Well-Intentioned Stupidity

Sometimes, people do stupid things for noble reasons.

Well-Intentioned Stupidity is a staple of fiction. A common affliction, its symptoms include unnecessary risk-taking, self-sacrifice and determined martyrdom – idiocy in the name of heroism.

WIS is often born out of the hero only having half the facts (or knowing them all but failing to put the pieces together); despair-fuelled powerlessness; or some kind of severe head trauma (I mean, I’m assuming). This stupidity is multiplied by the urgent drive to save loved ones and manifests itself in acts of increasingly critical stupidity – think telepathically inspired rescue ops, feeding-frenzy-fuelling self-harm, or simply ineffectual attacks on the Big Baddie as he bears down on your love interest.

It’s understandable. Wanting to help those you love is hardly a character defect. Also, I doubt anyone really wants to read about a self-interested unsympathetic slacker. It’s just that these noble idiots go about their missions in such life-threateningly stupid ways… it’s almost offensive to read (or watch).

Speaking of… let’s examine some of the worst offenders:

 - Elena in THE VAMPIRE DIARIES has always been high on the WIS hit list, particularly because she’s a human girl in a vamp world*: she wants to fight, too, but it’s hard when everyone else has super-strength and -speed and you haven’t even got school-enforced self-defence training to fall back on. This season, though, she’s been determined to off herself to spare her family, and unwilling to even try to save herself.

 - Harry saving Sirius (and in the process, getting him killed) in ORDER OF THE PHOENIX is pretty textbook.

 - Think Bella and that stupid rock in ECLIPSE.

 - aaand pretty much everything Nora does in HUSH, HUSH.

* There’s a reason the paranormal romance genre features disproportionately heavily here (even in this very short, biased list) – something which also makes it a contentious area for gender roles. Sometimes, it’s just not humanly possible for the (typically female) human protagonist to take on the supernatural evils of the love interest’s world. Naturally sidelined, these girls often get a lot of stick for a kind of damsel-in-distress routine. But let’s be realistic – not a lot of teenage girls are capable of holding their own against a super-strong, super-evil Big Baddie. (Then again, though, this is generally the reason I’m not a fan of the genre as a whole. These girls get no chance.)

Well-Intentioned Stupidity has its place, then, and is, in many circumstances, understandable. But is it just me, or is the WIS phenomenon TOTALLY ANNOYING? Sure, these protags may be compassionate and courageous, but isn’t their propensity to run headlong into (figuratively) burning buildings an insult to their intelligence – and the reader’s?

Maybe it’s just me, but give me a hero who can turn courage into tactics – or at least try the back entrance first – any day of the week.

Gender Roles: The Fine Line Between Special and Mary-Sue

(Apologies for the silence! We return to your irregularly-scheduled programming now… ish.)

(Also, spoilers! for MATCHED, THE HUNGER GAMES and TWILIGHT.)

Mary-Sues are a universal evil of the literary world (or, if you’re 13, a totally realistic and appealing character). They’re too pretty, too kind, too powerful, too smart, too ass-kicking. They never fail. They suck.

They are also, however, disproportionately common in female protagonist POVs, and difficult to avoid entirely. To an extent, all fiction offers at least some wish fulfilment. Even dystopic tales of subjugation and control diametrically emphasise freedom and resistance. Narrative progression ensures character development ensures change – and usually for the better. It’s why we read – because reading is an escape, always. Sometimes, you want to spend time with a character whose world is slightly more awesome than yours.

Then we have the opposite. Authors, terrified of getting stuck with the Mary-Sue shame-label, create characters who are simple, ordinary, average (like you and me. I mean, unless you’re a dragon-defeating warrior princess, in which case you should really be shopping for a new wand or whatever), who get dragged into events beyond their control and even their interest. But when these identifiable characters continue to refuse their Call to Action and resist involvement in the actual plot, things go from realistic to boring fast.

So here’s the conundrum: how do you make a character interesting enough to be worthy of a reader’s time and attention, but not so ridiculously amazing that their journey reads more like an author’s dream journal than a novel?

