentially dangerous situation. This emotion has to be conveyed properly so that audiences can better identify with John, and thus be more emerged in the story.

 

Uncle Ben, from the Spiderman franchise, saying his famous quote

 

In summary, the use of description can be a very powerful tool, but it needs to be used in a way that serves the story. At its best, use of description can bring stories to life. At its worst, it can make a story feel flat and leave audiences feeling removed rather than immersed. It’s up to a writer to decide where descriptions work best and which descriptions are best. Like Uncle Ben said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

I remember it was around last time this year that I clicked on a video suggested to me by the Youtube algorithm. The same technology that had been bringing me cat videos from twelve years ago and Vine compilations “cleaner than [my] grandma’s kitchen” had brought me this: a video essay discussing the issue with Creepypastas. Being a fan of scary stories, video essays, and analysis, I clicked on “Why Does Creepypasta Suck” by Jenny Nicholson and was not disappointed. For those who don’t know, Creepypastas are horror stories that originally came from the website, Reddit, but can also be found on their own website, creepypasta.com. As Nicholson says in her video essay, Creepypastas are the internet equivalent of campfire stories. One distinct feature of Creepypastas is that they are told as if they are true. Think of them as the modern equivalent to old urban legends, like the one with the hook in the car door or the one with the woman who if she takes off her necklace, her head falls off. The issue, as Nicholson describes, is that Creepypastas often don’t feel real, even when their authors try to assert that they are. Embedded below is her video, which I highly recommend.

 

“The story was scary and it worked because it never asked us to believe anything too far-fetched.”

 

In summary, Nicholson argues that in order for a scary story to be effective, it needs to maintain suspension of disbelief. I couldn’t agree more. She criticizes several Creepypastas for relying on shock horror alone and ignoring how unbelievable the scenarios are. As she demonstrates through these examples, this results in stories that feel like they’re trying too hard. Overall, Nicholson conveys that a story needs to be believable in order for it to be scary.

 

Despite being commonly associated with the horror genre, suspension of disbelief (or SoD) is an essential element in all kinds of fictional writing. It’s what keeps an audience hooked on a story. It wasn’t until I watched this aforementioned video essay that I really started to pay attention to how important SoD really is. Even if an audience knows they are consuming fiction, they still want to have an immersive experience. Without SoD, this escapism isn’t possible. The techniques needed to maintain SoD also differ depending on genre. A sci-fi novel about intergalactic pirates is obviously going to have different standards for what is realistic within its story than a coming-of-age movie centered on the life of a young French woman in 1789.

 

While I can’t speak for every specific genre of fiction, here are some general guidelines for maintaining SoD:

 

• Establish the rules of your setting

As real-life human beings, our world is governed by sets of natural and social laws. Each time we hold up an apple and let go, we know that it’ll fall down until it hits a surface (if it didn’t, Newton would be rolling in his grave). We know within our own cultures and time what’s considered to be rude and what’s considered polite. It wouldn’t make sense if the worlds we write didn’t have any rules dictating how things are supposed to work within them. For different genres, the establishing of these rules can be different. In a fantasy setting, establishing the rules of the world could mean establishing clear rules as to what magic can and cannot do. In a historical fiction setting, it could mean giving readers insight into the social norms for upper-class Venetians during the Renaissance. By establishing what can and cannot be, you are enabling your audience to better understand the world your story is told in.

 

• Stick to the rules of your setting (for the most part)

Once you’ve established the limitations of your setting, you’ll usually want to stick to them. Blatantly disregarding what you’ve worked to establish results in writing that feels lazy. Say, for instance, you’ve established in your fantasy story that it is impossible for magic to be used to bring back the dead, and then later in the story, one of your characters uses magic to bring back their friend from the dead. Depending on how much the rule has been established throughout the story, this decision can be interpreted in one of two ways. If the rule was heavily established, not only via exposition but through example, then the decision to break the rule feels like a cop-out. If the rule was mentioned once or twice but not made to be a major plot point, then the decision feels like the writer forgot about their established rule and the mistake slipped their attention. Either way, breaking the established rules doesn’t usually look good. Usually.

