For those of you who may not have undergone the torturous (okay, okay, at least call it tedious) process of reading Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, let me tell you a little bit about Fanny Price:
She's
worried about appearing rude or impatient.
She's
"extremely civil."
She
gets headaches from "nothing but the heat." She quite literally gets
a headache from cutting roses for 45 minutes in the sun. And from walking.
She's
ridiculously weak.
"The
sudden change which Edmund's kindness had then occasioned made her hardly know
how to support herself." C'MON.
"That
he should forego any enjoyment on her account gave her pain." No,
seriously.
"Every
sort of exercise fatigues her so, Miss Crawford, except riding."
She
tells a boy that she's glad they didn't perform a play, and then, since she had
never said anything so angry before, "she trembled and blushed at her own
daring."
"The
sight of so many strangers threw her back into herself," but "she found herself
occasionally called on to endure something worse. She was introduced here and
there by her uncle, and forced to be spoken to, and to curtsy and speak again.
This was a hard duty."
I think by this point you understand what I'm trying to say. To sum it up, Fanny Price is arguably the most dull, uninteresting, colorless character ever written—or at least she was, until Bella Swan swooped in and
stole that title away.
If you MUST watch Mansfield Park, always choose the right. You'll forever regret choosing the left.
Ever since Mansfield Park became one of the few books I returned to the library without finishing (claiming a spot along with Alice in Wonderland and ... nope, that's about it) I've been afraid of writing a Fanny Price. I never want to write a Fanny
Price.
Fanny Price isn't the only literary character I've hated over the years. When I went through my LDS fiction phase back when I was 12ish, I ran across a couple of books that I absolutely loathed because of the main
character. Characters who are too perfect are horrible, and yes—I'm always
grateful when a too-perfect or an annoying character bites the dust. I feel like Thumb Wars' Loke Groundrunner when a fistfighter blows up the Stray Dog/Red Rooster/Swollen
Ostrich pilot…
THANK YOU
I think writing a character people want you to kill would be terribly depressing, a la Maid Marion in the BBC Robin Hood (bless you, writers) or Rachel Dawes in The Dark Knight (bless you too, writers). If Fanny Price had contracted some fatal fatigue disease and withered away to a boring, dry shell, I probably would've liked Mansfield Park more. Sad but true.
It's this depressing thought—"thanks for killing your
character! The story is better without him/her!" that makes me worry,
because I think I'm writing a Fanny Price.
OH, THE HORROR!
See, I'm trying to write a character who's a bit shy, a little timid, and who allows himself to be bullied for part of the story. And dagnabbit, he's turning into a character I would dislike. I obviously don't
dislike him because he's mine, but if I were an unattached reader… I don't
know…
I've been watching a boatload of Bollywood movies lately (Dil Bole Hadippa, guys – it's just like She's the Man, only with cricket… and dancing…) and I thought I had found the answer in Pyaar Impossible!, which is about a shy main character. I thought I could learn from the movie. Unfortunately, he got on my nerves within the first twenty minutes. I just wanted to yell at him. "Speak up! Stop letting people walk all over you! Be a man!"
So there's a challenge, and I want to know how other writers deal with it. Shy, timid people occur in real life, so how do you write about them in a way that keeps them endearing, relatable, and likable? How do you make the story worth reading when your character is sometimes less than
interesting? Every single character can't be charismatic, outspoken, and forceful,
because that would make every character the same. But how do you avoid walking
into the boring/too perfect trap when going for an unobvious hero in a story?
So many questions.
Hopefully I'm just being too picky. Hopefully my shy character doesn't annoy anyone else. Hopefully he's got more gumption than he
appears to have thus far.
And hopefully I can avoid making the worst mistake of all…
I've been editing a book for months and months. It was about
27,000 words too long (which, if you're keeping score at home, broke down to
about 44 single-spaced pages in Word). That's a whole lot of wordy. And — as
pretty much every entry on this blog clearly shows — I have a problem with
wordy.
That's why I invented the chapter test.
In order to speed up the pacing of every story I write, I
force myself to read back through it and chop chapters. Now, chopping
chapters is extremely difficult. Like, hold-still-while-I-cut-off-this-arm
difficult. You feel a little bit like the mom in the King Solomon story, where
you'd rather give away your baby than see it cut in half. In my first edit of
the book that is almost ready to be sent out to agents (curse you, you evil
appendix), I probably cut out 50 words, and every one of them hurt like the
dickens. At that point, I thought the pain was over.
However, after reading some interviews with book agents, I
concluded that my book needed to be around 75,000 words long — a far cry from
where it was. That convinced me that I had to get serious. Rather than scraping
away a few words here and there with a scalpel, I had go full Jack Nicholson and attack the story with
an axe. The chapter test helped me do it.
