by Larry Brooks
Sometimes vicarious experience goes a long way to express the success of a novel, perhaps over and above the story itself. Thus, the lack thereof may connect to an explanation for the failure of a story.
Vicarious Reader Experience Defined
Ever wonder why Star Wars was such an iconic smash hit? The primary answer is vicarious experience. As audience members, we got to travel through space, visit other planets, engage with alien life forms, fall in love, and fight evil, all from the comfort of our theater seats. Vicarious experience works in any genre, in any setting, and with any experience. The only criteria is the delivery of a vivid sense of time and place that transports the reader from his world into your story world as viscerally and vividly as possible.
A story world is entirely genre dependent. If your story unfolds in a contemporary city, make that city crackle with gritty, authentic details so the reader feels as if he’s just stepped out of a subway tunnel. If it’s a real city, use the iconic landmarks and cultural hooks of the place to bring it to life. If your story is set in medieval times, let the reader experience the stench of the horses, the clanking of swords and armor, the whistling of arrows through the dank morning forest air, the sour breath of wheezing innkeepers and drunken kings. Show the blood steaming as it pools on the moist, moss-covered ground during a battle. If your story is set in the future on a vessel headed for a new planet, include the scream of rocket engines and the utter quiet of floating in outer space. Take us there, so that when the fireworks and the fear and the seduction and the intrigue unfold, we are already standing next to the hero, inhaling and smelling and feeling every moment of the adventure.
Readers come to genre stories for just this experience. It is the bread and butter of historical novels, westerns, fantasies, and sci-fi, and even gritty mysteries and thrillers that leverage their settings. Make sure you’ve thrown open the gates of your story world and delivered the experience they’ve paid to have.
You have a significant story-fixing opportunity at this point if, in your earlier draft, you’d taken the vicarious reader experience essence for granted and largely abandoned a sense of place in favor of plot exposition. (It’s a fine line here; once established, a less-is-more context is best, but make sure the tidbits of place you use are alive with color and vibration.) This lack of detail may be contributing to an overall impression that leads to the dreaded reader response of It just didn’t grab me. Agents and editors reject stories for a lot less.
Chances are, the issue of vicarious reader experience wasn’t mentioned in any rejection or feedback you received. Your inner critic probably didn’t notice or comment on it either. Nonetheless, reading is always an emotional engagement, regardless of the intellectual appeal, especially in fiction, and nothing says engagement like being there. Vicarious reader experience becomes, in that context, a secret narrative weapon for the writer who understands its value. Let that writer be you.
Compelling Characterization
Well, duh, you might be thinking, of course characterization is important.
Well over half of the general writing conversation seems to focus on character. But all this noise may have contributed to the problems found in many stories, especially in genre fiction. Literary fiction is all about character, while genre fiction isn’t—instead it’s about the combination of dramatic tension, conceptual richness, and setting. Character emerges from the manner in which the hero, and, to a lesser extent, the secondary characters, engage with the plot itself, in context to the story world you’ve created.
The story-fixing opportunity succeeds or fails depending on your understanding of this subtlety. Don’t for a moment think this means that character isn’t a critical base to cover. Quite the opposite. The problem is in mishandling characterization by making it the focus of the story to the detriment of dramatic tension. Mishandling refers to valuing backstory, inner landscape, and outward-facing tics and choices over the catalytic prompts provided by plot.
To perform an acid test on the handling—or mishandling—of characterization, look at the presence of backstory, as well as side trips that don’t directly connect to the core story’s narrative spine. Two quick case studies from my coaching experience will help clarify what this means.
I was doing a fifteen-minute story review at a conference recently. These types of events force the writer to pitch effectively, thus exposing her highest narrative priority (like character trumping dramatic tension). One of my appointments had a truly killer premise to work with. I asked him when that plot actually kicked in. At what moment does the story transition from the character intro and setup to the first steps of the hero’s story (a specific quest, with a clear goal arising from a specific problem and need, and a villain)?
He knew exactly what I was referring to. (It’s called the First Plot Point, by the way, which we discuss in chapter eight.) He enthusiastically laid it out for me, and it, too, was nicely crafted.
But he didn’t answer my question. I asked it a slightly different way: Where in the story, in terms of a percentage of total pages, does this plot moment occur?
His answer: "It happens somewhere around the midpoint."
And thus his rejection was largely explained.
This is a structural issue, certainly, but one caused by the author overplaying character setup within the structural paradigm, which has a prescribed length for that goal. He spent nearly half of the novel introducing the character, slathering on truckloads of backstory, giving us little vignettes showing the hero playing with his kids, beating down some bad guys during a previous nonrelated case, showing how his boss was an arrogant jerk, even including a scene of the character working out in the weight room to show how jacked he was. The author defended all of these scenes, arguing that each one fleshed out a deep character that the reader would empathize with and root for.
