Unlikable Characters: My Take on Craig Mazin's Take

I recently subscribed to yet another podcast, Scriptnotes, which describes itself as a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

If you've followed me on social media or here on my blog for any amount of time, you know that I'm not a screenwriter. (The screenplay I wrote with my high school friend Sam doesn't count, but it sure was fun and a great learning experience.) I'm a fiction writer. I primarily write novels and novellas. Yet I love this podcast and recommend it to writers of all kinds.

Scriptnotes is hosted by Hollywood screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin. After listening to a few episodes, you can't help but like these guys, even if Craig is full of umbrage (and disdain for religion).

Episode 223, from November 10, had a section about the least helpful notes screenwriters get. Turns out that Craig's least favorite (read: most despised) note is to be told that his characters aren't likable.

Craig argues that movies are filled with characters we don't like, and that characters are supposed to change anyway, so it's okay if we don't like them at first. Plus, we like curmudgeons! Unlikable quirks can make a character more interesting anyway. So stop telling us to make our characters more likable! (Totally paraphrasing here. Listen to his rant; your mileage may vary.)

And he has a point . . . to a point.

He's right that flawed and/or curmudgeonly characters are interesting. We enjoy watching characters like that, while characters who seem too perfect feel flat or fake. Even if we don't like a character, we'll hang on to watch more because we're entertained. We often start liking them as the movie progresses.

Besides, a movie is only a couple of hours long, and chances are, you paid to see this show, so you'll probably stick it out to the closing credits to see how it all turns out anyway.

In other words, Craig's advice clearly works for screenwriting.

Alas, that wisdom doesn't carry over into formats like the novel. I've learned this the hard way. Over and over and over again.

Consider this: A novel takes much longer to read than a movie takes to watch. While some people can devour a novel in a day, most readers read a chapter or two here or there, often before bed. They end up spending days if not weeks or more with the same book.

As the author, you don't have the luxury of assuming the reader will hang on until the character is sympathetic, or that the reader will trust you at all to go beyond the first page or two, that eventually, they'll see that they were in good hands all along. (An exception exists for really big names, who can pretty much break every rule and still sell millions because their name is a trusted brand before word one.)

With novels, readers may well toss a book aside if they hate the characters after a few minutes of reading. Not so with a few minutes of a movie. Readers simply won't devote hours and hours (or days) of their lives to your story. No way. They'd rather re-watch their most hated movie and get it over with in two hours or so.

That said, readers don't want perfect characters either. They want flaws and they want growth, just like moviegoers do. (Two groups with a ton of crossover, of course.)

The result is that fiction writers face a double challenge: Create characters who are human and flawed but still likable enough for the reader to hang on and care enough to keep reading, and make all of that happen on page one.

Oh, and be sure to open at precisely the right moment. Starting a even a few minutes (or, heck, seconds) earlier or later in story time could kill the opening.

No pressure or anything.

If you've hooked your readers with the opening, they'll likely turn the page. If you've managed to carry them to the 25% mark, they've invested enough time that you've got a good shot at carrying them to the end even if the characters start making really unlikable choices. Which they often do, of course.

To get to the point where you've earned a reader's trust, you must somehow get them pretty far into the story. And you get a page or two to hook them initially. That's it.

For me, one of the biggest challenges I've faced is beta readers and critique group members telling me that they hate the main character because she's acting so mean or hateful or whatever. And then I sit back and wonder where they got that from, because in most cases, that's not how I meant to write the character at all. I unravel what made it to the page compared to what was in my head in an effort to figure out what's missing and how to get it to the page.

But in some cases, I did mean to show the main character in a harsher light, although I still hoped the reader would sympathize. In one case in particular, the main character has been through a lot of raw, bitter stuff. The book opens with her being angry and upset. She has open emotional wounds. To make a long story short, I needed to open the book at a certain point in her life, show X, Y, and Z, and then get out of that situation, all by the end of chapter one.

Turns out that "wounded" is really hard to write without coming across as witchy (keeping the blog family friendly . . ). I must have rewritten that chapter fifteen times. In each version, she felt weaker and weaker to me because I had to keep softening her edges. But readers were slowly starting to connect with her.

Even though I wanted to show her realistically angry and pissed off in chapter one, I couldn't. Readers had no way of knowing enough about her at that point to have any kind of sympathy for her. You read vitriol and assume the character is a pretty awful person. So anger and even depression in that context only made her look bad.