See, I decided that every chapter needed to drive the
narrative forward. That seems like a stupid conclusion — OF COURSE the chapters
should drive the narrative forward — but you wouldn't believe how easy it is to
veer off course with your characters. Nobody loves your characters more than
you do, so it's easy (so painfully easy) to transform into a doting parent.
Your characters become your baby, and you want to capture their every move.
Walking?
Yes!
Talking?
Yes!
Shopping?
Yes!
Breakfast?
Yes!
It's very, very easy for the actual story to get buried
under things that seem important to you as the writer, but tend to bore the
reader to death. Hence, the chapter test.
So (having put it off for this many paragraphs — see the wordy
problem?!) let me explain:
The test probably evolved from my journalism background. All
through college I worked on the campus newspaper, and part of my job was
writing headlines. An 800-word story would need to be summed up in eight words,
or maybe five words, or even (heaven forbid) as few as three words. It was
terrible, but I learned, and I've transferred it over to my writing. With the
chapter test, I read through the chapter and summarize it with a brief headline
explaining what it's about. If the chapter doesn't push the narrative forward,
it's eligible for axing.
I've got 33 pages of chopped chapters saved on my computer,
and they can all be summed up like this:
"Character tries to avoid girls"
"Character remembers a conversation"
"Character draws a picture"
"Character gets annoyed"
Let's face it — none of those chapters were
make-or-break-the-story types. They needed to go. I may have loved them to
death (the drawing one is a favorite) but they were bogging down the story, stalling
the narrative, and belaboring points that could have been made more succinctly
elsewhere.
That's the chapter test — sum up the chapter, see if it adds to the narrative, and then chop if it doesn't. It's clinical, it's clean, and it's far less painful than you might think.
Once you get the theory behind the chapter test, you can
apply it to all sorts of books. If I had a copy of Twilight (I
don't, but if I did) I could probably narrow down the chapters like this:
"Bella whines."
"Bella mopes."
"Bella stares."
"Bella wonders why everyone likes her." (So do the
readers…)
Don't think I only pick on "Twilight,"
though — other books could benefit from my brilliance. If I were to cut out all
of the "Harry whines" chapters from the fifth Harry Potter book, it
would've been about 400 pages shorter. And if I cut out all of the "Fanny
is boring," "Fanny is tired," "Fanny is silent,"
"Fanny is dull," chapters from Mansfield Park, that book
would cease to exist. Take out the "Dang, these Parisian sewers are awesome" chapters from Les Miserables, and that book would be a breeze. If only Jane Austen, J.K. Rowling, and Victor Hugo knew about the
chapter test…
Parents may love their kids to death, but they're also
willing to tell their kids to stop being ridiculous when the kids act out. The
same theory can apply for authors.
When I was working as a journalist in D.C., I got to meet one of the guys who invented the Internet.
Al Gore
No, not THAT guy. (Political humor, har-dee-har-har.) I met one of the guys who ACTUALLY invented the Internet. It was pretty cool.
Anyway, so I've been thinking about the Internet and how it has changed our lives forever. That may lead you to believe that I'll be going on a serious, philosophical tangent with this blog post...
NOT! Hahahaha!
Setting aside all the practical uses of the Internet, this post is about one specific Internet phenomenon: personality quizzes. Don't pretend you've never taken them...
How did we ever know who we really were before the Internet was invented to tell us?!
So here it is — many silly quizzes and videos later — Jackie according to the Internet.
How many of these quizzes and their accompanying descriptions are accurate in any way?
You may never know...
What Disney princess are you?
In all the times I've been suckered into taking one of these quizzes, I've always been Belle. (You know — loner, nerdy, bookworm, etc.) Not this time, however. The official Disney quiz has declared that I am ... Cinderella!
Remember this pose, Shannen? What are the odds?!
Supposedly I share many admirable qualities with the beautiful Cinderella; clever, loyal, and hard-working. "Kindness is your number one priority even when others aren't so nice or situations test your good nature ... You and Cinderella are sweet, determined, hopeful, and never question that someday your dreams will come true — and no one deserves it more!"
Of course, the fact that I supposedly share all these virtues with Cinderella makes it all the more amusing that my purported evil Disney alter ego is... Lady Tremaine!
I see the resemblance...
The quiz didn't actually tell me why, but it did say that I help kids learn to love their birth parents as a way to avoid stepparents. I guess that's good? Would that make me an evil hero?
Anyway...
Since my current obsession is Robin Hood (Errol Flynn, etc. Although, the one with Papyrus in the opening credits? I turned that one off....) I figured I'd better take a quiz based on the BBC series. And it said I am ... Will Scarlett!
