character development

All posts tagged character development

How do you begin and continue romance in a movie series? It appears Joss Whedon has forgotten.

Posted by Aeon Igni on May 4, 2015
Posted in: comic, movie, Romance. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

Note:  SPOILERS ABOUND IN THIS BLOG. If you have not watched Age of Ultron, by Loki’s horned headpiece, get off this blog and go see it!!!

hulkwidowmsg

Graphics for the icons taken from the awesome, awesome sketch by FadlyRomdhani at Deviantart
http://fadlyromdhani.deviantart.com/art/The-Avengers-302449761

As a sci- fi romance author, I’m probably looking for different things in my movies than the average person. Yes, I want
action. I want some humor. I want a great villain. But I also want some great romance.

It doesn’t have to be pulse-pounding, heart-stopping, Fifty Shades of Grey-type stuff. In fact, I thought the mix was pretty much perfect through the Iron Man films. Action, humor, and a romantic arc that took him from a billionaire playboy to a decent human being by the end of the three films.

Romantically, I was particularly excited for The Age of Ultron to come out. There is the Thor and Jane Foster romance, and the aforementioned Iron Man and Pepper. There are also the Hulk, Black Widow, Steve Rogers, and Hawkeye as the yet unknown romantic opportunities.

We’ve had some beautiful moments between the Black Widow and Hawkeye in the first Avengers, and more recently, the Black Widow and Steve Rogers in The Winter Soldier.

And what did we get?

A hot mess of characters basically vomiting all over the screen because each of them lacks balance and purpose. During the whole movie, we have no idea why any of them are there. Honestly, it just seems like they have nothing better to do. Hey, it’s a paycheck. There’s no urgency, no purpose, no reason to look to the future.

Marvel is forgetting that Age of Ultron isn’t just a sequel to the Avengers. it’s also a sequel to all of the Iron Man movies, the Thor movies, and the Captain America movies.

And it doesn’t matter who you are or what media you’re in, you can’t have a fulfilling sequel if you are leaving the love lives of your characters offstage. It isn’t just that you are leaving the romantic partners out, it’s that those romantic partners have helped to make the characters who they are.

Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, doesn’t exist as a fully-fledged male without Pepper. Loving her brought out the selfless, wonderful part of him. The part that cared about something more than his company and his money. It gave him balance. It made him want to protect the world and gave him something to fight for.

When I think about it, they really had to make Pepper disappear for this movie to work, or he never would have created Ultron. Because a woman will kick your ass if you try to invent stuff that can cause the next extinction level event on the planet.

Thor also doesn’t exist without Jane, for a similar reason. She’s the reason he cares what happens here. She’s the purpose. For her to be completely missing – and for him not to even know what continent she’s on – is ludicrous. Even without the fact that he loves her – he’s a god. He would know where she is, trust me. We need to see that connection, to remind us of why he is here; why he is vested in saving Earth.

Of the two love interests we did see in the movie, one was completely unnecessary and the other was completely unwarranted. As viewers we are completely uninvested in Hawkeye having a wife and kids. There has been no Hawkeye movie, no buildup to warrant the screen time.

Also, Hawkeye’s wife was almost encouraging him to quit the Avengers. She worried that no one would have his back, and asked him to look out for number one. That’s really a bad thing for a superhero movie. Superheroes have to be bigger than their own personal lives. The people they love give them purpose, and they have to be willing to self-sacrifice to save them. This character arc only works when we see that he actively decides to risk his life anyway, and she comes to understand that and see it as heroic. But we never got that completion.

Second, there has been no inkling of a romance between Bruce and Natasha. In the first movie, she was afraid of him when he hulked out and chased her. Seriously afraid of him. That she’s figured out how to master him is probably less about romance and more about the fact that she likes to be in control and he is the greatest threat on the team.

For her to be ready to run away with him skips the entire romantic buildup. Suddenly we’re three-fourths of the way through the romantic arc without first seeing that these two were attracted to each other.

Sadly, Mark Ruffalo and Scarlet Johansson are such good actors that they actually manage to pull us along with them even though that arc is missing. I say sadly because it’s unfair to their characters, and to them, to have to miss the building attraction, making mistakes, mutual affection, overcoming obstacles, and finding balance that comes with forging a solid relationship.

We still aren’t fully vested in them by the end when he leaves, and the ending leaves the viewer with more sadness toward them as individuals rather than a sadness as to how great their relationship could have been, and rooting for them to overcome their differences and get together in the next movie.

