Creating Credible Characters–Let’s Get Personal
In the previous post, I mentioned that we all react to the “otherness” surrounding us and that this is one way to create conflict and show who are characters are inside.
But that isn’t quite enough when it comes to developing fully-realized characters. We must go deeper. We must continue peeling the layers of the onion. This is where we move from the realm of “type”—of general characteristics—into individuality defined to specifics. It’s the “why?” behind everything your character thinks, says, does, and is. In Getting into Character, Brandilyn Collins calls this process “Personalizing”:
“The character will become a unique person, with inner values and a resulting set of traits and mannerisms not duplicated in anyone else.” (Collins, 18.)
This is where knowing a little about psychology helps. You’ve answered the interview questions, filled out the character profile worksheets. Now it’s time to go back and look at the answers and act like a four year old and ask one of two questions: “Why?” or “So what?” Example:
- Anne is afraid of flying.
Why? - She was in a plane crash when she was a child.
So what? - Her parents died in the plane crash.
So what? - It was the first and only time her parents had allowed her to go on a trip with them.
Why? - Because they traveled to a lot of dangerous places in their jobs as professional photographers.
Why did they take her this time? - It was a reward for Anne’s winning a photography contest held by the local newspaper.
So what happened? - Shortly after takeoff, the commuter plane’s engines failed. Anne’s father protected her with his own body—being impaled by a piece of metal that would have killed Anne and saving her life.
Why is this still important nearly thirty years later? - Two reasons: Anne cannot step on a plane without the feeling that it is going to crash (as that’s been her only experience with being on a plane); and she blames herself for her parents’ death.
Why does she blame herself? - If she hadn’t won the contest, if she hadn’t been so eager to go somewhere with them, they never would have gotten on that plane, and they might still be alive.
See how it works? Not only does this start to define how Anne will react to certain situations (like facing the choice of boarding a plane to follow the hero at the end of the book), but it also defines how she interacts with her aunt and uncle who became her guardians/foster parents after her parents’ death.
Just because I’ve gone to this depth with Anne here doesn’t mean I’m finished personalizing her by any means. I also have to know what she went through in high school (remember my backstory where she was teased about her scars, about her height/weight?)—I have to know that to know how she reacted to the breaking of her engagement in her mid-20s to know why, in her mid-30s, these things still affect her at a very deep level . . . and that she hasn’t been able to move on yet. Each of these experiences has built upon the other—they are not separate from each other. What happened to her at eight years old in a plane crash informed the decisions she’s made throughout the rest of her life—and will greatly affect her character’s growth in the short span of her life that’s actually shown in the 90,000 words of the novel.
Take one of your main characters you’re struggling with right now and try the “Why?” / “So what?” questioning method. What do you learn about him/her? Is it possible he or she hasn’t been reacting to situations in your story the way you expected because you haven’t delved deeply enough into his/her underlying experiences?
Creating Credible Characters–Culture Clash
And you didn’t think I could get any more alliterative than I already was!
Now we’ve come up with our characters and we’ve spent time getting to know who they are. What’s next?
Creating conflict, of course. No matter what kind of story you’re writing, your characters will have both internal and external conflict. It is how your character copes with these conflicts—how they adapt, overcome, react, or not—that will reveal the most about your character.
One of the driving sources of character revelation in literature is through culture clash. In Stein on Writing (are you shocked it’s taken four posts to quote from Stein?), Sol Stein cites two prime literary examples of characters in culture clash: Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (the novel on which the musical/movie My Fair Lady was based) and Tennessee Williams’s play A Streetcar Named Desire (later made into an Oscar-winning movie starring Vivian Leigh and Marlon Brando).
“Characters of different cultural classes caught in a crucible are, of course, ideal for fiction. The dramatic heat generated by cultural differences, inherited or nurtured, added to the differences of individual temperaments, can help writers create wonderful stories. These differences are a valuable resource for scenes as well as entire plots. It is the underlying basis of conflict in fiction.” (Stein, 75)
To simplify this example, where would our civilization be without the Cinderella fairy tale? It is nothing more than a story about the clash of culture and character—and the ultimate triumph of character over culture.
As humans, we are most comfortable around “our own kind.” This can be taken to extremes (the holocaust, slavery, ethnic cleansing), but it is something that is hard-wired into our psyches. When we are forced into situations (or choose to go into them) where we are the lone “one of our kind” amongst a vast array of “otherness,” this is when our true character comes to the forefront. It can be something as simple as starting a new job where everyone else is more experienced than I am, or as extreme as going to a foreign country where I do not speak the language and look physically different from everyone surrounding me. How I act/react in these situations are the truest test of my character.
