How to use this Page

by Julie Eshbaugh

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Info-dump. Just the name of this writing misstep telegraphs that it’s something to be avoided. For purposes of this post, “info-dump” refers to a section of narration inserted into a story that explains important backstory essential to understanding the current action. Here’s an example:

“Marie!” Peter held her at arm’s length so he could look into the face he had feared he would never see again. “I can’t believe it’s you! Where have you been?”

Marie told Peter how she had been captured by the Slugs, a society of subterranean warriors. She had stumbled upon their home while spelunking in the abandoned mines north of town. The Slugs had come closer to the surface than they usually dared in search of a missing key that they believed a renegade Slug had carried to the surface. The Slugs had interrogated Marie, and they’d injected her with a drug that altered her perceptions and memories. In the end they’d let her go, but only after she’d agreed to search out the Slug with the stolen key and return it to its rightful place underground. Before they let her go, though, they’d implanted a tracking device in her brain.

“See the scar?” Marie asked, pulling the hair back from behind her left ear.

An info-dump dropped right in the middle of things can hurt your story in many ways:

It stops the forward momentum. When I’m caught up in the midst of a great story, I want to be carried along toward the climax. An info-dump can interrupt that progress and slow things to a crawl.

It removes the reader from the world of the story. In the example above, the reader is pulled from the reunion scene between Marie and Peter, which, without the interruption, has the potential to be an emotionally strong scene.

It’s boring. The narrator takes over and resorts to “telling,” so instead of experiencing what happened to Marie, the reader learns it in a mini history lesson.

What can be done in a situation like this? Sometimes it’s not possible to “show” all the backstory. In this example, Peter may be the POV character, so the reader wouldn’t be able to know what was happening to Marie while she was suffering through her underground captivity. Still, this information is necessary to the story. The writer needs to find a way to share it without an info-dump.

Here are some techniques to consider:

Find ways to show some of the information, either at this point in the story or later. “The Slugs had interrogated Marie, and they’d injected her with a drug that altered her perceptions and memories.” This is the kind of information that could be shown in a multitude of dynamic ways. It could be shown right here through her interactions with Peter, or it could be woven in a bit at a time, until the characters and readers come to understand what has happened to Marie. This would also work with the tracking device in Marie’s brain. A headache could introduce this information, integrating it into the current action.

Dialogue can be used to convey backstory. All the information in the info-dump paragraph above could be shared by Marie through dialogue, while the story continues. Imagine that, just as Peter encountered Marie at the start of this scene, he was hurrying to get to a meeting with a reclusive scientist, who, before his abrupt retirement a year ago, was the country’s foremost expert on subterranean societies. Peter’s need to hear Marie’s story while simultaneously needing to hurry to his meeting would add action to the scene, as he drags her to his car, blurts out a quick explanation of where they’re going, and tries to concentrate on Marie’s harrowing story while speeding through yellow stoplights and weaving through traffic to meet the professor in time.

Tell the backstory in one big chunk, but weave it into the narrative in a way that interests the characters and the reader. In this example, Marie could tell Peter and the other characters her story as they sit around a campfire at night, or as they hike through the woods toward the very same mines where she was captured. With this treatment, the backstory becomes a story-within-the-story, allowing the writer to build suspense and tension so that the backstory maintains the same level of complexity and interest as the current events that surround it. A story-within-a-story can also help with world-building, if the culture of your story has traditions in place for passing down history or sharing myths and legends, such as through sonnets or songs.

What are your thoughts on these techniques? Do you have any other methods for sharing important backstory? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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Julie Eshbaugh writes fiction for young adults. She is represented by Adams Literary. You can add Julie on Goodreads and follow her on Twitter and Pinterest.

by Julie Eshbaugh

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I’m fascinated by lists of “recommended reading” - not only do such lists help us discover great books, but they also reveal quite a bit about the person who created the list. (For example, someone over at LibraryThing.com has cataloged the contents of Marilyn Monroe’s personal library. Reading through the list reveals a lot about the private interests of such a public person.)

Recently, while searching for lists of “favorite books” or “recommended reading,” I stumbled upon a very cool site - OpenCulture.com. Clearly, someone there enjoys reading lists as much as I do, because the site includes a fantastic sidebar titled “Reading Lists by…” Here you can find reading lists compiled by some well-known and fascinating people.