We can illustrate this dilemma with real-life literary examples. Maybe I’m beating a dead horse here, but some of the best examples of the Mary-Sue vs. Boring Betty debacle come from major debuts in recent YA history: think Katniss in THE HUNGER GAMES, Cassia in MATCHED and (do I even need to say it?) Bella in TWILIGHT.

Let’s start off with the most recent – Ally Condie’s Cassia. She’s just a normal girl in a perfect world living out her pre-planned life to a tee – until she falls for the wrong guy. Let me preface this with a disclaimer: I did not enjoy MATCHED. (More on this later.) One of the biggest reasons for this was that I felt Cassia was just way too boring to devote an entire novel to. Sure, she rebels from the Society’s restrictions, but mostly in though – in her own head. She and Ky get together… and hold hands. Then she goes off and farms somewhere, planning to search out her lost love, with no ostensible plan.  I’m fairly sure Cassia’s primary character trait is boring.

Then we have Katniss, whose name should be your first tip-off to her Mary-Sue undertones. Not so fast, though – Katniss is complex, self-reliant and, well, kind of a bitch. However, she’s also preternaturally and prodigiously talented with a bow and arrow, gifted with a beautiful singing voice and – like Bella – she’s got the ~secret pretty~ thing nailed. Katniss is primped and preened in every single book, adored by viewers who don’t actually want to see her die (shocker), and given the nickname ‘The Girl on Fire’.

But then MOCKINGJAY happens.

The beautiful, ass-kicking, heart-breaking Katniss gets scarred, tortured and develops a pretty serious morphling addiction. She kills again – this time, almost indiscriminately – and resists, resists, resists getting sucked into a war she wants no part of (even though it’s against the regime who stuck her in an arena to kill off other kids. Que?). She spends most of her time in a coma. MOCKINGJAY is about a war whose leader doesn’t want to fight. In losing interest (and often consciousness), Katniss ensures we lose ours too.

Bella brings up the rear, and the winning Mary-Sue position – possibly of all time. Has there ever been an author with such blatant self-inserting intentions?  Bella is adored by the boys at her new school, equally hated by the girls, and the only girl in a hundred years to catch the eye of ridonkulously handsome vamp Edward. When her vamps her in return, she turns out to be the best of them all. Possibly the most annoying thing about Bella-Sue is her unrelenting denial of any and all of these traits. Is she modest or stupid? Either way, they could’ve renamed the stereotype after Bella when Meyer was done with her.

So how do you find the balance? It takes practice and revision. It also requires neutrality. Not everyone will love your character; not everyone will have disliked Cassia like I did. Instead of making your character likeable, make them compelling. Someone whose world and experiences you’d be happy to follow, for good or bad.

And remember: if you’re planning on experimenting with a new character, get tested first.

Gender Roles: Girls with Purpose

Gender in all forms of fiction is, and always has been, a contentious issue. Girls in YA get hit pretty hard: they are declared too wimpy, or too brash; they are damsels in distress or punch-first-ask-later, without-weakness warriors. An effective middle ground character is hard to find and even harder to write. Every writer – not just those in YA – must struggle with this conundrum, and it’s a difficult balance to attain. 

What makes a strong but realistic female character, then? Here’s the hard part: there’s no one defining answer. It’s not simply the ability to take part in the action or to punch danger in the cojones. Strength is about resolution – determination and perseverance. It’s about having the ability to make a choice and making it, no matter how difficult the outcome. And that goes for every character, regardless of gender.

This strength requires sacrifice, objectives and desire. To keep getting up after getting knocked down, (all) characters need purpose – a reason to. They need ambitions, interests – goals that drive them outside of the central quest. And these simple characteristics are missing in a scary amount of female YA leads today.

Perhaps this issue is simplest to illustrate through a gendered comparison. When it comes to the male leads of HARRY POTTER and THE DEMON’S LEXICON, Harry and Nick each have several interests exclusive from their overall quest in each novel: Harry plays Quidditch and leads clandestine magical defence groups; Nick practices stabbing things and putting the moves on girls. They have goals and ambitions, and a drive to succeed in what they do. Conversely, girls like MATCHED’s Cassia or Nora in HUSH, HUSH seemingly struggle to define themselves outside of the boys they fall in love with and the obstacles standing in the way of that love. They express little to no indication of future career pursuits or even current extra-curriculars.

