Good novel writing is much more than just advancing a storyline. It involves pumping color (creating interest) in the locales in which the story takes place, and also in the characters themselves.
What if I wrote in a manuscript the passage …. Gene walked past a tree.
No identification of what kind of tree, just any tree.
That’s pretty boring.
But what if I wrote instead, Gene walked past a shihuahuaco tree, a 200-foot tall tree a thousand years old whose bark was as hard as steel.
That’s more interesting.
Such a tree is found in Peru.
This second passage tells you a little more about the place setting, rather than just any old tree.
The same applies for the characters in your novel. Average people described without any interesting characteristics, for most novels are deadly. You might as well title such a book “Boredom.”
Instead, have your characters have quirks, neuroses, fears, weaknesses, compulsions, unpredictable traits, and sometimes secretly the opposite of what they profess to be. Like with the tree example above, anything that makes them more interesting, rather than just an average (could be anybody).
Here’s an example:
Joe was a large man.
That’s boring.
How about, Joe was a large man with a wide red facial scar and whose nose was flat as though a blunt force object had once struck it.
That’s better.
In my book The Parasitoid Horror (released this week), I have a renowned marine biologist who as part of his job must scuba dive, and is terrified to do so. Once in the water to deal with his fear he bites down on his tongue hard because the pain it causes distracts him (momentarily) from his fear.
It’s a quirk of his.
It’s like a little story (quirk) inside of a big story (the plot).
AI (Artificial Intelligence) described this fear of scuba diving as a humorous addition to my book.
Be specific. Don’t be lazy. For example, you wouldn’t want to say “He got on a motorcycle.”
What kind of motorcycle? A big Harley Davidson produces a much different image in the reader’s mind than let’s say a tiny E-bike.
Usually by taking the time to be a little more specific it gives you the author a more commanding literary voice, like a painter who paints more details into a painting.
You took the extra time to think up and identify something specifically.
Instead of just a generic tree, any tree, and as well you included in a few words some interesting facts about it. The reader can learn something as well as be entertained by the overall developing story.
You can also come up with interesting and specific quirk ideas for characters.
These quirks can be used from people you have actually known (do not describe them in such detail that they can recognize themselves in your book).
For example:
I had a buddy in the U.S. Army with whom I shared an apartment in Waikiki in Hawaii. I loved the beach and was always endlessly trying to get him to go swimming with me. But he was from Kentucky. He had no love or knowledge of the ocean. All he wanted to do was lay in bed during the day and snuggle-hug a pillow to his cheek while sucking his thumb and watching soap operas on television.
He described Hawaii as “hell.”
Later, when I saw a photo of him on a honeymoon with his wife snorkel diving in a tropical lagoon I almost fell out of my chair. How in the “H” did she get him to leave his room at the hotel and go into the water?
Now that’s an interesting character.
Another is Aunt Jan.
She was a co-worker of mine.
Jan worked for a man who was her employer. A single woman, she attached herself to this man and spent hours of time at his house helping with household chores and playing with this man’s three children.
She was a sort of Mary Poppins, or perhaps a surrogate sort of second wife without sexual involvement (which anyway was none of my business).
She appeared to have no boyfriends or outside life of her own.
The man’s actual wife didn’t seem to mind this three-way arrangement.
The children called her “Aunt Jan,” though she was not their actual biological aunt.
I was intrigued with the idea of a woman who attaches herself to her boss and his household. Why? Was it for job-gain status, security, or for company and a ready-made family?
Again, not my business….
I only mention this because it has the potential to make an interesting character in a book.
Conflict, irony and quirks make a novel more interesting.
John Sammon is a freelance writer and the author of 41 books, many of which can be found here on Amazon. He is a resident of El Dorado Hills. His commentary is the first in a series on the trip of self publishing.
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