Reading over the lists, I noticed, with regret, a lack of diversity among the recommended books. Other than that common problem, however, I was surprised by how little overlap the lists contained. Below is a sampling of a few lists I found interesting. Others included on OpenCulture.com are by F Scott Fitzgerald, Allen Ginsberg, Christopher Hitchens, Joseph Brodsky, WH Auden, Donald Barthelme, and Carl Sagan.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

In an “ask me anything” feature on Reddit.com, popular astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked, “Which books should be read by every single intelligent person on the planet?” The following list, along with short explanations of each choice, was his response:

1.) The Bible - “to learn that it’s easier to be told by others what to think and believe than it is to think for yourself.”

2.) The System of the World by Isaac Newton – “to learn that the universe is a knowable place.”

3.) On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin - “to learn of our kinship with all other life on Earth.”

4.) Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift – “to learn, among other satirical lessons, that most of the time humans are Yahoos.”

5.) The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine  – “to learn how the power of rational thought is the primary source of freedom in the world.”

6.) The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith - “to learn that capitalism is an economy of greed, a force of nature unto itself.”

7.) The Art of War by Sun Tsu - “to learn that the act of killing fellow humans can be raised to an art.”

8.) The Prince by Machiavelli - “to learn that people not in power will do all they can to acquire it, and people in power will do all they can to keep it.”

Tyson clarified that he chose these books because, “If you read all of the above works you will glean profound insight into most of what has driven the history of the western world.”

David Bowie

In 2013, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London created an exhibition called “David Bowie is…” The exhibition, a retrospective of Bowie’s career and influence on the arts, is currently touring internationally, and includes a list of Bowie’s 100 favorite books. Here’s the (long) list (clearly influenced by his love of music):

The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby, 2008

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz, 2007

The Coast of Utopia (trilogy), Tom Stoppard, 2007

Teenage: The Creation of Youth 1875-1945, Jon Savage, 2007

Fingersmith, Sarah Waters, 2002

The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens, 2001

Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder, Lawrence Weschler, 1997

A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1890-1924, Orlando Figes, 1997

The Insult, Rupert Thomson, 1996

Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon, 1995

The Bird Artist, Howard Norman, 1994

Kafka Was The Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir, Anatole Broyard, 1993

Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective, Arthur C. Danto, 1992

Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, Camille Paglia, 1990

David Bomberg, Richard Cork, 1988

Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom, Peter Guralnick, 1986

The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin, 1986

Hawksmoor, Peter Ackroyd, 1985

Nowhere To Run: The Story of Soul Music, Gerri Hirshey, 1984

Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter, 1984

Money, Martin Amis, 1984

White Noise, Don DeLillo, 1984

Flaubert’s Parrot, Julian Barnes, 1984

The Life and Times of Little Richard, Charles White, 1984

A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn, 1980

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, 1980

Interviews with Francis Bacon, David Sylvester, 1980

Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler, 1980

Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess, 1980

Raw (a ‘graphix magazine’) 1980-91

Viz (magazine) 1979 –

The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels, 1979

Metropolitan Life, Fran Lebowitz, 1978

In Between the Sheets, Ian McEwan, 1978

Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, ed. Malcolm Cowley, 1977

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes, 1976

Tales of Beatnik Glory, Ed Saunders, 1975

Mystery Train, Greil Marcus, 1975

Selected Poems, Frank O’Hara, 1974

Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s, Otto Friedrich, 1972

In Bluebeard’s Castle : Some Notes Towards the Re-definition of Culture, George Steiner, 1971

Octobriana and the Russian Underground, Peter Sadecky, 1971

The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll, Charlie Gillete, 1970

The Quest For Christa T, Christa Wolf, 1968

Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock, Nik Cohn, 1968

The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov, 1967

Journey into the Whirlwind, Eugenia Ginzburg, 1967

Last Exit to Brooklyn, Hubert Selby Jr. , 1966

In Cold Blood, Truman Capote, 1965

City of Night, John Rechy, 1965

Herzog, Saul Bellow, 1964

Puckoon, Spike Milligan, 1963

The American Way of Death, Jessica Mitford, 1963

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, Yukio Mishima, 1963

The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin, 1963

A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess, 1962

Inside the Whale and Other Essays, George Orwell, 1962

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark, 1961

Private Eye (magazine) 1961 –

On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious, Douglas Harding, 1961