Sometimes, an imitation of such interests is offered in the form of a fierce, even self-sacrificing desire to protect family members or friends, such as that which seemingly defines THE VAMPIRE DIARIES’ Elena. While this desire is noble and admirable, it is almost always the female character’s defining and only trait. (Compare this to Harry, who is capable of both defending his friends and staying upright on a broomstick.) For female MCs, this protective interest seems to become an inherently maternal/matriarchal role that they exist to fulfil. Alongside this desire, no other interest can compete: it negates the need for ambition or even hobbies, and the female character is purportedly complete.

People will always have aspirations, even when the odds are stacked against them. So, too, must female MCs. And some of them do: think the studious, perfectionist and fiercely competitive Hermione, who will not compromise her intellectuality to score a date with Ron; or Mae in THE DEMON’S LEXICON, whose literary and fashion interests speak of neuroses and individualism both. Both girls have interests outside the quest, but both also display the aforementioned protective instinct over their friends and family. This instinct does not compromise their individuality precisely because it does not define them. They do; they choose who they are and who they will be.

Such choice is a central feature in the lives and relative strengths of two popular YA protagonists: Bella Swan in TWILIGHT and Katniss Everdeen in THE HUNGER GAMES. Katniss and Bella are, of course, very different characters: Katniss shoots forest game to feed her subsisting family; and Bella microwaves pizza for her man-child father. (Both girls do possess an inability to choose between love interests, but that’s another story.) It’s easy to see how the self-sufficient, capable Katniss appears an inherently ‘stronger’ character than Bella, the ultimate damsel in distress for sincerity-starved 21^st Century tweens; and yet what defines them is not their relative ass-kicking abilities, but their choices… or lack thereof. This is what Laura Miller espouses so succinctly in her comparison of these female leads:

One thing you can say about Bella Swan, though: She knows what she wants. For the two books leading up to "Mockingjay," Katniss acts decisively and often effectively, but only when she's backed into a corner. […] "I'm not just a piece in their game," is her habitual refrain, but except for a few climactic and highly circumscribed moments, she's often just that. What does Katniss really want? It's hard to say.

Yes, Katniss may shoot to kill, and Bella’s incessant whining can make you want to kill yourself, but Katniss’ relative passivity throughout THE HUNGER GAMES series (especially MOCKINGJAY) ultimately negates her physical strength, and even her desire to protective those she loves. When faced with a difficult choice, such as furthering her role in a destructive war (she wants no part of), Katniss simply shuts down – much as Bella does when Edward abandons her. Without choosing, and without subsequent determination, Katniss and Bella are both lost amongst the physical and mental wars raging around them, ineffective and purposeless.

Characters need strength to make these choices, and to follow through with them. They need goals and ambitions that make such difficult choices worth the risk, and the determination to see these goals through when they are constantly knocked down. Their purpose, as characters and as humans, is what makes them strong.

Using & Abusing Your Characters - Pt. 2

Stupidity and torture

It’s a well-established inevitability of fiction that some characters are too stupid to live. From an inability to connect the most obvious of clues, to keeping the kind of secrets that would have solved the central conflict two hundred pages ago, or plain old falling for the villain’s trap every single time, it can sometimes feel like stupidity is a literary contagion.

Of course, in many cases this kind of idiocy is not in fact idiocy at all: it’s curiosity, trust, gallantry or even love. Moreover, the occasional blunder is a reflection of human nature: we are human; we do stupid things, and so should our characters. And it’s this kind of humanity that is often necessary to drive the plot – and your characters – forward.

But, in the worst offenses, it’s only too easy to see how curiosity becomes stupidity – and with disastrous results. HUSH, HUSH follows on from the TWILIGHT measure of ‘dreamy’ (read: nightmare) male leads, though admittedly, far more blatantly. Nora pushes-and-pulls the semi-psychotic Patch through the better half of the book. She’s also stupid enough to be best friends with the self-absorbed, use-her-friendly Vee.

Example: On almost every level, Patch terrified me. But deep down, I didn’t think he was going to kill me.

(And that’s good enough for a teenage girl!)

