One of my favorite lessons from the last creative writing course I taught at ANU CCE was about the relationship between characterization and plotting. When you start thinking in terms of how your individual character would uniquely move the story forward you can really start getting into some complex motivations and some really authentic, original conflicts and resolutions. When your character starts telling you what happens next, you know you’ve reached the character/action integration sweet spot.
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of psychology and anthropology books. They’ve been calling out to me at the used booksellers, with their promises of new knowledge and insight, new ways of thinking. My next novel is very much focused on the relationship between mother and daughter, and so I’ve also been reading some seminal feminist texts on the conflicts of the mother’s role in society. As I’m reading, certain sections pop out as concerns that would work well for my character. If you don’t know where to go with your plot, this is also a great way to forge ahead because once you find the conflict for her, it’s not a very far stretch to work out a situation in which to play out this conflict. In fact, that’s the fun part, isn’t it?
This can work for any genre. For thrillers, the internal motivation of the characters is just as important as the external motivation. But you need to plant these seeds early on, rather than conveniently dumping a new fear of spiders just at the moment when your hero will have to crawl through a tunnel of, guess what, er, spiders, to save his wife and face his greatest fear. The best way to set this kind of scenario up is to get to know your character inside and outside from the very beginning. You can find many character charts online to help you out. Here is a really thorough one: http://www.eclectics.com/articles/character.html. You don’t have to fill it all out, but it gets your brain working in a more holistic way, thinking of your character as a fully-fleshed out, acting individual, rather than a guy with blond hair and blue eyes. .
When you get to the point where the characterization and the plot are so dependent on each other that the next scene is a no-brainer to you, you know you’re on a good path. It’s an exciting point to be at—when the book begins to write itself.
I’d love to hear your experience, opinions, or questions on this topic.
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What’s it feel like to have your novel turned into a movie?
Since Disney has adapted my 2003 novel DIARY OF A WORKING GIRL into a feature film starring Hilary Duff, people have been asking me what it’s like having my book made into a movie, seeing a big star make my character her own? After putting in a decade of hard time as a novelist the book to screen experience has been amazing for a number of reasons: First of all, the instant spike in popularity is the most remarkable difference. All of a sudden my name’s in every newspaper and magazine I’ve been trying to get it in for ten years. I feel like Lane after she got her big assignment, or Mary Tyler Moore: I’m gonna make it after all! Friends, readers, family members, libraries, and book stores keep telling me You’re famous! That they saw me in The Times or in The Post. “See, I told you you’d make it,” they keep saying. And they did. But in some ways I’ll always be the girl to whom my sister once said in all seriousness, “You think everyone’s just buying your books as a favor to you, don’t you?” I have to hand it to her, the girl had my number on the insecurity front. This movie thing does make me feel a little more legit, though, if nine books under my belt hasn’t managed to. One day I’ll wake up and say “They like me! They really like me!” But until then, the support is overwhelming and helps me ride the wave, whether or not I take it all with a grain of salt. It’s cool to be contacted by all the people who’ve supported me back when nobody ever heard of me— and to have them say how proud they are. I can feel them tearing up over the phone.
Secondly, DIARY was my first novel. I wrote it many years ago and it is set in the world I inhabited at the time—a world of big dreams and high hopes, in which I subsisted on free drinks and hors devoirs, learning with my best friend (whom Joanne is based on) the best place to stand for first dibs on the caviar topped bilinis and the giant shrimp while trying to act like my outfit wasn’t by Old Navy. I can remember writing DIARY at a furious pace—it only took a month—with all my frustrations and pent-up energy racing my fingers across the keys. It felt like a make or break shot to me. I remember that clearly. When I finished I sold to a major publisher in a week. The dream I’d never dared believe would come true actually had. It was amazing. And now, seeing Hilary Duff take the character of Lane and transform her into something all her own is just as heart-stopping. Hilary is a fantastic physical comedian, and I got chills at the parts that rang so true to my experience of researching and writing the book and living that lifestyle at that time—seeing her trip over the grates the way my character had, the way I had so many times, was such a trip. I laughed out loud, elbowing my husband and yelling, “that is so me!” and calling out the bits that were exactly like the novel—three or thirty-five times.
Going back to recall the time that inspired DIARY OF A WORKING GIRL is like looking at an old essay you wrote in college, or an outdated resume—it’s like revisiting a younger version of yourself, with the bonus of all you know now. It’s bizarre and wonderful; it makes you consider your successes and the good times, but also conjures up the failures, the mistakes, the obstacles that seemed never to stop littering the path to your dreams; just when you were so close, something else came in the way, someone else said no, you can’t, you won’t, this isn’t the way it works, it’s too hard, these things never actually work out. Well, I’m not an I-told-you-so sort, but if I were, this seems like a good opportunity to get one in there. On the other hand, you think about the people you spent your time with—how many of them you still love, Facebooking the ones you haven’t talked with in a while. The feelings all this reconnaissance has evoked have been tremendous—so many wonderful people to connect with, so many warm-fuzzies to feed on. It’s one big love fest in the Brodsky/Noble household these days.
From a craft perspective, I’m editing DIARY for a new ebook edition with great bonus features. And it’s mildly terrifying to go back so far in your career. I’m looking at something I wrote previous to a decade’s experience, with a different mindset and in a different genre than I work in now. In some ways I’m cringing the whole time, but at the same time I’m thinking, huh, I actually have learned something after all. And while I certainly plan to bring parts of this old manuscript into my writing students to show them what not to do, I’m laughing so much and enjoying Lane’s ride as much as I did the first time around, maybe more. She’s loveable and fun, and clever. Yet she has so much to learn about the ways of love—just as I did at the time. That question of what love is and how to know when you have it will always resonate, and that’s what lends both the book and the movie timeless fun and makes the character—both mine and Hilary’s—so sympathetic.
People have always called me Carrie Bradshaw, mainly because I was the only single girl journalist they knew who was writing about nightlife and relationships in the big city. I never took it seriously, but I admit, when I saw SEX AND THE CITY for the first time (it was years before I could afford HBO) I searched my apartment for hidden cameras, who’d been following me and writing about my life, and why wasn’t I getting any royalties? And when I realized that Candance Bushnell was a struggling writer for years before SEX AND THE CITY came to the small screen, I allowed myself to harbor a flicker of hope—if only in my daydreams—to nourish me through the more difficult struggles of the writer’s life. Maybe that DIARY movie will actually be made, and maybe it will be a big hit. Well, I wonder what Deepak Choprah would say about this outcome? Now, my only hope is that my work can evoke even a fraction of the kind of widespread enjoyment Candace Bushnell’s projects have given the world—myself included. And, of course, I wouldn’t mind the wardrobe and shoe allowance that would come with it J
