Can I just say, I am loving it? Here’s the thing about the Snowflake Method: it breaks your novel up into discrete chunks you can deal with. Trust me when I say that you cannot hold the plot of your entire novel in your head. I know it seems like you should be able to, because you can do it with books you’ve read. So why on Earth couldn’t you do it with a book you’re writing?

Well, because there is both more and less detail in your own proto-novel. There’s less detail: that whole muddy stretch where your protagonist Learns Something Crucial. You don’t know exactly what or why, but you know that it advances you to the next plot point. And there’s more detail: that part where the victim’s wife gets killed, except maybe it’s actually his ex-wife, or maybe it’s actually his mistress. And maybe she doesn’t get killed, she just gets beaten into a coma, which leads to that whole plot thread where your character wonders whether she’ll recover in time to name her attacker. There are tons of competing, incomplete plot threads that all exist in parallel in your head, and the whole effect is… well, murky.

Which is sort of what the Snowflake helps you cut through. Today I’ll be working on Step Five, Character Storylines. Basically, I’ll be writing a page that tells the story from the point of view of each of the main characters. This is going to be a hard step, because I have a lot of the story from Kitty’s perspective, but Gallo and Koko each have a strong subplot that is really pretty germinal right now. Also, I’ll need to work through the antagonists’ storylines and make sure everything they do makes sense from their perspectives. Should be fun!

2:59 PM: Having a hard time deciding who to start with. I guess it only makes sense to start with Kitty. She should come together fairly easily.

3:34 PM: Or not.

3:49 PM: Officially opening Excel to begin my first scene-by-scene spreadsheet for Book 2. Exciting!

4:32 PM: Ok, so Kitty’s storyline is done. I guess. It needs more detail, but that’s ok, it’s only supposed to be a one-page overview. Time to move on to Mr. Gallo. This one’s gonna be tough.

5:47 PM: Whoops. I got lost in a rat hole on the internet. Back now.

6:01 PM: Ok. Now I’m back.

6:04 PM: Whew. I just realized there’s a major plot thread that I need to deal with that I completely blanked on. Ok. That should make this harder.

7:40 PM: Ok. I’m in kind of a funk here. I need to find some way to refocus on this task. So, I will take ten minutes and just stream-of-consciousness write. Basically, what I’m working on here is a way to tie up lingering threads from Book One.

7:59 PM: Question: What is melodrama? Is it scenarios that are intended to be dramatic, but fail to resonate because the underlying work of building up the emotions has not been done? Or are there situations that are always melodramatic? Basically I’m asking, can I be all soap opera if I earn it?

8:09 PM: So, the stream-of-consciousness got me thinking about some of the major issues, but it didn’t actually land me anywhere. Stream-of-consciousness writing is basically my way of forcing myself to think. If I think inside my head, my thoughts range all over the place, but if I think with my fingers, I can stay on task. My fingers are easier to discipline.

But, as I said, I am still basically in Murkville. More stream-of-consciousness? Whew, here we go.

8:50 PM: Time for desperate measures.  I’m going to go think in the shower.  Which is another way of saying I’m going to relax for a half an hour.

9:34 PM: All right, nothing really got resolved during that shower, but it was nice all the same.  I think I’m done for the day.  See you next week.

Adorable, isn’t she?

This picture represents Koko Doyle, one of the four major characters in my book.  She’s a half-Japanese, half-Irish kid, newly orphaned when the book starts.  To say that she is out of place in 1929 Chicago would be putting it mildly.  She is emotionally mature but socially awkward, stoic but very loving. And though she’s not the point of view character, she’s the reason I wrote the book.

Although her relationship with my protagonist forms the emotional core of Book One, it’s fair to say that Koko isn’t the most active character.  In fact, it’s fair to say that she spends a good portion of her time getting rescued.  That is fine, and I think it worked well for Book One.  The problem is Book Two.

I promised myself that in this book, Koko would have a more active role.  I would use her, and not just as motivation for another character.  She would have Stuff to Do.

Problem?  In a book that involves gangsters, shoot outs, police brutality, and a body count of no less than three, there’s not a whole lot for a nine-year-old to do.

Seriously.  What can I do with this kid that doesn’t require her guardian, Kitty, to be either incompetent or wildly irresponsible?  I’m not going to write one of those books where the protagonist takes her kid with her to search the bad guy’s lair. I always want to throw those across the room.

