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How to Use Excess to Create Memorable Characters in Your Fiction

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This looks like a smaller version of my cup collection. Or just how much coffee Lorelai drinks in a day…

 

“Everything in moderation” is good life advice in general. It helps us maintain healthy diets, not neglect or overdo exercise, don’t go bankrupt on shopping sprees… All sensible stuff.

But if there’s one place where excess is welcome, and it’s fiction.

Most of our favorite books, shows, and movies feature main characters with extreme habits and/or personality traits. Many stretch the courtesy to supporting characters as well.

While how much excess (and in what areas) one prefers can vary, here are some of my favorite “excess” examples:

Excess Examples in TV Series

Gilmore Girls

One of my all-time favorite shows Gilmore Girls centers around best friend mother-daughter duo Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. They share similar taste in music, movies, food, and clothing. They order too much takeout, consume a scary amount of coffee, and talk at a million miles a minute.

The show is funny, romantic and emotional, and the excesses don’t end with Lorelai and Rory. It merely begins there.

The maker of their favorite coffee, Luke (Scott Patterson), owns Luke’s diner. A town issue will up his grumpiness and ranting to the max.

Lorelai’s best friend Chef Sookie (Melissa McCarthy) is extremely clumsy, forgetful, and in love with her cooking.

Lorelai’s co-worker Michel couldn’t be more stereotypically French if he tried.

Town spokesperson Taylor is always annoying one poor soul or another with his demands, festivals, problems, complaints, etc… And when it’s not one or two people, he’s pissing off the entire town.

The town’s weirdest resident Kirk makes Phoebe from Friends seem sane and normal. There’s no job he won’t try, for one.

Lorelai’s next-door neighbor Babette is loud, loving, very fond of her cat and her husband, and doesn’t exactly know boundaries (but in a cute, warm way).

Last but not least, Lorelai’s estranged rich parents, Emily (Kelly Bishop) and Richard (Edward Herrmann) are excessively elitist, opinionated, lacking in empathy, and unappreciative of boundaries. Friday night dinners are a battleground. And both Emily and Richard are prone to tantrums that would make 5-year-olds facepalm.

Gilmore Girls is a quintessential feel-good comedy drama, and this beautifully written excess is one of the elements making it so memorable and addictive even after all these years.

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Friends

Actual footage and quote.

If you don’t think Friends isn’t funny, we can’t be friends. I’m kidding. Of course, we can. We probably shouldn’t watch a comedy together, though.

If Friends isn’t your kind of sitcom, pick yours. Sitcoms mine excess to hilarious results.

Whether it’s The Office, The Bing Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, or another show, you will notice the excess immediately.

In Friends, Joey (Matt LeBlanc) eats anything and everything. He covets food more than his own life, and almost as much as he loves sex. He is also very stupid. He is cute and loveable, but he likely wouldn’t survive long outside of a TV show. But there is an exception: If he’s trying to pick up a girl, his IQ suddenly spikes.

Initially, Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) is spoilt and clueless about the real world. As seasons progress, her remaining excess is her love for fashion and shopping.

Monica (Courteney Cox) is an amazing cook and terribly organized, clean, and competitive. She exhibits a love for cleaning that would prompt a psychological diagnosis. She once cleaned several cars in her neighborhood because they looked dirty.

Ross (David Schwimmer) is a massive dinosaur nerd. He gets excessively jealous when he dates Rachel, but outside of that, he is all about academia and dinosaurs and putting his friends to sleep.

Chandler (Matthew Perry) IS sarcasm. He is also hilarious. He manages to be extremely commitment-averse and afraid to be alone at the same time.

Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) is just quirkiness personified. Bohemian, unique, and flaky, she is a lot of people’s favorite character.

 

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Excess Examples in Movies

John Wick

John Wick is very stylish and although bloody, it’s not too gory. Which is how I love my action thrillers.

Wrong John Wick (Keanu Reeves), and he will kill you. Even if you bring 100 people along. And we love him for it. Whether it’s guns, swords, hand-to-hand combat, or pencils, he will take you out. So don’t get in his way.

