The name's Bond.

I have a blow up boot thing that means I can walk! A bit! With crutches! I took advantage of this to spend the day at the movies, making the most of my free movies card and my sore crutch hands.

One of the films I saw was Skyfall, at the big screen where I saw Spiderman (well, one of the times I saw Spiderman). Like when I saw Spiderman, they had film problems. Last time it was the coordination of the 3D images. This time everything was pink for a while, which it turns out is very distracting. Everything was back to normal by the time the actual movie started (there were a very, very many ads, ninety percent of which were Bond themed) so I got to witness the Istanbul opening sequence in proper technicolor.

And I had been to many of the places! I recognised the exotic street corners and bits of mosque wall! I realised that the compositing if locations was done with quite a bit if artistic license, because there was no way some scenes could have happened in the real places, unless there was some time-space stretching going on. But what am I talking about? This is a Bond film. They laugh in the face of reality and probable-sequence-of-events.

Bond films can do this, I think. You can see the filmmakers gleefully rubbing the hands as they contemplate different action scenes. What do you mean, it's unlikely there'll be (highlight the spoilers if you want them) a digger and four VW Beatles on a Turkish passenger train? It's all right! It looks awesome! The audience will accept it! The bar of willing suspension of disbelief is higher for Bond. We want to see a fun movie. We don't really care about the little details, like the fact that Circle and District underground trains do not run in deep-level tunnels. We can forgive, if you give us villains using entire (strangely empty) Jubilee line trains as weapons at Embankment Station, where Jubilee trains do not run. Ha! That beats a puny little laser, Goldfinger.

It's a good movie and I really enjoyed it (though I was slightly concerned that the villain was portrayed as gay, considering various 'moral' debates at the moment. Yay for having gay characters on screen and having a more numerically-accurate representation of society, but not so great that it was portrayed negatively. There's already enough negativity around, and it just solidifies prejudices, doesn't it?).

I've been thinking about plotting lots this week, considering I'm doing Nanowrimo next week, and so I went into Skyfall with a particular eye. The movie follows the beats of a story well - problem, try to solve, doesn't work, try to solve, maybe we have, yes we have! Oh... no, screwed up. Badly. Try to solve... Fall back... Try to solve... Maybe... Yes! It was also interesting in that they address Bond's seeming invulnability - a character who has too much skill or power is too easy to get out of situations, so there's much less tension. I have been struggling with this in my Nanowrimo planning - how do you stop a character from becoming unbeatable, especially in fantasy? In Skyfall, you're no longer sure that Bond will be up to the challenges he faces. You're reasonably sure he won't die in the end, but there are lots of things that could happen that don't include him dying... Tension is higher because Bond isn't so perfect anymore.

And, I have to admit, I cried. This is the second time I have cried in a Bond film. The first time was when a car in one of the Pierce Brosnan movies got sliced in half by a helicopter-mounted circular saw. This time also involved the destruction of a car... No, I don't want to talk about it.

So I'm inspired, and back to the plotting! Must figure out how to heighten the tension and maybe think of a few scenes with explosions...

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Chess piece characters

It's Wednesday! So I'm getting back into writing Wednesdays.

I've been thinking about character and plot, and how sometimes they can work at cross-purposes. You want your plot to move in a certain direction, but if you force your characters to conform to the plot the story isn't believable. It's like your story is a chess board, and you're picking up your pieces and plonking them where you want them to go. It suits the larger gameplay, but your characters should not act like chess pieces. At least, not like normal chess pieces.

Sometimes you just need to give a few nudges in the right direction. Figure out why they might act the way you want them to, and slip in some details to smooth the transitions. You don't want a reader questioning reactions or motivations, or being jarred out of the story.

Other times you need to do a bit more work. You've plonked your character in a square they'd never normally go near, so maybe you need to think a few moves ahead. Figure out what story beats you want to hit (what squares you absolutely have to get to) and let the character guide themselves to the square. You might not need the squares you were trying to force them into.

You want walking, talking chess pieces that move themselves across the board, rather than doing exactly what they're told.

Rant on One-Dimensional Characters

In my editing adventures I’ve renewed acquaintance with my main bad guy. He is a bad guy who has done many bad things and thinks he’s awesome, and as I read back over everything I have been thinking ... but, what if he’s too evil? What if the only facet of his personality is his evilness, apart from his two-facedness? Do I need to make him more three-dimensional? Do I need to give him better, more understandable reasons for his evilness?

This way lies (further) further revisions and woe. But possibly a better story.

But is it really a better story? My character already has a few facets to his personality (I guess I’m selling him short by listing only two), and he has back story and everything. And in real life, people do terrible terrible things and other people don’t understand the reasons. Other people spend years studying and experimenting to try to understand the reasons, and still give up and say things like ‘well, it’s just like this.’

Real life often makes for unbelievable stories, though. So where is the happy medium between real-life one-dimensionalism and literary three-dimensionalism?

I guess the difference between a one-dimensional character in a story and an apparently one-dimensional person in real life is that, for the real life person, there really are other dimensions to them. They have an entire life history before they burst onto front pages of newspapers. Characters, however, only have the life history that we give them before they burst onto the front pages of novels. We must create the illusion of other dimensions, even if they are never mentioned, and this is difficult to do if your character’s actions only show one dimension. One-dimensional characters work as clichés and jokes, but not much more.

IMO, anyway.