Silence: Lectures and Writing, John Cage, 1961

Strange People, Frank Edwards, 1961

The Divided Self, R. D. Laing, 1960

All The Emperor’s Horses, David Kidd,1960

Billy Liar, Keith Waterhouse, 1959

The Leopard, Giuseppe Di Lampedusa, 1958

On The Road, Jack Kerouac, 1957

The Hidden Persuaders, Vance Packard, 1957

Room at the Top, John Braine, 1957

A Grave for a Dolphin, Alberto Denti di Pirajno, 1956

The Outsider, Colin Wilson, 1956

Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955

Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell, 1949

The Street, Ann Petry, 1946

Black Boy, Richard Wright, 1945

Ernest Hemingway

An aspiring writer named Arnold Samuelson traveled to Key West in 1934 and knocked on Ernest Hemingway’s front door, seeking writing advice. During their conversation the following day, Hemingway asked Samuelson if he’d ever read Tolstoy’s War and Peace. When he said he hadn’t, Hemingway offered to write out a list of books he felt the aspiring writer ought to read. The list includes two short stories by Stephen Crane and 14 books:

“The Blue Hotel” by Stephen Crane

“The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Dubliners by James Joyce

The Red and the Black by Stendhal

Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

Hail and Farewell by George Moore

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Oxford Book of English Verse

The Enormous Room by E.E. Cummings

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Far Away and Long Ago by W.H. Hudson

The American by Henry James

And lastly, for those of you who believe that the task of comparing one book to another is too subjective, here’s a brilliant quote from Virginia Woolf, from her 1925 essay, “How Should One Read a Book” :

“The only advice … that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. If this is agreed between us, then I feel at the liberty to put forward a few ideas and suggestions because you will not allow them to fetter that independence which is the most important quality that a reader can possess. After all, what laws can be laid down about books? The battle of Waterloo was certainly fought on a certain day; but is Hamlet a better play than Lear? Nobody can say. Each must decide that question for himself. To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions — there we have none.”

So what do you think? Do you enjoy book recommendations and lists of “Best Books”? Do you find any merit in the above lists? Do you agree with Virginia Woolf that we should not “admit authorities” to tell us “what to read”? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

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Julie Eshbaugh writes fiction for young adults. She is represented by Adams Literary. You can add Julie on Goodreads and follow her on Twitter and Pinterest.

by Julie Eshbaugh

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In my own process, I have character development tools that I use before I start to draft. What is my character’s age, history, family life? Where does she live? How intelligent is he? Was she educated in school, or did she learn through experience? There are many fantastic worksheets and story creation tools available, and I use several to begin to form my characters in my mind.

I have a separate process for characterization after my first draft is complete and I’m into revisions. During the drafting process, I feel like I am creating the character; at the revision stage, I feel like I am discovering the character.

Part of that discovery process is learning what my characters lie about.

In some ways, uncovering your characters’ lies is similar to uncovering their secrets, which I wrote about here.

Everyone lies sometimes. Here are some examples:

We might lie to ourselves if the truth is too painful. For example, an addict might continuously tell herself that she is just “experimenting.” A student who cheats to become Valedictorian might lie to himself that everyone else cheats, too, so his cheating did no harm.

We might lie to our friends to cope with rivalry or jealousy. A person who feels outdone by a friend’s career success might lie about being offered a promotion at work.

We might lie to someone in authority to stay out of trouble. If a sixteen year old girl comes home after curfew, she might lie about a detour or an unexpected traffic back-up.

It might be true that everyone lies, but not everyone lies in the same way. Some only tell “white lies.” Some only commit “lies of omission,” (meaning they don’t correct a person who’s mistaken, especially if the mistake works to their benefit.) Others don’t think twice about weaving an elaborate tale if it makes them look good (a trait found in The Unreliable Narrator, which I wrote about here.) If we understand what a person lies about we can understand what they value, what they’re trying to protect, and what they fear.

Think of a person you know in life. It could be your boss or your best friend or your step-mother, but it should be someone with whom you interact frequently.

Think about the way that person sees himself. Think about how he feels about his life. Whether he is successful or struggling, whether she is content or full of angst, chances are that person is telling lies. Can you identify those lies from what you know about that person?

Now think about your characters. How do they see themselves? How do they feel about their lives?

