Character Motivations
Hmmmm…I’ve noticed that my protagonist’s best friends tend to be a bit…well snippy. And a bit mean. I wonder what that says about me? Maybe it is some anger I have towards an old friend or something–or the fact that I find many women to have a snippy edge to them–or the fact that I am trying to add an interesting edge to my character dynamics.
Character foils? Maybe? Maybe not.
I think I need to work more on my character motivations. They have them, they are spurring them on, but they aren’t all that obvious to the reader. Which is fine in some regards, I don’t want to be obvious and boring. At the same time, I don’t want it to be so challenging or disjointed that the reader tosses down my work in frustration.
For example, in ‘The 15 Date Rule’, I am trying to illustrate that a lot of women find my main character, who is smart and beautiful, intimidating. But how do you show that? Well, through their actions, which are not going to be favourable. But how do you show that it is intimidation or jealousy that is making them act that way? A little trickier–unless you make them really mean and again, obvious.
So, I suppose this is my puzzle of the week. A tricky, tricky puzzle seeing as I figure these things out in real life based on a feeling I get from a person rather than the words that they speak.
You can have someone interpret the other characters’ actions for your protagonist. Perhaps your protagonist is agonizing about people not responding to her the way she’d like and her friend says, “But, Hon, that’s because you’re so intimidating.” Or maybe she won Most Likely to Succeed in high school, and she reflects wryly that ever since then she hasn’t had a date. And I have the problem with characters being snippy, too. I think it’s in an effort to add conflict. I often have to go back and tone it down, making sure I have real conflict, not just pettiness.
Thanks for your comment, Caryn. I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one with this problem!
I do have the protagnist’s best friend mention that even she gets intimidated by her in the beginning of the book. I think you are right though, it would be good to have the bf interpret it for her when she agonizes about an incident later on in the book and add some internal dialogue re snippiness. (I now know what I am doing today!)
I’ve ordered a book by Linda Seger called, “Making Your Characters Unforgettable.” I can’t wait to read it and see what she has about building conflict between characters.
That sounds like a good one. I think that sometimes we know our characters so well that we don’t explain them enough. Or we do the opposite, assuming that we haven’t given them enough history so we just pile it on. Maybe if you have a friend or other critique partner read it, they can tell you if you’re doing this with your character.