Story Magic

135 - Please let your characters make mistakes for the love of God please

• Golden May

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 27:46

Today, Emily & Rachel talk about letting your characters make mistakes.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

  • Why it’s important for characters to make mistakes
  • The difference between static arcs and boring characters
  • Why this is one of the most important (and common) story challenges
  • How to build a realistic, human cast of characters
  • How to let your character make mistakes but remain likeable

Ready to make readers so in love with your characters they can’t stop biting their nails in anticipation?  Grab The Magic of Character Arcs free email course: https://www.goldenmayediting.com/arcsmagic

Join Tenacious Writing! With the perfect combo of craft, mindset, and community resources, you will build a writing life that feels sustainable, fulfilling, and fun—without any prescriptions or rules. Learn more: https://www.tenaciouswriting.com/

If you enjoyed Story Magic, please rate, review and follow on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to this podcast!

Follow us on social media!

Rachel: https://www.instagram.com/bookcoachrachel/

Emily: https://www.instagram.com/ebgoldenbooks/

Rachel:

Hey, writers. Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.

Emily:

I'm Emily.

Rachel:

And I'm Rachel.

Emily:

And today we are going to talk about your characters making mistakes.

Rachel:

Please, please let them make mistakes.

Emily:

I wrote, you know it's serious when I start singing. I know.

Rachel:

Yeah. We've got a fun call in response. I wrote today's episode title as a joke, and we decided to leave it because we felt so passionate about.

Emily:

About this. I feel like you are especially. I mean, obviously we're equally passionate about this, but you've spoken about this with this kind of passion. I feel like in emails and just like. Cause it's. I just love your passion about it because it's so important.

Rachel:

I'm so passionate. I'm passionate about all things writing. I'm extra passionate about. If you have a perfect character who makes no mistakes, they are boring, period.

Emily:

They're so boring.

Rachel:

They're so boring. Let me put. That's the end. Let me put an asterisk here. If you're talking about a style static arc and you know what you're doing, that's different. Static arcs are different. But I will not accept the excuse that you're writing a static arc book just because your characters are perfect and they make no mistakes. They're different. So there are books that have static arc characters in which the character knows the lesson and they're trying to change the world around them. That is one situation. Then you have a character who doesn't know anything. They're flawed. You think they're perfect, but they don't do anything. They don't make mistakes. They don't make any choices and nothing ever happens. And I hate them. No, I'm just kidding. And it falls flat. There's a difference. So the asterisks, which I will not talk about again for the rest of this episode because it's different, is a static arc. We have episode on static arc. Static arc. We did with Lewis. Joyce said, it's amazing. Go look at it. But that is a completely different narrative structure that you choose intentionally because of the message that you're trying to say and the journey of the story and the way that the world changes, not your character. And 95% of you that are listening to this aren't writing that. So I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear.

Emily:

Well, go listen to that episode because I love you.

Rachel:

I just. I'm not being like. I'm not. This is all tongue in cheek.

Emily:

We're just being sassy, you guys.

Rachel:

I'm just being sassy. I'm just being sassy. It's okay. But I do get. I do feel like I get that a lot of, like, well, my character, I'm writing a static arc, and I'm like, you heard that once and you latched onto it, and it wasn't on purpose. It was because it was an excuse because you didn't know how to fix the book that you wanted to dealt. You didn't know how to bring the vision to life that you wanted. So I think there's a difference, and I will hop off my high horse and stop complaining about it.

Emily:

Well, I think that's a. That's a very important distinction. Because the other thing about static arcs is just because their main character in a static arc is not making the same kinds of choices that a character in a positive arc would or negative arc would be, but the world around them is. And there are mistakes that are being made, big ones, and they have huge consequences. And there's change happening. It's just a different structure. So, okay, we won't put that aside.

Rachel:

That aside. And like, even in a. Even in a static arc now, I'm going to keep going. Even in a static arc, the main character seems. Still makes mistakes, but it's not because they don't know the lesson. It's because of a different reason. So, like, there. There is structure to static arc. If you're not writing that on purpose with intention to tell a message about the world, then put that aside. This is not for you. This is for. This episode is for, like, this. This was. This was me. This was me like eight, seven, eight years ago when I was writing a character who I really wanted to be flawed, but I didn't know how to make her flawed. So she ended up just doing fine things all the time. And she never leaned into her flaws in a way that made sense. She never made mistakes on the page. So there were never consequences for those mistakes. I think what we don't set out with the intention to write perfect characters, what ends up happening is that you go easy on them. You let them get by with, like, making fine choices. And that's not the. That's not the crux of a character arc. That's not the purpose of story. Narrative narrative storytelling is set up to make your characters do dumb shit because they're flawed. And then the consequences show them that they were wrong. So you need to make it hard, make it hard on them. I think we get really we love our characters. I don't want to get them hurt. I don't want them. I don't. I don't want them to be making, you know, dumb choices because, you know, they're a reflection of me and they're part of me. And if I make dumb choices, then what does that say about me? No, stop it.

