Everyone loves a narration that races forward . There ’s a reason we have a go at it record that are “ Thomas Nelson Page - turners . ” But does a fast - paced story full of thrills and excitement mean you ca n’t also make room for theatrical role ? Hell no . Here are 11 slipway to make a story about characters and emotion that ’s also a seat - of - your - gasp ride .
One of the first thing I ever write for io9 was about short - story writing , and I aggress the myth that there are “ part - free-base stories ” and “ plot - based story , ” and these two kinds of piece of writing are mutually exclusive , or fundamentally dissimilar in some way . Every story has a game and persona — even just a story about someone induce a mass of tea — and if everything ’s working in good order , they go together .
I ’ve clamber with balance emotional profoundness and fast - step plot development evermore , and this is never fail to be something that ’s easy for me . And particularly in my novel All the Birds in the Sky , which comes out a week from today , I really struggled with progress to room for my independent characters to have rarify emotional lives — while also founder them a thrilling adventure . I have no idea if I pulled it off ; you ’ll have to judge that for yourself ! But here ’s what I see while writing it . But a really awesome plot , in which everything is blowing up in all directions and your heroes have to halt a elephantine robot from stepping on everyone , can get so heavy on plot mechanics that you lose deal of what the character are feeling . And if you spend so much fourth dimension on diving deep into the ocean of your quality ’ psyches and how they feel about their childhoods , you may regain yourself putting all of the all-important turkey - defusing , base - jump action on time lag .
1) Character is action
As we already talk over inthe article about creating memorable characters , citizenry are defined by what they do . Someone ’s favorite flavor of marmalade is n’t nearly as interesting as what he or she will do in a tough position . ( Even though the correct answer is “ whiskey . ” That is the best flavour of marmalade . )
We pick up about fiber by the choices they make and by the thing they do — so a really great plot twist , that is driven by the characters and their emotions , is worth 100 scenes where someone cogitate about their love of Irish country dancing . Which brings me to a magnanimous pointedness : a expectant story is often one where the persona make defining choices that move the game forward . A plot point that happens because someone we care about has decided something is usually superior to one where a random thing leave out out of the sky .
This was the wall I kept running up against when rewriting All the Birds in the Sky . There were times when Patricia and Laurence just felt like they were sweep along by the events of the story — and I had to buck that all up and line up the instant where they really make a choice that causes everything else in the story , instead . This involved a heap of late - night cursing and gravid Department of State of whiskey - flavor marmalade .
2) We have to see the characters dealing with the fallout
This is sort of the flipside of “ graphic symbol is action . ” Whether a fibre caused a plot item to happen through their own actions , or whether they were just hit by a bus that some other fictitious character was driving , we have to finger how it affects them .
This is true if you ’re indite an explosion - a - minute action - adventure story , or a slow clowning of manners . If someone ’s friend choke , or they suffer a major reverse , or if they deliver the goods a huge victory — we need to feel the exercising weight of it and how it changes their character . you’re able to do this in a few brushstrokes , and it does not demand to be a long wearisome gaze , but natural process that does n’t have an effect on the characters is n’t really action . I have always sucked at this , because I ’m usually raring to get to the next fun set piece or interesting moment — but I ’ve had to check the hard mode to make time for people to feel the effects of what they ’ve experience . Or if someone is deliberately not take with it , let us see that they ’re not dealing with it , so we bed that this is an issue we ’re going to get to later on .
3) Small moments of character insight can feel like plot twists
There ’s a cause why Jane Austen ’s novels are such Thomas Nelson Page - turners . A great moment of understanding something about a quality that we did n’t empathise before can finger like a huge bombshell , if it ’s cover well . This is partly a subject of scale — set aside the characters to palpate big enough , and their aroused landscape painting to be wide-eyed enough , that every novel find seems monolithic . But also , it ’s a matter of all the same things that make an malign brain ’s plan to suck up the Statue of Liberty sense exciting and full of tortuous surprise . It ’s all setting up expectations , construct up your anticipation , play with your emotion and then force out the carpet — Jane Austen is a master of suspense .
4) A big battle or surprising explosion can mess up your characters’ plans and ideas
Really respectable character development is often about how masses deal with obstruction and unexpected problems . And “ OMG a million bionic man soldiers just jumped out of a starship in small orbit and they ’re take antimatter cannons on our front lawn ” is one hell of an obstruction to your lineament deal with their personal stuff , whatever that might be . A character might really want to talk through his relationship with his expert friend , but fighting off these cyborg assassinator kind of takes priority . The delayed emotional payoff only gains intensity from the fact that we ’re having to fight off ogre . And vice versa — the battle against these deadly cybernetic Orcinus orca only feels more exciting and scary because we ’re dying for these two character to outlast and be reunited , or whatever . And the reversal is also true …
5) Introspection is suspense.
This sounds counter - intuitive , but it is 100 percent true . When you know that something bad is going to hap , but you do n’t know on the nose how or when , then watching characters dish out with their personal emotional baggage can be excrutiating .
Building suspense is incredibly heavily , without repair to a lot of clumsy “ and small did she screw that even as she was enjoying her tiffin , a grue was climb up the drainpipe”-type poppycock . There ’s a reason why so many motion-picture show director have fall back to the tight focus on a character , while barely letting us view the ominous shadows in the setting — and you may do the precise same damn matter in your penning . A fictional character who is deep focused on his or her own emotional issues is n’t focused on the frightful thing that you know is do up right behind her at any minute . But also , in a more world-wide sentiency , self-contemplation get you worry about a character — you are find out so much about them , you ’re now double braced for something terrible to happen to them . And also , the journey to the last fight can take as long as you need it to , for mass to have One Last Conversation about their emotions before they all get splatted .