For each of your main characters, dig deep to discover their lies. Here are some questions that may help:

Does she lie to herself? Does she lie about the present, the past, or both? Are there painful memories that she has “rewritten” to get rid of some of the pain?

Does he lie to his friends? Which friends? Are they big lies or white lies? What purpose do they serve?

Does she lie to her parents or other authority figures? Does she get away with it? What will happen if the lies come out?

There are countless more questions that could be asked, depending on your setting, time period, age of your characters, etc. This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list, but a starting place. The answers you discover to some of these questions will likely lead you to ask new questions.

One of my favorite characters in fiction is a grand and well-accomplished liar – Jay Gatsby from THE GREAT GATSBY. One of the many things that makes Fitzgerald’s masterpiece so intriguing is the shadowy line between Gatsby’s truth and his lies.

What do you think? Do you believe all characters lie? Do you search for lies when you create your own characters? Please add your thoughts in the comments.

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Julie Eshbaugh writes fiction for young adults. She is represented by Adams Literary. You can add Julie on Goodreads and follow her on Twitter and Pinterest.

by Julie Eshbaugh

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(*SPOILER ALERT*- if you are unfamiliar with the movie SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, you may wish to run out and watch it before reading this post.)

Jeff Arch wrote the original story that became the movie SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE. The film was released in 1993 starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, and is included on many lists of Best Romantic Comedies. Oddly enough, the film is successful not because it follows a tried-and-true structure, but in spite of the fact that it breaks the basic rules of romantic comedy structure. Rather than the conventional boy-meets-girl set-up, the central couple never actually meets until the film’s final scene. This goes against every basic truism of romantic comedy structure, and by doing so, creates one of the quintessential romantic comedies.

Fortunately, Jeff Arch never doubted his idea, and trusted his writing. Here is an excerpt of an interview with Jeff Arch that can be found here:

“This is going to sound arrogant, or something like arrogant if not exactly that – but the night I got the idea, the story sort of all dropped down into place piece by piece. And then, the minute I thought of the title, I knew it.  I remember thinking to myself, if I pull this off it’s going to be a monster.  I just had this really strong sense that the right people were going to come along and steer it, and that also the wrong people were going to show up too, but the thing would be strong enough to shake them off.  And that if any negative elements remained, they’d be like barnacles on a ship – a hassle, and something that needs to be dealt with, but nothing that can stop the momentum.”

Reading that quote, you can’t help but imagine that Arch had never been disappointed in his work or had a failure before he wrote SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE. Only someone new to writing could have such faith that things would come together.

But that’s not true at all. Arch had been through plenty of failure and disappointment before the night he began writing SLEEPLESS. He had been so disappointed by previous failures he had given up writing for years. He once said in an interview that before writing his breakout screenplay, “I’d already failed in every way possible.”

Is this a formula for success? Lots of failure followed by an idea that defies all the rules of its genre? Not necessarily. But what propelled Jeff Arch to success wasn’t what happened before he had the idea for SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, but what happened after he had the idea.

Lots of people have great ideas. Lots of great ideas never become anything more than ideas. Here is what set Arch’s SLEEPLESS idea apart:

He trusted his idea. Despite its rule-breaking structure – or maybe because of it – he had faith in the story’s power.

He did the work. He took his idea and he gave it life on the page. He tested it, and proved it could work. He didn’t sell a concept; he sold a script.

He followed through. When Arch wrote SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, he was far from a “Hollywood insider.” He was an English teacher in Virginia. He put in the work required to get his story into the right hands.

There are lots of good ideas. In that same interview, Arch says the night he had the idea for SLEEPLESS, he looked up through his skylight and told himself, “for every star in the sky there’s a good idea.”

Don’t get me wrong – I value good ideas! To a writer, a good idea can be life-changing. But not because of the idea alone. Because of the idea and everything that comes after it.

