Character Background: Lore Drops, Rather Than Lore Dumps

"Where the hell did you learn how to ride a motorcycle, D?" Sheila asked.

"Picked it up back when I was a stripper in New Mexico," he said, revving the throttle. "I gave it up after I went through the badlands running from the cops, though."

"D... what the fuck?" Sheila asked.

"I'll tell you more about it some other time."

As writers, we've been conditioned for years to avoid lore dumps. And I've said it on this very blog; there are few things you can do that are worse for your book than throwing on the brakes just so you can relate a character's entire tragic backstory. However, sometimes it really does help the narrative to sprinkle in a little bit of lore here and there... just to keep your audience engaged.

That is the difference between a lore drop, and a lore dump.

This? Oh, don't worry about it, I know what I'm doing.

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What's The Difference?

Putting a pinch of salt in the meat while you're cooking is often a good way to season it, enhance the flavor, and make the finished dish stick out. Upending the shaker and pouring until you can hear the granules crunch, on the other hand, is the surest way to ruin whatever it is you're cooking.

That's the difference between a lore drop, and a lore dump.

Numbers really do matter, end of the day.

In addition to the sheer size difference between a drop and a dump, though, lore drops are typically connected to an event or an action. Take the original animated version of the movie Lilo and Stitch, and examine the character of Mr. Bubbles. Seeing a massive, dangerous-looking man in a black suit who works for family and child services is, on its face, a humorous juxtaposition. As we see Mr. Bubbles in more and more scenes, though, we get little glimpses into his character... not enough to really tell us who he is, but enough to keep us interested. The knuckle tatto that says Cobra, the fact that he has unique knowledge and training, and then we end with the fact that he has met the leader of an alien federation, and was present during their landing in Roswell, New Mexico.

These lore drops are big swings, but that's because they're played for laughs... it also makes them easier to actually see and analyze.

If you're writing something more subtle, though, consider some of the following examples of a lore drop:

- The big bruiser is revealed to speak an unexpected language. This helps them negotiate in a tight spot, but the character doesn't explain why they know that language when asked, or they give a short answer like, "I picked it up while I was stationed in Tokyo," which leaves another breadcrumb.

- The tech geek shows up at an important formal event dressed to kill, and showing off a recent makeover. With a grin, she mentions it's been a while since she walked a runway, but she still remembers how to make an entrance.

- The family man who everyone thinks is the most milktoast guy ever has a tattoo half-hidden on his wrist that makes the hardcases go white. An elite soldier? A gang enforcer? Or just a mark that belongs to an ancient order of assassins?

The idea is that a lore drop is small, short-lived, and that it immediately catches your audience's attention. And by leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, you'll eventually lead your audience to more of that character's backstory. And while not all lore drops should be peeks through a door that will one day be thrown wide open, some of them will be... and it's a lot easier to get your audience to eat up a bite-sized trail than it is to try and feed them a three-course meal of one character's backstory, and then expect them to get back to the plot you were originally feeding them.

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That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

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Character Appearance and Personality: Tips For Showing Instead of Telling

I try to talk a lot about inclusion here on my blog, firstly because I want to help people avoid making writing mistakes, and secondly because it's a smart move on your part to make sure you keep your potential audience as wide as possible. And though this is a topic I've touched on before in posts like How To Write A Strong Female Character, there are just certain mistakes that a lot of writers keep making when they try to bring characters onto the page when they don't share a lived experience with them.

But... what is she WEARING?

If you haven't read the guest post 5 Mistakes Male Authors Make When Writing Female Characters, I highly recommend you do so. It has invaluable information in it for a lot of us out there. Today, though, I want to focus on one of the mistakes this article mentioned that crops up a lot when it comes to female characters written by men in general, but it's a mistake that shows up a lot when the author has no experience to rely on when bringing a character across that I see a lot.

Using someone's appearance to imply their personality.

Books and Covers

As Savannah Cordova points out in the above article, this is an age-old trick used by men who have trouble writing women; they simply describe the character looking a certain way, and use that description to imply who she is as a person so save time and effort. Whether it's her wild mane of raven hair, or the glint of mischief in her eyes, or the defiant way she folds her arms; all of this is meant to convey who she is in an instant. This trick goes back at least as far as the pulps and short story magazines, where authors didn't have the page space to waste on big exposition or establishing shots, because they had plot to get to.

