Surprises

Have your characters ever done anything to surprise you? Something totally out of character, but something that totally and completely worked with their situation? People are unpredictable. Why can't characters be? Actually, aren't characters supposed to have contradictions in their character.

So, here's my point: Ray surprised me this week.

Here are a couple of facts about him so you can see why he surprised me:
1.  He's introverted.
2.  He doesn't talk about his feelings. At all. He's the kind of person who would prefer to deal with his problems by himself and not involve anyone. He doesn't really want anyone to see his pain. He's a good liar and a good actor, so you rarely see what's really going inside his head.

So, here's what he said:

*Note: The POV character is his sister, Aura.

**Another note: He just ran away a week or so ago and tried to commit suicide and they're sort of talking over it.

      “I almost had a panic attack. I’m not kidding.”
      He raises an eyebrow at me and I can’t help but remember a couple of years ago when he’d do that just to annoy me. I always got mad at him because no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t do it. The sides of his mouth twitch a little. “That might have been funny to see.”
      “It wasn’t funny at the time. You scared me.”
      “How come?”
      “What kind of a question is that? Because I knew you might be dead already when I left the house.”
      “Why would you care though?”
      He’s never asked me anything like this before and I think I know the answer he’s looking for, but I haven’t told him that in ages, which kind of makes my heart heavy. I laugh a little, like it’s a totally obvious answer. “Because I love you, that’s why.” And as soon as I say it, I know it’s true, even though only a year ago, I would have completely denied it. Sometimes faces are unreadable and right now I can’t tell what’s going through his mind. Especially since he won’t look at me. I wonder how long it’s been since someone has told him that he’s loved. He hasn’t heard it from me and definitely not from Mom.
      “What about Chris, though?” I can tell he’s kind of forcing out the words. I can only imagine how much it would hurt to think or talk about him after what had happened.
     “What about him?”
     “A…are you still mad about what I told you the other day?”
     I can’t help hesitating a bit on that question. “Okay, first off, I’m not mad at you, specifically. But, sometimes it’s hard to get used the idea, you know?”
     He nods, like he completely understands that. ... He has the same expression on his face that he did at the hospital when I told him that Chris had died. Like he’s trying to block his emotions.
Copyright Hannah De

See what I mean? He's never ever said anything like that before. Has your character ever surprised you?

Foreshadowing

If ever there were an amazing example of foreshadowing, Hugo would have to be number one. There are probably even instances that I didn't even notice, because I wasn't watching it fully.                      

Foreshadow| verb: to give a suggestion of (something that has not yet happened)

                : to represent, indicate or typify beforehand: prefigure 

I'll give you a couple of examples from this movie and then maybe you can see what types of foreshadowing you can put in your story.

So, here's the basic premise of Hugo. Hugo lives in a clock in a train station in London. His father has died and his drunk uncle has abandoned him after teaching him how to wind the clocks. His life's goal is to find out why his father died and he plans on doing that by fixing the automaton that his father never finished before he died. It's a writing automaton and he's convinced that the note it writes will be a message from his father.

The movie

The real life situation

Foreshadowing example #1: Hugo's father always used to take him to the movies and so, when he meets a girl who has never seen the movies, he sneaks her into a movie theater and shows her what a movie looks like. In the movie, a man is trying to climb a wall and loses his balance and grabs the nearest thing, the minute hand of a nearby clock and he dangles. Later in the movie, when Hugo is attempting to get away from someone, he inches out the window in a clock and grabs hold of the minute hand and he dangles, waiting for the danger to pass.

Foreshadowing example #2: Hugo is having a dream. He's walking next to the train tracks and on the slats he sees a key. And not just any key. It just so happens to be the key that operates the automaton that he's finally fixed. He jumps onto the tracks and is turning the key over and over and wondering what it's doing on the tracks and the tracks start shaking and the train is barreling toward him. Later, in real life, the automaton falls onto the tracks and the train is pulling in and Hugo jumps onto the tracks to retrieve it, the tracks shaking and the train barreling toward him.

Foreshadowing can enrich your novel and add depth. It's also a pleasant surprise to re-read a book and look at those little tidbits and realize, "Oh, that's what they meant."

Motivation

What do Finding Nemo, Spiderman and Maleficent have in common? I know, a total cliche to opening a blog post, but I couldn't help myself. So, think away readers, and contemplate my deep question...

Hint: The title has something to do with it...

Each of them have exceptional character motivation that we all can learn from. I'll make sure to warn you if there are any spoilers in case you haven't watched one of them. 

A couple of types of motivation for characters that are believable: 

1. Fear, with a legitimate root. In Finding Nemo Marlin is afraid of two things. The ocean and losing his only family, his son, Nemo. Why? At the beginning of the movie in a prologue of sorts, Marlin is a newlywed moving into his new home with his wife, Coral, and his four-hundred-plus eggs. As they're watching their babies sleep, Coral remarks casually that she wants to name one of the fish Nemo. Mere minutes later, a barracuda attacks, knocking Marlin out. When he comes to, Coral and all of his children are gone, except for one egg that got knocked to the ocean floor and forgotten. And he names the fish Nemo. As a result, Marlin is overprotective of Nemo and doesn't let him do anything that could be possibly risky. 

2. Being too sheltered: This one's also from Finding Nemo. His father's overprotectedness prompts Nemo to chafe under the short leash. After his dad yells at him and embarrasses him in front of his friends for almost doing something against what his father had taught him, he break the rules, resulting in him getting captured. 