 

 There are some examples where breaking the rules you’ve established enhances the story. In a sci-fi story about an alien invasion of Earth, the rules that normally dictate things like gravity and how long space travel takes are able to be broken if the human characters acknowledge that things aren’t exactly what they should be. In realistic fiction, a character might go against the established social norms, much to the shock and horror of their family. Generally, you can distinguish what is good rule-breaking vs. bad rule-breaking based on if it enhances the story and if it doesn’t feel completely out of place.

 

• Make your characters feel like real people

I won’t spend too long covering this point because I’ve written several blog posts on different methods for doing this. However, I will say that I cannot stress how important this is. Characters need to be like real people in a few main aspects: their actions need to make sense; they have to develop; and they need to have flaws. It doesn’t matter if your character is a talking cat or a monster with three heads. If they are given human-like characteristics, like the ability to speak, the capacity for emotions, and sentience, they should be written like any human character would be, at least to an extent.

 

These are just some of the many, many, many ways to maintain SoD in storytelling. As I mentioned before, SoD is a vital component of every story. Even little things, like a forgotten detail or a small mistake can take your audience out of the story. The point of SoD is to keep your audience engaged by making the things you create feel real. While it takes time, practice, and experience, SoD is well worth the effort it takes to master. It’s SoD that distinguishes words on a page or actors memorizing lines from the universes and characters we all know and love.

Have you ever read a book or watched a TV show or movie where it felt like the main character didn’t have a personality? I know I have numerous times. More importantly, were you able to enjoy that book, show, or movie? I want to say no, but for me, that wasn’t always the case. Surprisingly, I’ve had pretty polar reactions to works that have used these types of characters: either I’ve hated them or I’ve loved them. There has been no in-between.

 

I’ve dubbed these types of characters “POVs.” Not to be confused with the general term used to describe the perspective from which a story is told, POVs are essentially shells of characters. They have little to no personality and are typically passive individuals. I’ve heard people describe characters like these as “blank slates,” onto which audiences can project themselves. While I think this is true to an extent, I find this description inadequate, as “blank slate” implies something will be carved onto it. While not stagnant, POVs have developments that are ultimately shallow. Changes in characters don’t mean a whole lot if there wasn’t much character there to begin with. At first glance, the use of this type of character looks like a recipe for a deeply unsatisfying narrative, a product of lazy writing. Yet, somehow, this isn’t always true.

 

Let’s look at some examples of POVs:

Example #1: Heroine from Amnesia (2013)

The heroine of this anime is literally named Heroine in the script and credits

 

Amnesia, inspired by the video game series of the same name, is an anime that aired for one season in 2013. It follows main character, Heroine, as she relives the same day over and over again, with each day ending with an untimely death. As the title suggests, Heroine has amnesia and cannot recall anything about her life prior to the day she has to keep reliving. Due to this, audiences aren’t really given too much info about who Heroine is, including her real name, her relationships with the other characters, and her personality. All that we know about her is based on comments made about her likes and dislikes by the other characters around her. Heroine is the epitome of a POV, yet her role as the main character of the story does not make the show less enjoyable.

 

This is due to a couple of reasons:

• Heroine’s lack of personality is acknowledged and serves a key role in the story.

The main conflict in Amnesia is between Heroine and whatever forces are trying to kill her every day. Because she has no clue who is trapping her in a time loop, she is motivated to figure out who she is in hopes that she’ll be able to figure out who wants her dead. While she isn’t successful in learning much about her identity, her constant inner dialogue in which she tries to remember important information makes it clear that the lack of information provided about her is acknowledged.

 

• The anime stays loyal to its source material.

While I said that I take issue with people calling POVs blank slates, I can make an exception for Heroine because she was originally designed to be so. As I mentioned, Amnesia is an anime adaptation of a video game series. The video games that inspired the show are choose-your-own-adventure games, in which you play as the heroine. Because the choices players make influence the outcome of the game, the players choose the personality of the heroine through their actions. This explains why Heroine in the anime is not given a strong personality, as to not conflict too much with her video game counterpart.