Emily:

See, I told you she got passionate about this.

Rachel:

I was like, stop this. Just look. The very first client. The very first one on one client that I ever had. I love her to death. We started this. We started this narrative. You have to like her and I, we would. We would chant this at each other, like, crush, crush, crush, crush. Like, you have to crush your characters. You need to make it hard and make them make bad choices, flawed choices, dumb choices. I don't know what. I don't care what you want to call it, but make them make mistakes. For the love of God, please make mistakes. Because that's how they learn. And, like, as a reader, I am, like, locked in when I see a character doing things that I know are not gonna work out for them because it's like. It's the conflict. It's the idea of conflict sucks us in. We wanna watch the train wreck happen. I wanna see it unfold. And if there's no train wreck, I move on. I'm bored.

Emily:

I put the book down. Put the book down. Yeah. We have to see. A lot of this goes back into water. I knew that would happen. A lot of this goes back to what we talked about in a couple episodes ago with narrative drive. Right. Which is that your character needs to be shaping the story. And if it's an. If you have a character arc, which you should, then that means that the choices that your character's making are going to be wrong for 80% of the book. They're gonna be mistakes. Every single choice is gonna be a mistake. And that feels like, I think, a lot of pressure for writers to be, like, every single scene. Yes, every single scene. Because. And that comes down to, like, their plans, their overall plans for what they're doing are wrong. And so even if it doesn't feel like their choices in the moment are, like, gonna have huge consequences, it's the concept of the fact that they're following this big plan. And if you have them following this big plan in every single scene and stay sticking to that big, flawed plan in every single scene, then those mistakes are gonna accumulate.

Rachel:

Right?

Emily:

And so. And that's very important, like Rachel said, for teaching them and teaching them why they were wrong. How they are flawed and allowing them to change. If they're not making mistakes, they have no reason to change. Right. If the choices that they're making don't have flawed consequences, then they're not flawed choices.

Rachel:

Exactly. Yeah. And like, we. I think we may have mentioned this on the podcast, but you and I have talked before. I think the accumulation of consequences is really important because we hear, like, the struggle from writers that we teach. We hear the struggle that it is really hard to make a character make a flawed choice in every single scene and have that character remain likable. I hear you. It's a challenge. But what's the important part is that even if they're making a flawed choice, it might be two steps forward, one step back. Right. Like, it's the consequences that force us the steps back. So even if they're. They're not doing the right thing, we may look like we're on the up and up. Things might be. Might be working out temporarily, but the whole point is that their flawed choices have consequences which accumulate and snowball and result in bad things, because it's the bad consequences that show us that we've been doing wrong, that we've been making wrong choices. So I'm going to give you some leeway that even as you're writing, if you're like, well, I need there to be a win, otherwise the plot is too depressing, cool, let there be a win. But the whole point of the character arc is that we cannot outrun the negative consequences of our flawed choices. So they pile up. We're not doing it right. So if we need to have a win, like, books will have ups and downs. We have wins, we have losses, but the losses are greater, right? Like, the bad choices have bigger consequences, and it accumulates until we can't look away anymore and we realize, oh, that might not have turned out as bad as it could have in perhaps that one situation, but it was still wrong. Or, oh, I'm only here because of this pattern that I have of mistrust or this pattern of flawed thinking, whatever it is, that we hit the rock bottom because of the flaws. And if you don't let the characters make mistakes, they have no rock bottom. So stop treating them so precious. Yeah, I'm getting heated again.

Emily:

Well, so. So sometimes what people.

Rachel:

Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Nope, nope.

Emily:

Sometimes people will say, well, you know, on. On this note of. Of victories, right? Giving them wins, they'll be like, well, they're succeeding in what they want or what they think they want, right? Like they set out a goal to beat the love interest at getting the business deal. Right. And they're getting closer to the business deal. Right. That feels like a win to the character.

Rachel:

Right.