"The gang's chief engineer whose brilliant designs are key to many a Robin Hood plan. You are a hard worker, quiet and shy, and often the voice of reason. You are committed and hopeful, and you desperately want to put the world back together as it was."
Since I'm a longtime Will Scarlett fan, that's totally cool with me. Besides, who wouldn't want to be compared to someone with those eyebrows?
Continuing on the Robin Hood vein, to truly discover Jackie we should look to other literature quizzes...
My quiz tells me I'm a born leader and a good fighter. Who knew?! It also said "you are the one usually put in charge of things and you aren't afraid to do it."
I guess if you want to talk about people who aren't afraid to be independent, the quintessential classical character would be a certain lady who is well known to all Jane Austen fans...
The quiz describes Elizabeth Bennet as representative of "what most women would like to become: strong, independent, and loyal." Of course, the quiz won't let those compliments go to my head, as it points out that I also have a "stubborn will of iron and a clinging to first impressions."
Hmmm...
Now, not that I've taken many a sorting quiz in my 24 years on Earth, but needless to say, the results this time around were surprising. Could it be that I've changed from being a persistent Ravenclaw to... dare I say it... Hufflepuff?!
Sure, being "loyal, dependable, and hardworking" are good things, but seriously... Hufflepuff? Ah well, it's nice to know at least one Harry Potter thing will never change...
Being "book smart, moral, and cool under pressure" is great, but my favorite part of this description was when it said, "You're way more mature than those around you, and you always seem to know what's best."
That's right. Listen to my genius.
Of course, that sentence right there also feeds into the fact that I'm apparently the first Doctor — "grumpy, proud, but really just an old softy."
And because I'm like the first Doctor, it seems "intelligence is no barrier" to me.
(Or, as the quiz itself says, "inteliegence is no barrier." Ah, the Internet...)
In the Star Wars-verse I'm supposedly R2-D2. Why? Because apparently what I lack in height and communication skills, I make up for in industriousness, technical know-how and being there when others need me most.
Curse this all-knowing Internet! Making fun of my lack of height...
Now, how the Internet could tell me that I'm Princess Peach from "Mario" and Mal Reynolds from "Firefly" is a little baffling, but whatevs. Naturally the clash of being a "beautiful princess with not a bad bone in your body" and the "my way or the highway" shoot-first-ask-later Mal are smoothed over somehow. Internet tests couldn't possibly be wrong...
In terms of things that I can't change, apparently being born in October means that I'm a clairvoyant nature lover, a born leader, amiable (eh?!), more emotional than practical (no, seriously, eh?!), totally independent, clever, dedicated, and hard working. Having blue eyes means I'm very attractive, adorable, and I love to make new friends.
(Okay, I'm starting to think the Internet doesn't know me at all...)
In the only scientific-ish test I took, it appears my real age is not 24, but is rather 8. The test isn't saying that I'm immature — it's saying that I'm healthy. So if I started exercising, do you think I could get the number below zero? Could my so-called "virtual age" actually be dead? Hmmm...
If the Internet hasn't given you a clear picture of who I really am, I'll also bow to the comparison skills of my long-time college roommate Shannen. Throughout our college experience she compared to me numerous people from TV shows. For some reason they were often large black men, but maybe I just give off that vibe...
Jackie according to Shannen:
Emerson Cod from "Pushing Daisies"
Stanley from "The Office"
House from (naturally) "House"
And last (but never least) Kat Warbler from "The Class"
I've also gotten some Sue Sylvester from "Glee" comparisons, but who knows why...
To sum it up: Jackie according to the Internet is kind, sweet, determined, hopeful, evil, quiet, shy, the voice of reason, a born leader, a good fighter, strong, independent, loyal, stubborn, book smart, moral, mature, grumpy, proud, "inteliegent," short, industrious, good natured, eight, clairvoyant, amiable, emotional, clever, adorable, and friendly, with touches of Emerson, Stanley, House, Kat, and Sue.
The one unifying factor in Internet personality quizzes is that they somehow end up making us feel complimented. That's probably why we take them — they make us feel good about ourselves. But do they really tell us who we are?
Probably not.
So, in a world of Internet quizzes, pop culture, and TV comparisons, my own description of what I'm really like — according to me, and no one else — can be summed up in one word:
Joel.
An emotional void, dry, and long-suffering...
Which, Shannen, makes you either Tom Servo or Crow...
Degrees in history and journalism, minors in editing and political science. Burgeoning policy wonk and news hound. Writer. Ice cream addict. Font snob (courtesy of Warren). Permanently sarcastic.