 

Example #2: Clay from Thirteen Reasons Why (2007)

 

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher is a young adult novel that was given a Netflix original adaptation in 2017. For this blog, I’m only going to discuss Clay in the book. If you haven’t seen the book or the show, Thirteen Reasons Why (TRW) follows a high school boy named Clay, who receives a box of cassette tapes made by Hannah Baker, a girl from his high school who recently ended her own life. Clay listens to the tapes and learns about the bullying, harassment, and assault that influenced Hannah’s decision. Unlike in the show, Clay listens to the tapes all in one night, and only interjects Hannah’s dialogue with context and his reactions to her painful experiences. Clay essentially has no personality, but the book is still gripping.

 

This works because:

• The story isn’t about Clay.

Despite Clay being the perspective character, the story is more about Hannah than anyone else. While Clay does come into Hannah’s story via her tape about him, Clay doesn’t really do much except provide context so audiences can better understand Hannah and her experiences.

 

• Clay is meant to be a projection of a high schooler dealing with the death of a classmate.

Jay Asher has repeatedly said that he wrote TRW to raise awareness on teen suicides and to help prevent the horrible situations that Hannah (and other high schoolers) found/find themselves in. With this context, it is easy to see how Clay’s emotions are a broad representation of the emotions of high school classmates feel after learning one of their peers ended their own life. In his reactions, Clay recognizes certain behaviors and actions that Hannah took leading up to her death, which are written based on real-life signs to look out for if you suspect someone might be suicidal. Overall, audiences are meant to learn from Clay and identify with his suffering in a way that’s meant to persuade them to take action if they feel a peer needs their help.

 

 

Example #3: Griet from Girl with a Pearl Earring (1999)

 

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier is a novel beloved by many. I’m not one of those many, mainly due to Griet, the main character of the story, who has little to no personality. The story follows the 16-year-old as she goes to work for the famous Dutch painter, Vermeer, after a workplace accident renders her father incapable of supporting their family. Eventually, Griet becomes Vermeer’s assistant and he decides to paint her, creating the famous portrait for which the book is named. Almost every action she takes in the book is a decision made for her by someone else, whether it be by her family, her employer, or her co-worker. The only emotions I remember her having from having read the book was her hatred of one of the children of her employers and her feelings of lust towards Vermeer, a married man twice her age. Overall, Griet doesn’t do a whole lot and doesn’t have much of a personality.

 

But Clay and Heroine didn’t have a lot of autonomy or personality and still were effective characters. What makes Griet different? The answer is simple: circumstance.

 

The circumstance and purpose for which Girl with a Pearl Earring is what makes Griet a detriment to its story. In Amnesia, Heroine has no personality as a way to accurately adapt her character and to serve as a plot device. Her role as a POV is meant to enhance the plot. In TRW, Clay’s role as a POV is meant to inspire teens to take action if they see a peer that they think is in danger of hurting themselves. He has no personality because he is meant to be a broad projection of emotions and messages. For lack of a better word, Girl with a Pearl Earring doesn’t have an excuse to use a POV as its main character. It is an original work based on a painting, which historically and contextually provides hints only to the girl in the painting’s socio-economic status and her relationship with Vermeer. In addition, Girl with a Pearl Earring wasn’t written to convey or push any particular message in the same way that TRW was. It was a story written primarily for entertainment, rather than for persuasive purposes. The circumstances in which Griet’s story is told combined with her lack of personality make her stick out.

 

 

The comparison that can be drawn between the effectiveness of POVs like Heroine and Clay and POVs like Griet demonstrate a conclusion that I have come to many times when writing these blogs: The skill of a writer to create worlds in which their characters work is greater than the techniques they use. This skill reveals why it feels okay to have shells of characters tell some stories but not others. Heroine and Clay don’t feel out of place because they fit perfectly into the worlds they are in. They do no more and no less than the story requires of them and the story asks for no more and no less than what they give it. Griet, however, is a wasted opportunity in a story where the author had the freedom to explore a mystery whose true answer has been lost to time. Had Griet been given an actual personality, maybe I wouldn’t resent Girl with a Pearl Earring as much as I do. But, as I said before, Griet, along with any other character created by another writer, isn’t my blank slate to carve.

Stagnant characters are typically the worst kind of character any writer can create. A stagnant character, simply put, is one that shows absolutely no character growth. The experiences they go through have no impact on who they are, how they think, and how they interact with others. If you’ve read my other piece on stagnant characters in which I compare them to stagnant pond water(click here for the post), you might remember that while I generally condemn the use of stagnant characters, I do acknowledge that certain writes can and have used stagnancy successfully.

