Character Development Don'ts, Courtesy of Burt Wonderstone

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Spoiler note: There are lots of them below, so beware.

So, okay. I like Steve Carell. A lot. But when he does movies like Burt Wonderstone, it leaves me scratching my head. Steve Carell is way too smart for this. At least I hope he is. (Well, I guess there was Evan Almighty. And Despicable Me 2. And then he's doing Anchorman 2 this summer. Um.)

When I saw Burt Wonderstone, I finally understood the perils of poor character development--the consequences that occur when the protagonist doesn't develop along with the plot, and in Burt's case, sometimes regresses. It reminded me of some good advice I'd gotten recently at a conference--to examine my characters at each important plot point to see how they've developed with the story.

I'll be showing you Burt at various stages, using Janice Hardy's plot points in my example: Opening scene - Inciting event - Act one crisis - Act two revelation - Midpoint reversal - Act three disaster - Climax -Wrap up

Opening Scene

This part is pretty endearing, and probably my favorite part of the movie. It starts out in 1982, when Burt is growing up. He's bullied, and latch-key kid. He even has to make his own birthday cake when his mom has to stay late at work. His birthday present is a magic set from the great Rance Holloway--and here his love of magic begins. He brings the kit to school and develops a friendship with his future magic partner and friend, Anton Marvelton. So far, so good.

Inciting Event

I wasn't really clear when this occurred, if it actually did--and this is why starting in flashback isn't always a good idea. They had to flash forward through Burt and Anton's "big break" at Bally's in Las Vegas, and the hiring of a new assistant named Nicole. And then it flashed forward yet another ten years to show their act growing stale. A lot of exposition, here.

Act One Crisis

Burt and Anton take a back seat to a David Blaine-like street magician named Steve Gray, and Doug, the owner of Bally's, kicks them to the curb after an unsuccessful stunt. Anton quits and goes abroad to Cambodia, and Burt tries to do the two-man act by himself--without changing a single thing. This Burt is completely different from his 11-year-old counterpart. It seems doing magic all these years has regressed him into an 8-year-old. He refuses to change his act, even though the plot elements insist he should.

Act Two Revelation

This never happened. We spend the next 30 or so minutes seeing Burt waffling, refusing to budge, ignoring others who try to help him--until he ends up bankrupt. I know it's customary for some characters to be stubborn, but here, he's just clueless. When Nicole offers to put him up for the night, he leaves his dinner dishes outside the front door because he's so used to room service. What happened to the self-sufficient kid who baked his own cake in the oven?

Midpoint Reversal

When Burt ends up performing magic in a retirement home, he meets his idol, Rance Holloway--who started his love of magic in the first place. At last, the movie becomes watchable again. Burt checks his stupidity and ego at the door, and decides to team up with Rance to do a magic show for Doug's kid's birthday party. He's now more humble, and more willing to try new things in his act. But it took meeting his idol to shake him out of his stupor.

Act Three Disaster

This never really happened either, unless you count Burt's humiliation at the kid's birthday party, when Steve Gray takes over his show. But this makes Steve look worse than Burt. At the party, Burt finds out about a competition for the upcoming main act at Doug's new hotel (redundantly called "Doug"), and decides to enter. Everything is on the up and up. Anton returns, and he and Burt collaborate on the one act they couldn't do as kids--the disappearing audience.

Climax

This is still the same Burt we saw at the midpoint reversal, so not much growth has happened since. The character who develops the most here is Rance--who decides to take part in a public magic show for the first time in years. Burt flawlessly executes his disappearing audience trick by using a drug Anton discovered in Cambodia to make everyone pass out. There's no suspense here at all--Steve Gray takes himself out of the running early on by drilling a hole into his head.

Wrap Up

This is just a montage of Burt, Anton, and Nicole shuffling around audience bodies to the point of breaking them to demonstrate the back-end of their disappearing audience trick. No further growth here, either.

So there you have it. And hopefully Steve Carell will stop accepting these crappy scripts.

Now it's your turn--take a snapshot of your character at each plot development and see if they're different or not. 