We are left with the sad fact that no matter who Black Widow goes for next, it’s going to be bad. If she goes for Hulk, there will be two pretty damaged characters getting together from a place of weakness. If she goes for Steve, she’s now flip-flopping between men on the same team. Never a good idea, even if he is a hundred times better for her than Bruce. If she goes for someone new, it will be the fourth love interest and now we’re getting up in numbers.

I really hope that Marvel can get it together when they write the script for  the next movie. We need a script that builds on the lives of the individual characters. We need a reason for them to fight, and love is the best reason there is. In the next movie we need to see the continuation of the former romantic arcs, and one new, believable arc that the viewer can invest in that takes the two parties to the next level.

And if I don’t get to see Thor kiss someone in Avengers 3, dammit, I’m never going to see another Marvel movie again.

Villains – Shelley Coriell’s advice taken to heart

Posted by Aeon Igni on November 11, 2014
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

I took a class at the 9th Annual Scottsdale Library Workshops from award-winning author Shelley Coriell. Simply reading the name of the class, Villains: An Author’s Best Friends, was a huge enticement for me, and I looked forward to it for weeks in advance.

I have been especially interested in villains since, as a teenager, I saw Alan Rickman play the Sherriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood. The idea that villains could be creepy and funny was new to me. Since then, there have been other similar villains to love; Alan Rickman again as Professor Snape, Heath Ledger as the Joker, or Collin Farrell as Bobby Pellitt in Horrible Bosses.

I have found that when I write I tend to make my villains both creepy and funny, or at least give the scenes with the villains some humor if I can. Science fiction tends to lend itself fairly well to villains that are both sinister and comical. Jabba the Hut, Agent Smith, and Loki exemplify the wide range of these types of villains that science fiction has to offer. In my first novella, Salvation, I wrote the main villain as a reptilian with a speech impediment who loved his whip a little too much.

Back to Shelley’s class, one of her main points was that to accurately portray the villain’s perspective, an author must imagine an outcome where the villain is the victor. All too often, authors simply invent the villain as someone to foil the hero, rather than as the hero of their own world.

I took her advice in the steampunk series I am working on. I have made a serious effort to make each of the villains complete. They are already heroes of their own world, complete with back story and relationships that preexist the book, just like the heroes. They are formidable, relentless, and best of all, convinced that the evil they do is right. Each of the villains believes he is going to win – and in fact can’t imagine a scenario where he isn’t the victor.

I have found that after this exercise, as the heroes encounter the villains the battles are more complex and more emotional. There is anger, resentment, and fear, along with a whole bevy of other emotions from both sides. There is also an element of surprise that I have never written into my villains before, when the villain finally understands that the hero might be up to the task of defeating him.

So although the books are novellas and time spent with the villains is rare, I found that spending the extra time imagining the villains as the heroes of their own worlds – expecting to be victorious in the end – to be time well spent.

On to your opinion: Who are your favorite villains, and what do you think really makes them ‘come to life’ on the page?

Writing Great Dialogue – Tom Leveen Comicon Class

Posted by Aeon Igni on June 19, 2014
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

This class was given by Tom Leveen, the author of two books: Party and Sick. He asked us up front not to publicize too much of what he was going to talk about, because he makes a living from teaching his approach to dialogue as well as writing books, so I am just going to give some overarching points and maybe expand on them a little.

The first point, which I hadn’t really thought about in such an explicit way before, was that the word ‘dialogue’ means ‘two logics. He didn’t particularly expand on this, except to say that those logics should be in conflict (which we all know, right?). I’ve thought about this idea since then and realized that when I’ve been writing dialogue, I have been thinking mostly about the different personalities and desires of the characters. But there is a deeper place to go when you understand the idea that fundamentally, everyone’s brain is wired differently. There have been hundreds of books written on the topic of logic differences between men and women, between different cultures, etc. However, there are deep logic differences between every single person even in my own family – and we all lived in the same house for 18+ years.

All too often, I’ve seen books in which the plot relies on something as simple as the characters reamining silent when they should speak, or one character misunderstanding the other. It’s a shame, because deeper logical differences could be played upon to create drama and tension in a way that mimics the deep frustrations of real life rather than remaining on the surface of communication issues. I think delving into logic differences, as well as personality differences and goal differences, could bring added depth to the characters and to the plot of your work.

The second major idea that Leveen mentioned was that you should be able to think of your book like a stage play, with the characters acting out the plot. In a good stage play, the actors should be able to act out their parts with no props or costumes, and they should be just as powerful as if they were surrounded by all of the special effects. If you want to try a different twist on your story, imagine your characters acting out their roles on stage, and all they have are their actions and dialogue to drive the story forward. This gets you to focus on their words and actions, and to really ‘see’ them and their performance in your mind.