A specter in black, with a grim expression and a devil's fire in his eyes.

But if you stop and think about it, this trick is both really lazy, and sort of creepy. Most of us have literally been taught our entire lives not to judge people based on the way they look, and manipulating your audience to do that can come across as creepy. Especially when they catch you doing it, and get annoyed that your manipulation is so obvious.

Showing Is Facts In Action

A lot of writers who rely on this lazy trick defend it by saying they're showing the audience who someone is instead of telling them... but really, you're not. You're just pointing at an object at rest, and using description to lead the audience to a certain conclusion. That's just telling disguised as showing, and you're not doing yourself any favors. In fact, it's actually a lot easier to just dispense with the complicated subterfuge, and focus on really showing your audience who a character is.

All right, boys, show 'em we mean business!

You need your audience to judge your characters by their actions, instead of by their appearance. To that end, if you want to establish a character is a certain way, you need to show them acting that way to confirm that it's actually who they are. That way it's not just hearsay; we have evidence to back up our knowledge.

As an example, don't describe a woman's business attire and end it there; show how she conducts herself. Does she have a firm handshake and eye contact? Does she walk with confidence, overriding objections smoothly during negotiations? Is she aggressive, or stoic? If we see her later does she conduct herself the same way she does when she's at the office, or is the persona we've witnessed part of the face she wears for business? Or is the only thing that changes her choice of more sensible shoes and a leather jacket instead of a blazer?

The same is true for almost any aspect of a character. If you want to establish they're strong, show them lifting something heavy with ease. If you want to let us know they're a capable fighter, show them get into a scrape with someone. If you need the audience to know this character is smart, showing them doing something that requires them using their intelligence (playing chess is a favorite, as is hacking into computers, or talking about quantum physics before realizing no one else in the room can understand them).

What you should not do is just use inflammatory adjectives to get your point across; show your characters doing things, and present them as objectively as you can. A little flavor here and there is good for your prose, but make sure you're not using it in place of presenting your audience with facts to draw their conclusions from.

The Deductive Approach

There is an alternative approach to always showing your characters in action, but it's something that needs to be handled very carefully. Because you can sprinkle hints into a character's description to give your audience clues about who they are, and what they're like, but the key is that these hints need to be facts about the character, and the deductive implications of those facts.

It's elementary, really...

If you've ever read a Sherlock Holmes story, then you've seen how Conan Doyle laid this all out for the reader. Holmes takes the facts of a situation, and then deduces meaning from them. You don't have to get as intricate as the great detective, but you do need to follow the same kind of logic.

As an example, say you're meeting a character for the first time. He's dressed in an expensive suit and seems friendly, but what do the details about him in this scene say? Well, the college ring on his hand says West Point, so we can deduce where he went to school. His palm is calloused despite his expensive clothes, the pattern implying that he practices regularly with handguns. A Texan drawl tells us where he grew up, or at least where he's lived long enough to acquire an accent. The scent of cigars tells us he's a smoker, the particular odor saying they're mid-range in price, and the faintness implying it's not a regular indulgence.

Now, we haven't seen this character actually do anything, but each of these little clues has given us a bit of insight about who he might be behind the tie, and it fleshes him out. I talked about this over on my gaming blog in the entry Do Clothes Make The Adventurer, as well, if you're looking for more examples for how to imply a character's history through these little details. Generally speaking, though, you're looking for things like tattoos, cultural markings, voice tics, scars, and even tan lines, and providing context for the reader to help them draw the right conclusions. It takes work, and it's a tough habit to get used to, but it's a great deal less problematic than just using leading descriptions and hoping your audience goes along with the railroading.

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That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife!

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What Would A Woman Do? (Ask Deeper Questions About Your Characters)

As I've mentioned before, I lurk in a goodly number of online forums where writers and hopeful writers congregate. Places where we share updates on our work, gripe about markets, and try to offer constructive criticism on each other's work. However, there is a constant question that crops up in these groups that always makes my blood pressure rise a bit. Not because it's a bad question, but because in order to ask it in the first place the writer has to have already missed the point so completely that no answer will be helpful.

What would a woman do in this situation?

Gee, I wonder...

You're Asking The Wrong Question

To be clear, the above example is just one of the thousand heads on this hydra. It might be asking what would a Muslim person do in a given scenario. It might be asking why a man might not want to have sex. It might be asking what an Indian man, or a Chinese woman, would do in response to a certain event.

