Larger Than Life
Working along in the Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass, now that I’ve supposedly gotten a good grip on who my characters are and what they want, the next exercise is to figure out how to make them larger than life and discover the one thing they’d never say, never do, or never think.
And, you guessed it, find places for them to do just that during the course of the story.
So, I’ve got this mousy heroine that I’m working on and I need her to become a lioness. The thing is, I feel her character arc has had a decent treatment and she’s already doing and saying some things she would never consider at the beginning of the story. I probably need to do some work on the “thinking” part, but I’m not unhappy with her development at this point.
The hero’s another story. He’s the one I need to closely examine and shift from his table-top cardboard display cut-out existence to something more on the level of Allison Hayes in her role as Nancy Archer, an abused wife who takes revenge in a way that is both literally and figuratively larger than life. We’ll just hope he doesn’t come out more like Darryl Hannah. *ahem*
Ok, so maybe Attack of the 50-ft. Woman was too corny of an example to use. But who hasn’t daydreamed about taking revenge for something in some over the top manner, if only to make ourselves feel better. I think some of the best characters exhibit these larger than life behaviors and it’s part of what makes us follow their stories. What are they capable of, that we’d never be brave enough to do. All through their character arcs, they keep doing things that you wouldn’t to expect them to do, but each time that surprise just seems inevitable, even if we’re just a bit jealous of their pluck and rapier wits.
The nice little twist that Maass includes in this exercise is to find a place where the character forgoes one of these larger-than-life actions. When and where they back off from (to borrow a phrase from Michael Hauge) living in their essence and retreating behind their identity.
I think it’s important to see this hesitation, because without it, you don’t get the impact of their final decision to fully exist in their true form as a larger-than-life decision that is validated by their motivations and rewards their sacrifices and suffering through their inner conflicts and growth during their arc.
I think the hesitation is important too. (stupid “regular” keyboard. Have you ever noticed you get used to one kind of keyboard, and it becomes an old familiar keyboard and next thing you know, other keyboards seem to make your fingers stumble and stutter? ‘sweird)
It makes your h/h’s journey deeper. I might not be a Maas fan, btw…but I like where his book is leading you. 🙂 And sometimes–yeah, it does take a year or so for things you think you should know, and really do know, to soak in and become part of the way you look at things.
I have a hard time with keyboards too, Jodi. I loved the old Mac Plus keyboards because you could type on them and it felt like you were using something. I can’t stand using a PC keyboard — doesn’t matter which type — and even the chicklet keys on my macbook get on my nerves, but I’m used to it after a year now.
There are certain things about this workbook that are driving me nuts.
1) WHY aren’t the workbook and the regular text in the same order? ok, I probably know why if I stop to think about it, but the text in the workbook isn’t as in depth as I’d like before doing the exercise and having to hunt down that topic in the other book is annoying.
2) Once you finish some of these exercises, there is very little direction on how to utilize them to improve your manuscript. Or there’s contradictory instructions.
a) DO this. Make the change to your ms.
b) DO it again the OPPOSITE way. Make the change to your ms.
3) I hate feeling like I have to answer the questions exactly as written and get tangled up in the semantics sometimes. I realize that in the workshop, being able to ask questions would hopefully minimize this aspect, but just working through the workbook with a couple other people at the same time is proving helpful as well.
When I read the regular text (not the workbook) I was a little annoyed at how much of it seemed to be common sense stuff. Ok… it’s ok as a checklist type deal, but where’s the practical application? The examples are great in both books, don’t get me wrong there, but there’s little explanation on how to go about adding these things effectively yourself.
Maybe I just ask too much?
Overall, though, it is making me look deeper at what’s going on and what I’m actually bringing out in the manuscript. I’m really looking forward to the next section on plot. Need to plow through a bit more character stuff first though. We’re going through at a pace of around 3 days per chapter/exercise so it’s interesting.
..you know, I never read the workbook, just the book. In some ways I think I’m glad I didn’t read the workbook. In a lot of ways I’m glad I didn’t buy Karl Inglesias book on emotional structure, because I found it at the library and went…lots of obvious stuff, nothing new and lots of repitition.
It could be that Maas is good at finding examples, but never really thought of how to apply the knowledge in a practical application. There’s a big difference between I can show you what it looks like, and “let me explain how it works in your stuff”. 🙂