Emily:

They are getting what they think they want, but what they actually want in that, you know, very basic premise, right, is love. Like what they actually need is love. They think they want this business deal, but really what they need is love. And so it's actually a loss, Right. Every time they get closer to that business deal, they are, there are long term negative consequences because they are pushing love away. Exactly. And so even if it feels like a win, it can actually be a loss because it's not actually what your character wants. It's pushing them further from their deeper desires, even if they think they're getting closer to their conscious desires. So just, I get a lot of pushback there sometimes from folks and that's, that's fine. And then the other thing that people will say is, well, my character, is it okay if they make the right quote unquote choice for the wrong quote unquote reasons? So it's a mistake, but like they're doing the right thing in the scene. And I think that all comes down to consequences, right? What are the actual tangible consequences in their relationships with other people in what's going to happen in the plot because of the choices that they're making in that moment? If the long term consequences are negative, then that's fine. Then it can be the right choice for the wrong reasons. Right? But if it's the right choice, quote unquote, and positive things happen because of it, then it's not, you know, it's not the right choice, right. For that scene. You have to rethink it. Because if they're making the right quote unquote choice in that moment, that will have positive consequences. That implies that they have learned your story point. That implies that they know that they've let go of their flawed beliefs. And if it's not time to do that, it's not time to do that. And so you got to rethink things. And that's getting a little in the nuance. But for people who, like, understand some of these terms and are like in the weeds and struggling with that in a scene, I think looking at the consequences can be really helpful. Will they be negative or will they be positive in the long run?

Rachel:

That's something that I've, that I personally have really struggled with in the Shadows Syndicate series that I'm writing because of the amount of characters that I have that are all interacting with the plot in slightly different ways, and they all kind of have slightly different goals. Like, there are times where I need a choice to be made that pushes our plot forward, but that there's a consequence that comes back later where that character was like, well, shit, that I hurt someone around me by doing that. I felt like it was the right thing for my goals, but I hurt someone, and now I have to deal with that conflict. That's. Then. This is tricky. I think this is. I mean, letting your characters make mistakes influences the plot going back to narrative drive. And the more details and intricacies that you insert into the plot, the harder it is to link all this together. It's hard. I'm not. I'm not.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

And I'm going to be the first to say I. Here's my confession for the day. I will flex the numbers a little bit in my books to, like, make it make sense, but the arc is always still top of mind. So even if I have a scene where I'm like, this character is going to slip by, but the consequence is going to come back to bite us later, because otherwise they won't change. They are not going to see. They are not going to see, like, the whole. The. The way that they've been wrong unless we have a consequence. Yeah. And that takes time and refinement. I mean, look, as as heated as I was earlier, guys, please know that all of my heat is. Is like, you still. This is a revisions thing, okay?

Emily:

Yes,

Rachel:

Literally. I wrote an email about this to our email list because I was like, whatever time you hear writing advice, it's a revision thing, okay? Don't worry about it. When you're drafting, all of the advice we give is, like, put it in practice over time. You're not doing anything wrong. You're not trash. Your book's not trash. Don't worry about it. It's okay.

Emily:

We don't hate it.

Rachel:

I don't hate you. I love you. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for listening. I support you and your dreams. I've got your back. I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at the situation. But no, like, this is something that comes over time with multiple drafts, with revisions, with understanding how narrative drive works, with, like, changing plot structure. Like, it. It's. It comes with practice and time and drafts. So I'm not. Take a. This one.

Emily:

In the narrative dive episodes, you know, we get excited and heated about it because I think these are two things. You know, not having Narrative drive and not having letting characters make mistakes that people. That is so common for newer writers to do, and it's so common for newer writers to be like, I don't have this issue. Right. And we get a lot of pushback on these things. And so I think that's where the intensity is coming from, is us being, like, trying to break through those walls because these are so important, and we know how important they are, and we want people to understand that and that there's nothing wrong with you or your book if you don't have these things. But. But, like, recognizing that they are something that you need to revise into your story in order to make them engaging is very, very important. And the writers that acknowledge that and kind of come at it with the humility of, like, let's figure out how to do this. I think succeed. Like, those are the people we see succeed a lot and really well. And so that is all coming from a place of love and a place of experience that we know a lot of people will say these things.

Rachel:

Yes. Very beautifully said. Because the. The pushback that we get, we can always tell it comes from a place of resistance that you do not want to see the holes in your book. And so you come. This is, like, going back.

Emily:

I feel like a reflection of you.

