Author: Elizabeth Spann Craig

Ohhh, it’s been a frustrating couple of weeks.  I don’t usually like reading blog posts where the person has a long list of gripes.  This time, though, I’m going to write a list of gripes.  I want y’all to judge whether I have an evil spirit at work in my house.

The evidence for an evil spirit conspiring against me:

The transmission on one of our cars died (and the car was a Honda.)

The kitchen sink suddenly went berserk (but did it sneakily—I didn’t know about its misdeeds until the back-splash of the sink suddenly separated from the wall.)

The upstairs printer died.

The upstairs monitor died.

The wireless repeater died.

My laptop died spectacularly….sizzling and popping during its death throes.

My new laptop seems to think some hot keys are running.  It’s striking through this text as I write and I’m going back and correcting it.

The new printer immediately ran out of ink.

It appears my new laptop (Dell) may have to be returned because the “t” only works on the keyboard some of the time.  I don’t want to go without a laptop for another 2 weeks.

Evidence for no evil spirit—None.

It’s awful, but all of these problems the last couple of weeks have put me behind on my WIP.  And I really need to catch up quickly.  Is there someone in the group who can rid me of this blight?

What makes a good protagonist? This is a pretty subjective question since different readers like different types of heroes and heroines. But I see some common traits among the protagonists I admire:

They’re likeable. Now, I’ve read plenty of books with unlikeable protagonists (Catcher in the Rye, anyone?), but although I sometimes appreciated the talent of the author, I just didn’t care what happened to the protagonist. And that’s just a major problem. What if you have your whiny, unpopular protagonist and you’re building up to the major climax of the novel. He’s about to be thrown off a cliff….or is thrown off a cliff. If the guy isn’t someone I like, I’m thinking: “Eh. Too bad about him. Let’s see….what’s that next book on my reading list?”

If they’re not likeable (Ebenezer Scrooge) , they experience an epiphany and a radical change of heart.

Readers can relate to them. Or, if they can’t relate to them, they admire them, at least. Does anyone relate to James Bond? Anybody out there a crack shot, a pilot, a scuba diver, extraordinarily handsome, etc? But we can admire him. He’s one of the good guys.

They solve their own problems and, possibly, the problems of others. I don’t enjoy it when my protagonist gets rescued. Even in romances, that gets old (if they do get rescued in a romance, can the favor be returned at a later time? One-way rescuing all the time makes someone look weak.)

They’re intelligent. Or, if they’re not intelligent (Forrest Gump by Winston Groom), they have plenty of personality to make up for it. People who take the time to read are usually pretty intelligent. I think most readers have little patience for protagonists who aren’t too bright.

Related, but slightly different to the observation above: they behave intelligently. So, maybe they are smart. So why do they go down into the basement when they know the killer is down there? Why would they arrange to meet a murderer in a deserted location? Why?

Things happen to them. Maybe they have amazing luck—maybe they have amazingly bad luck. Maybe they’ve landed in a crazy family, or fall over murdered bodies all the time (Miss Marple), or have an interesting way of looking at the world. But they’re not boring and their life isn’t, either.

They have flaws. It’s so tedious to have a protagonist who is just too perfect. Unless they’re the Christ-figure in the book, they need to have some flaws. We’ll like them a lot better for it.

Do your favorite protagonists share common traits?

I have always been fascinated that American Martha Grimes writes a very successful British police procedural series.

The series is set around different British pubs, and includes deft descriptions of various British locales.

How does Martha Grimes do it? I think it would be extremely hard to accurately portray an area of the world where you’re only a visitor and not a resident.

The location for my Myrtle Clover series is Bradley, North Carolina. No one will write me to say that Bradley absolutely doesn’t have a tree-lined Main Street because the power company had the trees cut down. They won’t remind me that there are no one-story houses bordering the lake there. No one will catch me misrepresenting the menu in the favorite diner there.

Because Bradley, NC is completely made up.

I’m going out on a limb with my new series, though. It’s set in Memphis, Tennessee (and I’m a North Carolina resident.) I’m going to spend some time in Memphis in July to make sure all my setting descriptions are accurate. But I’m a little nervous. There’s nothing like messing up the facts to bring a reader out of a book that they were previously enjoying. Although I don’t spend a ton of time writing setting, it’s an important component to my books…and I want to get it right.

Does anyone else write books set in areas where you don’t reside? How do you do your research—online, in person, or a combination of the two?

It’s a rough world out there right now, job-wise.

It’s even rough for characters in manuscripts. I’ve found that if one of my characters isn’t doing their job in telling the story, then it’s time for them to get canned.

After all, we don’t have all the time in the world to just let a story meander around. If I’ve written a character in, they need to perform. Some of them need to create conflict for my protagonist (like the interfering son who won’t let my sleuth do her investigating.) Some of them need to provide clues or red herrings for my detective. Some need to be killed, some need to be murderers, and some of them need to be bystanders….but even the bystanders have a job to do. They should be entertaining or colorful in some way.

I need quieter characters, too—like Ratty and Mole in The Wind in the Willows. They were gentle, quiet creatures—and great foils for Toad. Some of my characters are straight-men for my funny protagonist. Some of them are sounding boards so my sleuth isn’t having long conversations with herself, wondering who the killer is.

But if I have a character that isn’t really doing anything, or if they’re just kind of hanging out in my manuscript without a purpose, it’s time for them to get their pink slips. Let them mess up someone else’s manuscript.

Do not put statements in the negative form. And don’t start sentences with a conjunction. If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all. De-accession euphemisms. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague. ~William Safire, “Great Rules of Writing”

Sorry for the long quotation, but I just love that bit by Safire. Right now I’ve got three totally different things going on (hope this won’t be news to either of my publishers). I’m editing a completed manuscript, writing a first draft for a different series, and gearing up to promote an August release.

I thought I’d surely say that the promotional stuff is the worst out of the three, but I think the editing/revision has won out.

Actually, I frequently break many of Safire’s rules. I guess my style of writing is colloquial….or chatty. It’s conversational, at any rate. I frequently have fragments in dialogue or in narrative, I’ll start with conjunctions, and end with linking verbs. I was an English major and know these things are real boo-boos, but no one has stopped me yet. I mean, editors have really revised my writing, but not the stuff I thought they might go after.

This makes me wonder….are the rules changing? Are we relaxing some of our grammatical and style standards? And why aren’t I feeling horrified if that’s true? I’m definitely a word nerd and I keep thinking I should shape up, but when I follow the rules (particularly in dialogue), my text sounds really stiff.

Here are some fun sites for all the other word nerds out there:

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