My theory is that closing a book after two pages and tossing it to the side is far easier than standing up and walking out of a movie theater two minutes into a film, when you haven't even seen the opening credits. No one walks out that early, and few people walk out ever.

Lots and lots of people give up on books, though.

I could have left the chapter as it was, I suppose, but I can guarantee that by doing so, I would have lost a lot of readers in short order. They wouldn't have held on until they sympathized or even empathized with her.

I've been writing for a very long time (writing seriously for over two decades now), so when I first heard Craig saying that this particular note was pure crap, I wanted to cheer. Oh, how I wanted to. But I couldn't, because for a fiction writer, his opinion doesn't apply. (I wish!)

Sometimes I think I've learned how to write a flawed yet likable character who works from word one, yet far more often than I want to admit, I get the rug pulled out from under me yet again. Betas (had-picked readers I trust) point out why the character isn't working. After initially pulling on my hair and muttering things under my breath, I return to the keyboard and revise yet again. Because when everyone is saying the same thing, they're probably right.

I suppose in some ways, reading about a character in a new book is a lot like meeting someone in real life. You don't tell a new acquaintance about every skeleton in your closet, every bump in your road, every emotional injury. Rather, we get to know people a little at a time, and their personalities and characters are revealed gradually through actions and words. The same goes for characters, even those we've got a tight POV on.

Watching a movie is more like people watching; it's easy in real life to watch completely awful people interact and be nasty. We don't walk away from boredom. (Heck, we'll probably pull out our phones and start taking a video so we can entertain our friends.)

I'll continue working on making my characters just likable enough in the beginning for readers to agree to go on the ride.

But I confess that I'll forever envy Craig Mazin and his fellow screenwriters for their ability to ignore that note, even if the note drives them nuts.

Tribute to Lu Ann

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend and participate in my dear friend Lu Ann Staheli's funeral. Her husband, Mike, asked our writing group to put together some comments to be read during the services. The day before, group members emailed thoughts and memories, and I cobbled it all together. We all went up front to honor Lu Ann, and somehow, with my entire body quivering (likely my voice, too), I read what we'd put together. Here is what I read on behalf of the group.

Lu Ann signing books at the
LDStorymakers Writers Conference in 2011.

July of 1999, Lu Ann opened the directory of a writing organization, found my number, and invited me to be part of a brand new critique group. I was two weeks away from giving birth to my third child and three years into a calling in the Young Women presidency. Yet I was eager to join and asked if she could hold a spot until things were a tiny bit less crazy. January of 2000, I showed up to my first meeting with my heart pounding in my chest. I was incredibly intimidated by the talent sitting across the table.

A few months later, Michele joined us. Here’s how she put that experience: “I quickly discovered that my writing was not brilliant; it wasn’t even good, and I was nowhere near the skill level of the rest of the group. Lu Ann could have easily voted me off; I was not yet in a position to help her writing, and she already had classrooms of students to teach during the day. But she took me under her wing and helped me learn how to write well.”

Jeff recalls his first meeting, after his first book was published. Lu Ann looked at him, smiled, and said, “I read Cutting Edge. I liked it, but it could use some work.” He would be the first to say that she was right.

Heather and Rob rounded out the group until Sarah Eden moved to Utah County about five years ago, and we invited her to come to see if we would be a good fit for one another.

“Their credentials were intimidating,” Sarah says of that time. “I was absolutely certain that after a single night of my relative incompetence, they’d simply quit telling me where they were meeting. That first evening, I was impressed by the excerpt Lu Ann had brought and ravenously devoured the advice she gave the others, all the while scared out of my mind about what she’d think of my humble offering. Not three sentences into her response to my efforts, I knew I had found a treasure in LuAnn, and that my work would be the better as a result of her influence. She was encouraging without being coddling.”

And she truly didn’t coddle. No, Lu Ann didn’t mince words. Sometimes her comments stung, but we knew that they were always given with the intent to help our stories be the best they could be. In fact, her total honesty became something we learned to trust and look forward to. Such honesty is a rare gift, so we weren’t hurt or offended—how could we be, when she was genuinely trying to help, but even more importantly, because so much of the time, she was right?