“A culture consists of the behavior patterns, beliefs, traditions, institutions, taste, and other characteristics of a community passed from one generation to another.” (Stein, 75)
As much as we would all like to consider ourselves open-minded about other cultures, the truth of the matter is that each of us at a deep level will react in some way to someone else’s “otherness”—whether it is noticing the way they’re dressed, the difference in the shape of their eyes, an accent when they speak, or the way they hold their knife and fork when they eat. For the purpose of creating a plot, highlighting and having the characters react to these differences is more important than being politically correct and trying to gloss over cultural differences.
How do we identify these differences without splashing “WARNING: CULTURE CLASH AHEAD” signs in our writing? Stein calls them markers: “easily identified signals that to the majority of readers will reveal a character’s cultural and social background” (Stein, 77). What kind of clothes do your characters wear? Tailored business suits? Jeans with a collared shirt and jacket? Baggy denim shorts with a slogan-spashed T-shirt? What about shoes? Italian loafers or two-pairs-for-a-dollar rubber flip-flops from the bargain bin at Wal*Mart? Brand name apparel or clothes lovingly made at home? The latest style or something obviously from a decade or more before? There are, of course, exceptions to every rule (these types of markers can be used against type), but how you choose to show your character’s culture through physical aspects will give the reader subconscious clues about their cultural background. (For more on showing what characters look like, see Showing vs. Telling—Mirror, Mirror on the Wall and Showing vs. Telling—In the Eye of the Beholder.)
Here are a few markers I used for Anne in Happy Endings Inc.:
- dark green Chrysler Sebring convertible
- crossed her office to the gilt-framed mirror
- Anne hated shoes that didn’t stay on her foot of their own accord, but they were fashionable.
- her camel-colored leather planner
- Just about the only remnants of her personal life she hadn’t given up were an hour of swimming laps in the large swimming pool in the backyard . . .
- the article about her in Southern Bride back in January
- filled the apartment with the dulcet tones of crooners like Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Kay Starr, and her favorite of all, Dean Martin
Go through your first couple of chapters and see what markers you’ve used that show your character’s cultural background—whether their social status, ethnicity, fashion sense, or tastes—and choose some of your favorites to share.
Creating Credible Characters–Who Are You?
Now that we’ve defined where characters come from, it’s time to figure out how we get to know these characters. One of the worst things we can do in our writing is not develop our characters well. This comes either from a lack of knowledge of how to do it or not spending enough time getting to know the characters at a deeper level.
In Noah Lukeman’s writing craft book The Plot Thickens: 8 Ways to Bring Fiction to Life, the first THREE chapters of eight are about characterization. There are dozens of books on the market about characterization—to help with everything from naming them to giving them careers to describing what they look like. That’s in addition to general books about writing that contain chapters or entire sections on building believable characters.
“Begin with an individual and you will find that you have created a type;
begin with a type and you will find that you have created—nothing.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald
What Fitzgerald was saying is that if our characters do not stand out as unique individuals—if instead they fall into “types”—then our writing will be empty.
On a road trip more than twenty-five years ago, we took along a little questionnaire booklet called, “So, You Think You Know Your Parents?” Instead of just trying to answer all the questions ourselves, my sister and I used it as an opportunity to get to know our parents better. The beginning of it contains questions like:
When are your parents’ birthdays?
What cities and states were your parents born in?
Were they named for anyone?
Did they have childhood nicknames?
What was their favorite subject in school?
When they were children, what did they argue most about with their parents?
How did they meet?
Where did they go on their first date? (My parents went to see The Sound of Music for their first date. Is it any wonder I love that movie?)
And so on. Later in the booklet, the questions get a little more in depth:
If your parents found a wallet with $100 in it, would they try to find its owner or keep the money?
What one food do your parents absolutely refuse to eat?
Are they open to changing their minds after making a decision?
What was the happiest moment in each of their lives? The saddest? The funniest? The scariest? (My dad’s being sent to Vietnam, for both of them.) The most embarrassing? The most important?
What irritates them more than anything else?
What do they worry about more than anything else?
Do they always believe “honesty is the best policy”?
What would they say is their worst habit?
What part of the newspaper do they read first?
What do they think about when they daydream?
“When the characters are ready, the story will come out of me.”
