HOW TO MAKE YOUR NOVEL STAND OUT

{Image of Victor's Mother courtesy of Leonora Roy}

 

 

"Remember what Aristotle said 2,000 years ago about drama: You have to have a plot, character, meaning and spectacle."
Anne Rice

 

I. AVOID THE HOUSE OF USHER DOOM

 

     The most beautiful mansion will collapse if

      the foundation is flawed.

 

          Make the conflict unique, pitting the character, not

          only against his enemies,

          but against the flaws within him or her.

 

     EXAMPLE:

          THE GOOD GUY -

                                           a withdrawn, emotionally

           wounded man is mistaken in a bar

           for a hitman and given money with the picture

           of a woman he is supposed

           to kill.

 

                                           The "good guy" follows the man

           to get his license # to give to the police

           only to find the man who has contracted the death

           of a young woman is

                                           getting into a police car!

 

                                           Can the "good guy" pull himself

           out of his past enough to save a woman

                                           whose life is in his hands?

 

II. REMEMBER WHY PEOPLE READ

 

     To escape the routine of their lives and find escape.

 

     Giving them cliched heroines is just more of the same.

 

                  beautiful girls who think they’re ugly;

                  dark, brooding strangers who stalk them and

                  reveal that said girl is

                                        a fairy/witch/sorcerer/gnome

                                        who is the Chosen One and

                                        Must Save the World.

      Please. Just stop. We all know where this is going.

 

     EXAMPLE of tipping expectations on their ears -

 

     LAMB by Christopher Moore

 

                                            A 2000 year old Jewish man is brought back from the dead by an 

                                            inept angel to write a new gospel.

 

                                            The man is Levi called Biff (from the sound his head made when his

                                            mother hit him on the head in exasperation -- which was a lot.)

     

                                            Biff was Jesus' childhood best friend -- think Larry the Cable Guy

                                            mangling the young years of the Son of God.

 

                                            Jesus: "Biff, you keep saying my Father has no sense of humor. Not

                                            so - He gave me you."

 

III. DARE TO BE DIFFERENT -

 

      (Nearly) anything goes when writing novels,

      even with an aim to publication.

      You have to give readers/publishers a reason to pick

      your book out of the millions

      they could pick.

 

     As with the above example, it is all in the execution.

 

IV. MINUS TEN AND COUNTING -

 

     SUSPENSE -

 

     It begins with characters you give a damn about.  So AVOID -

    

     Heroines or heroes who are victims (many readers already feel victimized -- if they

     want to live a victim's life, they just have to put down the book and live their own life)

 

    Passive (many readers feel powerless, they read to feel empowered not neutered),

 

    Whiners ( they have their mothers or in-laws for that.)

 

     Perfect (they want to be able to relate to their heroines or heroes, to imagine they could

     possibly become them one day -- perfection only lets them know they are merely reading

     a book.)

 

      Think: "Wouldn't it be interesting if I were ... "

 

         "A young short order cook who can see the voiceless

          dead who

          demand he finds justice for them --

 

                     A ghost of a girl hands him a seashell,

                     motioning for him to hold it to his ear.

                     He drops it in horror when he hears the

                     grunting of her rapist/murderer. 

 

                     She points to an oncoming car.  Her rapist. 

                     It is his boyhood friend.

                     ODD THOMAS by DEAN KOONTZ.

 

         "A high school junior who dreams of escaping his

           small-minded town where

           everything is boringly commonplace --

           especially now when his beloved mother

           has died and his father retreated into madness.

 

          The ostrasized family in town is visited by a

          young relative -- a haunted eyed girl

          who is treated shabbily by his class mates. 

          He comes to her defense. He is scorned

          both by his classmates and by her.

 

          But through her, he learns there is a class of

          beings wearing human faces yet

          anything but. 

          And they may have killed his

          mother -- and it may be that it is only his

          voodoo-believing maid that has kept him alive ...

          so far ... but his defense of the girl has targeted him
          for vicious retribution.

 

          BEAUTIFUL CREATURES BY Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

 

V. MAKE THEM LAUGH -

 

     Depression readers can get for free. 

     Humor provided a relief valve for the events in your

     book and in the lives of your readers.

 

     Ask yourself which would you read right now: 

     CALVIN AND HOBBES or WAR AND PEACE?

     Which book would most people on the street read?

 

VI. THINK HARRY POTTER -

 

     Drop "Virtue" and "Flaw" entirely.

    Instead,

    a character has "Admiration Traits and "Access Traits".

    One is a trait The Reader wishes s/he had;

    the other is one The Reader already has

    and is grounds for empathy with the character.

     In your story,

                          you will typically want at least

      one character who is Admirable

      ("I wish I were this guy") and

 

     at least one character who is Accessible ("I am this guy").

 

     They are not required to be separate;

 

     Harry Potter has both Access and Admiration traits,

                           which is why he works as not only

                           the hero of his enormous franchise,

                           but its primary narrator.

 

In fact, it is best for every character to have both traits.

                   If you've studied any fiction that's come out

                   of Hollywood any time recently,

                   however, you'll know that they've missed

                   this memo—

 

                  Michael Bay in particular has been unable to

                 figure out Access traits

                 for over a decade—

                 so let's start with the basics

                 of having at least one character who is

                 audience-accessible.

Going back to Harry Potter for a moment will also let us

notice something very interesting

                about Access Traits vs Admiration Traits:

                they are subjective.

 

What are Harry's traits?

 

                  He's courageous and quick-thinking under pressure;

                  as early as the first book, Albus Dumbledore

                  praises his "sheer outstanding nerve".

 

                  He's intensely loyal to his True Companions;

                  since both his mother and father are dead,

                  he is understandably protective of the people

                  he has chosen to be

                  his surrogate family.

 

                  He's kind of a jock—

                  his scholastic efforts are lackluster,

                  and his main appeal amongst his classmates

                  is the fact that he's a leading athlete.

 

                  He is quite selfless, insisting on putting himself

                  in the line of fire

                  lest someone else get hurt.

 

And he is the possessor of some form of Plot Armor:

when Voldemort,

                  the Big Bad of the series, used a magic spell on him

                  that kills anyone it's used on, period, end of story...

                  it didn't kill him.

 

He became The Boy Who Lived.

Which of these make Harry Accessible, and which of them make him Admirable?

 

And think about that answer, because for every single person on the planet,

 the answer will be different.

 

And this is why it's important you put a variety of traits on your characters:

 

                    because one Reader's virtue is another's flaw.

                    Every Reader will bond with every character

                    in a different way,

                    for different reasons,

 

So providing as many reasons as possible—

both Admiration points and Access points—

makes those characters more likely to win an audience.

 

What do you think makes novels and their characters stand

out?