That isn't specific enough to get any meaningful answer. Go back to the drawing board.

Time to read the fine print.

If you want to understand what makes a person (or a character) take a certain course of action, you have to understand who they are as a whole. You can't identify one aspect of them, and then use that single aspect to dictate the entirety of their behavior. Every person is an individual, and the same stimulus might cause wildly different reactions in different members who fit under the same umbrella.

Let's go back to the guys and sex thing. First up is Jake. Jake is a deeply spiritual young man, but in addition to this he wants to make sure that any actions he takes (including physical intimacy) is an expression of his affection and love for his partner. So, while he might be a handsome young man with a lot of admirers, Jake isn't going to respond to a come-on at a bar, or someone trying to get into his pants at a party. Because those kinds of things are not what appeals to him, and he is repulsed by that sort of shallow interaction.

Next up is Shaun. Shaun is very sex positive, and he supports other people's right to do what they want with whom they want. However, Shaun himself is asexual, and he has no real desire to have sex with anyone. So no matter how physically attractive society might find someone, or what kind of romantic attachment he might have, sex is never going to be something he's really down for. He might have tried it in the past, or be willing to do it for a partner he cares about, but it will never be near the top of his to-do list.

Those are just two examples of how two characters who share a single trait (both are men, in this case) might have totally different reasons for similar behavior. And you get the same thing no matter what single trait you're using. Because yes, someone's age, gender, personal tragedies, family status, nationality, appearance, etc. are all individually important... but you can't figure out what actions they'll take until you know how all of those traits interact to cause a decision.

Make A Fully-Developed Character (Then Ask What They'd Do)

You need more than a single feature of a character before you can predict their actions. Even if it's something specific, like being an ex-paramilitary CIA operative. If you put two individuals in the same scenario (let's say they're walking past an alley, and they see a guy getting physical with a woman, who is clearly saying no), you'll get two very different responses.

This might be one of them.

Adam has seen this before, and part of him wants to help. But he knows he doesn't have all the information, and acting might lead to worse problems. There are too many variables, so he puts his hands in his pockets, and walks away. He puts it out of his mind, but the next few days he avoids watching the news. He doesn't want to add that woman's body to the bill he's already carrying, just in case something did happen. On the other hand, Katherine doesn't hesitate. She comes up behind the man, slams her heel into his knee, and when he cries out, hammers the side of his neck. She puts an arm around the distressed woman's shoulders, and leads her out of the alley. A good deed done, and something to soothe her conscience when the bad dreams try to come for her.

So, the next time you try to figure something out, don't ask what a woman or a Christian, or a teenager would do. Ask what Cathleen, or Clarence, or Henry would do, when faced with a given scenario.

And if you don't know enough about them to answer that question, keep digging, because you haven't unearthed the whole of their character yet.

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing. Hopefully it got some wheels turning. If you'd like to check out more work from me, then take a look at my Vocal archive. If you want to keep up on all my latest releases, then follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Lastly, if you want to support me so I can keep making content like this, head over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page, or Buy Me A Coffee. A little help, goes a long way!

Terrible Histories Don't Make Your Characters Inherently More Interesting

In case you've never been to The Literary Mercenary's sister blog Improved Initiative, I'm a big fan of roleplaying games. The big reason I enjoy them so much is it's a cooperative storytelling experience, so I get to share a passion with a group of friends that's usually something I have to do in a room by myself. It's also an interesting experience seeing people who are not storytellers by profession flex their creative muscles to create characters, histories, and quirks for who they're putting into the game world.

However, there is a particular trend I've noticed with both writers and RPG enthusiasts. Whenever they're asked to present an interesting protagonist, the first thing they want to do is beat the shit out of them, murder their family, and set their house on fire.

Because... happy people are boring, I guess?

There is this odd desire in a lot of writers, both new and experienced, to immediately try to make characters more interesting by doing terrible things to them. Their whole family was murdered in front of their face, or they were raised in an abusive home, or they experienced the horrors of war and now find themselves unable to turn off the reflexes they once had.

Now, that isn't to say that including tragic events in a character's backstory makes them a bad character. However, the correlation between overcoming terrible events and peaking the audience's interest is not a causation. And if you need more proof than that, all you need to do is look at Batman.