 

Antigone by Sophocles is one of the only pieces of writing I know that incorporates a mostly stagnant character in a way that enhances the story. Antigone is the third and final play in a series that follows the curse placed upon Oedipus and his descendants. The story takes place after a Theban civil war, in which Oedipus’s two sons have killed each other. The new king (and the subject of this week’s analysis), Creon, declares that the brother who was sitting on the Theban throne will be given a proper burial. However, the other brother, who laid siege to Thebes to claim the throne, is to be left to rot on the battlefield. This was a huge deal to the Ancient Greeks, as the refusal of burial rights practically ensured that the spirit could not pass on. Refusing a proper burial also went against the will of the gods. Creon makes it law that anyone who attempts to bury the brother will be sentenced to death. Antigone, sister of the two dead brothers and fiancé of Creon’s son, attempts to bury her brother and gets caught. Creon sentences her to death, which leads his son to commit suicide. This, in turn, leads Creon’s wife to commit suicide. Creon is left alone and grieving.

 

Throughout most of the play, Creon remains virtually the same. He is stubborn and repeatedly refuses to listen to the pleas of those around him to bury Antigone’s brother. Most of his dialogue is his arguments with other characters. No matter who tries to convince him, no one has an impact on him. He argues with his son, who threatens to end his own life if Creon executes Antigone; the prophet of Apollo, Tiresias; Antigone, who conveys a logical argument; and his own subjects. All of these people would presumably have an impact on Creon for different reasons. His son would present emotional appeal. Antigone would present a logical appeal. Tiresias, who was famous for being able to see the future, would be influential solely because of who he is and what he can do. Because Creon sees himself as a king of his people, the words of the citizens around him would presumably have an impact on him. However, none of the arguments presented to Creon really convince him to change his mind when these types of appeals have been effectively used on real people for hundreds of years. In fact, rhetoric was already integrated into Athenian society before Antigone was written and performed in the city-state.

 

Because Creon is not the least bit persuaded by things that generally persuade real people and because he does little else in the story besides be stubborn, I classify him as a mostly stagnant character. I say ‘mostly’ because he does end up changing, but by the time he does so, there is little time left to explore these changes. Despite being a stagnant character, Creon doesn’t make the story feel meaningless. He does the opposite.

 

Here are a few reasons why Creon’s stagnancy works:

 

• Awareness of Other Characters

Creon’s main fault in Antigone is his hubris, which is acknowledged several times throughout the story by other characters. This is important because it creates an environment of accountability, establishing a world where Creon’s actions have consequences.

 

• Genre

Most Greek tragedies are written as cautionary tales and Antigone is no exception. Because of the intent with which it was written, Creon’s stagnancy serves to emphasize a point. He disrespects the gods and has to suffer the consequences. Creon’s stagnancy and the purpose of the story work together. This very specific set of conditions makes it so that Creon can be stagnant without weakening the story.

 

Because of a very specific combination of elements, Creon is able to be both stagnant and impactful in Antigone. While Creon demonstrates that stagnant characters can work well in certain stories, I still stand by my statement that most stagnant characters worsen the stories they are in. While stagnant pond water can be treated to be made safe, it takes skill to do so.

 

 

If you grew up in the 2000’s or have remained on Netflix in quarantine post-Tiger King, it’s more likely than not that you’ve seen or at least heard of the 2005 Nickolodeon hit, Avatar: The Last Airbender. One of the most iconic episodes in the show follows protagonists, Aang, Sokka, and Katara, and a traveling group of musicians as they attempt to reach the city of Omashu via a secret tunnel. Though it’s a small and forgettable part of the episode, there is a bit of dialogue towards the beginning that has always stuck out to me: “Woah…sounds like someone’s got a case of the destination fever. You’re worried too much about where you’re going…You’ve got to focus less on the ‘where’ and more on the ‘going’.” (“The Cave of Two Lovers”). Though Sokka doesn’t find this advice helpful in regard to his travels, I find this method of thinking extremely useful when it comes to outlining character arcs.