But how he handled it basically killed the story. He had way too much character introduction. It was a thriller, and thrillers live and die by their plots, via a provocative dramatic question that defines a core story. When characterization continues beyond the first quartile without that dramatic question being posed, the story is in trouble. By the midpoint (which has its own mission within the story), readers are begging for something to happen, for the story itself to kick in (if they haven’t bailed already). They didn’t come for the character, especially within the spy genre (which this story was). That’s true in any genre story, with the possible exception of literary fiction, and with the particularly complex exception of series novels and films in which the hero is the big draw, like Lee Child’s Jack Reacher or James Patterson’s Alex Cross. With a series story we return for the character, but that doesn’t license an overplayed setup. Indeed, in a series installment we already have met the hero, meaning it is more important than ever to pose a compelling dramatic question early in the narrative. Either way, whether a stand-alone or a series novel, the reader wants to see that hero engaging with a plot, one that certainly doesn’t take two hundred pages to finally show up.
I explained to the author I was coaching that this First Plot Point moment ideally occurs at about the 20th percentile mark, and that the pages preceding it should contain plot-related setup elements in addition to the hero intro. This isn’t formula—the thing that structure cynics fear and loathe. It’s story physics. Readers need something specific to root for, and if they wait too long they’ll either leave or simply not care as much as they need to. Structure is there for a reason: to optimize the story physics that allow the story to work better.
He quickly understood my criticism—and why he wasn’t getting much action with the agents he was pitching at the conference—and he promised to study these principles further. This is what happens when writers create their stories by an instinct that hasn’t been schooled in the principles of story physics. They’ve been told that character is the critical element without grasping the subtlety that a character is best showcased in context to a plot that gives that charact
er something dramatic and empathetic to do.
The other case study that helps illustrate what can go wrong involves a novel I was hired to analyze in its entirety. This writer had a great opening hook but then kicked into the backstory of the hero, beginning in childhood, and then followed it with dozens of pages that brought the hero up to the present day. Much like the previous example, readers were asked to hit the pause button on the story until this overwrought biography was in place. What this writer did differently, though, was devote the same depth of backstory exposition to every character in the story, even if he or she had no significant role. The guy who delivered a pizza in one scene got four paragraphs of life story and then was never seen again.
That, by the way, is a massive mistake, and a telling one. The writer isn’t there yet.
Backstory is relevant in genre fiction only to the extent that it explains something about the hero’s character as it relates to the unfolding—or soon to unfold—core dramatic story. And it is best given in quick chunks, with artfully nuanced references to the past, something that is much easier to do in first-person narrative than in third.
Structure is driven by the core story. The plot. Character, critical as it is, is woven in and around those structural elements. Stories work best that way. Your rejection, or the need to revise, could very well stem from your well-intended but overplayed emphasis on character over and apart from how it pertains to the plot, specifically to how the hero acts, feels, and responds as she moves along the core dramatic spine toward resolution.
If this sounds like you, one way to refocus your characterization and optimize your story is to revise toward creating a truly three-dimensional character.
Dimensions of Character
Stories are sometimes criticized for being “one-dimensional,” which implies there are other dimensions to fully inform your character than the one shown in your pages.
We live in a three-dimensional world. A character can be described in three-dimensional terms as well.
First Dimension: This is backstory—the information about where the character came from that helps explain who he is now. In your manuscript, make sure you focus on backstory issues that actually explain how the character engages with the core story rather than resorting to an entire biography. We don’t need to hear, for example, about the hero’s childhood athletic prowess unless it left a residual scar or precipitated some herculean combat skills that will be used in the core story. Don’t mention his abusive mother unless she caused physical or psychological damage that is germane to the narrative.
Second Dimension: This is how the world views the character in the present story time—the face, and perhaps the mask, the character shows to the world in order to create a desired perception. It’s an image that the hero is trying to live up to, a culture into which he is trying to fit. Looks, style, cars, clothes, hobbies, tics, habits, manner of speech … all of these are second-dimensional tools of characterization. Remember: Your goal with characterization has several facets: You want a layered, nuanced character, a complex character, someone we may or may not like but will certainly root for and empathize with relative to the core story. During revision, make your second-dimensional choices with these goals in mind.
Third Dimension: These are the decisions the character makes under tension, in the face of danger, in the critical moment of action and exposition. This includes his fears and phobias, which may defy his second-dimensional façade. The third dimension is also the playing field of character arc, where we see a hero conquering inner demons and fears using courage and the weight of consequences. Our actions define our true character more than our hairstyles and the cars we drive. Ask O.J. Simpson about this. Ask John Edwards, Anthony Weiner, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Bill Clinton, and hundreds of others who failed to resist temptation and fear under pressure, marring a glistening public façade. Ask Aron Ralston (who severed his own arm to escape a boulder in a canyoneering accident), Dennis Weichel (who sacrificed his life to save a young Afghan girl), New York City police officer Lawrence DePrimo (who gave his shoes to a homeless person in Times Square one freezing night), and countless others who, in a moment of truth, stepped up and revealed who they really are.
