When Characters Make Poor Protagonists

Filed Under Characters | 2 Comments

Sometimes we authors follow the wrong person’s story. Other times we love our protagonists to bits, but they would do better elsewhere.

If you want to write well, you need to learn to let them go.

Problem One: The problem of following the wrong character occurs when writing the first draft. Either your main character is flat, or rigid, or just plain not as interesting as the supporting characters. Your main character is too weak to hold the main role.

The Solution: Start your story over, but this time, follow one of those lively secondary characters. They’ll have enough oomph to get your readers (and you) through the novel. Demote your old protagonist or delete ‘em entirely.

Problem Two: If you find yourself having trouble writing a story, even though you have a great premise and interesting characters, perhaps the problem is that your protagonists are needed as supporting characters in another novel. For example, I tried two separate times to write the love story of a bard, but I could never get it to work. Then I put the couple in another novel and bam. They fit so much better there.

The Solution: Put your protagonist in another novel as a secondary character. Sometimes secondary characters are ignored development/backstory-wise, but they need to be interesting! Casting former fleshed out protagonists solves both problems.

Do you have trouble with casting your main character? How do you fix it?

The Lightning Thieves

Filed Under Books vs. Movies | Leave a Comment

I just saw the movie adaptation of Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief. It had good special effects, and I’m sure if you hadn’t read the books, it was a good movie. But they didn’t have to completely change the storyline. Spoilers Ahead.

The movie gets off to a good start, only condensing the book for timing issues. They condense roles too, like making Annabeth more antagonistic to fill Aries’ daughter’s shoes, which I also understand. And maybe it didn’t matter that everyone instantly knew Percy’s father was Poseidon, or that important series information like Kronos and Thalia and the prophecy were left out.

But changing the quest? Really?

Instead of being given a quest to find the lightning bolt, Percy is given an offer by Hades. Instead of stumbling across America, Luke (now the main villain) gives them a nifty map and some story about Persephone’s pearls. Instead of using the adventures in the book, the screenwriters invented a few of their own, like visiting the Parthenon in Nashville and Persephone’s betrayal of Hades.

What was so bad about the original storyline? Why couldn’t Percy set off on a quest and battle monsters and annoy Ares and fail at Hades’ doorstep like he’s supposed to?

Despite the special effects, the final battle was boring. All I could think was “Percy can’t fly, Zeus is going to zap him out of the sky.” And what, Zeus didn’t notice his master bolt was at the base of Olympus? You can’t radically change the rules just because you think it’ll look better on the big screen.

Or add rules, come to think of it. Zeus’ ban on gods contacting their children was unnecessary. The gods’ bending of that rule by talking to their children when in danger, even more so.

It was funny. It was exciting.

But it was only an okay adaptation.

Mini Update 6

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Now we’re coming down to it: the home stretch. In these last few chapters, we’ll see if Calder and the others can defeat the big bad Narrator. Good luck, fellas. You sorely need it.

Divine Ambivalence

Filed Under Book Reviews | Leave a Comment

A Review of Divine Misfortune, by A. Lee Martinez

“Hello. My name is Anubis. I like long walks on the beach, carrying departed souls into the underworld, and the cinema of Mr. Woody Allen.”
- Anubis’ Pantheon.com profile video

In a world where gods attend charity events and can be found on an online match site, Phil and Teri decide they’d better get a god if they want to improve their lives. When they decide on Luka/Lucky, raccoon god of fortune and prosperity, he expects to crash on their couch and things go downhill fast.

Similarly, what I thought of as a good premise didn’t turn out how I expected either. The style wasn’t my cup of tea. Some parts seemed more fitting for a movie than a book, like the image of Lucky pushing his sunglasses down to the end of his nose and grinning mischievously. I could clearly see it at the end of a cheesy trailer.

It has its moments. Most of these were not plot-related. Any event that was seemed so unrealistic I was thrown right out of the novel. For instance, mercenaries exchanging stupid arguments with their captives and each other instead of doing their job.

Characters who began as interesting, like goddess of tragedy and heartbreak Syph, quickly devolved into the equivalent of a mulish two-year-old. By the end of the book, there was an entire cast of metaphorical two-year-olds.

However, I did like how it doesn’t focus on Western gods (especially the ever popular Greek and Norse). Granted, except for Quetzalcoatl I had no idea who they were, but their appearance was satisfying nevertheless.

My guess? It wasn’t my style of humor. Others might have better luck.

My Rating (out of five stars)
★★

Digitalization: The Next Step

Filed Under Age-Old Debates, Publishing | Leave a Comment

Ah, the age-old debate: book vs. e-book. Do we go the traditional route, smell the fresh ink, flip crisp pages through our fingers? Or gaze into lit screens with never-ending data?

I can see the pros and cons of both, so I’ve never been one to cause an uproar over e-readers and their destruction of life as we know it. It didn’t make sense. People say publishing is dying, but that doesn’t seem right either.
        Too true, Belkar.

And then in my first grad class on Monday, I realized why.

My professor talked about publishing as a tension between a cultural and business industry. As we followed the book through its long history, the pendulum was always swinging between the two, and it was possible to see certain eras as extremes of one or the other.

In the last few decades, publishing has been enjoying a business-focused model. But digitalization is pushing us back toward a culturally-focused one. We’re adapting new attitudes toward information and media and entertainment.

These business-savvy publishers are scrambling for a foothold to keep money in the industry, but they’re forgetting to simultaneously adapt their practices. So, as have many newspapers across the country, they go out of business.

The birth of new technology is driving the industry in completely new directions. And that’s why people are freaking out.

But this isn’t the end of civilization. It’s just the next step.

Technology has long driven the publishing industry. The invention of paper, the printing press, computers, all of these have revolutionized the industry. I’m sure illuminating monks feared for the end of civilization when Gutenberg invented the printing press, but civilization got over it.

I’m sure civilization can manage yet again.

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  • Welcome

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    Hi, I'm Jenn, new grad student and old YA fantasy writer. I've long dreamed of being a novelist, and I bet you have too. I hope you find my blog helpful, inspiring, and maybe just a little bit fun. (But not too much fun. Writing is serious business, you know.)

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  • Official Progress


    4/21 segments

    A narrator hijacks a cliche fantasy story, much to the chagrin of its characters.

    Status: Second revision



    1,639/70,000 words
    A young noblewoman with strange powers must choose: her king or her soul.

    Status: First draft



    1,087/70,000 words
    When a girl's heart is stolen, she's plunged into a world of magic and shadows - but can she get her heart back before she loses it completely?

    Status: First draft





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