 

Sokka (left) failing to appreciate the advice of traveling musician, Chong (right)

 

Many writers have at least a faint understanding of where their story will end up before they begin writing their first drafts. It’s common for writers to fixate on the “where” so much that the “going” becomes a second thought. I’ve read stories where it was clear that the author had a specific outcome in mind, but forgot to think about the actual journey to get there and how that would impact their characters.

 

Everyone’s own personal experiences shape their identity and world view to an extent, though not every experience a person has will be life-changing. The same should be true for fictional characters, if not more true than it is for real people. I mentioned in a previous post that stories should capture significant events in the lives of your characters. If a character could go through the events of your story and come out completely unchanged, then that part of the character’s life was likely not significant enough to capture in a story. These changes don’t have to be large, but they do have to be present.

 

Character outlining often initially resembles plot outlining: you create the character, establish their personality, flaws, and conflicts, and figure out if and how the character will be able to combat them. This seems simple enough, but can actually be quite challenging. Here lies the pitfall of “Destination Fever.” This typically looks like this: A character is created with flaws. They go through the motions of the plot, maintaining their flaws. The story reaches its climax and suddenly, the character has miraculously overcome all of their flaws and the story ends. If that sounded to you like the character changed only to fit the format of the plot, you’re right.

 

Characters that change arbitrarily are as bad as stagnant characters in my opinion. They feel stiff and unnatural, almost robotic. Characters that exist only to serve a plot aren’t characters; they’re plot devices. True characters will feel like human beings. To avoid a case of “Destination Fever,” I’d recommend taking these steps:

 

• Plan out your entire plot beforehand.

This includes establishing every location, conflict, and character in a story and where they are introduced. You need to have more than a general idea of where everything will go in the story. Note that this can be modified later, but it helps to have a strong layout going into things.

 

• Map out your main characters.

Make a list of your characters’ attributes. I recommend including details that won’t even be used in the story, as this will help you know your own characters better. While you can include almost anything about your characters, you should definitely include personal histories and relevant flaws. Try to figure out why each character is the way that they are. Writing your characters’ backgrounds and giving them flaws will help you to figure out how they as individuals will interact with the world you’ve created for them. The flaws you give them will help set up their character arcs.

 

• Go through your outline again, but this time in the mindset of one of your characters.

With the information you have created for your character, you now need to go through the plot outline you’ve written and ask yourself if your character would realistically do the things you originally outlined. It’s okay if the answer is no. What you then need to do is change how your character responds to different situations to more accurately fit the character you mapped out. As you reach major events in the story, ask yourself how these events would change a person. What significance do these moments hold for your character? What kind of person does the character need to be to go through certain situations? How will they get there? Do these moments teach the character anything? After you’ve gone through this process with one character, you’ll need to do this with any other main characters in your story.

 

• Revisit the flaws of your characters at the end of the story.

By the end of your story, your characters should ideally have resolved the story-relevant flaws initially given to them. The events of the story and/or interactions the characters around a character should have equipt the character with the skills, insight, and/or experiences to resolve their flaws and exit the story better than they entered it. If this isn’t the case, you might want to review any of the previous tips.

 

While the process of mapping a character arc can be tedious, it can also be fascinating to witness your characters come to life before your eyes. Even though it can be tempting to think only of where your characters will end up, it is ultimately more rewarding to thoroughly examine the path that takes them there. Even if that path does include badger-moles, wolf-bats, folk songs, and (of course) secret tunnels.

 

Have you ever noticed how you tend to pick up things from the people around you? After a high school friend of mine started emphasizing her statements by clapping between almost every word, it wasn’t long before I realized I 👏 was 👏  doing it 👏 , too. Recently, I met a friend who greets people with “howdy.” Now, I have acquired the sudden urge to ‘howdy” at my unsuspecting acquaintances. Instances such as these are common: the people you surround yourself with tend to have an impact on you, in both small and large ways.

