Writing Research: Good Characters

For me, the best part of writing is getting into other character's heads and working out what makes them tick. It can be really cathartic to go through someone else's experiences and how they deal (or don't deal) with the problems they encounter. But for some people, creating characters can be a really big hurdle, and there are a few different ways to deal with this.

One that works for many people is planning out their characters backgrounds, details, likes and dislikes, etc. on a character planning sheet. This can be basic details or really in depth. You can use a pre-existing template (easily found with a quick search) or make your own. This can work very well when you have a lot of characters to keep a track of.

I find this doesn't work too well for me, and can often serve as a distraction to actually writing. Now, I tend to do this only for secondary characters, who don't necessarily need a detailed back-story or motivations, but just need to be kept consistent.

My preferred method for developing characters is through writing itself. Some of the early pieces might never make it into the finished piece, but for me, it's the most useful way of getting inside the heads of my characters and working out what makes them tick. Generally I'll be thinking about a character's childhood, or the moment that pushes them to begin their story, or an isolated incident that makes them reflect on or change who they are.

The most frustrating character I have ever had to write was Talli, the protagonist in a project I started for ScriptFrenzy way back in 2011. No matter what I tried, she seemed so boring and lacklustre compared to literally everyone else (including minor characters). While I finished the plot, she still seemed undeveloped and unmotivated, even as she was in the heart of it.

So, what did I do? Essentially, I took a break from her. I developed more of the backstory and followed around the antagonists and worked out what made them and this world tick. I wrote about how and why the events of the story took place, from other people's viewpoints. I worked out some of the more complex entanglements of the plot - information that Talli wasn't privy to. It took me four years to eventually getting back into her head and rewriting the events that she was part of.

But when I finally got there, something clicked for me. Instead of Talli being a character that this 'had to happen to', she became more of a driving force in her own story. Instead of passively reacting to events, she started actively trying to effect and change what was happening to her. By knowing more about why things were happening, and what motivations everyone else had, I had more freedom for her to push against these forces.

Another factor, for me, is that Talli was a character who was meant to be, for lack of a better word, average. The idea meant that she needed to be surrounded by forces that were more powerful than her, and trapped in a seemingly helpless situation that she could eventually triumph over. I strongly believe that back when I started the project, I simply didn't have enough experience to write that in a compelling way, but over time, having experienced similar things and honing my craft, I have learnt how to approach the humanity in 'normal' characters.

So, for writers in similar situations, I would advise trying to come at the world from a different angle. Work out what compels you about this idea, and what different perspectives you can find on it. But don't worry if things don't magically fall into place. Some stories simply don't want to be written now, or not by the person you currently are. Give it time, work on something new, and it will be waiting when you are ready for it.

Representation Matters: Studio Ghibli

I like to focus on the positives rather than the negatives in media. Partly because there are plenty of people already calling out mass media for what they're not doing well, and those people are doing pretty well at raising awareness and getting their voices heard. But partly because I feel like if we fail to recognise the stuff that is done well, many things become seen as unsuccessful, and makes similar projects much harder to finance and make a reality. The best way to support messages that you want to see is by throwing your financial and social support behind it - the money lets executives know that this kind of idea is profitable, so they'll continue doing it, and the social support makes the message more widespread and hopefully encourages other people to support it, too.

With that in mind, I want to look at Studio Ghibli and their presentation of female characters over the years. Due to the nature of the post, there will be some spoilers, but I will endeavour to keep them to a minimum. Still, this is your early warning: there are spoilers within!

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio famed internationally for their gorgeous imagery and complex storytelling. They range from cute, family-friendly stories like Kiki's Delivery Service to darker works like Princess Mononoke. They won the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2002 for Spirited Away, the only non-English-speaking animated film to win the award to date (the majority of winners comes from Disney/Pixar, with the occasional Dreamworks film).

Even a cursory look at the Studio's history reveals a wealth of female lead characters rarely found anywhere else: of the 22 main feature films released by Studio Ghibli, 11 have the lead 'view point' character be female and a further 5 have stories that have either an even amount of importance between the male and female lead or the female driving the plot, despite a male viewpoint. Even in the stories where women don't drive the plot, they still appear: as maternal characters, sisters, friends, family - in short, as people, with ambitions and skills and their own point of view.

But for examples of something a little more specific, I'm going to be looking at a couple of my favourite films that they've made, and point out instances of what I mean.

Princess Mononoke is one of the films where the viewpoint character is male (Prince Ashitaka) however women are a vastly integral part of the world and the plot of the film. San, the titular Princess Mononoke, is a woman raised by the god-wolf Moro, and shares Moro's distaste of humans, whom she sees as polluting the land and destroying the forest. San takes an active stance in this fight, directing her wolf-brothers into fights and attempting to assassinate Lady Eboshi.

