I don’t know about you, but I love reading books where the author encourages me to draw conclusions that are wrong. Case in point–untrustworthy characters who I trust anyway. Like all writers, I am ultra aware of character cues and actions as I read, so when I’m led astray and find out someone I believed to be good really isn’t, I want to cheer and tell the author, “Well done!”

Tricking readers in this manner is difficult.

In real life, all of us are body language experts. At least 93% of communication is nonverbal, meaning we are very adept at ‘reading’ other people by their mannerisms, gestures, habits and voice changes. In books, this skill allows us to pick up on nonverbal cues which communicate a character’s emotions. Plus, if we are in the dishonest character’s POV, we also have access to their thoughts and internal visceral sensations (heartbeat changes, adrenaline shifts and other uncontrollable fight-or-flight responses). All of this means that tricking the reader can be very tough.

There are several ways to make the reader believe one thing while another thing is true.

One technique is the red herring. This is where a writer nudges a reader in one direction hard enough that their brain picks up on ‘planted’ clues meant to mislead them. So for example, let’s say I had a character who was a pastor and youth councilor for his church and he spent his weekends working with homeless teens, trying to get them back into group homes. The reader will begin to get a certain image in their mind.

If I then further describe him as slightly bald with a bad taste in fashion (imagine the kind of guy that wears those awful patterned sweater vests) but who has a smile for everyone he meets, it’s a good bet that I’ve disarmed the reader. They’ve written this character off as a nice, honest guy. Even though his life is all about the church, no way could he be the one stealing cash from the collection box, or the man having affairs with depressed women parishioners, or playing Dr. Death by administering heroin to street teens, right?

Another technique is pairing. Similar to a red herring, pairing is when we do two things at once to mask important clues. If, as an author, I show my friendly pastor leaving an alleyway at night and then have a car crash happen right in front of him, which event will the reader focus on? And if later, the police find another overdosed teen nearby as they interview the pastor about the accident, commending him from pulling a woman from the wreckage before the car could explode…would the reader put two and two together? If I did my job right, then no.

A third technique is to disguise aspects of his “untrustworthy nature” using a Character Flaw. After all, no one is perfect. Readers expect characters to have flaws to make them realistic. If our nice pastor (am I going to go to Hell for making my serial killer a pastor?) is characterized as absent-minded with a habit of forgetting names, misplacing his keys, or starting service late and flustered because of a mishap, later when the police ask him when he last saw dead teen X and he can’t quite remember, readers aren’t alarmed. After all, that’s just part of who the character is, right?

When your goal is to trick your readers, SET UP is vital.

If the clues are not there all along, people will feel ripped off when you rip the curtain aside. Make sure to provide enough details that they are satisfied you pulled one over them fair and square!

What techniques do you use to show a character is untrustworthy? Any tips on balancing your clue-sprinkling so that the reader doesn’t pick up on your deceit before you’re ready for them to? Let me know in the comments! 

Image: lllblackhartlll @ Pixabay

The post The Subtle Knife: Writing Characters Readers Trust But Shouldn’t appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS™.

It’s One Stop For Writers launch week, and we are celebrating up a storm! Have you entered for one of seven 1-Year Subscriptions to One Stop For Writers, or the Pay-it-forward Education Gift for a workshop seat in writing coach Jami Gold’s terrific online class? If not, follow this link for all the details, and good luck!

As some of you know, the heart of One Stop For Writers is our signature Descriptive Thesaurus Collection. Visitors to this blog (and The Bookshelf Muse before it) have watched Becca and I create highly-sensory, real-life description lists for many different areas (Character Emotions, Settings, Symbolism and Weather, just to name a few.) Delving deep to understand these aspects of description allows us to write rich, compelling stories. So, when writers asked us to, we started turning a few into books.

Now we’re writers, and we love books! But the list format we use isn’t always an easy read in digital format, and often requires a lot of scrolling to see an entire entry. We knew there had to be a better way.

Lucky for us Lee Powell, the creator of Scrivener for Windows, is a genius. He could see how the right medium would turn our thesaurus collections into a top notch resource for writers that would be super easy to use.

(click to enlarge)

At One Stop, each thesaurus is neatly organized and entries are easy to view. A Helpful Tip guides writers into thinking about how an area of description can be woven into the story to do more, and show more. There’s a tutorial for each thesaurus as well, helping writers understand the power of specific detail and how it can be used in the story for maximum effect.

(click to enlarge–a partial screenshot)

Setting is a big area of description. So much more than a backdrop for a scene, it is loaded with opportunities to convey mood, foreshadow, and act as a tuning fork for symbolism and theme. And that’s just to start! Using sensory details when describing your character in a specific location is important for pulling readers into the story.

You might be wondering how authentic the description is for each of our Setting entries. Well, whenever possible, Becca and I would visit the location ourselves so we could observe the sights, smells, sounds, textures and tastes first hand. The entire Setting Collection (once it is finished) will be around 250 entries. That’s a lot of research.

It wasn’t easy to visit some locations, but we were determined. As you can see in this photo…well, sometimes we had to go to great lengths to get exact detail.

(In case you were wondering, it is rather terrifying being arrested, even when it involves being set up by relatives with connections so you can get the “full experience” of being handcuffed and put into the back of police car!)

So, let’s just say the details in this particular entry are very accurate. If you like, swing by One Stop and check it out for yourself!

