First, I want to define speculative fiction. In general, I would call it the combined genres of science fiction and fantasy, but most horror falls under the category, as does quite a bit of romance, but not really in the same way. Really, what makes speculative fiction special is that it does not portray life as it is, but as it could be. The world doesn’t really have space colonies, unicorns or ghosts, but that doesn’t stop us from writing about them. (As a little aside, this problem has actually been tying philosophers up in knots for quite a while, with the question “How can we write about Pegasus if Pegasus does not exist?” but that’s not really important). This distinction between the real and the possible, has a profound impact on the language we use to tell stories, which often goes unrecognized by writers in these genres.
This connection is rooted in Tolkien, and LOTR. Tolkien was, as some know, a philologist, a now largely defunct area of study, which can be bluntly described as a collision between literary theory and linguistics. It is natural that linguistics and language should have played a key role in his work, and one untrustworthy source says that he composed the Elvish languages first, and then wrote the story as they grew out of it. One of the consequences of this work is that LOTR is actually a translation from Elvish into English! Not that he wrote the entire book in Elvish first, but the world Tolkien constructed was so intricate that he actually intended LOTR to be read as a translation, not as an original work in English. This actually created some interesting anachronisms throughout, like a metaphorical reference to a train in the first chapter (obviously elves would have no concept of trains). Read more…
Dialect is used often in writing, and often used badly. This is because dialects are often poorly executed, and poorly utilized. I myself am hardly an expert on them, and am not a subtle enough author to use them well. That said, I still want to offer a few cautionary points to think about if you do want to use a dialect in a story.
First, it is important to consider why you want to use a dialect. Often, authors use it because they want their character to have a distinctive voice. This is a bad reason to use dialect, because it is often poorly executed and disconnected from the character. Besides, there are much better ways to give a character a distinct voice without using something as heavy handed as a dialect. Dialects actually affect a character’s history. It tells us much more about our character’s family, their childhood, their education, and where they live and work, then just “how they sound.” If the dialect is disconnected from the rest of the character’s history, it no longer makes any sense for it to be there. Read more…
The emotional reaction is the first part of the sequel, which I introduced here. I want to go over some good questions to ask yourself about this part as you are revising. I would suggest that you avoid thinking about these questions until you start revising, because there are few ways of derailing your writing faster than getting ahead of yourself and allowing your critic to come out too soon.
How emotionally invested was the main character in the previous scene? – The answer to this question affects not only the type of emotion your character feels, but also how long you will spend on their emotions in general. It is possible to skip over a character’s emotional reaction entirely, but beware: if you ignore your character’s emotions without good reason, you risk readers believing that your character is a heartless bastard. Most characters will feel something, even those not directly involved in a scene. Just a mention of exhaustion of some kind is often enough. However, what doesn’t make sense is for a character with little at risk in a scene to then respond with some incredibly powerful emotion, like grief or fury. If you want to get your character that worked up, you have to invest them emotionally in the outcome. Read more…
When I discussed motivation here, I brought up the idea of pressure. I wanted to take a moment and expand on that, and in particular, what it means in terms of character development. There are two kinds of pressure. The first is internal pressure, and the second is external. This distinction is probably fairly obvious, but I’ll elaborate on it a little. Internal pressure arises from the character’s own desires. When a character wants something, and because of that want is motivated to pursue a goal, then they are feeling internal pressure, and are internally motivated. When a character is forced to take action because of outside forces, then they are feeling external pressure, and are externally motivated. The line that divides these is pretty clear, but that isn’t to say that a character can’t be motivated by both pressures at the same time. However, there isn’t really an example of pressure which is both internal and external in and of itself.
What, then, does this have to do with characters? Most of you have probably heard of active and passive characters before, with active characters being motivated actors, and passive characters being acted upon. A better way to define this distinction is to be aware that active characters always have internal motivation, while passive characters always have external motivation. This avoids some of the negativity that has been unfairly heaped on passive characters in the past, because passive characters are just as necessary in a good story as active characters. Read more…
I first want to distinguish between a character’s goals and a character’s motivation, because, while they are related, they are not the same thing. All characters have goals, in the same way that all people have desires. In fact, with some hesitance, I would equate the two. I hesitate really only because of a reluctance to carry the baggage the concept desires drags along with it, but that is beside the point. A character with a goal has some idea of how some aspect of the world should be, and they want to modify the world so that it reflects that ideal.
A character’s motivation is different, and requires two things. First, in order to be motivated, the character must have some sort of “pressure” being exerted upon them to act with a certain end in mind. However, this pressure alone is not enough. The character must also have a means by which they can accomplish that end, for the character to actually be motivated towards that end. Read more…