~Jeff Shaara
There are as many different ways to go about learning who your characters are as there are writers. Many writers talk about “interviewing” their characters during the development process. Here are three examples I have run across:
Character Background Worksheets
Character Chart
Character Profile Worksheet
I have tried each of these over the years—and while they’re fun for characters who come to me, but whose stories I do not plan to write immediately, I don’t usually bother with them . . . I find that much of what’s on them isn’t relevant to my particular character or the story I’m developing.
The first thing I do when developing a character is cast him. I must know what the character looks like before I can start writing about him. This is true of major and secondary characters. Once I have the image, I can start writing down the basics: age, height, hair/eye color, physical characteristics.
Then, the real work begins. I start by writing the character’s entire backstory: their family background, where they grew up, what they were like as a child/teen/young adult, where they went to school, what their interests were, and so on. For example (from Happy Endings Inc.):
Anne Hawthorne
· Born and raised in Bonneterre, Louisiana.
· Her parents were world-renowned magazine photographers who traveled extensively and left her with her grandparents or her mother’s brothers or sister. Anne begged her parents to take her along, but they went places with unstable governments, diseases, etc., that they didn’t want to expose her to. This left Anne with the subconscious feeling of being unloved and that she had to work to earn her parents’ love.
· For the first years of her life, she spent a net total of about six months a year with her parents.
· When she was eight years old, they surprised her with a trip with them to Washington, D.C. for the 4th of July. The commuter plane they were on to get from Bonneterre to New Orleans crashed. Only Anne and one other person out of 25 survived.
· For a year, while she recovered from her burns and injuries, Anne lived with her grandparents, at their rural home outside of the city. Her grandmother, a retired teacher, tutored her, and when Anne was tested to determine what grade she should go back in, she was able to skip ahead a grade.
· Because her grandparents lived so far out of town, Maggie, Anne’s mother’s only sister, and her husband offered for Anne to come live with them. While Anne loved her aunt and uncle and their four sons, she never allowed herself to become completely attached to them, not knowing when or if they might get tired of her and send her to live with someone else. After all, when her parents would leave her behind when they traveled, she would get bumped from home to home until they came back.
· The scars from her burns ran up the left side of her neck and onto her cheek. The teasing from the other children in school made her turn inward and become very isolated. Her cousins tried to protect her, but the other kids knew better than to do it around them and Anne didn’t talk about it. She also got teased about reaching her full height of 5’11” by age 13 and being larger-sized than was considered popular.
This is just the beginning of three pages that explain who Anne is and what her psychological makeup is.
“Our adaptation of personalizing focuses not on hair color and body type, but on the discovery of a character’s inner values, which give rise to the unique traits and mannerisms that will become an integral part of the story.”
~Brandilyn Collins
(Getting into Character)
Does your character feel like a real, unique person to you? Do you feel like you know enough about him or her as a person that you’d be able to answer any of the questions I listed above? Have you interviewed your character and yet feel he or she is holding something back from you? Have you delved deeply enough into the backstory to truly know where the character is coming from? What techniques/books/questionnaires do you use to get to know your characters?
Fun Friday–Best On-Screen Kisses
Okay, I swiped this idea from my friend Ruth. This was a hard list to come up with, because there are so many good scenes from movies or TV shows I don’t have on DVD. So, these are all screen captures from DVDs out of my collection at home. To see the image, click on the names and it should open in a new window. For more information on the movies, you can look them up on www.imdb.com.
1. Frederick and Anne from 1995’s Persuasion. After eight and a half years of separation, due to her godmother’s persuading Anne to break their engagement, when Anne and Frederick finally admit they’re still in love, they bring eight years of longing into this one kiss. But it’s the slow build-up to it that makes it even more superb.
2. Aragorn and Arwen from Return of the King. Really don’t think I need to explain this one.
3. John and Margaret in North & South. Aside from the fact that I can totally understand why, in the early 19th century, men were not supposed to appear in their shirt-sleeves in front of women as it was too tantalizing (it was considered the equivalent of being seen in one’s underwear), the transformation in these two characters and the development of their relationship from mutual loathing (but still finding each other attractive) to the passion of being free to admit they love each other is what makes this kiss so spectacular. Plus, a lot of my favorite BBC movies are really stingy with the kisses.
Here’s a music montage from the film, too:
4. Navarre and Isabeau in Ladyhawke. Navarre and Isabeau were cursed for loving each other—Navarre becomes a wolf by night while Isabeau becomes a hawk by day. Forever together, yet always separated. Therefore, when the curse is lifted, their reunion at the end is amazing.
5. Han and Leia in The Empire Strikes Back.
Princess Leia: I happen to like nice men!