At the other end of the spectrum (ie. not self-induced) is torture – the pain, drama and conflict characters undergo throughout the plot that drives them to their final confrontation with the big baddie, or to the break-up-before-make-up of their relationship. As every orphaned YA protagonist will tell you, it’s the torture these characters endure that drives them to revenge, shapes their relationships and builds them into heroes.

When you spend so much time with your own characters, however, attachment is inevitable. Torture and stupidity can become difficult to inflict on your beloved protagonist(s). And yet both devices are often essential to the conflicts that spur on the storyline and shape our characters – whether they be unintelligent or just plain unlucky.

Do you find it difficult to inflict torture or stupidity on your characters? If so, which do you find harder? And do you think the stupidity that leads characters to go outside and check on that weird noise is warranted, or a get-to-the-plot-point cop-out?

Using & Abusing Your Characters - Pt. 1

Character as function

When it comes to the construction of characters, their backgrounds, interactions and choices will vary depending on whether a story is character-driven (as in commercial or literary fiction, like Sarah Dessen’s ALONG FOR THE RIDE) or plot-central (as in genre fiction, like fantasy or dystopian – think THE HUNGER GAMES). Whilst the former emphasises conflict through emotional interaction, with real-life issues like birth, death and heartbreak often driving the story, the latter is centred around enemies and quests, and the character’s internal struggles must take a backseat to these external goals.

(Of course, no story can be defined as wholly character- or plot-driven; what makes a novel successful is striking a balance of the two that complements its characters’ emotional progressions [or handicaps] and interactions. Many works straddle this line, particularly within the paranormal romance genre.)

In this way, plot-driven stories require their characters to be more than fully realised human beings (or angels/demons/super-powered, mild-mannered, thinly-veiled Christ figures): they are tools for the advancement of the plot, and for the readers’ comprehension of it. To highlight this concept of character serving as function, we’ll look at two plot-driven genre texts: the HARRY POTTER series and Christopher Nolan’s INCEPTION.

Harry, as both the series’ protagonist and magical world initiate, serves as a tool for the reader to experience and learn about the world he is drawn into, functioning as the reader proxy. Through Harry and his external quest – specifically, in the first book, to protect the Philosopher’s Stone – we are introduced to Hogwarts and to Lord Voldemort, around which Harry’s emotional conflicts (including his parents’ deaths, at the hands of Voldemort) are shaped. More importantly, Harry, the initiate, has a character – a function – from whom to source answers to the questions his initiation raises. As such, Dumbledore (the instructor) and Hermione (the informer) can be seen as two of the most important characters, plot-wise, throughout the HP series. Both provide Harry with direct and indirect answers and information that are often key to his external quests – whether it be overcoming Voldemort or chasing down the Hallows. Hermione and Dumbledore complement each other as functions: in Hermione, Harry finds less authority but better access, whilst Dumbledore has more authority but with limited access.

INCEPTION, similarly, employs this initiate-informer dichotomy to guide its viewers through Nolan’s often-complicated dream world. (Somewhere on the web I saw this described as “holding the viewer’s hand”, which I think is a good description. The plot is complicated but well delineated, and we are left questioning things long enough to be curious but not too long as to become frustrated.) Whilst Cobb, as the instructor and protagonist of the film, is key to our comprehension of the world of subconscious espionage, it is Ariadne who facilitates the revealing of such information, simply by asking – by functioning as the initiate (and hence, again, the viewer proxy).

The major difference between the two is the relative initiation of the protagonist in each, with Harry totally clueless to the magical world’s existence and Cobb fully immersed in his. Hence, Ariadne is necessary in INCEPTION to act as the initiate and to be guided through the dream world by other characters, those already initiated (like Cobb).

Both initiate and instructor are key character functions for dispensing information, for drawing the reader into the world you’ve created, and most significantly, for advancing the plot. Without Hermione, Harry and Ron would likely have ended up as snake-bait or squished by a murderous plant; without Dumbledore, Voldemort would have pwnd half of Europe by now and Harry would still be lying in a forest (sans heartbeat); without Ariadne, we’d have even less of a clue what the eff is happening in Cobb’s subconscious. Complicated plots require double the work from your characters: their questions and knowledge must drive the story from conflict to conflict, from clue to clue. We need both initiate and instructor to answer our questions and to ask them for us.