Adding adversarial characters can give your novel depth.
These minor characters can be annoying, comedic, overly positive, argumentative, despicable, totally generous etc.
Donald Maass writes: “Adversarial allies can deepen characterization and help us understand why the protagonist does what he does. …These characters help develop your main character’s personality through interaction and reaction. They force your characters’ emotions onto the page. Conflicts that deal with love, danger, success, death, missed-opportunities etc require that your MC bump into these people who don’t have much time in your story, but who can contribute greatly to your reader’s interest. Adversarial characters cause your reader to root for your MC and thus they will be turning to the next page.”
Have you ever read a book review that criticized a story for being “thin?” Or maybe you remember a book where that label applies. It’s not a length problem. It’s a fleshing out the story problem, so that the reader lives in the world you are creating and wants to stay in that world. I didn’t want to put the book down. I was actually sad when it ended.
When I’m working, I do the following to deepen my story.
- read world news, how people are struggling and winning, sometimes losing and dying. But diverse characters that walk on a bigger stage, a world stage, are finding a prominent place in today’s literature. Such a character could be a major presence in your novel, even someone who just passes through, leaving an echo, a mark. Knowing about lives you never thought you would be interested in can enhance your work. So explore.
2-3. The news you read could stimulate the following: someone with narrow ideas is in conflict with your MC …who lives on a wider stage, whose beliefs fuel her decision making. Can the person of narrow ideas change your MC? Try it and discover who will win. Think of the possibilities of placing your MC in a typhoon, a sandstorm or the middle of a war or conflict. It’s your world to create. (And kudos to all women fiction writers who write historical novels.)
- Read novels; I do consistently: finish a book, go back to my own, thinking, I’ll never write like that. But when reading good fiction, becoming immersed in the life of a character, the character’s world and conflict, all can stimulate ideas.
- I also take notes. Ideas are free—not a line of text, but the idea within it. There is nothing new under the sun. You can riff off another writer’s ideas – no law against it.
- Writers HAVE TO READ, as it gets our juices flowing. We cannot love what we do—writing novels to be read by our readers—if we are living in a vacuum, not reading. All must read and share what you read. Yay. Enough said.
- Go to the library, find non-fiction that pertains to subjects that will add depth and knowledge to your work. I love doing this. Often the subject I work with is medicine—not a narrow topic. But having been a Labor and Delivery RN, I need to expand what I already know, because in any field, things change. Whatever you are working on, it is a good idea to read nonfiction, expand viewpoints, arguments that can fuel your subject, imbed ideas more deeply in the work.
- And take notes; I think we all do this. I write down personal experiences and phrases I hear. I record conversations (with permission) or eavesdrop to find a rhythm in speech or a peculiar repeated phrase to color the place or life the character is leading. I find images either in printed material or on the Internet, television etc, images that can build color and theme into my work. Thus, I have notes all over my desk.
- AND YES….we writers must always have a note pad or a cell phone handy, so the moment, the idea, the words are not lost. I often get ideas at 11:30 pm when I am trying to fall asleep. So I keep a pad of paper and pen at the bedside. I think this is a common habit for many writers, especially if it’s a time when we are rewriting. Personal experiences can linger, but that phrase, that word someone used, or that remark—get it down now.
10. Create a Vision Board, photos from a magazines or in a file on your computer: a beach scene, car crash, a lighted window—cut it out. These visuals can stimulate colorful words, help describe a room setting, create the sentence that reveals how light is coming into a garden. The possibilities are endless.
Finally, read book reviews, specifically for thematic concepts. Maybe I’m crazy, but I find this stimulates my writing brain. Michele Filgate, in the LA Times, reviewed Katie Kitamura’s novel, A Separation, the story of a marriage. She quoted the author. “I think there’s such a fine line in a relationship…The role of imagination and privacy… how much space can you allow before that becomes distance? And similarly, imagination is empathy. That’s how you achieve empathy. It’s how you can be with another person and understand how they are in the world. At the same time, imagination is what’s behind jealousy, obsession and fantasy ….everything that can also tear a relationship apart. So I think marriage is this crazy contract that you go into which is completely irrational.”
If you have a couple’s conflict in your novel or are thinking of creating one, there is much to ponder in this quote. Yes, this is another author’s way of attacking a universal subject that will be written about for centuries, but I do find her point of view, her reference to imagination and empathy fascinating. Such thematic ideas can add flesh to the bones of a story. Happy Writing.
3 Responses
I’m re-reading “House of Sand and Fog” right now by Andre DuBus. So brilliant, and seeing it for the second time, it allows me to look more deeply into how he put it together. I also feel that its so brilliant, I’ll never come up to that level in my own novel, but it’s still a fascinating exercise.
I think you’re right about the benefit of adding adversarial characters. Funny how I never considered that before.
I always have adversarial characters (sometimes the main character has an inner adversary!). But we also run the danger of thinness is they are adversarial just for the sake of adversity. Equally important is that even these “side” characters have depth and nuance.