YOUR HERO' S FATAL FLAW

Good Morning Seekers, I have the privilege of introducing Laurie Schnebly Campbell to our loop today. She is a multi-published author.

Her first novel was nominated by Romantic Times as the year's "Best First Series Romance," and her second beat out Nora Roberts for "Best Special Edition of the Year." Laurie loves giving workshops for writer groups about "Psychology for Creating Characters," "Making Rejection WORK For You," "Building A Happy Relationship For Your Characters (And Yourself)" and other issues that draw on her background as a counseling therapist and romance writer. Her book, Believable Characters: Creating with Enneagrams, is one of my favorites and a must for all authors.

Here's Laurie with

YOUR HERO'S FATAL FLAW

What fun to be at a site where the refreshments seem to get better every week! I’ll throw in some cake to start...

Now, back to the idea of fatal flaws for our characters.

A few weeks ago a friend asked me why her hero NEEDED a fatal flaw. Wouldn't an ordinary flaw be good enough? And I realized that it's misleading to call these flaws fatal...because how often, at least in a happy-ending book, does the hero wind up dead? (Okay, we won't count the gorgeous vampires.)

But unless we're writing about James Bond or someone else where the action matters more than the character, every single person we write about will have some kind of flaw.

Same with every single person we know in real life. And it's those defects, or the desire to overcome them, which can lead to some pretty interesting stories -- both in books, and in the everyday world.

You’ve probably heard of ANY-uh-grams, the nine personality types? Everybody is one of the nine enneagrams -- but we all have some of EACH type within us. In fact, we can spot types we know just from their names...the perfectionist, nurturer, achiever, romantic, observer, skeptic, enthusiast, leader, peacemaker.

So which are you? And which are the people who interest you? Well, let's see:

Type One, the Perfectionist, is a classic white-hat-never-black-hat who LIVES for Truth-Justice-Right. They hate mistakes; as perfectionists they get angry when they (or anyone else) doesn’t live up to their high standards. Trivia: they’re hardly EVER overweight, because that would be Wrong!

Two, the Nurturer, loves to be needed; they’re constantly giving. Great helpers who’ll go out of their way to care for others, and they take pride in being needed. If they go overboard, it’s a case of them forcing chicken soup down your throat because they identify themselves as Givers.

Three, the Achiever, is the golden boy or golden girl who succeeds at whatever they do and always looks fabulous. Even if they’re cleaning the garage, their hair is ARTFULLY messy! But they can get so wrapped up in the fabulous image, they might indulge in deception to keep it going.

Four, the Romantics, are never afraid of their feelings; they love big emotions...drama, tragedy, falling in love. They have glorious visions for how life should be, “scripting” what they hope for. If everyday life seems too ordinary, they fall into envy -- not of others, but of their perfect dream.

Five, the Observer, isn't interested in emotions, except academically -- they're all about thoughts, analysis, study. They keep to themselves, preferring comprehension over participation, and while they don't care much about material goods, they're greedy for personal time-space-privacy.

Six, the Skeptic, is constantly alert to risk (for themselves and their loved ones). Because of this fear, they're very aware of the rules and determined to always keep them...OR to always break them. Either way, they're deeply loyal and determined to keep their team safe, no matter what.

Seven, the Adventurer, is enthusiastic about everything and everybody, and they want to enjoy every possible new experience...to the point where they might be accused of gluttony. They prefer not to commit to just ONE of anything -- whether a favorite restaurant, a job, or even a mate.

Eight, the Leader, is very self-confident and accustomed to being in charge, running the show...always protecting that vulnerable core. Their lust for power can create trouble if someone else expects to share decision-making, but it also makes them exceptionally good at getting things done.

Nine, the Peacemaker, likes to avoid conflict, avoid taking sides...even choosing chocolate or vanilla. They’re likable because they can appreciate everyone's viewpoint, and rarely express their own. Instead they kick back with whatever's comfortable...sometimes to the point of sloth.

See how each strength has a corresponding weakness? That's likely to come out under stress, which happens in EVERY book. And that's only the beginning!

NOW IT'S YOUR TURN

I've talked enough, here, but if there's anything you'd like to know about the type of your characters -- or anyone else in your life -- I'll be checking back for questions all day.

And anyone who speaks up will go into an end-of-the-day drawing to win still MORE enneagram info...with your choice of free registration to my current yahoogroups workshop on "Creating Your Hero's Fatal Flaw" at www.WriterUniv.com or an autographed copy of my "Believable Characters: Creating With Enneagrams" book.

So I'm rolling up my sleeves and hoping I won't be the only person at the party today!

Laurie, with a big thanks to Sandra for inviting me J

Thanks to you Laurie for the great information. Remember to include your email address if you want to participate in Laurie's drawing. The winner will be announced on the weekend special edition.

Author, Know Thy Character,

by Jeannie Campbell, LMFT





-->WHAT IT IS

Character Therapist [kar-ik-ter ther-uh-pist] noun. A person trained in the use of psychological methods for diagnosing and evaluating fictional characters to help authors write more realistically.

This is what I do. So how can you—a published or aspiring writer—and your beloved characters benefit?