Han Solo: I’m nice men . . .
Princess Leia: No you’re not, you’re . . .
6. Alexandra and Carl from O Pioneers! There is something about the first kiss of people who have been separated from each other for a long time . . . and those who find romance later in life.
7. Benedick and Beatrice, Shakespeare’s other warring couple (similar to Kate and Petruchio from Taming of the Shrew) from Much Ado About Nothing (brought magnificently to the screen by Kenneth Branagh, who stars as Benedict, too.) After “hating” each other for years, these two are tricked into thinking the other really likes them (which, really, is all they’ve been waiting for). The tension between these two has been building for a long time, giving a great resolution in the kiss.
Update 6/16/07: Last night, I watched another version of this on film, with Sir Robert Lindsay and Cherie Lunghi in the roles of Benedick and Beatrice, and I must say, I enjoy these two actors even more in these roles. And, in this version, their first kiss is held off until the very end, which makes it even sweeter. Click the slider forward to 4:30 in this video clip:
8. Jo and Professor Bhaer in Little Women. Maybe it’s just because of the perfection of the scene in the book. But the “under the umbrella” scene between Jo and Mr. Bhaer (“My hands are empty.” “Not empty now”), is always perfection.
9. Tracy and Dexter from The Philadelphia Story. Kate and Cary, Cary and Kate. Any way you put it, these two are always magical together. Of course, this is kind of cheating, because they really don’t kiss in the movie, there’s a “photo” of it, and it’s not one of the most attractive kisses. But it’s my favorite movie, so I had to include it. But the lack of a good shot of them kissing is why it’s number nine.
10. Jadzia and Worf from their wedding on Deep Space Nine. These were my two favorite characters out of any in the entire Star Trek compendium. Their romance was explosive, sometimes violent, and always very sweet. (Please forgive the quality of the images—it’s from a DVD made from an old video tape recorded from broadcast TV.)
Honorable Mentions—Near Kisses
I couldn’t do a topic like this without including some I wish were kisses or which were great non-kissing scenes . . .
11. Faramir and Eowyn from the extended version of Return of the King. I was never able to read the books all the way through, but the chapter where this scene falls (“The Steward and the King”) is one that I’ve read over and over and over and over. The romance between these two characters is so sweet, and I was nearly brought to tears when I saw it the first time in the extended cut.
12. Darcy and Elizabeth in the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice. Yes, I know they do actually kiss later (and it’s pretty good, too), but never before, in any other version of the film, have I been on the edge of my seat straining to see if Darcy is actually going to kiss Elizabeth during the proposal scene. Matthew MacFadyen did a fabulous job in this scene!
13. Joe Bradley and Princess Ann in Roman Holiday. I have a love-hate relationship with this movie. I love the chemistry between Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. I love the romantic tension between the two of them. I hate that it doesn’t end the way I want it to. And yet I keep watching it time and again hoping that this time it’ll be different. But it never is. Even though they do kiss in the movie, I’ve put it under “near kisses” simply because of the way the movie ends:
14. Captain von Trapp and Maria at the ball when the captain comes out and sees Maria trying to teach Kurt the Laendler. This is my favorite scene in the movie and one that I can watch over and over and over and over . . .
Creating Credible Characters—Where Do Characters Come From?
Those of you who have children are probably familiar with this question: “Mommy/Daddy, where do babies come from?”
The age of the child asking the question probably determined how you answered this question—whether you told them about the stork or about the “birds and the bees” in full disclosure mode.
Answering the question, “Where do characters come from?” is very much like answering the baby question. There’s the stork-like answer we give to non-writing friends and then there’s the full disclosure we discuss amongst fellow writers. There are no storks here (well, maybe just one).
There are usually two methods of developing characters in fiction:
(1) We have a great idea for a story—we know the plot, can visualize the action scenes, hear snippets of dialogue—and we come up with characters that will make the story happen.
(2) We have a character come to us (the stork brings him!)—we know what he looks like, sounds like, thinks, feels, does, etc.—but we have to figure out a story that will make his existence interesting to others.
In most writing circles, the first type of story is typically called “plot driven” and the second “character driven.” A plot-driven story is something like The DaVinci Code—where the action takes precedence over character development. Conversely, someone like Nicholas Sparks’s novels are mainly character driven. It’s about the emotions, about the relationships—it’s the character arc that is the most important part of the story, not the action.
- I have heard recently from a mentor at the grad school where I’m an alumna that we should be cautious in labeling our stories “character driven,” because many editors and agents interpret that as “it has no plot.”
