Uncertainty/risk in terms of character

We build up our own understanding of risk through experience: how we react to uncertainty/risk and how others react to uncertainty/risk.

So when we look at characters, what experiences do they have with risk/uncertainty, and how can we use our own experiences as writers?

Sorry for another Margaret Atwood quote, but: “Our problem right now is that we're so specialized that if the lights go out, there are a huge number of people who are not going to know what to do. But within every dystopia there's a little utopia.”

I’m not really a fan of dystopian books. Part of this is because I prefer personal/intimate character journeys rather than ‘save-the-world’ ones. I’m also not really a fan because dystopian world are often simplified to the point where a blind monkey could poke logic holes all over the place.

Note I said often, not always. I have read a few fabulous dystopian books.

Logic is my thing. It’s how I write (I could probably link 2 dozen+ posts about writing), how I read/edit/critique (and another 2 dozen here), and how I think (seriously, you’re already neck-deep in another nerdy-over-analytical-series-of-posts and you should know I'm prone to this type of behaviour).

Like my favourite writing-group-ism, the “Pizza Popsicle”, I drive everyone crazy with the number of times I ask “why” and "I can't quite imagine that."

And I think a huge part of this is I want to believe. I want to get so caught up in a character or world that I lose the impulse to ask “why” and just live in the story.

So bringing my point back around again (darn you, shiny tangents…)

The Margaret Atwood quote is about uncertainty/risk. If the lights went out, for those to whom that was an ‘uncertainty’ would have no way of managing/planning, and that situation would be a dystopia. For those to whom the lights going out was a ‘risk’, for them, because they have the ability to manage/plan, that situation could be their own utopia. 

Hey, what an awesome chance to whip out a shotgun and loot/pillage or kill that neighbour who always lets his dog poop on your lawn.

So, why am I talking about dystopian literature and Margaret Atwood when I promised a post about characters?

Well, because I think that can be the basis for how you position your main character within your world (and I’m not specifically meaning sci-fi/fantasy, I’m being inclusive of contemporary/our world/etc as well when I use this term).

Zombies attack. For your main character, is this situation ‘risk’ or ‘uncertainty’?

Your MC’s brother overdoses. Is this situation a ‘risk’ or an ‘uncertainty’?

Your magician got cursed and now his wand is a self-aware, snarky pit-viper (with its full latent magic).

Your orphan shark MC has just been adopted by a vegan parrot fish couple.

All of these characters in all of these situations could react in an innumerable number of ways depending on what their background is, but switching it from 'risk' to 'uncertainty' ups the stakes.

When you get to the climax and your magician is facing a demon-princess transmogrified into a giant hydra, and has to convince his wand-turned-pit-viper to help when it would rather slither into a cool, dank hole or sunbathe on a sunny rock, as a reader, I want to believe it when your magician pulls a badly whittled flute from his robes and hypnotizes that pit-viper into saving his ass…

…but if you haven’t lead me to believe it’s logical, that he can whittle a flute, that he has past experiences with hypnotizing snakes, or fighting giant hydras, I’m not going to believe it. Sure, he can flub up every one of those things along the way, but he has to gain experience in those areas.

The trick of convincing a reader into believing something as absurd as that (by the way, that pit-viper story idea is now copyrighted*… so no stealing) is possible.

No matter what you throw at your character, there has to be a balance between ‘uncertainty’ and ‘risk’.

Well, no, I’m going to amend that. I think the inciting incident can be an ‘uncertainty’, and other events/challenges in the story can also be 'uncertainties', but the climax has to be a ‘risk’. The character must have the experience to manage/plan to take down that giant hydra. He can’t suddenly just take off his shoe and throw it in the air in the hopes that the hydra will choke on it… if that hydra does choke, or the magician suddenly becomes enlightened (even though he has never meditated a day in his life) and can cast killer-destructo-spells without his pit-viper-wand, then I’m throwing your book across the room.

Okay, not really, because I’d probably be reading it on my Kindle.

There must be a logical progression/absorption of knowledge/experience.

And I’m not just talking about big stuff, I’m talking about little stuff too.

Y’know I will pick apart every word in every sentence (which is why I don’t do line edits). One thing I am particularly anal about is are *how* characters view the world. Metaphors/similes that are out of character, phrases ‘too old’ or ‘too young’, observations that are ‘too juvenile’ or ‘too self-aware’, I’m going to take those apart really fast.

A character in a sci-fi story is probably not going to compare a distant planet or technology to something common from Victorian England, just as a character who has grown up in the mountains isn’t going to describe things with visuals from, say, the ocean, or the plains. Your seventeen-year-old valley girl who grew up in the city and is into shopping and makeup won’t compare the sound of her heels to gunfire and the sound of her friends talking shouldn't be compared to barnyard animals. Those things are not in her field of focus.

People talk differently, depending on their background/experience, and so should characters.

And this is another way to think about/write an authentic voice, by knowing what your character’s field of focus is.

I’m not saying I an expert, I am in no way claiming I’m right or I never make mistakes, but this is one of the things I work towards (read: obsess over) in my own writing. Heck, my own taste in characters is pretty questionable...

(seriously... I'm not even going to bother linking because there are too many examples I could use here)

How your character understands the world and makes choices is based on their past experiences. 

You’ve heard the line, “To a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”

So what tool** is your character?

And what do the problems you (the writer) throw at them look like? Are they all nails (risk), or did you throw a few screws and a staple in there (uncertainty)?

If you're having a problem with tension, maybe your 'hammer' character has been given all 'nails' and every problem is too easily solved.

* Wouldn't that magician story make an awesome bedtime story?

** Hahaha, I totally called your character a tool! (can you tell I'm over-tired?)