Which means I am left with the following options:

• Give Koko a storyline that is orthogonal to the main plot but will nevertheless wrap in somehow, perhaps by providing a vital clue
• Have Koko secretly tag along or otherwise wind up in plot heavy situations through no fault of Kitty
• Bring a lot of the book’s action into Kitty’s home, and other locales Koko may frequent

Right now I’m leaning toward a medley of all three.  Which I guess is another way of saying that I haven’t really tackled this decision yet. Step #4 of the Snowflake awaits.

(Yeah, I made that picture using the Sims 3.  That’s just the sort of dork I am.)

It’s a lot of work. When I started out I had a vague idea of who she was: sort of a template to get me started, to give me a name to put on the page. But as I worked my way through each of the scenes, I gained a much stronger knowledge of who she was and what she wanted. Now it’s my job to make sure that all that I’ve learned is there from the start: that on page one, Kitty is the whole person I know her to be, complete with flaws, quirks, and everything.

The truth of it is, she’s a lot like me.

Not in any of the actual details, the things I’d list if I was describing her. I’m not a mystery-solving farm girl in the big city. I’m no master manipulator. And I’m not (at least I hope I’m not) wildly self-involved.

No, Kitty isn’t what I am at all. But underneath all those details, Kitty is very much who I am. Her turn of phrase, the way she looks at the world, the things she observes about other people: these are all me. Starkly, obviously me, to anyone who knows me well enough to see.

I used to think that this was lazy, that as a writer I was supposed to be able to craft characters from the ground up, to give them unique voices that had nothing to do with mine. Now I think that was just naive. The fact is, lending Kitty my voice, my outlook — my me-ness — layers a lot of reality upon the fictional skeleton of her character. It makes her feel solid to me, tangible, true.

It’s strange but true: Kitty isn’t me. But she is.

So I don’t mean, exactly, that characters should never change. I just mean that they should remain knowable.

Your love for a character, I think, is built on those moments when the character behaves predictably. Spock gets into a verbal tussle with Dr. McCoy and makes a scathingly arch comment. And you smile, and shake your head, and think to yourself, “Oh, that Spock.”

If the new Star Trek movie hadn’t contained any “Oh, that Spock” moments, it wouldn’t have been about Spock. It would have been about some other dude who happened to have Spock’s name and biographical data.

Because, here’s the deal: You can’t love somebody without knowing them. The things you know about them don’t have to be good things, they just have to be individual and predictable. We love Dr. House when he’s rude. We love Mr. Monk when he’s painfully awkward. And we love Remington Steele when he’s lazy. (ok, maybe you don’t–but I do!)

It’s true in life, too. Think back to your favorite story about a loved one. Do you like to tell it because it’s really all that funny, or heartwarming, or clever? Or do you just like it because it illustrates, to a T, who that person is?

You can’t love someone without knowing them: ok, no big surprise. But here’s the kicker: the reverse is true too. In most cases, you can’t really know somebody without loving them, at least a little bit. The two are a sweet little package deal.

So I will simply try out a new maxim I’ve been floating around in my head for a while:

Story is about change. Character is about constancy.

Whoever wrote the new Star Trek movie Gets It. Which is why, despite any of its charming imperfections, we hard-core Trekkies love it.

Virtue: Crafty

Flaw: Insipid

Dude, what is the deal here? Last time I pulled Skilled/Incompetent? And this time it’s Crafty/Insipid?

Not to be deterred, I soldier on.

Jamie Lynn Jameson

Sixteen-year-old blonde bombshell and pageant queen. Loves kittens, curling irons, and unicorn stickers. Extremely good at manipulating pageant politics to the detriment of other contestants.

Major Mannerism: Keeping the pageant world spinning with intrigue. Although Jamie Lynn does not appear to be a particularly influential member of this social circle, she uses small comments and subtle hints to manipulate all the friendships and alliances of the other pageant participants. She has currently divided them into two major camps, and while they expend their efforts on trying to sabotage one another, she is able to soar to victory unnoticed.

I was recently reading a post on Murderati that suggested I begin by just listing my favorite villains, then looking to see what they had in common. Here goes:

(FYI: Spoilers for various media ahead)

1. Hannibal Lecter, Silence of the Lambs

My A-1 fave. There are so many things about Hannibal that draw me in: his utter depravity (dude, he eats people!), his paradoxical refinement (a bottle of Chianti indeed!), that creepy little voice (thanks for the nightmares, Anthony Hopkins).

But I think what captivates me most about Hannibal are the illusions he creates. You could almost believe he wants to help you. No matter how many times he fucks with you, you could almost believe he’s going to play this one straight.

It’s the refinement, I think. The articulate speech. The manners. It contrasts so beautifully with his inner viciousness that it almost completely disguises it.

