Getting Under Your Skin by Rita Stella Galieh

Another bill to pay.

I recently finished reading a great historical romance
where everything was going wrong for the heroine.
One thing after another seemed to weigh her down.

Now was this enough to turn me off? Somehow the author had managed to draw me in so that I was experiencing all the angst of this poor young woman. As in all good plot lines, conflict followed upon conflict

She had weak parents who ignored her, instead favouring the son and heir, a ne'er-do-well and an inveterate gambler. They willingly paid one debts after another by purloining monies their daughter had saved to pay household bills. They left her to worry over everything. With a poor excuse for a father who spent his whole life, to the detriment of his family, collecting bird's eggs and a helpless mother who spent all her time making yards of unsaleable.lace, their daughter surprisingly developed as a responsible and very sympathetic character. Not an annoying goody-goody but a genuinely nice person.

The author wrote in such a way I found myself feeling as frustrated as if I was in the heroine's skin.  Then when things began to go her way in the form of a bequest, my spirits rose. I had to remind myself I was reading a novel, for goodness sake! That is what good writing is all about, my friends, totally identifying with the character.

Writing as a Christian

This is also a challenge as we want our characters to have that inner struggle that Paul spoke about. eg. The things she wants to do she doesn't and the things she does, she knows she shouldn't. Oh yes, Christians have certain moral boundaries and struggle against temptations. So how will your character react when faced with these? 

In the story I am presently writing, I am constantly asking myself how would I feel if this or that happened to me? Besides figuring out your character's goals, questioning your own emotions or attitudes helps give that character flesh and bones. It's also challenging if one of your main characters is a real nasty piece of work, but dredging up memories of certain real life people from your own experiences helps. Especially if you've been treated poorly. No, that is not a type of 'author's revenge', it's simply writing true-to-life to reveal the depths of a mean character,not forgetting to include what happened in that character's past to make them that way.(Yes, even a villain needs to evoke some sympathy.)

Without naming the title, have you recently read a story where you felt the main character did not have realistic feelings? And did it leave you disappointed?

Indie Publisher, Rita Galieh, has written a trilogy of historical novels & also contributed to several US anthologies. She is now completing a third historical romance series. Besides her blog, she can be found on Facebook and www.ritastellapress.com   Rita studied art at the National Art School then joined the family ceramics studio. After their marriage, she and her husband attended Emmaus Bible College, and were also involved with Christian Television on Sydney’s Channel Nine. Currently she co-presents Vantage Point, an Australia-wide Christian FM radio program. She enjoys giving her fun-filled presentations of ‘Etiquette of the Victorian Era’ in costume.
                                              

One Question to Boost the Conflict in Your Fiction

Are you looking for a way to inject more drama or conflict into your fiction?

If so, answer this one question for each of your characters:

What does this person value more than what is right?

In other words, what thing would they put above their ethics, beliefs, even loved ones? Once you’ve established this, just throw in a problem that makes them confront their priorities, and—bingo!—drama galore.

The most effective example I’ve ever seen of this is the TV show Suits.

Suits is a drama about corporate lawyers who, for the most part, are okay people. Except for one thing: one of them is a fraud.

The premise itself is full of conflict, and the weekly legal cases are always high-drama. But what makes this show really shine is its characters.

First you have Harvey Specter, the legal golden boy. He’s charming, smart, and always wins. He loves to win so much, that when he finds legal genius Mike Ross, he hires him as an associate lawyer—despite knowing that Mike has never actually been to law school.

Now we have two major conflicts—Harvey will push the boundaries to be the best, and now he’s covering for Mike’s fraud. But as much as he loves winning (and boy, does he love winning), he cares even more for his long-time friend and secretary, Donna.

So any time, say, an opposing legal firm tries to attack him via Donna, there’s nothing he won’t do to save her. Donna is equally loyal to Harvey, so when he’s unjustly accused of shady legal deals, she’ll even destroy evidence to protect him.

Meanwhile, Harvey’s colleague and frenemy Louis Litt desperately craves people’s approval, especially Harvey’s. So even though he loves the law and their legal firm, when an accidental screw-up has Louis on the verge of losing all Harvey’s respect, he’ll do anything to avoid being exposed.