ETA: Currently rewriting/editing scenes as if from Bad Guy’s point of view. Genius! I should do this for everything!

Perfect Characters

I finished the book I was reading on the tube the other day, and looked through the list of back-up books I have on my e-reader. These are mostly things like War and Peace or Crime and Punishment, books that I feel I may read one day if I have nothing else to do, though sometimes staring at a blank wall seems easier than clicking on War and Peace.

This particular day, I chose The (unabridged) Count of Monte Cristo in French. I’ve been reading this book for approximately five and a half years, and I am nearly halfway through. I read an abridged English version in high school, and really liked it, but got confused following all the different names and thought it might be less confusing in unabridged form. Then I found a French copy in the library and thought, what the heck, let’s go all the way and read it unabridged and in its original French. I am determined to finish it some time in the next decade.

This book comes in four volumes, by the way, and has a number of verbs that I’m not quite sure of. (HA! I’ve just realised that my e-reader has a French dictionary in it, that always comes up when I touch the screen wrong in an English book.  WHY did I not think of this BEFORE?)

Anyway, I’m currently at a bit where one of the characters is showing the Count of Monte Cristo around his house, and the Count knows everything about everything. This, in my opinion, is plainly impossible. The Count (for those who have not read the book or seen the movie) spent many years in a prison and then a few years on the outside and then took off on his mission as an Angel of Revenge. True, he had a very smart next-door prisoner who taught him many things, but there are only so many things you can teach through a small hole in a cell wall. In-depth knowledge of every painter who ever lived, and the ability to identify their paintings on sight, is not one of these things.

Please correct me if the Count ever spent several years completing a doctorate in art history at the Sorbonne.

On the other hand, perhaps the Count is actually a robot from the future with Wikipedia downloaded into his head.

The Count has elements of the Perfect Character. He knows all, he has an endless supply of money and he is Always Exactly On Time. Perfect Characters are difficult, because they’re not believable. I think the Count works (just – ignore my Wikipedia pokes) because, by this point in the story, he has become the mysterious outsider (so you no longer need to identify with him) and the reader is invested enough in the story to keep reading. There’s something kind of awesome about perfection, and if you hit it just at that line between unbelievable and okay-I-guess-that’s-possible-maybe you get an irresistible character.

Perfection is attractive when you’re writing a character. You want them to be the best they can be, so you keep adding character traits and skills and killer dress sense, but you end up with a flat, boring character who can do no wrong and carry no plot. Character flaws and weaknesses build tension, and if your character hasn’t got any you can’t move forward. People don’t tend to identify with perfect characters, either. Your perfect character just becomes annoying.

Superman has Kryptonite and a secret identity to hide. The Count of Monte Cristo has his need for revenge (and a secret identity to hide). For those of you still powering forward on NaNoWriMo, do you have any perfect characters you need to bring down a notch or four? Flawed characters make for fun writing.

Good luck everyone!

My thoughts on squirrels, active characters and life in general

First, before any more coherent thoughts,

SQUIRREL!!!

Let this day go down in history as the day that I, for the first time in more than ten years, saw a squirrel.

I was wandering through my local park, listening to music and trying to avoid construction works and raindrops. And then, there on the path ahead of me, was a squirrel!

We eyed each other. It dashed off towards the safety of another tree, and I followed it as innocently as I could. It disappeared behind one tree, emerged, disappeared again, and the next I saw it, it was sitting in the crook of a branch eyeing me as innocently as it could.

I stopped pretending I wasn't following it and circled round and round the tree, trying to get a better look and possibly coax it down to be my pet.

Yes, I know squirrels don't make good pets.

It had seemed grey on the path to my barely-legal-to-drive vision (I promise I wear glasses when I drive), but up closer its head looked kind of reddish brown. I wondered if red squirrels and grey squirrels could mate, and if so, was this one of their offspring? Furthermore, was the union condoned by squirrel society, or was it a Romeo-and-Juliet situation?

It retreated further up the tree and I lost sight of it, so I stopped harassing the poor squirrel and continued my walk.

Today is Wednesday, which used to be Round the World Wednesday and is now just Wednesday. Why waste the alliteration, though? Starting from this week, I will try to post something writing- or round-the-world-related on Wednesdays, and Life-in-London-related on Saturdays, because there is no day of the week starting with 'L'. For those living in the future relative to London, this will probably mean Thursday and Sunday.

I realise squirrels are not particularly writing-related (though they are masterfully used in many stories, such as Up and Squirrel Nutkin), so I'll get on to the writing stuff.

People like to read about active characters: characters who fix things, or have adventures, or make stupid choices that lead them down hilarious paths you're glad you never had to go down. Unless your story is the kind where heroines (or heroes) wail 'woe is me' and wait for the handsome prince/princess to rescue them, your main character should be active. If there's a problem, they do something about it, even if they do the wrong thing.

I've been editing some of my old writing and realising that, even though I thought my character was 'active' (that's what I write when I describe her personality, after all), in a lot of places she doesn't really do anything. I create situations for her to be in, she is present while things happen around her, and then she does a bit of complaining and drifts to the next situation. Every so often she makes a choice, but they're all offered to her. She doesn't go out and grab them, or think seriously about what to do next.

I'm missing an opportunity here. She needs to be a proper participant in her scenes, rather than someone that things just happen to. It'll be more interesting to read, I hope, and might bring up some new, character-driven situations.

This is a good way to look at life, too. Don't just sit and wait for things to happen to you. Get out there and do it.