2. Javert, Les Miserables

Javert is an odd duck, because he’s exactly the opposite of what most fiction texts will tell you to make your characters. Well-rounded he ain’t.

Javert’s got exactly one thing going, his steadfast belief in the law. He’s sort of the single-minded, Terminator-style villain, coming after Jean Valjean no matter how hard it is or how long it takes. But it’s the end of his story that, for me, elevates him from your basic, garden-variety villain.

For me, the moment where Javert chooses he would rather die than live as a changed man is always exquisitely painful, yet thrilling. It mixes redemption (he lets Valjean go!) with the inability to change (he throws himself into the Seine). Two grippingly powerful personal events melded seamlessly and believably. If I could write a scene like that someday, I’d be happy.

3. Mrs. Iselin, The Manchurian Candidate

You want depravity, this woman has it in spades. What sort of mother could be so utterly devoid of human feeling that she could use her own son as a killing machine?

Mrs. Iselin is a great villain because she’s so inhuman and creepy, but paradoxically she’s also great because she’s so believable. She’s built on a real archetype: the power-grubbing politician’s wife. With a few big twists that make her completely diabolical.

4. Gollum, the Lord of the Rings trilogy

It’s the tragedy of this character that draws me in. The split-personality archetype is always fascinating for its sheer weirdness and spookiness, and the way it was done in the recent movie trilogy was absolutely amazing.

One Gollum plots death and destruction for our heroes, and when he speaks even his voice is twisted with hate. The other Gollum wants to be good and true, and what we hear in his voice is fear.

It’s just gripping, chilling, and horrible, and it’s a way of taking a real struggle we can all identify with — the struggle to be a good person — and amping it up to the Nth level. There’s something to connect to there.

5. The Borg, Star Trek

Here we’ve got a villain that’s inhuman in the extreme. Aside from their great strength and adaptability, what makes them epically chilling is that they simply don’t acknowledge the sanctity of human life or rights. They just don’t get it.

In this way, they’re kind of a stand-in for the very worst humanity can be when we come together in force and decide to steamroll over someone else’s rights. Naziism, genocide, the slave trade: these are the actions of a Borg-like people. The Borg are us without empathy. Now that’s creepy.

6. Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

What makes Angel a great villain for me is his sadism. Sure, Angel can kill you, but given the choice, he’d much rather hurt you.

And he knows how to do it up right. Angel is an emotional sadist, using guilt, grief, fear, and humiliation to get at his victims. So much more effective than a physical sadist, and certainly a lot more fun to watch.

Combine this with his always-amused attitude, which shows contempt for his victims, and you’ve got a villain I can watch for hours. I mean, just look at that smirk.

7. Adaleen Grant, Big Love

There’s something almost worse about serving a devil than being one, right? Something kind of broken and amoral about blithely following someone else’s dark path?

That’s what Adaleen does as first wife to Big Love’s major antagonist, Roman Grant. I think what makes her captivating to me is the serene, breezy smile that’s always fixed on her face no matter how badly she’s screwing you over.

Adaleen also serves as a model for a particularly loathsome archetype: the collaborator. She’s a woman who participates in the subjugation of other women, managing her husband’s fourteen-wife household, including 15-year-old child bride Rhonda Volmer. Adaleen was born into this life, so in a way she can be considered a victim of her circumstances — but her cool intelligence and lack of empathy swing her decidedly toward the villainous.

8. The Miniature Killer, CSI

Ok, I have to admit: this one kind of fell apart for me at the end of the storyline, where the killer’s backstory is revealed. There was nothing about it that really made me say, “Oh, yeah, this is totally the kind of chick who would make meticulous models of people’s homes, then kill them.”

But I can’t ignore that feeling of excitement I got every time I knew a miniature killer episode was coming on. And I think what it was was the fabulous MO. Miniatures! Really specific ones! Cuh-reepy!

It just suggested such precision and patience. How could you possibly best a villain who brought that much forethought to bear? This is a great example of a villain who managed to be a real, chilling character before ever appearing in person.

So, what’s the common thread?

Well, looking over the list, it seems I like my villains on the monstrous side. Apart from Adaleen Grant and maybe Javert, there’s no one here with simple, understandable flaws. My tastes tend much more toward the boogity-boogity.

I also like a bit o’ philosphy with my villains. I like characters like Gollum and the Borg and Adaleen who make me think about the big things: “How do you stop your baser nature from taking over?”; “How can you come to terms with someone who doesn’t agree with you about what’s right and wrong?”; “In a bad situation, what will people become in order to survive?”