ALIEN IN THE HOUSE by Gini Koch

I'm excited to feature Gini Koch's latest in her Alien series, ALIEN IN THE HOUSE. You should also check out her new novella, HAPPY ACRES HAUNTED HOTEL FOR ACTIVE SENIORS--it's completely hysterical!

Jeff and Kitty Katt-Martini have learned the ins and outs of Washington politics, not to mention how to prevail in intergalactic war and foil dangerous plots. But, in the aftermath of Operation Destruction, the Gower girls’ powers are burned out, the entire A-C population has been “outed” as the aliens living on Earth that they are, and, worst of all, ACE is nowhere to be found.

Then murder and mayhem are served up at an important dinner party at the American Centaurion Embassy, and when the dust settles Alpha Team and the Diplomatic Corps have more problems than just a dead Congressman.

Is there a single criminal mastermind—or multiple enemies—behind all the conspiracies that want Kitty dead and the A-Cs gone or co-opted to become the War Division?

The return of the best assassins in the business, the reappearance of two individuals long-presumed dead, Agent Malcolm Buchanan felled by something no one can identify or cure, and new technology that can block even the most powerful empath on Earth … all of this means the game’s officially afoot.

Then Vance Beaumont comes to Kitty with a wild theory that someone is systematically killing off the House of Representatives…

It’s up to Kitty and the rest of the gang to find out what’s really going on and why. But will they be able to stop the killer or killers before the rest of the U.S. House of Representatives become casualties? And will the replacement Representative for New Mexico’s 2nd District, who happens to be Jeff Martini, be the next to die?

Welcome to Happy Acres (Haunted) Hotel for Active Seniors, the premiere senior living facility in all of Southern California (especially if you’re already dead)!

At Happy Acres we pride ourselves on the depth and breadth of our elder care (and for how many haunts we have -- 789 and counting!) as we surround your loved ones with vibrant, interesting people of their own generation (and many generations prior).

Happy Acres is fully staffed 24/7 by a team of dedicated (and in some cases, spellbound) medical staff, as well as housing one of the state-of-the-art medical inpatient and outpatient facilities in the Southland (just don’t see your doctor after dark), so your loved ones are ensured the best care in their golden years (and long after, as well).

Don’t let the rumors (all true) fool you -- while Happy Acres is indeed the best, its costs won’t race your beloved elders to an early grave (no, others will handle that). So come to Happy Acres, a facility you’ll love so much you’ll never want to leave!

Gini also answered some updated interview questions!

You crank out a lot of books under many pen names. What keeps you on top of deadlines, and what do you recommend to published writers who may be experiencing burn-out?

Sheer force of will keeps me on top of deadlines and sometimes even that’s not enough. LOL As for what I’d tell other published authors, it’s what we tell each other -- alcohol is your friend, taking a couple hours off to go out to lunch with your friends is a good thing, and remember that the house can always get cleaned up to perfection once the book is turned in.

Everyone’s different, and we all burn out in some way at some time. But temporary burnout is different from career ending burnout. The best advice I have is that when the people around you start telling you that you need to take a break, it’s time to listen to them and do as they say. Usually your family and friends will spot you burning out well before you yourself do.

It's good to remember that burn-out isn't always permanent--and you're right, down time is important (and necessary). In the acknowledgments section of THE HAPPY ACRES HOTEL FOR ACTIVE SENIORS, I noticed you mentioned your grandmother Julia. Is Julia similar to the main character Maddie? If so, how?

She is somewhat, though honestly, Maddie has a lot more in common with Kitty from my Alien series than my grandmother. But my grandmother was fun and funny, she wasn’t really afraid of anything, and men just LOVED her, so there’s a lot of her in Maddie that way. And she proved to me that you’re only old if you THINK you’re old. My grandmother was in her early 90’s when she died, but she never, ever seemed old.

Reminds me of my grandmother--and why I miss her so much. In the newest book in your Alien Series, ALIEN IN THE HOUSE, Jeff and Kitty Katt-Martini have to solve a murder of a Congressman. What was this idea inspired by, and how do you keep your ideas and characters fresh when writing a series?

My first reading love was mysteries, and I have a mystery in almost everything I write, even if it’s not the main genre or subgenre I’m writing in. I wanted to see how Kitty and Company would handle a full on, straightforward murder mystery, which is how this book came about.