This is not to say that you cannot come up with the character and the plot at the same time—many times, what seems to be a fully developed character will come to us with plot in hand: 1+2=novel. But even in those instances, once we start writing, we discover we didn’t know as much about this character as we thought we did. And then other characters start walking onto the stage and throwing their own ideas, their own conflicts into the mix—and things can go haywire pretty quickly . . . but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Where do my characters come from?
Most of the characters I have written have been inspired by real people (me and my friends from college who became the fictional characters I wrote about for nearly ten years and more than 200,000 words), by people I’ve seen on TV (such as the idea I came up with for a story involving a former 80s boy-band member and an opera diva forced to work together on the spring musical at the community theatre in the small city they now live in), by actors (such as George in Stand-In Groom, who was inspired by the British actor Peter Wingfield), or by other fictional characters (usually because of the way they’re brought to life by certain actors, such as my heroine’s father in Ransome’s Honor, Admiral Witherington, who was inspired by Sir Robert Lindsay’s portrayal of Captain/Commodore/Admiral Pellew in the A&E Hornblower movies).
- I wrote about the process of CHARACTER CASTING in the series “Be Your Own Casting Director,” which can be found on the FICTION WRITING SERIES page under “Storyboarding/Be Your Own Casting Director.”
I do tend to be a character-driven writer—in other words, I get inspired by characters first, story second. The story usually develops out of the characters I come up with, and each character—major or secondary—comes to me with their own story of who they are. I’ve written before about my fictional city, Bonneterre, Louisiana, that I’ve been using as a setting for more than fifteen years. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned that I have a spreadsheet that contains more than five hundred “characters” who live in this city. They are named, grouped by family, and the majority of them have an occupation to define who they are. Ninety-five percent of them will never show up in anything I write. But when I do need a real estate agent or a nurse or a welder, all I have to do is go to this database (created over the span of many years), and the character is already there, set up, ready to walk on stage. With the exception of the characters from my first two complete novels, the main characters of my subsequent novels have all been developed outside of this “population database”—in other words, the database has become a repository for background characters, or extras, to use a filmmaking term.
In moving my setting to 1814 Portsmouth, England, I’ve had to create all of the characters from scratch . . . well, mostly. Many of them have been inspired by other works set during the era, though I’ve made them into my own creation. But what gave me the idea in the first place? Paul McGann as Lt. William Bush in the Hornblower movies, of course. I fell into a deep infatuation with this actor/character, which led me to the book, where the character of Lt. Bush is even more dead-set against Horatio’s marrying Maria, as he feels women are simply a distraction. So this started me thinking: what kind of woman would it take to make a man with this kind of attitude fall in love with her? I went through several different ideas until I finally came upon my heroine: the independent, “old maid” (twenty-nine-year-old) daughter of the hero’s admiral/patron—the man William most highly respects in the world. The catch—she can’t stand to even hear William’s name mentioned, because she feels he took her twin brother’s place in her father’s heart after her brother was lost at sea fifteen years before. So in fact, the Ransome trilogy was conceived/birthed because of the idea for one character. One character has spawned thirty or forty others (though I did completely cut three characters last night)—and an entire history of three families: the Witheringtons, the Ransomes, and the Pembrokes.
Where does the inspiration for your characters come from? Give an example, either of your favorite character or of the most unusual place you’ve ever gotten inspiration for a character.
Creating Credible Characters—Introduction
Who are your favorite fictional characters—from books, TV, or film?
I’ve had a hard time trying to narrow this down to just a couple of examples, myself. I go through whims, and a lot of it depends on if a character of someone else’s creation is currently serving as inspiration for my own stories. For example, right now one of the characters I keep returning to is Lieutenant William Bush from CS Forester’s Lieutenant Hornblower (Bush is the point of view character for the book). I especially like the way he was brought to life by Paul McGann in the A&E movies (just in case you haven’t heard me say that often enough).
Along similar lines, Captain Frederick Wentworth is my favorite of all of Jane Austen’s characters. He seems to have a more real presence, more tangible flaws than Darcy or Knightley or Edward Ferrars, more of a character arc.
When it comes to characters of more recent creation and not related to anything I’m writing, I love what the writers of LOST have done with their characters—throwing them all together in a crisis situation (plane crashing on a seemingly deserted island), then slowly, over the seasons of the show, revealing tantalizing bits of who these people were before the plane crash and how they’ve become what they are now (and might become in the future . . .). Each of the main characters is unique, distinct, because of the painstaking attention to the detail of their backstory (which ties in with the forward movement of the plot in each episode).