3. Revenge: Sometimes this can feel forced, unless you do it right. Maleficent does this incredibly well. Maleficent has been betrayed by the person that she thought was her true love. So, as a result she storms the castle that he lives in and casts a curse on his firstborn daughter, Aurora, that "before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday, she'll prick her finger on a spinning wheel and fall into a sleep like death."

4. Power hungry: Again, be careful with this one. This can be super unbelieveable and cliche if the character doesn't have a good reason for wanting power. This one is again, excellently shown in Maleficent. Stefan meets Maleficent when they're both young and points out the castle that exists where he lives. "See that castle?" He says. "Someday I'm going to live there." Maleficent asks him where he lives now. He looks down for a second and finally admits, "A barn." After a bit more prompting she gets out of him that he's an orphan, and homeless, but someday he wants to rule. This later prompts him to betray Maleficent's trust in order to get the throne.

5. Something wakes them up: In Spider-Man, after Peter finally figures out about his powers, he intends to use them to get the attention of the girl he likes. He goes to a wrestling match with the hopes to win $3000 to buy a car that will impress his lady. He knows he can win. Right before he goes, his uncle pulls him aside and gives him a talk about using what you have to help people. "With great power comes great responsibility." Peter yells at his uncle to stop acting like he's his father and leaves. After the match the man refuses to pay him the amount he feels is due to him. "I fail to see how that became my problem," he says. "Now get out." So, Peter stalks out of the office. As he is walking away, a man walks into the office and holds the man at gunpoint, demanding all the money. The theif runs past Peter, and he has an opportunity to stop him, but he doesn't. Just lets him go. When the money man asks him why he didn't do anything to stop the theif, Peter simply says, "I fail to see how that became my problem." And he leaves. SPOILER: As he leaves the building, he sees a crowd of people and pushes through it. His Uncle Ben is on the sidewalk, bleeding from a wound in his chest. A man had shot him and stolen his car. Later Peter realizes that it was the theif that he had let pass at the wrestling match. If he had only stopped him....SPOILER END In the end, he remembers what his uncle had said, and begins to do things for people to help.

I'd suggest watching these moves and noticing different character motivations. I haven't nearly covered all of them. Are there any movies you've seen that have exceptional character motivation? 

Fear

Every character should have something they fear. Something that, no matter how brave they are, will send them running. I saw an excellent example of this in a TV show that my sisters were watching. It was a Little House on the Prairie episode called Blind Journey, and normally I don't like Little House on the Prairie, but this one expertly showed fear with a legitimate root.

Adam Something-or-Other is married to Mary Ingalls and both are blind. They teach at a school for blind children and teach them how to live life without sight. They're moving the school to a different location and they know they must cross a river in order to get there. They're camping close to the river (I think) and Mary is curled up next to Adam, and even though she's blind, she knows something's wrong. "You're shaking," she observes. He assures her that it's nothing and they go to sleep. They get to the river and the ferry doesn't arrive, so they have to ride a zipline-type thing across the river, one-by-one. Adam is the last to go over and he's curled in a ball and he won't let go of the rope that connects him to the wagon. He shouts at the man who tries to get him across, "I won't go and you can't make me!"

Later, when they've finally got him across, he's laying next to Mary again. He hasn't said anything since the incident. He's breathing heavily and shaking and Mary tells him, "We're okay. Everyone is safe and sound." He doesn't answer for a second, and finally he whispers, "I'm a coward." He tells her a story of when he was a little boy and his father took him fishing. He hopped around on the rocks, without a care in the world. Then he tripped and hit his head. When he woke up again, he was in a hospital and he couldn't see. Since then he'd always been afraid of water. "I acted like a coward, Mary," he says again, sobbing now. 

She comforts him saying, "After what you've been through, you have every right to cry."

Every character must have a fear, and, if possible, a legitimate root to that fear. We relate better to a person who doesn't have everything together and is sometimes afraid, and even more so, when we can understand their fear. Hope this got your creative juices flowing. Do you know of other stories that pull this off well?  

Guest Post by Aurora "Aura" Simms

Once upon a time, I dreamed of a hot guy riding into my life and sweeping me off my feet. I envisioned myself as the damsel in distress. He would see me. I would see him. We'd fall madly in love and he'd rescue me. Carry me away from my awful life. Away from my mom and her constant lectures. Away from my little brother and his constant teasing. In my dreams, he'd love me like no one had in a long time and we'd live happily ever after.

Actually it was different than I'd envisioned. I was in the high school parking lot and I backed my car into Chris's on accident, gained a ticked-off mom, a one-time meeting with an averagely cute guy (though he was too short in my opinion) and a dented car, that actually wasn't mine at the time. Somehow he figured out that I did housecleaning to earn money and told me he'd tell his mom about me, since she was always busy and could use the help. He actually followed through, so we were kind of stuck with each other each Sunday evening when I'd help his mom with their apartment and often stayed for dinner. He always made me feel special, even if he just smiled at me as I passed him in the hall at school.

So looking back in hindsight, I guess, in a way, my dream came true, with a few revisions that ended up being for the better. It wasn't quite the love-at-first-sight meeting I'd wanted, but he loved me more than anyone had in a while. I specifically remember the day he told me he loved me for the first time and I cried, because that's the first time someone had told me that in almost four years. I only wish we could have lived happily ever after.