 

As I discussed in my last post, characters with flaws that are acknowledged and/or resolved feel realistic. Just as it feels unrealistic to have a perfect character, it also feels unrealistic to have a character who’s growth is in no way impacted by the people around them. This is why my favorite way to develop characters/to see characters develop is something I call “parallel character development.” Parallel character development is when flawed characters develop because their relationship makes them more like each other, resulting in balanced characters and satisfying character arcs. Typically, there are only two characters involved in this dynamic, but I think a very skilled writer with enough forethought could make this technique work with three. When done right, the results of parallel character development are amazing. Let’s analyze an example:

 

James and Alyssa from The End of the F****ing World (2017-2019)

 

Main characters Alyssa (Jessica Barden) and James (Alex Lawther)

 

***For the sake of this analysis, I will only be looking at Season 1***

 

The End of the F***ing World is a British dark comedy that, in my opinion, exemplifies parallel character development perfectly. In the first episode, audiences are introduced to two extremely different main characters. James (Alex Lawther) is a recluse who self-identifies as a psychopath and an aspiring murderer. Alyssa (Jessica Barden) is a stereotypical teenage girl who hates her parents, loves to rebel, and is incredibly impulsive. Alyssa convinces James to run away with her and after a series of petty crimes, they end up murdering a serial killer in self-defense. They run away from the crime scene and a national manhunt to find them begins. By the end of the show, James is able to identify who really he is and what he wants, almost as assuredly as Alyssa. Alyssa, on the other hand, becomes less selfish and more nuanced, like James, though still sure of herself.

 

While I don’t want to go into too much detail for the sake of avoiding spoilers, this show does a really good job at taking two polar-opposite characters and having them level each other out. They still have some of their original qualities and flaws, but by the end of the season, both Alyssa and James become better and more mature people than they were in the first episodes. The actual character interactions that fuel James’ and Alyssa’s developments are accentuated by allusions to how the characters were at the start 0f the show and by the fast pace of the series. These additional details help to emphasize how as the characters’ shared experiences bring them together, their ideologies and attitudes start to become similar. Still, the two remain distinct characters.

There are numerous other examples of good parallel character development, but I feel that The End of the F****ing World employs a lot of the key features of effective parallel character development:

• Developed characters are noticeably similar to each other, but are still clearly their own characters
• Characters begin the story with flaws they learn to resolve themselves by gaining a better understanding of each other
• The use of themes and allusions to highlight certain character traits and contrast the developed character with their undeveloped counter part
• The resemblance of one character’s undeveloped counterpart to the other character’s developed counterpart

 

Now, let’s look at an anti-example that also serves to explain how hard it is to write parallel character development for a group of three:

 

The Narrator, Luo, and The Little Seamstress from Balzac and The Little Chinese Seamstress

 

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie follows the story of an unnamed narrator and his best friend Luo as they are made to move to the country side to be reeducated during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The book focuses on the binaries between city life and ideals and country life and ideals. While living in the country, the two young men meet a young woman who is only referred to as The Little Seamstress. They give her banned books to read in the hope of ‘educating her.’ As the story progresses, the two men adjust to country life and the Seamstress becomes more and more interested in city life. At the end of the book, Luo and the narrator burn their books, symbols of their ‘educated’ city lifestyle and the seamstress runs off to the city.

 

At first glance, this story seems to have parallel character development. It doesn’t. This is for multiple reasons, but the most important is that there isn’t a lot of character in this book to begin with. The narrator and Luo see themselves as more intelligent and sophisticated than the Seamstress throughout the entire book. The Seamstress is not featured as much in the story as the two male main characters are, and so she isn’t as developed. There is also the issue of too much compartmentalization within the narrative. In order to have good parallel character development, characters need to be in constant interaction with each other or the interactions described in the story need to revolve primarily around the characters’ relationships. In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, the story is segmented in a way that divides the narrator’s life into interactions with the village, interactions with Luo, and interactions with Luo and the Seamstress. In addition, because of their lack of development and their numerous similarities, Luo and the narrator don’t serve to develop each other in a parallel way. Because Luo and the narrator are so similar, they tend to act as one character in relation to how they influence the Seamstress and how the Seamstress influences them. They are not distinct enough to make parallel character development possible.

 

In summary, parallel character development is an amazing method of developing characters, but it requires nuance and skill. When it’s done right, the result is two beautifully interwoven character arcs. When done wrong, characters feel bland and their character arcs, forced. If you’re interested in writing characters that develop parallel to each other, I suggest reading stories and watching TV-shows and movies that use parallel character development. Maybe ask a friend if any of the shows they watch feature parallel character development. After all, you learn 👏 and are influenced 👏  by 👏 the people 👏 around 👏 you!