As for keeping the characters and ideas fresh, Kitty and the others are all aging, and changing. As you age, your experiences change you somewhat and what you do changes, and that alters what’s going on around you and how you react to it. I love these characters and I enjoy telling their story, so keeping them fresh isn’t all that hard.

Getting new ideas is a little harder, but again, the characters are on a path and I enjoy getting them to their next pivotal moments, so that’s not so hard. And the characters usually tell me the rest of what’s going on as I’m writing. So it all works out.

Following character paths along pivotal moments sounds like a great way to help a story along too. Great strategy! In our last interview, you said a lot of great things about the art and craft of writing. In your opinion, how is art different than craft, and how does one practice art versus craft?

Art is the thing -- the book, the painting, the sculpture, the TV show, the movie, the dance, etc. Art can be done well or poorly, but even if it’s bad it’s still art, if you will. Craft, however, is how you make art that’s wonderful and amazing. Craft is the constant practice and perfection of your art. The practice of art IS craft, but as with any kind of practice, the goal is to get better and better, not remain the same.

No one would ever want to buy a handmade dining room table from someone who literally just made their first table. Why? Because no one would have the faith that this first table was any good. The person who’d made the table wouldn’t have had enough practice making tables to be 100% sure this table could hold a full Thanksgiving dinner without collapsing. However, after that table maker has made hundreds of tables, then the customer can feel pretty sure that the artisan knows how to make a table that can stand up and stay up.

And yet we tend to treat art differently, as if, merely because we WANT it to be great, we don’t have to practice our craft like everyone else. “I wrote ‘The End’ so it’s READY!” is the cry far too many newer authors rally around. You wrote the end and that means it’s just really the beginning of all the rest of the craft work you need to do to make that book an actual piece of art that someone else wants to read.

Excellent example--and you're right--it's definitely more of a marathon than a sprint! Of all the books you've written, which are the ones you're most proud of? Why?

I’m proud of all of them. Some are published and some are not, but I’m proud of everything I’ve written, even the things no one will ever see. I’m proud because it’s so easy to say “I want to write” and yet so few people actually do, and even less actually finish something, let alone send it out on submission, etc. So I’m proud of everything because I actually walked the walk, not just talked the talk.

But if forced to pick one and only one, it’d have to be the first book in the Alien series, TOUCHED BY AN ALIEN, because that book landed me a great agent, a two-book deal with DAW, and launched my career. So it’ll always be the most special one for me.

Author Bio

Gini Koch lives in Hell’s Orientation Area (aka Phoenix, AZ), works her butt off (sadly, not literally) by day, and writes by night with the rest of the beautiful people. She writes the fast, fresh and funny Alien/Katherine “Kitty” Katt series for DAW Books, the Necropolis Enforcement Files series, and the Martian Alliance Chronicles series for Musa Publishing. As G.J. Koch she writes the Alexander Outland series. She also writes under a variety of other pen names (including Anita Ensal, Jemma Chase, A.E. Stanton, and J.C. Koch), listens to all kinds of music 24/7, and is a proud comics geek-girl willing to discuss at any time why Wolverine is the best superhero ever (even if Deadpool does get all the best lines). She speaks frequently on what it takes to become a successful author and other aspects of writing and the publishing business. She is also the Lead Editor at Raphael’s Village, an online, nonpaying ’zine. Because she wasn’t busy enough, Gini’s added on featured guest columnist, reviewer, and webcaster for Slice of SciFi and It’s Comic Book Day. She can be reached through her website at www.ginikoch.com.

To get more of Gini's books for yourself, click on the links below:

PARADOX and RULES FOR GHOSTING, by A.J. Paquette

I'm excited to feature author/agent Ammi-Joan Paquette's latest releases: PARADOX, a post-apocalyptic story with a twist, and RULES FOR GHOSTING, a middle-grade ghost mystery.

Ana only knows her name because of the tag she finds pinned to her jumpsuit. Waking in the featureless compartment of a rocket ship, she opens the hatch to discover that she has landed on a barren alien world. Instructions in her pocket tell her to observe and to survive, no doubt with help from the wicked-looking knives she carries on her belt. But to what purpose?