Rachel:

It's a shame thing. Exactly. It's a shame thing. It's an identity thing. It's a validation thing. If. If I have a mistake in my book that I have to go back and rewrite everything, I have failed. No, that's not true. We all go back and rewrite everything. Everybody does it. That's part of the process. But when we get the pushback, it's more like I'm trying to come up with an answer for the draft I already have. That makes sense. Versus I recognize that this draft needs more mistakes. Or I recognize that this character arc is not quite hitting. It's missing something, or the consequences aren't there. I should amp those up a little bit. Maybe I should change the plot. Like, that's. That's the difference. So I guess you're completely right. Like, the heat that I have comes from number one, how. How important I think this is for books in general. Like, this is foundational character knowledge that is really important for character arcs. So when it's not there, you see the ripple effects throughout the rest of the story, where the plot. There's something lacking in the plot. The narrative drive has holes in it. Our pacing isn't working right. We're not getting payoff in Act 3. So, like, the ripple effects of not letting your characters make mistakes go through the entire novel. So it's really important. And then on the flip side, don't let your resistance, like, get in the way of. Or your perfectionism or your fear of failure or your imposter syndrome or whatever it is on in Mindset wise. Don't let it get in the way of, like, I could probably amp this up a bit or this needs more work, or I want to take the vision in this direction now. If you have a vision for your story and you're behind that vision, I don't care. Do what you want. I'm always gonna be way more happy for you doing that if that's the vision for your story. But no, this is also where it comes in of, like, you have to know the rule to break the rule. If you don't know the theory, you're not gonna break it with purpose. You're just missing the theory. And I think that's different. I don't care if you. If you know the rule and break the rule, do whatever you want. But when people don't know the rule, that's when they get really frustrated with their drafts and they're like, I don't understand why this doesn't work. I don't understand why. I feel like something's missing. Yeah, okay, that's. I gotta. I'm hopping off the soapbox again. You can take my place.

Emily:

So the only thing I. Other thing I want to add with this is I think this applies to secondary characters as well.

Rachel:

Um, yeah, yeah.

Emily:

And I. Speaking from experience, my first series that I worked on had, like, a massive cast, and I just. I didn't have the craft knowledge to like, make them all really human in the way that if I ever go back to that project, that I would want to make it, like, gritty and human and make them all flawed. Like, everybody was just like, a little bit. They were all quirky, they all had different quirks, they were different from each other, but they were all essentially good people except for the villains, you know, and then the villains were bad people. And again, this is a revisions thing. If you. You know, I write very cardboard characters into my first drafts, but it's very important to make sure that your cast as a whole feels human as you are revising and bringing depth to your story. Because readers. Readers are just not going to be as interested in a cast that is, like, predictably good all the time. Right. Like, we want to be slightly afraid of people of some of the characters. We want to be slightly confused about the motives of other characters. We want them to. We want to, like. Want to love someone, but they keep making mistakes that we can't forgive. Right. We want to have that complexity, and that comes from allowing your characters to be human. And to allow them to be human, you have to allow them to make. Make mistakes. So this doesn't apply. It doesn't just apply to your main character. It also applies to everybody else in your story, including your villains. They're going to make the biggest mistakes, but they still have to be human. They can't just be villains for villains sake. And we have episodes about that. But I just think. I just want to kind of put that. That note in here that this is. This is about your whole. Whole cast. We want our readers to come into a story and see people who are human and human people make mistakes. We're flawed.

Rachel:

Let's. Okay, so before we wrap up, I want to touch on the point you've just made, because I also think some of the pushback we get about this is the question of likability.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

So people fearing that if they make their characters make mistakes, they will no longer be likable. So what you just said was that, like humans, it's so natural for people to make mistakes. Every human does it. And we don't have that. Like, we don't end up having that reaction. I think that's an unfounded myth about 90% of the time that if your characters make mistakes, that means they're unlikable. Now, I know we talked about this on the podcast before, how this was something that you struggled with a little bit with fear in.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Do you want to touch on the likability and the mistakes question?

Emily:

No, That's a really good point. Yeah, that's a really good point. A lot of times the pushback is like, we love our characters so much, we don't want to let them do anything that might make readers angry with them. Right.

Rachel:

Yes.