When it comes to my own writing, choosing a favorite character is equally if not more difficult. The hero of whatever story I’m writing at the time is my favorite ever as I, along with the heroine, fall deeper in love with him as the story unfolds.
I think I might have to say, though, that my favorite couple I’ve ever written are Hannah and Stefan. Theirs is one of two romance threads in my second manuscript, The Best Laid Plans. I’ve thought more about Hannah and Stefan since finishing that book—have actually written another fifteen to twenty thousand words after the happily-ever-after ending just to spend more time with them. I think the main reason they’re so dear to me is because out of every character I’ve ever written, Hannah is the closest to being autobiographical—though the heroine of my current contemporary romance is starting to hit uncomfortably close in a few places.
This will be a two-part series.
The first part, Creating Credible Characters (I love alliteration!), will be about our characters (duh!): where they come from, how we get to know them, and how we get them to come to life on the page.
The second part, Picking a POV, will focus on point of view: omniscient or limited; first, second, or third person; present or past tense.
So, let’s get this party started—tell us who your favorite fictional character of page or screen is (of someone else’s creation) and why. Then choose one or two of your own creation you are really proud of or you’ve really enjoyed writing and tell us about them. If you have any specific characterization-related questions, don’t forget to post those too.
Manuscript 101–What else?
What else needs to be covered in the basics of formatting a fiction manuscript? We’ve covered:
Manuscript 101–the Book List
Manuscript 101–Introduction & Basic Manuscript Format
Manuscript 101–Comma, wherefore art thou?
Manuscript 101–The Apostrophe’s Dilemma
Manuscript 101–Where do I put the “quotation marks”? (which includes information on using ellipses and em dashes)
What other major technical formatting/grammatical issues are out there? ‘Cause I’m really wanting to start writing about something other than the stuff that I deal with at work every day. 🙂
(I’d like to start discussing characterization and point of view . . .)
Fun Friday–Literary Theme Parks
I can’t believe I only managed two posts this week on grammar/punctuation! They took me a while to write, and I hope that having each one up for a couple of days has been helpful so that more people have found them and been able to refer back to them without all the information piling up.
I got a confirmation e-mail today that my 2007 ACFW National Conference registration status has been upgraded to finalized! Yay! (I booked the hotel room a couple of months ago, and bought my plane ticket three weeks ago, so it’s a good thing, huh?)
Okay, on to the topic . . .
About six or seven weeks ago, I wrote about Dickens’ World . . . a small theme park in England based on what has come to be known as Dickensian Victorian England. Well, they opened to the public Friday, May 25, 2007, and according to a blurb in the local (Kent, UK) newspaper May 29, had to start turning people away on Sunday, it’s been so successful.
I just reserved a copy of a new book, Austenland, from the library. In it, the heroine goes to “Pembrook Park,” a resort in England where the visitors must live in the Austen-era world as Austen-esque characters. (Wonder if Shannon Hale got the idea while watching Regency House Party on PBS?) How long will it be before life immitates art and Austenland really exists—whether as Hale imagines it as a “go live the lifestyle” type resort or as a Dickens’ World-style amusement park.
I did hear this week, from a friend at work, and then the next morning in a short blurb on NPR’s Morning Edition, that plans are underway for a Harry Potter theme park in the holy land of theme parks, Orlando:
“The next time your family goes to Disney World you might make a side trip to Harry Potter Land. Orlando, the home of Disney, will become the site for a Harry Potter theme park. You can stop by the Forbidden Forest. You can attend the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. All you have to do is wait until the year 2009, when the park opens. And there will then be a place for those who think the books, and the movies, aren’t enough.”
Turning literature into amusement parks/rides isn’t anything new. Think about the literary tradition Disney has remade into its own stories and built attractions around in its theme parks: Cinderella, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, The Little Mermaid, Davy Crockett (a real person around whom much fiction has been written), Treasure Island, the Swiss Family Robinson, the Jungle Book, Sleeping Beauty . . .
So what’s next? Here are some of my ideas literary theme parks (some of these may actually exist—I just didn’t feel like spending two hours searching the web for them):
–the Fairy Tale Worlds of Hans Christian Andersen and The Brothers Grimm
–the Gothic Worlds of Anne Radcliffe and the Bronte sisters
–Austenland (how could I resist?)
–Faulknerland (in Mississippi)–though it might be rather depressing
–Steven King Land (only for the stout-hearted)
–Kipling’s World—based on the tales of Rudyard Kipling
–The Mystical Lands of Narnia and Middle Earth (two parks in one!)