The Dark Knight's Appeal Isn't The "Dark" Part

When you think of Batman, you probably think of the most popular story of tragic loss and revenge-fueled heroism there is. Bruce Wayne's parents were cut down in front of him as a child, and instead of dealing with that loss in an understandable or mature way, he grew up to become one of the world's foremost martial artists/detectives/inventors/psychologists/criminologists/vigilantes. However, as I said back in Are "Tortured Souls" Really Just Stunted Characters?, that origin was tacked on after the character's initial success. So the writers could have skipped it entirely, or given him an entirely different motivation, and people still would have been intrigued by the character. Especially since the whole, "my parents are dead!" thing wasn't really emphasized until the Frank Miller era of Batman.

More commonly referred to as the characters "brick shithouse" era of design.

I bring this up to make a point. Namely, that the tragic backstory fit well enough that it flowed with the story, but readers were already intrigued by the costume, the gadgets, the imagery, and the presentation. You could have made Batman anything, from a member of a secret crime fighting league of costumed avengers, to a literal dark knight trained by descendants of Camelot, and it would have been just as good as what we got. Because while the audience was interested, the backstory wasn't what made the character interesting. It was his look, his style, his powers (or lack thereof), and the adventures he went on.

The Superman Example

Let's go to the other end of the DC spectrum for this; Superman. Superman has often been accused of being the most boring, over-powered Mary Sue in comics, but it's important to note that he also represents things so many storytellers these days think of as childish, or unrealistic. Clark Kent, Kal El, whatever you want to call him, is a good person. He's noble, he's hopeful, and he does what he does because he believes it's the right thing to do.

I know, right? Where does this guy get off?

However, if you strip away the super powers, the born of another world backstory, etc., what you wind up with is a character archetype we've seen forever. He's a knight of the round table, pushing forth on the strength of his purpose and his oath. We don't ask Percival why he does what he does, because we already know. Ditto Clark's motivations. And every time we've tried to slather on some grit, moral gray areas, or terrible past, you know what's happened? It's flopped. Every. Single. Time.

Because having his adoptive parents killed, or being forced to snap someone's neck to defend innocent bystanders, are not the sorts of things that make Superman compelling as a character. Sure, they can act as temporary filler, but once you take away the hopeful knight errant chassis, he's a lot less compelling.

Yes, you can take a story about someone who is similar in power to Superman, but who has very human flaws. That's where you get your Hercules, your Samson, etc. But even then, what makes those characters compelling isn't a tragic backstory. It's what they do with the powers they were given.

Is It A Necessity For Your Story?

If you find yourself either rejecting or defending the long and rocky road filled with blood and tears that led your character to where they are now, ask yourself one question. Are these events necessary in order for my story to work, and to provide the proper motivation for my character?

Because sometimes it is kind of necessary.

The Phantom is, perhaps, one of the best examples of when terrible circumstances are necessary to make a character work. Because, let's face it, a man of Erik's genius and talents could have become a celebrity in the art world. An exemplary musician, magician, playwright, and composer, Erik would have been the toast of Paris. Could the story of a reclusive genius training a beautiful young ingenue still work, as Christine is torn between the mysterious figure behind her art and the handsome viscount she knew in her youth? Yes, but the horror movie aspect would be gone. Erik would be a very different character than the cellar-dwelling, horrifically-visaged phantom we're all used to. And his mystery would be so much less if the face behind the mask was not a terror to behold.

The same holds true for characters like the Frankenstein monster, Jason Voorhees, and others. The tragic events that shaped them, and made them what they are, has lent them a compelling narrative. But before you start your next project, ask if the awful events in your own story are likewise necessary to make the characters what you need them to be. Especially if those events are to provide motivation, since a murdered spouse or dead family isn't really a necessity if you have a character concerned with justice, or who is simply opposed to the doings of the antagonist on some other grounds.

You don't have to jab your hero in the eye with a stick to make them confront the villains. Sometimes duty, faith, adherence to a code, or just the need to seek a worthy cause are enough to get them moving.

For additional reading, check out Why So Many Sad Backstories? over on Improved Initiative.

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing installment. Hopefully it got some folks out there to reflect on their stories, and what is and isn't a necessity. If you'd like to stay on top of all my updates, then follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. If you want to help support me and my work, then head over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a patron today! As little as $1 a month gets you a free book as a thank you.