Have you ever wondered how an editor decides not to read your cherished tome past the second paragraph of the first page and has pegged you as a beginning writer? This used to really bug me… Well, as a published author and occasional mentor, I do from time to time read manuscripts (please don’t send me any unsolicited ones! This isn’t an invite). Well, I now recognize what these editors do. Most beginning writers commonly do some things that unfortunately identify him/her as one; these can work against you when a busy editor (who wants nothing better than an excuse to stop reading) reads your precious work.

So, I’d like to share what I’ve learned over the years (some of the very same comments that have been made of my work, I am sharing back with you). I’ll be providing you my advice in three parts: 1) characters; 2) language; and 3) structure.

Let’s start with characters, since they are in my opinion, the most important part of a novel:

Characters carry the theme of the book. Each character needs to have a role in advancing the plot and/or theme; each character needs a reason to be there. A character therefore needs to be distinctive and usually shows some character development (as story arc) from beginning to end of story. Your characters are the most important part of your book (more so than the plot or premise). Through them your book lives and breathes. Through them your premise, your plot (which is essentially just a way to create problems for your characters to live out their development) and story come alive. Through them you achieve empathy and commitment from the reader and his/her willingness to keep reading to find out what’s going to happen next: if the reader doesn’t invest in the characters, they won’t really care what happens next.

Characters need to be real. They come to life by giving them individual traits and real weaknesses and heroic qualities that are consistent and have qualities readers can recognize and empathize with. You play these against each other to achieve drama. For instance, a man who is afraid of heights but who must climb a mountain to save his love is far more compelling than one who is not; a military man who fears responsibility but must lead his team into battle; a scientist who is afraid of failure; etc.

Characters of beginning writers often suffer from lack of distinction, or purpose, and often simply clutter up a story. For a character to “come alive” their “voice” must be distinctive, unique. Give them distinctive body movements, dress, facial features and expressions that reveal character, inner feelings, emotions, fears, motivations, etc. Then keep them consistent. There are several techniques writers use to increase empathy for a character and distinctiveness. This includes use of third person POV, keeping the story with focus on fewer rather than many characters, creating character dossiers and keeping them consistent, providing each character a distinctive “voice” (figuratively), as in how they behave, say, react, etc. I’ll talk about these further down. Another way to make your characters distinct (and works to also tie into plot and theme) is to make your characters not get along. Make them argue, disagree (at least!), have suspicions, betray one another, laugh and ridicule, etc. By doing this you increase tension, conflict (two things every book requires) and you enlighten the reader into each of the characters involved. Make them fight or argue over what they believe in – or not. You need to describe your characters in effective brief but vivid language as the reader encounters them.

Here are some questions you need to ask about your characters:
1. if I can remove the character, will the book fall apart? (if not, you don’t need that character; they aren’t fulfilling a role in the book);
2. how does the character portray the major or minor theme of the book? (that’s what characters are there for)
3. what is the role of the character? (e.g., protagonist, antagonist, mentor, catalyst, etc.)
4. what is the story arc of the character? Does he or she develop, change, do they learn something by the end? If not, they will be two-dimensional and less interesting
5. what major obstacle(s) must the character overcome?
6. who are your major protagonist(s) (the main character who changes the most)?
7. who are your major antagonist(s) (those who provide trouble for your protagonists, the source of conflict, tension, the obstacle: one of their own?
8. what’s at stake: for the world (plot); for each individual (Theme) and how do these tie together? Every character has a role to fulfill in the plot and to other characters. Don’t be afraid to totally remove characters if they do not fulfill a role.