Before you head off with the rest of your day, there’s one more cool thing happening:

March To A Bestseller’s One-Day sale. This is where you can get a kindle copy of many great writing craft books (INCLUDING The Emotion Thesaurus) for .99 cents each. Yep, a buck! There are many great authors participating such as K.M. Weiland, Mary Buckham, Bryan Cohen, Jessica Bell and more, so if you’re looking to beef up on your writing skills, now’s the time.

I don’t anticipate The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression
will be priced at .99 cents again, so if you have a writing partner or critique group who doesn’t yet have our resource, feel free to let them know.

Click to tweet: Love The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide To Character Expression? Today it’s only .99 cents: http://ctt.ec/U2KoC+ #amwriting

Also-ALSO,

Becca is over at Kristen Lamb’s (she is a national treasure–I hope you are all following this blog!) discussing Making Story MAGIC—How To Bring the Elements All Together. Feel free to check it out!

And I am over at Romance University discussing How Characters Often Resist Attraction in Romance, and How To Show Their Body Language Struggle (plus I’m sharing some great body language cheat sheets for HIM and HER!)

Happy writing,

Angela

The post Inside One Stop For Writers: Our Descriptive Thesaurus Collections appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS™.

Housekeeping note: I’ve updated all the pages for my books, so if you see a stream of them in an email–that’s my complete bibliography.

Dialogue can go wrong in at least 8 ways.

1. Know it all. When one character knows it all the reader knows nothing, it’s tempting to have Mr. Know-it-all tell all. Don’t. That sort of “Let me explain. . .” dialogue is deadly to read. Instead, we need information to come out naturally as the tense situation develops. You can add a bit of exposition here, a description there, a tidbit in dialogue. But never do an information dump in dialogue.
2. Trivialities. Please. I know that when you meet someone there are pleasantries to be discussed: the weather, polite inquires about how you are feeling and equally polite proclamations that you are perfectly fine and isn’t it a nice spring day. But that sort of trivial banter should be banned from fiction. It is the antithesis of conflict and tension on every page that will keep a reader’s attention.



3. So. Trendy. It. Is. Truncated. In an attempt to create a snappy voice, one danger is to truncate dialogue so much that it becomes a staccato bore. Voice is created by a variety of speech rhythms. Some short. And some much longer. Don’t let a truncated style become a habit. Employ it only when a character is angry, upset, traumatized and can’t talk, etc. Otherwise, variety is the spice of dialogue.
4. Drama Queen. Please! There are characters so full of drama that you want to use exclamation points everywhere. Really! Life is so full of danger! And one of those dangers is a drama queen who can’t carry on a conversation without exclamations. Get rid of those in favor of a stronger voice (lots of sentence variety), strong verbs to express strong emotions and a dip into DQ’s psyche to let the reader feel those emotions (Show-Don’t-Tell).
5. Scientist. Some stories need experts who can explain the complexities of something. For example, Cory Doctorow’s book, LITTLE BROTHER, has lots of complicated explanations about how internet security works. But he never has an expert stop and explain it. The explanations are usually expository, but are straightforward and interesting. Some are integrated into the storyline, as the characters play out a way to get around computer security systems. Be careful not to let even expository be too heavy handed, but for sure, keep it out of dialogue. At all costs, avoid the dreaded talking heads.
6. Poor Memory. In a memoir, can you really recreate pages of dialogue? No. Key phrases may live in your memory, but few can remember word-for-word exchanges. For this type writing, you’ll have to rely on reconstructed dialogue, but it needs to come up against the standards of good dialogue. No chit-chat, no information dumps, no truncated speech, etc. For flashbacks, of course, fiction rules apply and you can create whatever dialogue is needed.
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Today will be short again. Happy 4th of July, Americans! I know there are a few readers out there who live down under or across the pond who might not have the 4th on their radar. I'm hearing unending explosions right now. They really love fireworks around here. The air smells acrid and the smoke is shrouding the full moon. We zipped around about 5 police cars surrounding a wild party at house on the way home from a family gathering. Ah, the 4th.

This week I was thinking about the power of the things you don't say when writing. It's the heart of showing. Don't tell me your character is angry. Slam a fist into a wall. Kick the bedstead. Throw out a string of angry words. The heart of story is to not say things but invoke the undstanding of these things in the reader. You have to search for the words make your reader think. The words that open their eyes. Don't be satisfied with the surface of your writing. Dig deeper.

The best writing has a bible of subtext. Some of this subtext will always be subconcious for the writer. You won't be aware of it but I do think that there are ways to sense it is there. Your passion for your work is a good barometer.If you feel so deeply about your work that you are laughing and crying while you write, this is a good sign. Let the work speak without trying to shovel out what you mean. Be crafty. Be delicate. You might surprise yourself. Enjoy the journey.

Today's doodle is a quick watercolor of one morning a few months back. I call it "Washington at Dawn."



The playlist hit come from the US Marine Band with a nifty version of The Star Spangled Banner! I know there a few Marines out there who visit this blog. Thank you for your service! Remember to write every day.



When you wander, as you often delight to do, you wander indeed, and give never such satisfaction as the curious time requires. This is not caused by any natural defect, but first for want of election, when you, having a large and fruitful mind, should not so much labour what to speak as to find what to leave unspoken. Rich soils are often to be weeded. Francis Bacon