These dimensions become tools that allow you to flesh out characters from all angles, giving you more to work with than abusive childhoods and psychologically scarring incidents from the past, even when those backstories apply. It’s what the character does going forward, in context to such a backstory, that fleshes out who he has become. An understanding of these three dimensions might even help you see why your characterizations have been judged harshly. Look at how you’ve cast your hero (especially) and secondary characters in the story you are fixing. See if your emphasis on backstory has taken the urgency and drama away from the core dramatic plot. See if your players are cliché, lacking layers and complexity and nuance. How do all of these things affect the reader’s ability to root for and empathize with the hero’s quest?
That last question is critical. When we get to the topic of structure in the next chapter, you’ll see that the reader’s ability to root for and empathize with the hero is one of the primary missions of a four-part, milestone-driven structural flow. It’s all about reader response, and character remains one of the most critical, yet tricky, weapons we wield as writers in that regard.
Reader Empathy
Nearly all the topics we’ve discussed thus far—a compelling concept and an irresistible premise, dramatic tension, vicarious experience, and resonant characters—exist as tools used for a single desired outcome: to engage the reader in an emotional manner.
This is how fiction differs from nonfiction. The primary mission of nonfiction is to inform, to engage the reader on an intellectual level. Sometimes nonfiction seeks and relies on an emotional component as well, but not with the same fierce singularity as fiction.
Reader Empathy Defined
Reader empathy occurs when the reader feels the hero’s pain, fear, and anxiety, or her joy, desire, and anticipation. The reader relates to what the hero is doing, what she wants, her situation and need, the fear or longing for the stakes that are in play. We understand what all that must be like.
Empathy also has a hidden agenda: It increases the likelihood of the reader to root for the hero in the quest or mission you’ve given her.
There’s a flip side to this, too. As writers we want that empathetic fear to cause the reader to despise and root against the villain or antagonistic force. To fear him and seek his defeat and demise. An avid fan not only roots for her team to win but also hopes to see the opposing team fail. She cheers when the opposing team fumbles the ball every bit as much as when her team scores or makes a great play.
We generate this “rootability” by manipulating other essences and tools. The degree to which readers relate to a character depends on the degree to which they emotionally engage with the character’s story quest. The pace of the exposition, through structure, keeps readers on the edge of their chairs, and our ability to strategically escalate dramatic plot is what deepens the reader’s empathy—and the source of their rooting—as the story grows darker and more urgent.
This is why craft is an all-or-nothing proposition in many ways. You can understand all this in theory, but in practice, the end effect is determined by how well, how strategically, and how powerfully you have integrated all of these tools and essences within a narrative strategy.
The key question for the story fixer squaring off with a revision is this: How strongly will the reader root for the hero, and why?
This is an imprecise judgment call, to be sure. For example, some people root for Dick Cheney; others are rooting for karma to come full circle on his next hunting trip. The above question is where you place your bet. Your answer isn’t in talent or craft; it’s in your sensibility—though some might make a good case that story sensibility is, in fact, the raw grist of storytelling “talent.” Story sensibility is why some authors who follow th
ese principles still don’t end up with their pictures in a Barnes & Noble window.
By now it should be apparent that a story that simply chronicles a fictional character’s life story, a travelogue of her adventures, and a deep dive into her backstory gives us much to observe, or even to marvel at, but little to root for. Even in the presence of empathy, it is possible for your story to be too light on the rootable motivation.
Your story needs a quest, a mission, something for the hero to do. To seek. To avoid. To defeat. To give or to take. The quest must include provocative, weighty stakes that readers can relate to because they understand what they mean, for the hero, for themselves, for anyone.
If your story leans into plot-light character observation but lacks rootability—because the hero is not really doing anything other than living out one anecdotal episode after another—this undercuts the power of the entire narrative, rendering it soft and less than compelling. It will get you rejected.
If you can find this, if you can see it, using the criteria and focuses discussed here, then you can make the changes necessary. These include:
increasing the stakes. The bigger the win, and the deeper the cut of a loss, the better, because dramatic tension is fueled by stakes.
making the character more relatable and easier to empathize with. Give your hero some humanity, some temptations and weaknesses, and be sure to show her being a really likeable sort, especially in the Part One setup quartile. Show her stepping up for a friend or a stranger in need, or planning for the future in some way. Show her performing an act of courage and selflessness.