She was always a teacher, always a mentor, forever looking for ways to help and lift. Sometimes that meant suggesting new ways to promote our books. Other times, she urged one of us to read a specific book because it was just what would help us with the manuscript we were working on. And she knew because she was a walking library catalog—she read constantly from every genre, so she knew more about books than anyone we’ve ever met.

She has given us feedback, encouragement, ideas, and someone to vent to. Someone to laugh with. She gave solid advice, such as when Heather debated whether to take on a certain project: “No,” Lu Ann told her. “You’re better off working on what you already have planned. Stick to your plan. You know it’s right.”

In addition to the hundreds of critique group sessions we’ve shared together, she took the time to read and edit numerous manuscripts for all of us, in addition to those of many other authors, students, and friends. She was never too busy to help. 

In fact, recently I sent a manuscript to the group for feedback. She was already very ill, so while we included her in our email exchanges, I never once expected Lu Ann to read the 90,000-word manuscript while battling cancer. Yet she replied to the email thread, saying rather apologetically that while she’d try to read my book, she couldn’t guarantee she’d get through the whole thing by the time I needed the feedback. That was about three weeks ago. Even in her last days, her concerns were about how much she could give.

Perhaps if she had been less giving, less generous with her time and talents, and more focused on her own career, she would have found both fame and fortune as a writer. Instead, her legacy is farther reaching.

Lu Ann had the talent and skills of a brilliant writer, but more than that, she had the heart of a teacher. She found joy in helping others, in sharing with them the magic of the written word, both in reading and writing. Her loss is also a great loss to the writing community as a whole.

As we have reminisced, variations of the same two things have come up again and again: First, that every book we’ve written since meeting her has been touched by her unique hand.

And second, that going forward, we will continue to hear her voice as we type away, calling us out on awkward word choices, weak character motivations, demanding better descriptions. Things we’ve heard before, like

“Where are we? You didn’t show us the setting.”

“Um, that’s not humanly possible.”

“You used the word very fifteen times on this page—I counted.”

“The girl just rolled her eyes for the fifth time this chapter.”

“Your main character has three arms in this scene.”

Or the classic comment we’ve all heard a thousand times that was all Lu Ann: “Sorry. I don’t buy it.”

We’ll miss not having our pages marked in red with her neat handwriting, no longer seeing her smiley faces and stars in the margins next to parts she thought were especially good. It’s hard to know that never again will we sit around her kitchen table and hear her laugh as we talk shop and brainstorm.

But from the other side, she will certainly continue to whisper in our ears as we write—scolding, cajoling, telling us that we can do better, calling us on it when we don’t. No doubt, she’s already at work, busily helping others, teaching and serving. Being the friend and woman we were all blessed to know. 

She challenged all of us to do better and be better because she sincerely believed we were capable of great things. None of us could have predicted the immense impact she has had on us.

Her support and selfless assistance made us better writers.

Her friendship made us better people.

Some members of our critique group in 2013.
L to R: Lu Ann Staheli, J. Scott Savage,
Sarah M. Eden, Annette Lyon, Michele Paige Holmes
Not pictured: Heather B. Moore and Robison Wells

***PLEASE NOTE***

Lu Ann's family is buried under medical bills from her treatment, even more so because her sweet husband hasn't worked since her diagnosis last summer, so he could be at her side. 

If you can help even a little, please do donate to the family HERE. 

Another way to help is to buy her books. You can find them on Lu Ann’s Amazon author page. 

My Current Writing Life

Thought I'd post a few pictures of what I've been up to lately.

In September, I went up to the League of Utah Writers Round-up conference. Due to mommy commitments, I wasn't able to stay the entire time (next year, I hope!). I did some one-on-one manuscript critiques for Precision Editing Group. At the hotel, Josi, Heather, Julie and I wrote, laughed, ate snacks at a bakery, and ultimately buckled down to go over mutual scenes from the Newport Ladies Book Club series to make sure they all match.

(We had to finish that over the phone Saturday night, since I was no longer at the hotel.)

Saturday morning before my critique sessions, I spent some time with my laptop. I literally kicked off my heels and typed away. Unbeknownst to me, Josi snapped a picture.

I believe this is the only photo in existence where I'm drafting something involving the military wives from Band of Sisters. Here, I'm working on the sequel (as yet unnamed). The book is about the re-entry time after the husbands come home.

Above: Me, hanging out with Marianne.