The last idea I will mention was simple, almost an afterthought, but I found it extremely powerful. He mentioned that 2 to 4 lines (maximum of 6), well-placed in the story are enough to vest the reader in your characters. It might be good to go back over your manuscript and make sure you have that key moment for each character where the reader realizes that he or she wants the character to succeed or find happiness.

Overall, I enjoyed this workshop and found Tom’s combination of stage history and writing to give him a fresh look at writing dialogue. I would recommend seeing one of his workshops if he is in your area. You can find him on the web at tomleveen.com.

 

 

Magic Systems: Urban Fantasy vs. Epic Fantasy – Panel at Phoenix Comicon

Posted by Aeon Igni on June 17, 2014
Posted in: Science Fiction Writing, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Panel members: Jaye Wells, Jim Butcher, Myke Cole, Patrick Rothfuss, Sam Sykes, and Stephen Blackmore. I’m sorry that I didn’t write down their names as they were speaking – I was too busy taking notes. This was an excellent panel, and I think more came out of the panel than any of us thought there would be going in. The room was packed, and doors closed fifteen minutes early because there were no more seats.

Scientific Magic versus Fantasy Magic

One of the first questions inspired the authors to try to define ‘scientific magic’ such as Harry Potter versus more ‘fantasy magic’ such as LOTR. They came upon the definition of ‘scientific magic’ as a magic system where there are definite rules, and they are apparent to the reader. The authors said that the more the rules are quantifiable, the more you can ratchet up the tension in your novel, because the reader knows the rules. Then, the reader feels smarter when they can see how the hero or heroine breaks the rules or twists the rules to his or her advantage.

On the other hand, fantasy magic is one that might have rules, but they aren’t apparent to the reader. For example, Gandalf appears and saves the day because…he’s Gandalf. His magic seems to come at certain times and not others, and there are not particularly any hard and fast rules that we know about it. However, fantasy magic can be done well, too, as long as the author knows the rules well.

One great point about magic inconsistency that was brought up was Star Wars – I believe it was Sam Sykes who said it. At first, Star Wars had a beautiful, fantasy-type magic – the Force. In the original movies, it was ephemeral and numinous. But then in Star Wars I, they tried to invent midi-chlorians and everyone rebelled, although they might not even have known why. It’s because there’s something wrong with taking a fantasy magic system and trying to turn it into scientific magic system – especially in the middle of a series.

Magic and Character Growth

Everyone agreed that there has to be power escalation throughout the stories, so that the characters grow. The stakes have to get continually higher and they have to face moral choices: What happens when they use magic? What happens when they can’t? What do they do when they face a tough decision (for example, they lose if they use magic, but they lose something else if they don’t)? You have to find new ways for your magic system to cause problems for your characters.

They also agreed that any time you put something new into your magic system, you have to think about all of the potential ramifications on the past, present, and future of the plot. They said the worst was the time turner. What happens when you can travel back in time and change the past? That is the most difficult and least thought out of any magic system.

Side note: Writing this just made me think of Star Trek. If you can slingshot around in the sun in Star Trek IV to save the whales, why can’t you do it in Star Trek (2009) to save six billion Vulcans? Even worse, Spock was alive for the prior trip. If you had just seen your whole planet killed – and you had previously been able to go back in time, wouldn’t you try to do it again?

Other Items of Interest

Interestingly, in the first half hour, one of the authors spent a lot of time talking about how you have to build your magic system before writing the plot of your stories because the heart of the story should be the amazing, complicated, flawed characters. Then in the second half hour, another author spent a lot of time stating that you have to build your plot before you build your magic system because the characters and the magic they do are a product of their environments and experiences.

The authors were asked what their favorite magic systems were that they didn’t write themselves. Titles mentioned were : The Last Airbender, The Master of the Five Magics, Last Call, and The Chronicles of Amber.

When asked how to build a magic system, they gave some tongue-in-cheek answers:

  1. Live somewhere cheap – because you need tons of time off to develop it.
  2. Do stuff you think is fun, because you’ll be playing around with it and tweaking it for years.
  3. Find ways to break it.
  4. Have plenty of Beta Readers try to break your magic system. One author, I believe it was Patrick Rothfuss, said a number around ten (!).

My Summary

So, what I gathered is that each of these authors had a different, unique magic system, and each of them formed it in a different way over time. I think the overall point they were making is that it doesn’t matter how you do it, as long as you have a plan, stay consistent, and don’t change the system halfway through. In addition, the overall purpose of including magic in your books is NOT the magic itself. While the magic might be cool and awesome, the only purpose of magic in the story is to help the characters grow, it just gives them another avenue to do so.