I’d love to know your thoughts – Do you think a strong, original idea guarantees a successful story, or do you think the execution of the idea is the most important part? Is it a combination? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

 ~~~

Julie Eshbaugh writes fiction for young adults. She is represented by Adams Literary. You can add Julie on Goodreads and follow her on Twitter and Pinterest.

by Julie Eshbaugh

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Regular readers of this blog know that I generally write posts about the craft of writing. This post will be a little bit different. Yes, it’s about how to improve your writing, but today I’d like to focus on a single, simple change you can make that will increase your language creativity and force you to think about the specificity and clarity of words several times a day.

I would like to challenge you to remove the words “awesome,” and “amazing” from your vocabulary, and replace them with words that offer more precision (depending on the use.) Try this exercise for a month, a week – even just a day. If you are like me, what you learn will surprise you.

A few months ago I found a list of words that can be substituted for “awesome” on the web (I’m no longer certain where I saw this list, but similar lists can be found with simple web searches. You can also search for words that can be used in place of “amazing” and “cool.”)

Once I found this list (it was at least 25 words long) I started brainstorming words of my own. At this point, I was just playing around, since I really didn’t realize how frequently I went to the word “awesome” as a shortcut word.

Of course, the next time I turned to Twitter, email, texting, or tried to draft a comment on a blog post, I was horrified to discover how these two words – awesome and amazing – had become my go-to words to describe everything from good news about a friend’s new job to a video of a cat. Surely these two things weren’t so similar that they merited the same word to describe them!

So I gave myself a challenge – I wouldn’t use the words “awesome” or “amazing” (in writing – I’m sure I still let them slip in conversation from time to time,) as long as I could find a more specific, fresh, appropriate word.

I have been fairly successful, and I’ve learned a few things about myself, about the people I communicate with, and about the power of words along the way.

I learned that it can take a few long seconds to find the best word when you take “awesome” out of your vocabulary. It can take even longer if you force yourself to find a word that actually describes your thoughts precisely (that is, not just turning to “fantastic” or “great,” though I did fall back on those from time to time.) However, over time, I learned to say something was “inspiring” or “thought-provoking” or “game-changing” or even “I’m so proud of you” instead of “that’s awesome.” I hope this has made my interpersonal communication more meaningful.

I learned that people expect shortcut words. The first time I told a coworker that her presentation was “aces” instead of “awesome” it got a big reaction. It also started a discussion about word use, (and probably confirmed some suspicions that I am the weird word girl in the office.)

I’ve learned that words are ours to use, and we neglect the strength of our communication and our own breadth of vocabulary when we fall back on the same words again and again. After a few weeks of taking on this challenge, I noticed my personal vocabulary gaining a lot more strength. I saw much bigger rewards than you would expect from such a simple exercise.

I do want to be clear that I’m not advocating that we all drop the words “awesome,” “cool,” or “amazing” from our vocabularies forever. I firmly believe that shortcuts in communication have their place and can be very appropriate. However, if you find that you are over-generalizing in your own word use, you may want to drop your “pet words” for a while and see what happens.

Have you ever caught yourself falling back on the same few words as shortcuts in your own communication? Are they words other than “awesome” or “amazing?” Please share your thoughts in the comments!

 ~~~

Julie Eshbaugh writes fiction for young adults. She is represented by Adams Literary. You can add Julie on Goodreads and follow her on Twitter and Pinterest.

by

Jordan Hamessley London

and the Pub(lishing) Crawl Gang!

—

About three months ago, I had a life change. I left my job at Grosset & Dunlap at Penguin to become an Editor at Egmont USA. It was a very exciting move for me, if a bit scary. Grosset had been my first publishing job and my first “real job” out of college. I had a ton of memories there and it felt like my second home.

When I arrived at Egmont in December, I was thrilled to begin working on a new list and with a new team, but I realized something was missing. Now, this may sound crazy, but hear me out.

My desk at Grosset had been very lived over the course of my five years there, I had acquired numerous action figures, plush toys, photos, and trinkets from my authors. When I got home from my first day at Egmont, I knew I needed to bring in the little things that would make my desk feel like “home” again. What are those things?

Well, my Benjamin Linus bobblehead, of course.

And my paper machete, inspired by an amazing typo written by one of authors (attempting to spell papier mâché) and what I use on particularly intense edits!

At last, my workspace was complete!

My journey to complete my new workspace made me wonder where all of the other Pub(lishing) Crawl members do their work. Here’s a sneak peek at where they write/agent/and sell their books!

Erin Bowman’s amazing workspace

Susan Dennard’s desk

Julie Eshbaugh’s writing space

JJ’s workspace

Amie Kaufman – I usually work in my study, but I love to move around as well — this is the view of my writing spot at one of my favourite bars in Melbourne, where I can sit right on the river and watch the world go by!