 

Picture a stagnant body of water. It’s cloudy and filled of algae. The water itself is a sickly yellowy-green color. The hot sun beats down on the ground around it, making it stink. Mosquitos buzz around it. Diseases thrive in it. Gross, right? It can be easy to forget that a smelly puddle with stuff growing in it is made up of the same basic chemical compound that we need to survive: water. Despite this, we know we shouldn’t head to the nearest lake for a water break if we forgot our water bottles at home on a hike. We condemn stagnant water and rightfully so.

 

So why is it so hard for authors, both experienced and new, to condemn the stagnant character? Time and time again, stagnant characters have reared their ugly heads, even in works of beloved authors, such as Dodie Smith and Tracy Chevalier. While admittedly not as harmful as the Giardia you can get from drinking pond water, it continues to plague the stories we write and the media we consume. A stagnant character is a character who ends a story the same way they began. Like the water in our cloudy pond, this character experiences no change. In most of my experiences, the presence of a stagnant lead character results in a work that is unsatisfying to read or watch.

 

Though I can’t remember where, I once heard someone say that writing stagnant characters is one of the worst things a storyteller can do to their audience. The goal of storytelling is to bring your audience with you on a journey with the characters you write. If your character has not changed or learned anything throughout the course of a story, what was the point of their adventure? If a character could continue their life identically to the way they did before the events of the story, was the moment significant in their lives at all or even significant enough to write about? Stories centered around stagnant characters tend to merely string audiences along.

 

Despite their tendency to make otherwise interesting concepts bland and unfulfilling, stagnant characters appear constantly in our TV shows, movies, and books. I think this is due to a few reasons:

 

• A Reluctance to Give a Character Flaws in Fear that They Will Make a Character Less Likable

As authors, we generally want to make our characters, especially our perspective characters, likable. Still, it is important to recognize that characters need to be given flaws. Real people aren’t perfect. We, as real flesh and blood humans, make mistakes. We have things that make us upset. We do things that others find upsetting. Why shouldn’t our characters be the same? Characters should feel as real as your next-door neighbor or your aunt, even if they are talking animals or elves. Giving characters flaws not only makes them feel more real, but it also sets up internal (and possibly external) conflict. By having conflict created by the character’s imperfections, you are providing the set up for their development. A character needs to change if something in them or about them catalyzes conflict.

 

• A Lack of Character and Author Awareness

Just because a character is given flaws doesn’t mean it isn’t stagnant. In one of my least favorite novels of all time, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, the lead, Cassandra, is bursting at the seams with flaws, yet she is one of the least developed characters in the entire novel. She tries to seduce her sister’s fiancé, consistently manipulates the emotions of a family friend, and cries and runs away when she gets called out for her toxic behavior. So does she grow? No. Not at all. Everyone immediately forgives her and she gets to be with her sister’s fiancé by the end of the book. It isn’t necessarily her actions that damn her to stagnancy, but rather the perspective of the author and the other characters. If I Capture the Castle had tried to overall convey the message that sometimes good things come to those who really, really, really don’t deserve it, Cassandra’s lack of development only would have aided the purpose of the story. Instead, the lack of awareness in Smith’s writing and in the characters around Cassandra convey the message that Cassandra’s deep and toxic personality flaws are acceptable. The forgiveness they bestow upon her is meaningless because she does not acknowledge her actions as wrong. This gives a false sense of character development. Without awareness from either the author or the other characters, Cassandra can continue living her life just as she always has.

 

These are just two of what I believe are the most common reasons for character stagnancy, based on trends and specific instances I’ve observed. As I mentioned in my second point, character stagnancy has the potential to enhance a story in very specific instances. Still, this requires a lot of skill and the correct approach.

 

As a general rule, characters should be fluid rather than stagnant. Don’t be afraid to give them flaws. Step back and recognize them fully. You’ll probably want other characters to see them, too. And above all, make sure your characters change! Make them fresh and digestible! After all, you don’t want to write the literary equivalent of a gunky puddle of muck!