Later in September was the triple launch party for Josi, Sarah, and Mel. Because I'm smart like that, I didn't get picture of them, but here's one of some of us who were there:

Pictured: Mindy and Sheila from the LDS Women's Book Review

and novelists Becca Wilhite and Julie Wright, with me on the end.

Then on October 6th was a day my entire critique group has been waiting for: the release party for Robison Wells' Variant at The King's English bookstore.

First we gathered in a small room to hear Rob speak. It was super inspiring and totally awesome. Here I am right before Rob spoke, with critique group member Michele Paige Holmes.

(Image from Krista Lynne Jensen's blog.)

After Rob spoke, we had yummy refreshments and an insanely long line to get books signed, plus lots of friends and writers to chat with (I'd name drop, but I know I'll forget someone). I even got to meet Rob's parents, who are seriously cool people.

Here I am with Rob at his launch with my very own signed copy of VARIANT:

I actually have two signed copies, one for me, and one that I'll use as a giveaway sometime in the future.

Coming in about a month: I get to attend the Authors Incognito writing retreat. If I can keep up my drafting goals this month, I should be able to finish the BofS sequel at the retreat. Then it'll be time to get it hammered by critiques and alpha and beta readers, revision, and, soon after that, I hope, submission.

Of course, I have several other pots in the fire as well, but that's my biggest focus for now.

Also:

Something for local writers out there to be thinking about: in the first quarter of 2012, Precision Editing Group will be doing another live critique workshop like the one we did in August. Be sure to watch for the date announcement and registration information. It was a great experience last time, and you won't want to miss out.

Here's a picture of my workshop table from last summer. They were awesome, and we had a great time!

Whoa. You're in THAT Group?

When writers (published or unpublished) ask who is part of my critique group, that's the response I usually get.

Yes, I'm in THAT group. I'm one of the members who's been there the longest.

The next reaction is: How did you get to be so lucky?

Before I go on, let's back up. Here are the seven members of my group:

• Me
• Robison Wells
• H. B. (Heather) Moore
• Sarah M. Eden
• Michele Paige Holmes
• J. Scott Savage (Jeffrey S. Savage)
• Lu Ann Staheli

And James Dashner is a past member. (The first chapters of The Maze Runner were read aloud around my kitchen table.)

So yes. Whoa. I'm in that group. How did I get in?

I certainly didn't just get lucky one day, managing to sneak into an amazing group with writers who'd all been published multiple times and won lots of awards.

That's not how we started out. That's who we became.

Below is a collage of our book covers and awards. (This doesn't count the books published by a couple of current members who joined after being published or since leaving the group. It's solely books published and awards received while in the group.)

I know. Amazing company.

So I'm am lucky, in one sense. I've been part of this great critique group for eleven and a half years.

Our group began with a bunch of aspiring writers who happened to live in the same general area. Our only publishing credits were a few articles here and there. We bumped along for a few years, trying to find our legs as we figured out what we were doing. The group morphed over time as members have moved in and out, as goals and priorities for some people changed.

Today, it's something else altogether, and we have the publications and awards to prove it. But that's not a result of sheer luck. It's a result of other things, like hard work and friendship and synergy.

Nearly two decades ago as I sat in a university class about the Romantic poets, I was amazed at the wild coincidence of how the most successful poets of the era all knew each other and were good friends. They hung out together, read one another's work, and offered suggestions.

What were the chances?

I get it now. It wasn't a coincidence at all. The Romantics were essentially an amazing critique group. Their friendship and support are the reasons they were all so successful and why, two hundred years later, we're still reading their words.

I can say without any hesitation that I wouldn't be where I am in my writing career (or skills or sanity) without my critique group.

At last night's meeting, we thought back to our beginnings and talked about where we've come from. We laughed a bit at the writers we were ten years ago, seeing how much we've all grown.

Granted, I doubt we're destined for the history books like the Romantics were. (Although a former member is already a NY Times bestseller, so who knows . . .)

But what I do know is that these people are like family to me. We're there to cheer one another on, to cry together when things don't go quite right. To laugh and giggle and crack jokes that help ease the tension of the writing life. (I think last night's meeting might have had more tweetable one-liners than any other. Too bad my computer and phone were in the other room.)

Our success is largely a result of that friendship and support.

They're ten shades of awesome, and I am, indeed, very lucky. If I have any say in the matter, I'll never, ever leave.