Fun with Fiction: Characters and Conflict

Did you miss the first Fun with Fiction post? If so, the short version is that we're trying a sort of fiction support group here at Chez Martini. We're going to do small bits of writing each week, and link them up here, and give each other moral support, helpful critiques, and motivation to keep working on some new piece of fiction. The first task is to create a few characters. (If you want to join us, please do! You'll find more details on the previous post.) Here are my best efforts to create some interesting characters.

I was interested to find that my efforts to describe them lent themselves to a story. That is, because I was trying to avoid simply giving a physical description of each one, I found myself inadvertently starting a narrative instead. The effort to SHOW rather than TELL seemed impossible for me without beginning to imagine a story line. Although the three descriptions aren't woven together into a set of plotted events, I can already see that they are headed that way. I was surprised by this because two of the three examples I gave last week really were pretty pure descriptions. Yet I couldn't manage that. How many of you who tried this found the same thing -- that creating characters completely devoid of a story was really almost impossible?

* * * * * Miami, 1927 * * * * *

On the morning of her fourth birthday, Helen Everett opened her eyes and began whispering to herself in a sing-song voice, "Now I am four. I'm not three any more. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four." She got out of bed and tiptoed out of the room she shared with her older brother Arthur. "Now I am four," she was saying under her breath, as she headed for the kitchen, where the pleasant sound of eggs scrambling told her that her mother was already awake. "I'm not three anymore..."

In fact, Helen spent most of her days whispering to herself. Despite bright eyes that missed nothing, Helen was shy amongst strangers, clinging to her mother's skirts and murmuring quietly as they walked through the grocer's or the dry goods store. When people first met the Everetts, they usually stared a little too hard at Helen, trying to reconcile her pixie prettiness with the oddity of her constantly-moving, yet silent, lips. What they did not know was that Helen was as likely to be repeating whatever words they spoke to her mother as to be murmuring a little refrain of her own. For Helen not only saw everything; she took it all in too.

* * * * *

Viola Everett had been a high school math teacher, and a good one too, before Floyd had moved her and the children down to Florida. So far she was managing just fine for the six of them on his uncertain income, no small thanks to her meticulous recording of their every expenditure. Frugal with her pennies, and generous with her laughter, Viola knew how to make the latter suffice when money was short. Their tiny apartment was spotless, despite the fact that "the big girls," as Helen called them, turned the one common living area into a bedroom come nightfall. As she scrambled eggs for Helen's favorite French toast, Viola breathed a sign of contentment. It was impossible to be unhappy in such a glorious place, she thought, smiling at the scarlet masses of bougainvillea which framed the view out her kitchen window.

* * * * *

Floyd was not a man given to brooding, despite what people said about him. He was a quiet, steady worker, dependable, and always willing to take on a new project. Although he had been a high school principal back in Michigan, he enjoyed working with his hands because it freed up time for his mind to wander elsewhere. When he was concentrating, he pursed his thin lips so tightly together that they all but disappeared under the brushy thickness of his mustache, and little furrows appeared in his forehead. Had anyone offered him a penny for his thoughts, he would gladly have hummed a few bars -- for he was nearly always concentrating on music. But because no one offered, Floyd never hummed, and so everyone else on the job pegged him as the competent but taciturn type, and respectfully left him alone.

* * * * *
For each character, I tried to capture some personality trait or quirk or quality that would reveal something about who they are. I would love feedback in the comments. And I can't wait to read the characters you've created!

Now, for next week:

At the heart of every great story is a conflict. It may be an external conflict (she wants to get a dog, he doesn't, they fight) or an internal one (he can't bring himself to tell his boss why the client really dropped the account). The most interesting stories often have unexpected conflicts, in which we didn't see THAT problem coming up, or unexpected solutions, in which who could have guessed there was a way out through that door? The trick, of course, is walking the fine line between unexpected and unrealistic (assuming you are striving for a realistic story). So, getting an apparently passive young man out of the fist fight in which he's suddenly found himself by giving him the hitherto-unknown-even-by-him ability to fly may not work. By the same token, bullies having a sudden change of heart and stopping before drawing blood also can seem pretty lame.

Below are a whole bunch of prompts to get you thinking about conflict. Choose one of the characters you created, and put him or her into a predicament. You don't necessarily have to use any of the problems I've suggested below. Just think of them as fodder to get your creative juices flowing.

Keep in mind that by jumping right into the conflict part of the story, you may be skipping over the "we didn't see THAT coming!" part. That's fine. Start here, and we'll work on plotting the whole arc of the tale later.

In the next week, choose a block of time when you have at least 30 minutes uninterrupted. Make yourself something nice to drink. Do not answer the phone. Write for the whole time, and see what happens. Then come back next Monday, and link up with what you've written.

Also, don't forget to share the character descriptions you've already written! Either paste them into the comments or sign the your post url on the Mr. Linky, so that we can all read about the people you're inventing.

put your character someplace unlikely
how did she get there? how will she get out?

your character has been betrayed.
by whom? why? how? what is his reaction?

your character just rediscovered her long-lost ____
(could be a person or a thing) where/how did she find it? what will she do with it?

your character is laughing so hard he can barely breathe
what's so funny? why?

your character needs a ______
why? does she get it? how?

your character is an outsider
what is he looking in on? what does he think about it?

your character can't eat _______
why?

your character has a nervous tick. on this morning, she is having a hard time controlling it.
what is the tick? what's got it ticking?

your character is supposed to leave on a big trip tomorrow. suddenly, the trip is off.
where was he going to go? why can't he now? what will he do instead?

your character has always loved ______. After today, she won't be able to stand it.
why?

your character tends to overreact. not surprisingly, it happened again this morning.
what was the cause this time?

your character tends to overreact. much to everyone's surprise, it did NOT happen this morning, just when conditions were ripe for that.
why not?

Happy writing!