Rather than tell you, I’ll show you. Here are a few examples of the types of questions I field each week.

à“I have the man so tied to his mother that he can't break away from her. Do I need a good reason behind this?”

à“How would compartmentalizing parts of self damage a person? How would the buried parts manifest themselves? How easy would it be to slip up? He's pretended to be someone else for so long...what if he's that new person now, and can't find himself anymore?”

à“My character suffers from a head injury and has amnesia. Her memory will return by the end of the novel, but from my understanding, it typically returns a little a time. What would that be like? How would the character feel/react?”

à“Is it feasible for a teenager with Asperger’s Syndrome to take a driving test, fail, and then want to take the test again?”

à“If someone has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and they are triggered, would they have “panic attacks” or something that would send them to the hospital for a few days?”

This is just a sampling of content areas a character therapist could help you with. Internal motivations, effects of external conflicts, plot feasibility, character strengths and weaknesses, behavioral manifestations or limitations…a character therapist’s playground.


WHY IT’S NEEDED

The prevalence of mental disorders is astounding. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in every four adults has a mental disorder. TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT. So chances are you or someone you know has struggled with depression (often called the common cold of mental health), anxiety, eating disorders, bipolar, substance abuse, or sleeping disorders.

And what do we most often write about? What we know. So these disorders creep into our manuscripts often as a way to give a hero/heroine a vice (“He’s an alcoholic.”) or to explain away some secondary character’s erratic behavior (“She’s bipolar.”).

Mental disorders often become cliché or stereotyped, because what does the average author know about these disorders? You can Google them, sure, and you’ll get a lot of stale facts and criteria for diagnosing, but very little real-life answers as to how to portray these disorders—breathe life into them—for your characters.

That’s where I come in.


HOW IT WORKS

In real life, when you see a counselor, you typically have an assessment session. The counselor asks questions about your background, reason for coming in, etc. Information exchange is the only way for the therapist to get a feel for the client.

It’s the same with fictional characters. All I need to work with is a character sketch. I’ve gotten sketches that were a short paragraph to some several pages long. Some of the more fun assessments I’ve posted on my blog were the result of email “sessions” between the author and myself as we delved deeper.

If you have specific questions, that can help narrow down my focus. Otherwise, I look at the overall psychological picture you present of your character. Quirks, pet peeves, family history, hobbies…all these things add up! I might not diagnose every one of the characters I do therapy on, but quite a few of them qualify.

On occasion, I see a glaring omission from a therapeutic perspective. For example, how can a young heroine who has not experienced any real unconditional love from her parents or anyone else, recognize true love from the hero—much less trust it—if she hasn’t had some sort of example? I pointed this out to one author and she admitted, “It was a missing piece that popped into the light when you mentioned it. I knew there was something missing somewhere and that's what it was!!”

Other times feasibility can be an issue. For example, children with Asperger’s Syndrome typically fear social encounters. So it’s pretty unlikely that one who was able to conquer that fear enough to take a driver’s test would want to get behind the wheel again after failing. Another example of unfeasibility would be portraying a disorder in a stereotypical manner, like a bipolar character switching from manic to depressed back to manic in the span of two pages.


WHY YOU SHOULD TRY IT

Characters are paramount to any story. Books have to have characters and those characters have to have problems, or you don’t have a book.

In order to resonate with our readers, our books should be authentic to human nature. Could anything be more important? Authors can spend inordinate amounts of time researching legal procedures and geographical locations, but if a character doesn’t ring true amidst all that, you’ve lost your reader and your chance to connect.

Character therapy is just one more tool in your toolbox to take your writing to the next level. Pick my brain so you don’t have to pick yours.

WHERE TO GO NEXT

Hopefully I’ve convinced you of the value of this service and you’ve decided your characters need therapy. Now what do you do?

You just email me at charactertherapist@hotmail.com with the words character therapy in the subject line. In the body of the email (NOT in an attachment), include your first name, genre, time period, and your character sketch. Usually back story is taboo, but it’s preferred for therapists! I’ll send you a quick email to let you know I got the sketch and ask any additional questions if needed. Check back on my blog every Tuesday to see when your assessment is posted. I change all names to protect the fictional characters, but I identify each assessment by the author’s first name.

I look forward to therapizing…er…terrorizing…uh…analyzing your characters!




Jeannie Campbell is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in northern California, though she claims Mississippi as home. She received her Masters of Divinity with Specialization in Psychology and Counseling at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and her BA in psychology and journalism from the University of Mississippi. Her passion is helping those not afflicted with mental disorders to understand and have compassion on those who are. Her blog, Where Romance Meets Therapy, is where she posts her assessments on Treatment Tuesdays. On Thursdays, she writes a Therapeutic Thought to help writers benefit from her therapeutic skills. She can be reached at charactertherapist@hotmail.com.









Jeannie is offering a psychological analysis of your hero/heroine for the first three chapters of your manuscript (in addition to your character sketch), so be sure to leave a comment in the comment section today in order to be put in the drawing, and indicated you want to be included in the drawing! Drawing will be held at 8pm MST.