How nameless characters enhance story

AuthorAppleton on January 18, 2016

Nameless characters. They may seem useless to the writer and to the reader but in many respects they are key to enhancing a great fiction story. Consider how many nameless characters populate the books you read and the movies you watch. Nameless characters play well into plot development and world building.

When I am writing a story I take into consideration the environment I am throwing my main characters into. What are the sights, the sounds, the smells. I want to engage the senses so that the reader experiences the story in a profound way. But a great part of creating the environment is the establishment of nameless characters.

Let’s use the example of John, a character who is feeling lost. If you want to convey that John is starting to feel panicky you could throw in a nameless character. Crowds are milling about, heading down the busy sidewalks. Someone bumps into John. He reaches down and finds his wallet is now missing. He franticly searches the sea of faces for the pickpocket but instead his gaze is arrested by a pretty face. She stands a short distance off, smiles, then disappears in the throng moving around him. Someone steps on his foot, mutters an apology, and several other people jostle him. A pistol presses against his back.

In this short example the only characters able to affect John are nameless ones. The advantage of this is that the reader now does not feel the need to know these other characters. Instead they want to know how John is going to react to these nameless characters and the situation in general. The nameless characters have revealed a deeper level to the story and left the mind imagining what could be the motives and purposes of these nameless characters. All the while, John remains the focus.

Nameless characters add mystery and, when written well, they will enhance the traits of the main characters by causing them to react to different circumstances. While it is true that you can effect much of the same with named characters, nameless characters provide less distraction to the reader, thus allowing more focus on moments of suspense and interior dilemma.

A story is incomplete without nameless characters. In my novels I greatly enjoy creating background characters who are not assigned names. Why? Because later I can return to those characters, perhaps fleshing out their own unique stories for later projects. For example, when writing a series of fantasy novels a nameless character might be the bartender or the stable hand. Later in the series I can revisit the character, assign them a name, give them a more significant part in the series’ plot, and reference back to that moment in the story when they were nameless. To the reader it seems as if the author knew all of these facts about the nameless character all along. But truly it is often not the case.

The author might make reference to how the story’s hero/heroine glimpsed something happening to a common soldier during a battle. Then at a later point you reference back to that and make a new and insignificant background character come to life by relationally tying them to the original nameless character. Their deed then matters to the reader on an emotional level.

As you see, there are many uses for nameless characters in fiction.

Q: What sorts of nameless characters to you find interesting in fiction?

 

 

Breaking George Bailey this Christmas

AuthorAppleton on November 23, 2015

Every Thanksgiving I look forward to watching It’s A Wonderful Life. When I was growing up my parents knew how to throw a great Thanksgiving. They cooked a fantastic meal and invited a bunch of family over. My Dad would, at some point later in the day, flip through our limited selection of channels. Besides watching the parades, I remember him stopping when It’s A Wonderful Life came on. And I now try to make that movie a part of every Holiday season.

The tale of George Bailey is such a sad one. He has wonderful friends and he is endearing to almost everyone he meets. He is genuine, honest, and fair. Yet he lacks confidence in himself. He dreams big but always puts the dreams of others before his own, and in doing so he loses everything. By his generosity and fairness he makes friends with the poor and the sick. And when his uncle could go to jail for fraud, George takes the blame. Even at his lowest point he does the good thing, continuing his good deeds despite all expectations to the contrary.

The most beautiful thing about this story is that George does not broadcast his good deeds to everyone. He never “toots his own horn” but rather turns the spotlight onto those he has helped. I prefer to watch this movie in black and white as the absence of color is an artful way of emphasizing that the story is not about the lights and glitter, but rather about the hearts of people.

Why do I bring this up now? Yes, it is Thanksgiving and the Christmas season is practically upon us. But I have recognized within the fictional character of George Bailey the struggles of all honest, hard-working men who never get credit for what they have done. They do what is right because it is what they must do. It is the character they have established within themselves.

Contemporary fiction is filled with a lack of faith in the human spirit. Everyone is shown as liars, cheats, and backstabbers. But I am tired of that kind of story. I want more George Baileys. Characters of people who are broken, brought to the very end of their hope, yet still do the right thing by the people around them. This Christmas I want to revel in the spirit of good deeds and restore my faith in humanity.