Meeting up with three other teens--one boy seems strangely familiar--Ana treks across the inhospitable landscape, occasionally encountering odd twists of light that carry glimpses of people back on Earth. They're working on some sort of problem, and the situation is critical. What is the connection between Ana's mission on this planet and the crisis back on Earth, and how is she supposed to figure out the answer when she can't remember anything?

Twelve-year-old Dahlia has always lived at Silverton Manor-having spent fifty years as its resident ghost. When Oliver Day and his family show up as house-sitters the day Mrs. Tibbs, a Liberator sent by the Spectral Investigative Council, arrives to teach Dahlia the proper rules for ghosting, Dahlia can't wait to make new friends. But the unscrupulous ghost hunter, Rank Wiley, and the crooked town councilman, Jock Rutabartle, plan to rid Silverton Manor of its ghosts and sell it to the highest bidder. With her home and friendships at stake Dahlia may have to break the rules of ghosting as quickly as she learns them to solve the mystery of her death and save the manor. Equal parts charming and eerie, this ghostly caper hits all the right notes for the middle-grade audience.


Your website states that you are an agent as well as an author. What led to this, and what advice do you have for people balancing more than one career?

I think most of us balance a variety of careers or “hats” as I like to call them—whether as with a day job, full-time or otherwise, as a parent, or even in the ever-consuming task of promoting one’s book(s) as they are released. For my part, I was an author first and foremost, and came into agenting in early 2009. This was a career that I had long desired to get involved with, and I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to be able to make that desire a reality. For me it’s been the perfect complement to my writing career—I remain immersed in the world of books, but without having to exercise that creative side of my nature all the time. What could be better?

Sounds like a nice variety! I love the premise of PARADOX. Where did the idea come from, and what do you want readers to take away from the story when they're finished?

In this case, the character came first—the flash of an image of a girl waking up in a rocket, on an alien planet, with no memory of who she was or why she was there. This was the starting point for me, and everything from that point on became a process of uncovering the mystery of Ana's past, and what exactly she was sent to that planet to do. As far as takeaway value—first and foremost I hope they will find this a fast-paced, exciting read. But beyond this, I think there are a lot of big questions about facing fears head-on and how far you would go to rid yourself of the past… how this would shape your life and, ultimately, would you be better off for it in the end?

Fascinating that Ana revealed herself as you wrote her--and I love the themes you explored.You write both picture books and novels. How does the writing and editing process differ between these two types of projects?

The great thing about picture books is their ability to fit into the smaller cracks of time, which are certainly more readily available in my everyday work life. A picture book is certainly not any easier to write than a novel, but it doesn’t have as much need for great swaths of uninterrupted time in the way a novel does. A picture book text can simmer in the background of a writer’s consciousness until that perfect word, line, or plot twists suddenly pops out of the seeming blue. With that said, I greatly enjoy working on both shorter and longer projects—again, it gives balance to my writing self, providing what creative outlet I feel is needed at any particular given time.

Excellent view on picture book writing--and one I hadn't yet heard. You have another book, RULES FOR GHOSTING, that came out this month. What sort of promotion is involved when multiple books release back-to-back?

There are pros and cons, I suppose. The worry in having several releases close together is that of overwhelming friends and acquaintances, of coming on too strong with the “look at my book!” The advantage, though, is being able to combine promotional efforts—having an event geared toward more than one book, etc. Also, for those of us who are weaker on the promotional side, having several books out at once is a definite motivator, moving book promotion from a “nice thing to do” to a genuine necessity!

Great tips--especially for those who might be nervous about promoting their work. When looking at submissions as an agent, what kinds of manuscripts would you like to see more of? What kinds of manuscripts are you tired of seeing?

Well, unfortunately the Erin Murphy Literary Agency has a closed submissions policy. But you can find a list of conferences I will be attending up ahead on the agency website, as I welcome submissions from attendees of events at which I’ve spoken. As far as tired manuscripts, my answer to this question is always the firm conviction that every author should write to his or her own passion. Forget trends. Forget what’s overdone. Forget what’s selling. Find the story that is lodged immovably within your own soul, the story only you can tell. That’s what you should be writing.