And I like big contrasts: Hanibal Lecter’s brutality and sophistication, Gollum’s patheticness and scheming, Mrs. Iselin’s charming public persona and cold-blooded heart.

It was an interesting exercise, and one I’m glad I did. Anyone else have any favorite villains?

I don’t have a pressing need for any new characters right now, but one likes to keep one’s hand in. Which is why I’ve created the Deck of Many Things.

The Deck of Many Things is basically six or seven 50 cent poker decks, with a different character trait written on the face of each car. Things like “Childish,” “Optimistic,” and “Brave.” Qualities that are positive or neutral are written on red-backed cards, and the blue-backed cards have flaws.

Then all I have to do for a little character-creation drill is just flip over two cards, one from each deck. Let’s try it now, shall we?

From the Flaw Deck: Incompetent

And From the Virtue Deck: Skilled

Are you kidding me? Incompetent and Skilled? Is that really what I just pulled?

Ok, well, maybe I can work with this.

Mrs. Noah Pembleton

A monied old widow living in New York around 1920. Kind, fat, and cheery. Has been taken care of all her life, either by her parents, her husband, or her servants. Known to her long-suffering niece Carol as “Aunt Wilhelmina.”

Generally incompetent in all things, including, but not limited to: driving, paying bills, household management, and fashion.

Skilled in exactly one area: matchmaking.

Major Mannerism: Throwing wonderful, overblown parties at which everything goes wrong with sitcom-esque wackiness. Exactly one thing goes right: the two protegees for whom she has thrown the party always wind up falling in love. The rest of the mess must be straightened out by dear Carol.

Hmm… have I been watching too much Jeeves and Wooster?

Step One: Two Defining Characteristics. They don’t have to go together naturally. If possible, one of them should be a flaw.

The two Defining Characteristics for Kitty, my series protagonist, are Insightful and Self-Absorbed.

For Gallo, my series love interest, they are Curious and Solitary.

And for Fiore, my series antagonist, they are Romantic and Sadistic.

Step Two: Invent a Major Mannerism. This mannerism should be the direct result of at least one, or ideally both, Defining Characteristics.

Kitty’s Major Mannerism: Manipulating people.

Gallo’s Major Mannerism: Reading everything he can get his hands on.

Fiore’s Major Mannerism: Well, this one is a pretty major plot point. Suffice it to say that it does in fact combine Romantic and Sadistic in what I hope is an interesting way.

Step Three: Color everything with a Mood. The Mood doesn’t refer to the deep characteristics of their personality, but rather to their surface persona: how someone observing them from a distance might describe them. It isn’t at all necessary for the Mood to be related to the Defining Characteristics; in fact, it can be pretty interesting if it’s at odds with them.

Kitty’s Mood: Ingenue

Gallo’s Mood: Hard-boiled

Fiore’s Mood: Refined

Step Four: Give the character a Unique Perspective. This is the way the character sees the world. It should be at some way at odds with reality. Giving two characters warring perspectives really amps up the potential for interesting interactions between them.

Kitty’s Unique Perspective: It’s all about the glitz and the glamour.

Gallo’s Unique Perspective: Life is full of pain.

Fiore’s Unique Perspective: I’m a good guy.

Step Five: All the rest. On top of this skeleton you layer additional characteristics, minor mannerisms, and quirks. Some of mine are:

Kitty: Loves hats, hates her figure

Gallo: Hates alcohol, takes obsessive notes

Fiore: Loves to eat, bullies his older brother

And there you have it: my character creation method. It’s not perfect, and I don’t even follow it exactly with every character. But it helps.

While a character can have any number of virtues, there are a few that are nearly universally essential. These break down into two categories: Capability and Good-Guyness.

Capability

If your character is capable, he can get things done. The main virtues in this category are:

• courage (the character acts, even when scared)
• cleverness (the character can figure out what he should do), and
• a sense of responsibility (the character doesn’t look for somebody to pass the buck to).

Good-Guyness

Your character may have a hard edge and some serious character flaws, but the reader has the sense that, deep down, he’s just a good guy. For me, for me, is comprised of two things:

• fair-mindedness (the character judges all others equally–though not necessarily kindly or respectfully)
  
• compassion for the weak (the character will not stand for seeing the little guy beaten down)

It’s important to note that the reader judges fair-mindedness by her own standards, not those of the world the character lives in. Even if you’re writing about a very racist society, your beloved main character can’t be racist–not unless he begins to see some inkling that this way of life is wrong.

There are exceptions to everything, of course, and each of these qualities has a well-known and much-beloved character who lacks it. But, in general, I believe these virtues are the cornerstone to building a character readers can love.