Lady Eboshi herself is a strong woman who rules Irontown (Tatara in the original Japanese) fairly, rescuing and creating a safe haven for ex-prostitutes and lepers, and using the local resource of iron to maintain a strategic advantage over her neighbours. What I love about the film is that nothing is absolute in terms of morality. While it would be easy to completely vilify Lady Eboshi, we are shown that she is sincerely only acting in the best interests of her people, and she's highly compassionate towards the least valued members of society, not only offering them safety, but work and shelter. The women of Irontown work the bellows that smelt the iron they use for trade and weapons, and the film shows it to be hard work, but work they chose over their old lives. When men try to put them down for their work being safer than theirs, the women have the power to retort back. Without them, the economy and trade of Irontown would be diminished, if not downright broken.

Moro, the god-wolf and mother figure to San is a wonderful example of the ferociousness of a mother who is threatened. She's smart - smart enough to see what humans have done to other animal-gods, and smart enough to recognise the humans luring the boars into a trap, and to know that the boars will still charge in blindly even if they knew. She's protective of her adoptive daughter in the same way as her wolf-sons. She fights to protect her land and those dependant on her in a very similar way to Lady Eboshi.

If anything, it is Ashitaka who takes a passive role for much of the film, observing the differing points of view and only interfering when absolutely necessary. In fact, he openly acknowledges that he is watching and trying to stay neutral in the conflict. It doesn't stop him from doing the right thing, and acting to make the situation better, but it does stop him rushing 'to the rescue' of these women without understanding how and why they're in conflict, like so many films would.

The film portrays the early stages of a romance between Ashitaka and San, yet this doesn't reduce San to just a romantic interest. The characters complement each other and help each other grow - Ashitaka opens San to the idea that not all humans are bad and helps her come to terms with her own humanity, yet her goals and ideals remain the same - protect the forest. One of his major contributions to San is convincing her that she shouldn't throw her life away in mindless defence of the forest and that her life matters as an individual, not just a cause.

On all levels, the film is very respectful of women and the choices that female characters make, from background flavour characters to the women who drive the conflict and the plot forward. There are no blameless heroes, nor truly vilified characters, and all of the women have a complex nature that makes them stand out as fully formed characters, not two-dimensional stereotypes.

Spirited Away, arguably their most famous work, stars Chihiro, a young 10-year old girl moving to her new home. She begins the story reluctant to uproot her life, a little sullen and nervous and self-centred - things that are perfectly normal for a young girl, especially when facing such a big change in her life. Even this is quite a leap forward from many children's movies - she's allowed to be flawed in a way that isn't so extreme to be unrecognisable. Everyone's encountered a shy child, or a self-centred one or a nervous or sullen one. There's a good chance that was you, when growing up.

When the plot truly begins, and the 'abandoned' themepark is revealed to be a bath-house resort for the gods, Chihiro is scared and runs to her parents for support, but finds them transformed into pigs. This kickstarts her character growth, forcing her to become more emotionally independent and confident in her own abilities. The whole film explores this growth, and allows you to see a slow and steady improvement from clingy, nervous, self-centred child to a confident, generous young girl. She has to muster up courage, resourcefulness and put in a fair bit of hard work, and she's still the same person, but it is very clear that she learns a lot through the course of the film.

Chihiro is a wonderful character for children to learn from - she is faced with things children find scary, and she is scared herself, but she finds a way to be brave and get through it. She loves her parents dearly. She learns to be respectful of all kinds of people, no matter how weird or alien they might seem at first. She grows while learning to remain true to herself. She's not afraid to shoulder her fair share of the hard work, despite not being practised at it.

The supporting cast are good, too, from Lin, who acts more brusque and mercenary than she truly is, to Yubaba, the money-motivated owner of the bathhouse who would do anything to keep her baby safe. They all have their own motivations and goals and actively achieve things on their own.

These are just two brief examples from a very long list of wonderful female characters in Studio Ghibli. I could have mentioned the pirate matriarch in Laputa: Castle in the Sky, the sisters in My Neighbour Totoro, Kiki and the baker whom she rents her room from in Kiki's Delivery Service, Sophie in Howl's Moving Castle...I honestly could have thrown a dart, and as long as it didn't land on Tales from Earthsea, I would have had something positive to say.

This is (quite obviously, I hope) something that's pretty dear to my heart. I don't want all films to be only about and for women. But I do want to see women as being represented as more than an accessory for a male character. More than a 'sexy lamp'. As we can see, it's not impossible - it's not even difficult. Just treat your characters - all your characters - as human, with their own strengths and flaws and backgrounds and motivations.

In the words of Miyasaki himself: “Many of my movies have strong female leads - brave, self-sufficient girls that don’t think twice about fighting for what they believe in with all their heart. They’ll need a friend, or a supporter, but never a saviour. Any woman is just as capable of being a hero as any man.”