Biljana Likic’s workspace

Jodi Meadows – You might think there’s a lot of yarn on this desk. You’d be right. You’re probably also overlooking some. There’s more than you think. No, another one besides those.

E.C. Myers – Basically, I write 95% of the time on my netbook, even when I’m at home, and I mostly use my larger laptop and keyboard for other work — graphics, video editing, e-mail — and blogging. I work best outside of my apartment.

Adam Silvera’s desk at work

Adam Silvera’s workspace for writing

Joanna Volpe’s desk

Joanna Volpe’s bookshelf

Kat Zhang – Here’s where I’m writing right now (local B&N). Only add in half a dozen toddlers running around.

 The Pub(lishing) Crawl team is a great example of how everyone has a different place where they work. What makes your workspace unique and special to you? 

—

Jordan Hamessley London is an Editor at Egmont USA, where she edits middle grade and YA. Her current titles include Isla J. Bick’s new series, The Dark Passages (#1 White Space), Bree DeSpain’s new series Into the Dark (#1 The Shadow Prince), and more. Prior to Egmont, Jordan worked at  Grosset and Dunlap, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers where she edited Adam-Troy Castro’s middle grade horror series Gustav Gloom, Ben H. Winters and Adam F. Watkin’s series of horror poetry Literally Disturbed, Michelle Schusterman’s I Heart Band series, Adam F. Watkins’s alphabet picture book R is for Robot and more. When not editing, Jordan can be found on twitter talking about books, scary movies, and musical theater.

by Julie Eshbaugh

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We all want to write vibrant, lively, realistic characters that leap to life from the page. We want our characters well-rounded and interesting. We want our characters to each have their own “voice.”

In pursuit of this worthy goal of creating a realistic character, we write lengthy character histories, we write journal entries from the point of view of our character, and we fill in character worksheets.

Yet sometimes we do all of these things – we endow our character with personality, background, depth, and breadth – and still, our beta readers say they just don’t “connect” with the character.

In other words, they didn’t care about the character.

How do you take your well-rounded character and carry him over that giant chasm that separates “realistic” from “relatable”? How do you give him the traits that will make a reader stay up all night with him, anxiously turning page after page just to know if he achieves his goal?

The answer is simple:

To be relatable, a character needs to be vulnerable.

Obviously, the concept of creating vulnerability isn’t a well-guarded secret in the writing world. If you’ve watched your share of Disney animated features, you know that almost no Disney character is entitled to grow up with both parents. (Of course, this truism isn’t limited to Disney – Harry Potter, Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker, Luke Skywalker, and Katniss Everdeen have all lost at least one parent.)

Vulnerability gives a reader something to root for. Vulnerability opens a character up to empathy.

So if this rule of endowing a character with vulnerability is so simple, why aren’t all of our characters sympathetic, relatable heroes?

The reason may be that – like many concepts in writing – creating vulnerability in a character is much easier to understand than it is to execute. Here are a few things to consider when thinking about your character’s weaknesses:

Vulnerabilities should directly relate to your character’s goal and motivation. In the Hunger Games trilogy, Katniss’s loss of her father is more than just a personal loss – it sets in motion her strong desire to protect her family. It also influences the actions she is willing to take to obtain her goals. Having lost her father in a mining accident, setting off an explosion in a mine is not a tactic she can endorse.

Your reader will relate more to a character’s fears if they share those fears themselves. Harry Potter is thrown into an unfamiliar world and learns immediately that someone very powerful and evil wants to destroy him. Part of why readers find him so relatable is that we all fear the monster under the bed – the unseen thing that wants to harm us – and Voldemort embodies that perfectly.

A loss that creates both a weakness and a strength can be especially compelling. Luke Skywalker learns that his father was a great Jedi. Knowing this makes the fact that he never knew his father all the more painful. Yet Luke has this incredible legacy that empowers him. (And when Luke ultimately learns that his greatest nemesis is actually his father, this vulnerability gains a whole new level of uniqueness and complexity.)

What do you think about creating relatable characters? Do you have an approach to ensure that your characters have a balance of strengths and weaknesses? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

 ~~~

Julie Eshbaugh writes fiction for young adults. She is represented by Adams Literary. You can add Julie on Goodreads and follow her on Twitter and Pinterest.