Emily:

And I think. I mean, I would push back and say that I think sometimes the characters we love the most are the ones who have flaws, that we're like, oh, baby, just heal. If you just heal, you can have happiness. Right. Like those sad characters who just can't help themselves. And there's something that's deeply likable about them, but they're still making mistakes. That makes us love them even more, I think. But in terms of, you know, if you have a character who is truly morally gray. Right. Who makes really big mistakes and you're asking the reader to empathize with them, right? Because they're your main character, like Feren. Then you want to make sure that it's very, very clear to the reader why they are the way they are. This is one of the big reasons that I included Fearen's backstory. Like, have an actual dual timeline where we get to see her as a. So that we understand why she is the way that she is, and we get to see that and live through that, and, like, understand how she changed over time. That was one of the reasons that I included that. It's not the only reason, but it's one of the reasons. And I think that the more that you can just show your readers why your character wants what they want, why they believe the flawed things that they believe, why they have the fears, the unfounded fears that they have. Right. Founded and unfounded. Um, and all of that lives in their backstory, right? It lives in, like, why they are the way that they are and the things that have happened to them, the people that have hurt them, the things they've learned over time. And so to. To make an. A character who is, you know, makes bad decision, really bad decisions. And, like, not all mistakes are, like, make you Evil, Right, Exactly. Make mistakes. Like in the example of, like, trying to get the business deal at the expense of love, right? Like, that. That person's not necessarily an evil person. It just. They just have. Their priorities are a little, like, messed up, right. Because of their flawed beliefs. And so. But if you do have a character who. Who makes truly bad decisions, right, they hurt people, like, fear and hurts people. It needs to be abundantly clear to the reader why they're doing that so that we can root for them to change. It's like, we're going to be partly engaged because we want to see the train wreck, and we're partly engaged because we want to see them overcome that. Those demons and, like, become a healed version of themselves and get the things that. That they truly want. Right? Like, for her, it's love. It's like, we want her to find love. We need you to change. You can find love, right? And that keeps people moving, reading and flipping pages. But if you didn't understand why Faerien is the way that she is, you would just hate her and you would put the book down. So that's how you. That's how empathy is built, is like showing the humanity of a character to the reader so we can understand why they are the way they are.

Rachel:

Exactly. Backstory. Why do they have their flaws.

Emily:

Where.

Rachel:

Where do these flaws come from? Why are they driven by these flaws? Because that answers, why are we making these mistakes? And if we can understand why these mistakes were made, we can empathize with it. And if we can empathize with it, we give a lot of grace to these characters that make a lot of mistakes. Because, like, it could be us, right? Like, you know, if we have the. If we see that that happened to this character, what if that happened to us? Okay, I can see how they got there. That's always my question. Can I see how this character got to this point? And if the answer is yes, I'm like, make your mistakes. Flawed person. Go, yeah, I will follow you, and I will see, did you change or not? Because that's the question is I. I'm. We are, as readers, we are compelled by the question, will they change or not? We're not turned off by the question of this person is flawed.

Emily:

But unless we don't know why.

Rachel:

Exactly. Unless we don't know why. If we don't know why, then we're like, you're dumb. You're dumb. Why are you doing this? But if we know why, then we're like, oh, you poor baby. Of course you're this way. And then we're like, I can't stand to see you this way. I really want you to find happiness and love. Oh, you deserve it. You've just been hurt before. Like, that's the kind of emotion. Yeah. That's the vibe that is what we are trying to evoke in our reader. So it's not the mistakes that turn the character off or that turn the reader off. It's not understanding why we make those mistakes. So that's part of making this clear on the page through internal processing, through the use of backstory, through showing, not telling. Like, when we can make that clear through those techniques, the reader's gonna be chugging along with us, no matter what happens, and waiting to see, you know, how does this turn out? I can't wait to find out. Do we get what we want? Do we change? Or do we fail and not get what we want?

Emily:

So please, please, please, please, for the love of God, please, just let them. This is your mistakes.

Rachel:

Just let them make mistakes. This is your permission. Make them suffer. I love that when my. When my readers are in my Instagram DMs, and they're like, oh, you made your character suffer. I'm like. Like, I send, like, the little purple devil emoji, and I'm like, yeah, yesterday one of my. Okay, so my pen name is R E May. So yesterday one of my readers was in my DMs calling me Rachel Evil May. And I was like, that's it.

Emily:

That's.

Rachel:

That's my middle name. Don't wear it out. They love it. Readers truly love it. So, like, lean in. This is your permission. Make them suffer. It's okay. And I'm not. You don't have to, like, you know, physical suffer, emotional suffer. I want to feel the angst. I want to see the struggle. It's that struggle that, like, really draws us in. Okay, I'm done, you guys. If you want to build a successful, fulfilling and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.

Emily:

Sign up now to get our free email course, the Magic of Character Arcs. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.

Rachel:

Link in the show notes. We'll see you there.

Emily:

Bye.

Rachel:

It.