Final Fantasy XIII - How to Tell Stories (and What Not to do)

I often find myself thinking about how stories work in games over other media, particularly in JRPGs, which naturally have a bigger emphasis on story and character development over other game genres.

I'm haunted by Final Fantasy XIII in this regard, not because it does it well, but quite the opposite - the series does it horrendously.

A little history - when Final Fantasy XIII was announced, the focus was mostly on the new physics/graphics engine they had used for it - the Crystal Tools engine. Hence they announced off the bat that there would be 3 games in the series, to maximise the use of this engine. I'm not opposed to the idea of a trilogy - it works so well in novels and films. However, this means that before they even released the first game, and gauged critical/community reactions, they were committed to developing and releasing 3 games. They were also in a tricky position - generally, fans of Final Fantasy and JRPGs want to like a new release, and want it to be successful in their territory - it increases the chance of more games from the series and in general being released. However, after the general disappointment of Final Fantasy XII (a fun game to play: find people who have played it and ask them how far they actually got in it. I've yet to find someone who has actually completed it), there was always the possibility of another flop.

That being said, the first game was just about playable. The storyline is, when boiled down, relatively simple - the characters are drawn together by a powerful being to destroy their home, but they fight to rebel against these orders while discovering things about themselves and their companions. The problem is that in order to draw this out into a full-length game, the story is told in a convoluted and messy way, with a lot of jargon that makes it more difficult to follow, and the visuals, while very pretty, fail to help the story in some very significant ways. I spent a good 40 hours not realising that Cocoon - the home for many of the characters and a central element to the plot - was floating above Pulse, and the characters lived on the inner layer of the construct. That could have easily been shown with an establishing shot in the first five minutes. And that's only a minor issue. The character's internal dramas play out like episodic soap operas and are all over the place. I sense some of that issue was the desire to prove the graphics engine, so they wanted a variety of different locations. The easiest way to do that would be to split up the characters and this their stories. Combining this with dull gameplay, confusing subplots and needless jargon...the game failed to impress. On one level, there was entirely too much going on plot wise, which meant 'big' moments tended to be forgotten about as other moments take precedence; and the gameplay bored even gamers determined to see the mess through to its end.

The sequel improved on a lot of this. It focused on two characters, with the cast of the first making supporting appearances, but it was never about them. It had a refreshing plot on time travel that actually got me curious. As one character is from the very end of human existence, and they are changing time to prevent that from happening, what will happen to him? Yes, it still had elements of a plot that was a little chaotic, and could have been stripped down a little further and would have become something really impressive, but on the whole, told its story far better than its predecessor. However, the plot was difficult to follow if you hadn't played and completed the first game. It cut out a whole section of potential audience simply for that. There were text recaps that no one would really read hidden in the game's menu, but that is such a lazy way to introduce people to the story and the world. I am still very critical of the ending - it was designed to have cliffhanger written on it in glowing neon letters, and sidestepped all the interesting questions I had about time travel and how they were going to resolve the plot. They also give an illusion of choice to the ending - yet no matter what you do, the outcome is the same. This is the worst kind of betrayal to a gamer, to give the illusion of choice but no actual power to influence the plot in any meaningful way. The DLC released for the game also expanded on some of the original character's backstories and filled in the gaps of 'what were they doing while everything kept going on without them?' However, the fact that they were relegated to DLC means a significant chunk of the fanbase - already fractured by the first game to the point that they might not play the sequel, let alone buy extra content for the sequel - would be left out of these stories.

The third game, in my opinion, is the best. They strip the world down to focus on a few vital areas, but within those areas, you can explore and do the plot and sidequests in whatever order you choose. It encourages you to be as non-linear as you like...and you only have one playable character. The world itself focuses on one theme - the world is dying, and people are falling into entropy. And it portrays this so incredibly well, from the city where wealthy people endlessly party and enjoy themselves before the end, to the earthy people who hunt and live off the land as a last chance to get back in touch with nature, and the somber people clinging to religion as their last hope...and none of this needs directly explaining to you. You aren't working to save the world (which, incidentally, is only dying because of your actions in the two previous games); you're working to save the people to bring them into the new world. And honestly, that concept is strong enough to stand alone as a game. I honestly think that if they'd removed the complex backstory or allowed you to discover it in game, they could have released Lightning Returns as a stand alone game, and it would have done far better than simply as a conclusion to a trilogy.

The whole series does this, though. There is a lack of confidence in the strength of the story, so they throw budget at graphics and complicate the entire thing, essentially cheapening the emotional experience.

Because, as most writers know, the most effective part of the story is what is shown to you, not told. We don't need to be told the father is sad, we can figure that out from the fact that his son is out of his reach emotionally and physically and his face tells us everything else. Make us empathise with characters, and the rest will follow.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!