Their boss, Jessica Pearson, loves her boyfriend, but she loves their legal firm more. So when Mike’s fraud is in danger of coming out, she’ll lie to the man she loves, rather than confide in him.

And just like that, four professional people, each with one or two misplaced priorities, will suddenly be put in situations they never dreamed of because of the choices they made.

And all that drama is just from the characters—we haven’t even discussed a single legal case yet!

Sometimes this can feel hard to pull off in Christian fiction, where most characters are expected to love God and have a strong moral compass.

Christian romantic comedy author Jenny B Jones does this well in her novel Save the Date.

In this book, former pro football player Alex Sinclair is running for Congress, and to save his

plunging approval rating, his campaign team decides he needs a fiancé. Lucy Wiltshire runs a residential program for teenage girls with bad home situations, but it’s on the brink of going broke. When Alex offers to save her girls’ home in exchange for five months as his fake fiancé, Lucy takes the deal—and hilarity ensures.

Both of these characters are Christians who genuinely love God. So how can they lie to their family, friends, and the world? Though misplaced priorities and a lack of trust in God.

These mistakes pave the way for a strong internal journey for both characters as they realise their wrongdoing and deal with the consequences of their actions.

Consider your characters’ strengths and weaknesses. Is there room for them to mistrust God, or place their pride first? Take that and run with it.

You’ll have enough drama to fill a library.

THE CRAFT OF WRITING: The Big C

by Anne Hamilton 

Man overboard! I was planning to write a fourth post in this series on narrative hooks, but I decided to abandon ship. Still I’m valiantly striving to keep my nautical metaphor.

The plan went awry after reading a fascinating section in Lisa Cron’s book Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence. That’s the book which explains how the brain is wired to interact with storylines and gives you clues about how to write in an engaging, compelling way.

Cron talks about conflict. The Big C. It should go without saying that conflict, conflict, and still more escalating conflict is the basis of western literature (though not necessarily of eastern — if ever you’ve tried to make sense of a Japanese novel or a manga series, you’ll know that evocation of mood is of ultimate significance there). Still, conflict is often missing in the manuscripts I assess. Increasingly it’s missing in books I’m recommended, particularly by friends of self–published authors.

Cron explains why: the reader craves conflict situations in a story because this is a simulated learning experience for the brain. In real life, however, most of us hate conflict. So many authors can’t bring themselves to put their fictional darlings through the wringer. 

However, this wasn’t what intrigued me. Cron mentions eight different types of fictional conflict that the brain craves according to research in neuroscience. The last one made me sit back in my chair and think hard. It’s this: The antagonist vs mercy. 

The opportunities for Christian writing here are just fantastic, the potential enormous. The average person wants to know when to exercise mercy and one of the things a reader desires in a book is a template for that process. And by template I mean a thoughtful exploration of forgiveness that does not trivialise the wounding. Often Christian novels present forgiveness in a way that seems so unbelievable it’s almost trite. The heroine is suffused by peace and the struggle is over. 

Do we do anyone any favours by creating idealised ‘too good to be true’ Christian characters? Yep, we’ve fallen into the trap Cron identifies: as authors we want to minimise conflict for our darlings. 

Yet, have you taken a look at the book of Acts lately? Peter might have taken some huge leaps forward but he was still fallible and more than a touch hypocritical. Paul was so unforgiving he had a huge row with Barnabas and they split up. 

In our rush to wind up the story with a happy–ever–after of forgiveness and mercy, it’s important not to forget truth and justice. The mercy conflict in Christian terms is the perennial and age–old question of how those two opposites — justice and mercy — can both simultaneously be satisfied. Only a story wrestling with these ancient questions can ever truly hope to satisfy what both our brains and our hearts crave. 

Anne Hamilton is the author of the award–winning children’s fantasy, Many–Coloured Realm. She’s just checked the final word count of her forthcoming children’s fantasy Daystar: The Days are Numbered Book 1 to make sure it really is 77,777 words long and also to be certain the mercy conflict is quite prominently featured.