We live in such a pessimistic world, yet there is so much good going on all around us. We need only look for it in others and in ourselves. I believe God has given us that ability.

I love how It’s a Wonderful Life demonstrates the true reward of doing right by people and doing good without expectation of reward. When it appears that George Bailey has nowhere to turn it is the poor, the sick, and his family that come to his aid. Kindness reciprocates kindness. We live in a world of great fear, but if we reach out with love we will see love return to us.

This Christmas let’s remember the real reasons this season is special. Let us leave behind the greed and the selfishness in favor of sharing Christian love with all people.

Q: Did It’s a Wonderful Life similarly impact you?

How characters with conviction drive story

AuthorAppleton on October 19, 2015

It would be impossible for me to recollect how many times I have heard people say to me, “All religions are really the same. So I don’t believe in any of them.” I think they thought it was impressive to say it, perhaps politically correct and socially accepted in our culture. Besides betraying a lack of knowledge or understanding of what divides religious groups, what they were really saying was, “I’ve given up on searching for absolute truth, so I am not accountable to any worldview.”

Interesting? Not really. It’s sad. Sad that an individual will fall into the trap of giving up on finding the basis for their convictions. Their ethics become based on feelings and emotions, as they are subject to no supreme authority. It brings to mind that verse in Revelation 3:16. It is pertinent to quote it here: “So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.”

Conversely, I have encountered people of faiths that differ from mine who will tell me in no uncertain terms where they stand. People like that I can respect, even if our beliefs are polarizingly opposed. They know what they believe and why they believe it.

When writing fiction this is an important consideration. What kind of characters do you want to create? Do you want generic individuals so that you have to rely on the plot? Or would you rather have characters of conviction who stand firm on what they believe and why they believe it?

Looking at history demonstrates this repeatedly. If a simple monk had not stood against the Pope, we would never have heard of Martin Luther. If Hitler’s worldview had not been so polar-opposed to Stalin’s socialism, he may not have turned on Russia.

A story that is filled with characters of conviction leaves a lasting impact on the reader because the reader finds themselves rooting for some while condemning others. Characters with conviction can be praised or condemned for their choices and actions. Characters without conviction follow the whims of society and leave little lasting impact.

Conviction feeds growth. It makes people uncomfortable or inspires them, but it certainly leaves an impact on society. Characters of conviction drive story. We can root for them or watch them fall.

Storytelling is a powerful vehicle for exploring the best and the worst in humanity. But characters without conviction fade into the background. They neither angered nor thrilled us… Well, perhaps I am wrong in that. Sometimes they do anger us in the same way that those types do in real life.

Q: Do you recognize what convictions drive your favorite fiction characters?

How to avoid cookie-cutter characters

AuthorAppleton on August 3, 2015

Cookie-cutter characters kill fiction. Weak villains and weak heroes, characters that we can easily forget. How do we avoid this to strengthen the books we write?

Remember that childhood tale of the Gingerbread Man? Oh yes, he was cut out of cookie dough and ran away from the little old woman, shouting, “Run, run as fast as you can. You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man!” He ran until he came to a river and there the sly fox fooled him and at the last ate him.

The story is simple by design, yet it gives readers and incredibly memorable impression of the gingerbread man. Why? Because in a short time you understand the gingerbread man’s primary traits. Namely, he is over-confident and brainless. He is so consumed by his desire to escape everyone that wants to eat him that he jumps into bed with the devil himself.

Create memorable characters by focusing on the traits that make them themselves. What makes them tick? What makes them different from their peers, or do they follow the crowd? What strengths can they use to rise above their circumstances… or what failings will we see bring them to a miserable end?

It was said of J.K. Rowling that she created 3rd dimensional characters in her Harry Potter series, and I quite agree. The characters had personality. They had depth. We could feel what they were feeling, or at the least understand the motivations behind their actions.

All great fiction stories are like this, even if they are plot-driven rather than character-driven. Weak characters will kill any good story. If you mold them in the image of known characters the readers will resent it, or at the least find it forgettable. But if you fashion a new individual with their own set of traits and deep-rooted motivations for the actions they take, you will create a story worth re-reading. One that one generation will treasure for the next.