–Nathaniel Hawthorne’s New England (like Dickens World, only with Puritans)
–Uncle Tom’s Great Escape–An adventure camp where you get to help Uncle Tom (a costumed character) escape from slavery
–It’s Scarlett’s World, We’re Just Living in It—dress up and dance at the ball, eat barbecue under the oak trees at the Twelve Oaks restaurant, ride the Burning of Atlanta roller coaster, learn how to say “fiddle dee dee,” and take aim at the Yankee deserters (dummies) who are trying to invade your home.
What about you? What literary theme parks can you come up with?
Manuscript 101–Where do I put the “quotation marks”?
Thanks Amy Jane for giving me the perfect segue from apostrophes into quotation marks. Where quotation marks come in relationship to other punctuation can be rather tricky, especially if you’re like me and you read not just American-published stuff, but British and Australian as well. If you’re outside of the U.S. reading this, please understand that the rules I will refer to apply to standards of American printing. Also, this will focus on the use of quotation marks in fiction writing. If you need information on how to format/cite quotations in academic or journalistic work, I suggest you refer to the MLA or AP manuals.
As 99.99% of fiction writers already know, spoken dialogue is enclosed in quotation marks. A change in speaker is indicated by a new paragraph:
“I’m sure they treat you like a celebrity down in Atlanta.”
“Hmm.” The author grimaced. “Yeah—and that’s one of the reasons I’m here now.”
A thrill of excitement rushed up Kirsten’s spine. “Are you here to research a new book?”
“No, but I’m sure this place and its history will give me some ideas. I’m moving here—to teach English and journalism at Boone College.”
“Oh—those lucky students! I’m sure you’ll be their favorite professor.”
“Thanks.” Ms. Hebert sipped the latte. “This is really good. How much do I owe you?”
Kirsten held her hands up in protest. “A visitor’s—or newcomer’s—first cup is always on the house.”
Periods vs. commas. A period is used when what comes after the closing quotation mark is a new sentence (all of the examples above). A comma is used when what follows is part of the same sentence—most often seen with “said/asked” dialogue tags or when an action beat comes in the middle of a line of dialogue:
“If you’ll just look at this,” she held the report out toward him, “I think you’ll understand.”
“I don’t want to look at it,” he said, turning away from her. “Just tell me what it says.”
Interrupted speech. An em dash is used to indicate an interruption:
“What in the—”
“Look out!” Jeremy tackled her just before the bus hit her.
or
“How could you possibly think”—she jumped to her feet—“this wouldn’t upset me?”
The em dash is also used for interjections/parenthetical elements in the middle of a sentence. These are often what they refer to in drama as “asides.” Like parentheses, you must remember to close your em dash:
“When we went to the Grand Canyon—remember, the family trip back in high school—we went through Santa Fe on the way back.”
The em dash, as you’ll notice, does not have spaces on either side of it. It is achieved in MS Word by typing two hyphens – – (with no space between them) after the word where you want it. The keyboard shortcut is [ctrl][alt][number-pad minus sign] in the PC version of Word and [option][apple][number-pad minus sign] in Word for Mac.
One formatting problem Word has when using an em dash is that at the end of a piece of dialogue, it turns the quotation mark around the wrong way. There are two ways to eliminate this problem. In the PC version of Word, after your em dash, hit [ctrl][‘](apostrophe) then [shift][“]. This should turn the quotation mark the right way (this works for getting the apostrophe to face the correct direction at the beginning of a word, too). Or you can do it the cheap way: type your two hyphens followed by any random letter, followed by the quotation mark, then delete the random letter.
Faltering/Fading speech. An ellipsis* is used to indicate when someone’s thought trails off, or to indicate that they’ve gone on and on and on but you’ve saved the reader the tedium of reading something you’ve either already shown before, or that it’s not important (shown through the other character’s bored reaction):
She shrugged. “Well, you know what they say . . .” Her voice drifted off.
“No, what do they say?”
*Three spaced dots are used when they follow an incomplete sentence. Four dots (period [space] dot [space] dot [space] dot) follow a complete sentence. . . .
Ellipses can be used at the beginning of a line of dialogue when a character has walked into a conversation in progress.
Quotations within quotations. When you are including a quote within a quote, it goes in single quotation marks:
“When he said, ‘by any means necessary,’ I don’t think he meant bribery.”
(Notice, the comma goes inside the single quotes.)
“I think I know what he meant when he said, ‘by any means necessary.'”