Excellent, and reassuring, advice! Thanks so much for a wonderful interview.

To purchase PARADOX or RULES FOR GHOSTING for yourself, click on the links below:

DEADLY BONDS by Anne Marie Becker

I'm excited to announce that the third book in Anne Marie Becker's Mindhunters series, DEADLY BONDS just released! You can also get the first book in the series, ONLY FEAR, for 99 cents through July 31!

 

Holt Patterson, widower and single father, is a mindhunter, a profiler of criminals, at SSAM. Sara Burns, dedicated director of The Hills Boys’ Academy, has secretly loved Holt for years, but she refuses to pine for the husband of her dead best friend. When a vigilante serial killer known as Toxin insists on righting injustices, Holt and Sara will be forced to work together, and will learn that second chances and happy endings are possible.

The book is now available on Amazon.

And if you want in on the 99 cent deal for ONLY FEAR, click on the below link before July 31!

Making Connections

We’ve heard it before, from agents or editors who’ve read our submissions. At least I have. “The content didn’t excite me very much.” Or, “This didn’t quite click with me.” And even, “I found it really difficult to connect to [insert character name here].”

Our initial reaction is usually along the lines of, “What?! My characters are fantastic. I wrote them to be relatable. And my story pops right off the page. What the hell are you talking about?”

But then I stop. And think. And realize that maybe—just maybe—I haven’t communicated my characters and story as well as I thought. A posting from WriterUnboxed, dated September 13 of last year, proves how common this is:

“…the Heath brothers point to a fascinating experiment done by Elizabeth Newton in 1990 at Stanford. She separated people into two groups: tappers and listeners. The tappers were asked to tap out simple songs, for instance, “Happy Birthday to You,” for the listeners. They were then asked to gauge how many of the songs they were tapping out the listeners would recognize. The tappers estimated that the listeners would get it half the time. In fact, out of 120 songs, listeners only got 3; in other words, they were right 2.5% of the time, instead of the 50% that the tappers estimated. Why the wide discrepancy? Since the tappers could “hear” the song in their head as they tapped it out, it didn’t occur to them that what the listeners heard sounded a lot like random tapping.”

Genres as gluttoned as YA fantasy or contemporary romance, where agents and editors see hundreds of similar stories, make for a lot of random tapping. This might explain the above reactions. What we’re really hearing is, “Oh. It’s another one of these.”

So, how do we make our books stand out? 

First, character. Take a look at the dialogue and mannerisms of your protagonist or heroine. Is she doing things that anyone else would do (Furrowing eyebrows? Gulping? Shaking her head?). Now change them to things that only she would do (Twining her unruly hair, scowling at her geometry homework). Do the same for your secondary characters (or your hero, if you’re writing romance).

Then, a compelling story. The challenge here is to rise above common tropes that have already been used. A romance in the Old West? Good. What makes it different? A girl who travels to another world? Fine. Why is her story important? Ask yourself: Is there anything that can be summarized instead of played out? Can you offer plot solutions that aren’t usually seen in stories similar to yours? Don’t think about how your characters get to various places. Ask why.

Rejections will still come (unfortunately). But the more high impact we make our fiction, the more it’s likely to resonate with readers (and agents, and editors). And that’s what counts.

Plotting Don'ts Courtesy of Iron Man 3 (Spoiler Alerts, etc.)

If you haven't seen Iron Man 3 yet, and are awaiting the DVD release, beware the spoiler alerts below. And, more importantly, good job for not spending the money at the theater.

A lot of people liked it, based on its high rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  Others didn't. While watching the movie (in the theater), it felt like I was looking at an Iron Man suit with nothing underneath--rife with plotting "don'ts" that all writers should avoid.


Inciting event--when?

All good plotters know that an inciting event (the thing that puts the rest of the plot in motion) needs to happen within the first 25-50 pages of a novel (or first 15-20 minutes of a movie). Iron Man 3's inciting event happens all the way back in 1999, for reasons that aren't quite clear, other than a "scientific advancement" that could have just as easily been developed during the course of the movie. Instead, we have to believe that Tony was never contacted about it until 14 years after the fact. Uh. Yeah.