To summarize, each character is there for a purpose and this needs to be made apparent to the reader (intuitively through characterization, their failings, weaknesses, etc.). Make them bleed, hurt, cry, feel. This needs to be clear to the reader, who wants to empathize with some of them and hate others. How characters interact with their surroundings and each other creates tension, a key element to good storytelling. Tension, of course builds further with the additional conflict of protagonist with antagonists. But, in truth, it’s more fun to read about the tension from WITHIN a group that’s supposed to be together. Think of Harry Potter and what was juicy there… It wasn’t really Voldemort … it was what went on at Hogwarts between Harry and his friends and not-so-friends. That is what makes a story memorable; that is what makes a story something you can’t put down until you’ve finished it.

Hope this was useful to you. My next post on the beginning writer will be on language.

When my parents immigrated to Canada from Paris, France, they each had a different experience when faced with a new white anglo saxon protestant community who spoke English, a language neither spoke well. And, even though my Romanian father was somewhat of a linguist, able to speak at least ten languages (including impeccable French), he was the one who had the most trouble picking up and mastering English. By contrast, my German mother, who could hardly speak French when she lived in Paris, had no problem picking up English and speaking it with hardly an accent. Aside from the obvious language differences (e.g., German is so close to English as a language vs Romanian and the romantic languages), I think one of the reasons that my father had more problems acquiring the English language with the usual ease he picked up Italian, French, Spanish, Russian, etc. was how the language was used. Language is, after all, much more than the spoken word. It is an expression of culture and biology.

1) What is language?

On the surface language appears to be the means by which animals communicate, through body movements, symbols (e.g., drawings, written word) or vocalizations to share knowledge (whether for mutual good – “Here’s some food” – or as competition – “He’s mine!” – or as antagonist – “Back off! I have a weapon and I know how to use it!”) and whereby one or both are changed by the interaction.

But language is so much more. Consider, for instance, smell. Pheremones and other aromatic chemicals provide an important mechanism for both plants and animals to communicate, whether to attract, repulse or to trigger some other action. This can be obvious, as in the case of strongly scented flowers, and purposeful, as in the skunk’s defensive discharge, or subtle and unconscious, as in the case of the example of women living together developing synchronous mentral cycles.

Language is not restricted to individual plants and animals. The language of biology, chemistry and physics occurs at every level of life and inanimate form, from atoms, to cells, individuals, communities and ecosystems. Randal Whitaker uses “languaging” as a verb to describe the interaction between autopoietic (self-organized) entities. Maturana and Varela (1987) call this ongoing engagement “structural coupling” and suggest that this “coupling” results in mutual co-adaptation.

Language is the means by which order emerges spontaneously from chaos as synchronous self-organization. Like a field of crickets chirping in concert. Or the thousands of fireflies on the tidal rivers of Malasia that blink in dramatic unison. Or the millions of neurons firing together in your brain to control your breathing. They all “language”and co-evolve through mutual triggers and perturbations in a kind of synchronal dance, a loose symbiosis. Consider, for instance the tiny powerhouses of every cell in our bodies: the mitochondria. Billions of years ago mitochondria were bacteria that co-evolved into a symbiotic relationship with their host metazoan cells. This happened through communication and the language of survival.
Fireflies communicate with light; planets speak through the force of gravity; heart cells share elecric currents. This is all language.

2) What is culture?

To me a culture reflects the common “language” among the individuals of a society that has evolved over many years. It embodies the zeitgeist of what defines a particular group, whether it be a community of similar faith, philosophy, tradition, geography, or simply through the basic need of survival. Culture, therefore, is the result of mutual co-evolution, most likely arisen through the need to form community to survive.

3) How are these two Related?

Culture is defined and held together by language in all its forms. For instance the “cyber-culture” is defined by its mode of communication on the Internet. The culture of the common folk in Germany is maintained by the language of plat-Deutch. Language is the thread that ties the culture’s fabric together. Dialects, codes, encryptions all arise from this inclination to form a common, and at times, exclusive, club. Each culture is an autopoietic (self-organized) system that, in turn, communicates with other cultures. Through this mutual interaction and co-evolution, arises a larger encompassing culture and from it yet larger ones, in a fractal pattern to eventually our global culture.