(Like the previous example, the period goes before the single quote mark—because a period won’t change the meaning of the quote.)
“What did he mean when he said, ‘by any means necessary’?”
(Now the punctuation comes after the single quote, because the quoted statement isn’t a question. If I’d put the question mark inside the single quote, it would have changed the meaning of the quote.)
All punctuation would come after an apostrophe at the end of a sentence:
“Good mornin’.”
“How’re you doin’?”
The general rule for closing quotation marks and other punctuation, according to CMS 6.8, is that periods and commas always come before the closing quote mark. In standard dialogue, a question mark, exclamation point or other punctuation all come before the closing quotation mark (not after the speaker attribution if you’re using a said/asked dialogue tag). When you’re not writing dialogue (for example, when writing your blog or nonfiction) and you’re using quoted materials, commas, periods, and ellipses would come inside the closing quotation mark. If the quote does not include a question mark or exclamation point as its own closing punctuation, question marks and exclamation points, along with colons and semicolons, come after the closing quotation mark:
Which of Shakespeare’s characters said, “To be, or not to be”?
I hope that clarifies things. What are some other questions about quotation marks that I’ve missed or that you’ve run into in your own writing?
Manuscript 101–The Apostrophe’s Dilemma
There is a little punctuation mark that has a giant dilemma: the apostrophe. Little Apostrophe likes to hang around in contractions and possessives, but many times gets thrown into places where he doesn’t like to be—especially plurals. Little Apostrophe doesn’t understand why people insist on forcing him into places he doesn’t want to go. Let’s find out how to protect Little Apostrophe . . .
1. Contractions and abbreviations: Apostrophes are used when two words are joined together and/or when letters are omitted (contractions such as can’t, won’t, didn’t, ’tis and abbreviations such as ’em, ’07, or ’99). When the apostrophe comes at the beginning of the word (as in ’tis), the opening of the curve goes toward the letters that have been omitted. This differentiates it from a single quote mark.
don’t—contraction of do not. The apostrophe replaces the letter (o). (Bedford 36c, CMS 7.31)
rock ’n’ roll—abbreviation of and. The apostrophes replace the (a) and the (d). (Bedford 36c, CMS 7.31)
’tis—the apostrophe would be pointing toward the omitted letter (i) to form the contraction for it is. (Bedford 36c, CMS 7.31)
’07—the apostrophe would be pointing toward the omitted numbers (20) to indicate the shortened form of the year 2007. (Bedford 36c, CMS 9.34)
2. Possessives: This is another area where I saw a lot of people struggle gramatically in the Genesis contest. According to the CMS “general rule” (7.17)– “The possessive of most singular nouns is formed by adding an apostrophe and an s, and the possessive of plural nouns (except for a few irregular plurals that do not end in s) by adding an apostrophe only.” Before adding an apostrophe or an —’s to the word, please examine the word to make sure it’s singular or plural first. (CMS 7.17–7.18.)
This is Jones’s dog / This is the Joneses’ dog (the first indicates there is only one Jones, the second that there are two or more Joneses who own the dog—the confusing thing is that both are pronounced the same when spoken).
This is the childrens’ first play date / This is the children’s first play date (the first is just completely wrong, because children is already plural, therefore, adding an –s before the apostrophe is incorrect)
It’s so easy, it’s child’s play.
(See CMS 7.19–7.22 for exceptions)
3. Plurals: Apostrophes are never, never, never, never, never, never used to create plurals*. Plurals are formed by adding an –s or –es (or –ies for words that end with y) to the end of the word (for the most part—there are those that completely change form when made plural, like women and children)—even when they are proper names or single capital letters. Don’t apologize for adding an –s to a word by feeling you have to put in an apostrophe. Be bold! Just add the –s! For example:
Keeping up with the Joneses
We’re taking the kids to the beach.
The Jacksons live here.
The three Rs: reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic. (what educator ever came up with that?)
the 1990s, the 1800s, I Love the ’80s.
even abbreviations: vols. (for volumes), eds. (for editions)
no ifs, ands, or buts
The Dos and Don’ts of Networking
yesses and nos
*Exception: Okay, so there are two very rare instances when you would use an apostrophe to create a plural: with lowercase letters (dot your i’s and cross your t’s) and with abbreviations that have internal periods or use both captial and lowercase letters (M.A.’s, Ph.D’s—though the trend is toward omitting the periods, so in this case these would become MAs and PhD’s–with the apostrophe with the second due to the lowercase h). See CMS 7.14–7.16 for further examples and explanations.
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