Inciting events that happen in flashback almost never work--and are difficult to do well. Avoid them, if possible, unless it's completely necessary to the story.

A plot more stranded than Tony is.

After landing in the middle of nowhere, Tony Stark meets a small boy who has no visible family (seriously--they never appear on camera). The kid is introduced with no plausible backstory, and then Tony just leaves him when he gets what he needs, including a watch and some other equipment. The watch is probably the most annoying thing of all. It's a Dora the Explorer stopwatch that the kid took (stole?) from his little sister, who also never appears on camera--all for the audience satisfaction of watching Tony Stark wear it on his wrist. Hilarious. A woman even stops Tony outside a bar and proceeds to ask about the pink, girly thing. In a twist, she's been tasked to kill him--but waits to jump him until he's had a full meal inside the bar.

Wait, what? Why didn't she just attack him on the sidewalk? Because the writers needed Tony to get some "necessary information" in the bar, information that could have easily been introduced beforehand.

The moral of this: be sure any plot elements you use are directly in line with the story and characters.

Mandarin--who?

It's one thing to take your reader by surprise--and as writers, we're encouraged to. It's entirely another to build a really great premise for a villain--and then drop it completely. There was so much online vitriol about The Mandarin that the director had to publicly explain the decision--and not just for the purists. The precedent built in the preview was completely turned on its head for no apparent reason other than a few laughs.

Be sure your villain has as clear of a motivation as your protagonist. You can still surprise your audience--but don't disappoint them by not delivering on what was promised.

Seriously, Tony Stark is not this dumb.

Tony's house gets attacked because he discloses his home address on national television. I know he's cocky, but what would actually compel him to do that? Sure, it advances the plot and creates a really cool action scene where his house is ransacked. But Tony would know enough to keep his address a secret, wouldn't he?

If that weren't enough, it's revealed toward the end that Tony has a whole army of Iron Man suits in the basement that he could have pulled out at any time to save his house and protect Pepper. But instead, he waits to bring them out until the final battle, when they're completely unnecessary--so much so that he has to destroy them all.

Your protagonist has to have clear motivations for what he does--and they have to be consistent. If Tony Stark can do "Shakespeare in the Park" with Thor, he would definitely know to call out his army of Iron Man suits before his house falls into the ocean.



If you liked this movie, I sincerely apologize. But I see these same plotting mistakes addressed on author and agent blogs all the time--and I hate when they ruin franchises I like.

When Edits Collide...

Edits—they can be a drag. Sometimes, you work for hours only to improve a few pages. Other times, you do line-edits until you’re blue in the face—and you’re not even sure if they made the story better or not.

So, what do you do if you end up in what I like to call the “Never-ending Editing Vortex”? Here are some solutions that have worked for me:

·         Develop your own process

One of the biggest mistakes I made as a beginning writer was concentrating too hard on line edits instead of the overall story. Story fixes need to happen  first—and line edits can wait until the final pass-through. But everyone’s process is different—make sure you choose what works best for you. For example, I need to put a time limit on my edits—otherwise I’ll edit myself into terrible places, and, six hours later (no exaggeration), I’ll be clawing my eyes out.

·         Let your characters and story drive your edits

On the most recent pass through one of my novels, I realized I had a secondary character who disappeared after a few scenes. Solution? I ended up killing him off—and it made the story inter-connect a lot more effectively. If your edits are dragging you down, look at your characters and story—and get inspiration from them.

·         Figure out which feedback to take, and which to leave

There are two breeds of writers: the ones who can’t take criticism (don’t edit enough), and the ones that take it too far (edit way too much). And then there’s a third breed—the ones who know which criticism to take, and which to leave. Be that third breed—your edits will be much more likely to make a positive difference.

·         Don’t be afraid to trunk your novel for a little while

Sometimes, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, the novel still might not work the way you want. So, trunk it for a bit and work on something else. Just because it’s in the trunk now, doesn’t mean it always will be. Revisit it later, with some time and distance.

            Granted—these strategies won’t work all the time, and you’ll sometimes have to adjust your editing process based on the book you’re working on. But hopefully, they will make things less daunting, and the writing more fun. Because having fun is what writing is all about.