Q: What stories have you felt use too many “cookie-cutter” characters?

Divinity and accountability in Fiction

AuthorAppleton on July 27, 2015

When writing I have often pondered the futility of leaving God out of the story. His presence, whether embodied or as a distant spirit-being, omnipresent and omniscient, is necessary even in fiction. Without an ultimate accountability characters lose their punch.

All stories need a level of good versus evil. Characters make choices between right and wrong. Humanism would have us believe that we do not need God to explain the choice between good and evil, whereas the standard of morality we know is completely dependant on Him.

Western society is founded on the moral system passed down by Judeo-Christian values. Without a Common Standard of morality society is left to the whims of its individual members. One person may say that stealing is wrong, but another may say it is not because they believe in survival of the fittest.

Why is sin always sin? Why believe in truth and falsehood? Because we do have a standard in the laws passed down by God through Moses and the prophets and Jesus Christ.

This is pivotal in writing. Literature needs to reflect that God is the same always, whether in the past or in the present or in the future. An eternal being whose standards are not dependant on our desires, whims, or failings.

Without that standard a story becomes dependent on the characters’ perspectives. But when that standard is used the story gains coherancy because all actions, whether good or bad, have consequences temporal . . . and eternal.

Freedom of choice does not mean your characters can escape the fact that they are created beings.

Question: How does accountablity to God factor in the fiction you read and write?

How to Create Memorable Villains

AuthorAppleton on July 13, 2015

Most good stories that stand out in my mind as extremely memorable involve an extraordinary villain. One of my favorite films is The Black Hole, an old Disney science-fiction film. All of the characters in that movie are dramatic actors and the villain (as played by Maximilian Schell) is extremely memorable. He is a brilliant scientist and brooding. Every moment on screen he manages to drive deeper into your mind the threat he poses.

I remember when I was a kid sitting at my grandfather’s house and watching Star Wars: A New Hope for the first time (back then it was on VHS tape). The duel between Vader and Ben Kenobi fixated my attention like nothing else. I was intrigued. Who was this Vader? Why had he changed into a “master of evil” as Kenobi put it? These questions are the type that any good villain will raise in the mind of a book reader or a movie viewer.

Often a fiction writer focuses on finding ways to make the reader relate to the hero in the story. They show the character’s weaknesses and show how he/she overcame them in order to mature into the protagonist you’ll love. But too often the antagonist is a “cookie cutter villain.”

In the Harry Potter books Voldemort was glimpsed from his youth and shown as a ruthless man. In Tolkien’s The Silmarillion Melkor was revealed as being a corrupter of all good things… My point? There are many ways to approach villain creation as long as you take the time to develop that villain’s history.

When approaching the villains in my stories I try to remember that the characters’ histories will enable the reader to care about what happens to them. For example, when I wrote the opening for Swords of the Six I had to make the reader care about the villains so that they would want those villains to pay for their crimes, but I wanted the reader to be intrigued and ask questions as to why and how the villains had become the characters seen in the story.

It is imperative that you ask yourself:

  1. What kind of childhood did this villain have? An orphan, an only child, or one of many children. A happy home or a depressed one. All of these considerations make us care about the villain even if we are rooting for their destruction.
  2. Who mentored this villain, or whom do they look up to? Parents or the lack thereof and the mentors they look up to will shape the person you become. Understand how your villain thinks by understanding what mindset those around him have encouraged.
  3. What motivates them in their villainous deeds? Often the motivation is power, yet the quest for supremacy is not motivation enough. There is an ideology behind each villain and reasons that they have forsaken a moral code. Know what motivates them and you will understand how they can change through the story in their encounters with other characters.

In The Black Hole the villain is an insane but genius scientist. He is both indispensable to the protagonists and at the same time they cannot allow him to continue.

In writing a villain we need to understand the personality’s impact on the fictional world and also what drives that personality. Adding depth to the character enables greater risk and greater reward when said villain is defeated or converted. Creating memorable villains is hard, but oh so worth it! In Swords of the Six I had the opportunity to show several types of villains, each with different motives, and the result was a story that leaves me the writer eager to explore the villains in depth and be more creative in determining their demises.

Q: Which villains stand out to you and why?