6) Introspection is also foreshadowing
And here ’s the other part of that . If the plot really is driven by your main character sticking a crotch in an electric socket , while the reviewer scream , “ NO DON’T DO THAT , ” then every minute we spend exploring the gnarliest fissure of their psyches is just helping to set the lector up for the fantastically ill - advised decision they ’re go to be making soon . This does n’t have to be explicit or all spelled out — in fact , the more surprising the decision is when it arrives , the well . It ’s just that subconsciously , the reader can tell that something pretty awful is on the horizon from the way that character are chewing over some old grudge and obsessions .
7) Good world-building is both emotional and dangerous
We often cerebrate of world - building as “ identify lunch . ” But it ’s just as much , “ Here are all the things that can kill you . ” And really secure world - building is character - edifice , too . Decent world - building depict you where all of the trapdoors and poisonous grocery and potentially life - ending mistakes are , and some of those trapdoors and potential disasters could be things that the character have some personal joining to . World - construction should never feelZork - y or like an itemized list of what you see in a elbow room , really , and the more personal all of these details are for your character , the more hazardous some of them can be . Just whatever you do , do n’t go into the Forest of Landmines — it ’s full of poisonous mushrooms . ( We called it “ the Forest of Landmines ” because that sounded cooler . )
8) Never throw your characters under the bus for a cool idea.
It ’s true that there are no rules when it comes to writing , but I ’m kind of influence to say this one is an genuine rule .
This is the deadliest sin that so many picture show , as well as a net ton of novel , commit . Having someone crock up a joke that is totally not something that grapheme would say — but it ’s such a good put-on , you do n’t give care . take someone do something really , absurdly out of graphic symbol , because it set up a really badass moment . Making smart characters short act like changeling to enable a cause of death scene . Etc . etc . etc . action mechanism that comes at the expense of your characters ’ integrity is smutty legal action .
aboveboard , this one foreshorten close to the osseous tissue for me , because I ’ll cast out the sister , the bathwater and the bathing tub for a really curious joke sometimes . Even in the almost - last version of All the Birds in the Sky , there were moments where I was degrade my role because of a shady line or fit that I could n’t bear to get disembarrass of . I had to really go on a slash - and - burn mark jaunt in that final revision , to get rid of all the bits where the character were getting shortchanged for the saki of one of my dearie . It was super - awful , especially since I ’d somehow convert myself the novel was already done . But it led to another big realization :
9) Figure out what points you have to hit to make everything feel earned
When I finally rooted out all the parts of my novel that were cheating the character for the saki of a funny bit , I was left with some gaps . And those gaps made me realize something — I had been skip over over some of the moments that would help set up the big turn point in my novel .
There were places where I was just throwing in a random lot piece rather of showing how the characters get from A to B , and that mean that some big present moment feel un - earned . I got haunt with the idea of “ connective tissue , ” meaning the low minute that you hardly discover , that help you see how the characters are progressing on their mode to the next heavy abide - out minute . In general — even if you ’re writing a undercover agent natural process book where every other page is another explosion — bragging moment have to feel realise . To outride with the spy - novel thing , the bomb that the undercover agent is defuse has to feel like a tangible bomb calorimeter , that could really go off .
And when it comes to draw a character - focused novel sense natural process - packed , I really think that any moment that aid you to pull in the big blockbuster scene in the novel is fit to find exciting in its own right . Really , the antithesis of “ action at law - packed ” is “ uneventful , ” and anything that builds up impulse — however subtly — for a swelled turning is in reality an effect .
10) Keep ‘em guessing
A million predictable event do n’t feel as exciting as one insane event that derive out of nowhere . wearisome characters and boring action are both just … boring . A character who deals with some luggage from her childhood and come up with a surprising new savvy of herself as a resultant role can be exciting , if the surprise is actually something the reader did n’t know was coming down the conveyer belt belt old age ago . The dichotomy between “ character development ” and “ natural action ” is dizzy anyway , but in any case the more meaningful note is between “ predictable ” and “ whoa , I did not see that coming . ”
11) Sometimes the emotional resolution is more important than the big plot reveal
This was the liberal decision I made in revising All the Birds in the Sky . I had a whole coolheaded plot reveal in the third act , which paid off a whole cluster of threads from earlier in the narrative , and made good sense of a lot of hooey I had hinted at to begin with .
But there was no elbow room to give that reveal the space it need and allow my witch , Patricia , and my mad scientist , Laurence , to deal with their relationship . The reveal was so Brobdingnagian , it wind up sucking the oxygen out of all of the gravid character bit in the final chapters . And I realized the book was stiff without it . All of the stuff that needed to be explained still got excuse , all of the plot of ground threads still paid off in a huge way , but the ending is now 100 pct about Laurence and Patricia make major , lifetime - change decisions . confound that openhanded secret plan twist out the window was one of the hardest decisions I ’ve ever had to make — and maybe someday I ’ll post the whole affair online somewhere . But it was utterly the correct matter , even from the stand of making the novel feel action - packed . Because instead of processing a immense new patch of information at the eleventh hour , my characters were doing things . Sometimes plot twists can actually bring the natural process to a halt , and characters can drive the action mechanism forth . That was probably the hardest lesson to check , and it ’s one that I ’m sure I ’m go bad to discover again and again .
All images viaLeo Boudreau .
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