Any kickass action hero with kickass killing and survival skills fits here: Rambo, Robert McCall (The Equalizer), Lorraine Broughton (Atomic Blonde), Ethan Hunt (Mission Impossible), Jack Reacher (is a great example because Reacher was/is a book series first, movie and then TV adaptation), Bryan Mills (Taken, of movie and TV series fame), Duncan Vizla (Polar), Evelyn Salt (Salt), Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Mr. and Mrs. Smith), Cataleya (Colombiana)…

The list is long, but let me finish with Smith (Clive Owen) from Shoot ‘Em Up. Not only does the movie have a fantastic cast, action scenes, and a kickass rock soundtrack, but I’ll forever be grateful to have learned how deadly carrots can be in the right hands.

These people are deadly, but they will look after the people they take care about.

Excess Examples in Books

Pride and Prejudice

True to its title and theme, Elizabeth can be very prejudiced and proud. And so can the male main character Mr. Darcy.

Moreover, Elizabeth is incredibly modern and ahead of her time. She’d rather read and walk all day and night rather than conform to her society’s norms. Darcy is very introverted and prejudiced, so he comes off as rude.

But that’s not all. Elizabeth’s mother is so obsessed with marrying off her daughters, love and compatibility don’t even cross her mind. Collins’ lack of emotional intelligence and self-awareness are astoundingly hilarious.

A Change Would Do You Good

 

A Change Would Do You Good is a short, escapist rom-com trilogy, and is also the title of the first book in the series.

Excess in opposite directions works wonders for creating conflict.

My main character Janie is still recovering from a loss. She experienced true love and an amazing relationship, and she is certain she will never feel the same way about anyone.

On the other hand, her new neighbor Kevin has had a blessed existence. He is a top surfer, has never met a beautiful woman he couldn’t seduce, and has no interest in a romantic, serious relationship. Put these extreme ends together, and the sparks are electrifying.

But because this is an ensemble romcom novel, plenty of excess can be found in other characters: How well Ben and Greg’s lives are going vs. how much of a rut Linda’s in, Ashley’s apathy and disregard for others, the career Tom and Sam want vs. the career they have…

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Love it or hate it, any successful work of fiction has excess. When you write fiction, it’s okay to go all the way with character quirks, tastes, and personality traits.

When you are reading or watching and the excess puts you off, it might be that you aren’t the intended target audience. And it’s okay.

For writers:

If you find yourself lacking inspiration, look at yourself and your friends. What about you/them seems strange/over the top to other people? What have been some of your weirdest encounters? Remember how life is often stranger than fiction, and you’ll have more material than you can handle.

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What are your favorite excess examples in fiction? Let me know in the comments.

Life is Stranger Than Fiction: Why You Can and Should Write Freely

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Image via Mollyroselee from Pixabay.

 

I’ve been creating fiction for a long time. Like, for over two decades now. (I started early.)

While I cared about laws of physics since I wrote romantic comedies and dramas set in the real world, I left everything else to my imagination. Now, there was logic involved.

 

When Greg drove a Jaguar in my romcom novel A Change Would Do You Good, I made sure the audience knew he was a star in his field and at his company. He was the boss’s favorite and made a lot of money. So no one questioned his living standards.

But no matter how much reality you infuse into your fiction, someone will offer a piece of unwarranted criticism, which is fine.

Not all of the unwarranted criticisms come from a mean place. Your readers have different life experiences. Not to mention, our levels of suspension of disbelief differ. When I watch a movie/series with teenagers, I am fine with young adults acting younger than their age. I mean, who is going to say Michael J. Fox can’t/couldn’t pass for a high schooler in Back to the Future? Come on, I dare ya. 🙂

Still, not all Friends lovers (and haters) are convinced Monica could afford her Manhattan apartment. To that, I say:

  • Rent control
  • Occasionally great-paying jobs as a chef
  • Upper-middle-class parents
  • Happy-to-lend-money brother
  • Well-earning bestie (Chandler)

Those five points are mentioned in the show. At this point, if you don’t believe she could survive living there, maybe you aren’t into fiction.

One time, a friend reading A Change Would Do You Good (the story featuring our Jaguar-driving friend Greg from above) told me everyone in the story was good-looking, and that didn’t seem believable.

All my recurring characters are either really hot or attractive in their own way. Except for Linda in the beginning, because she has let herself go. However, she also gives herself a makeover and a confidence boost. And don’t worry, there’s no glass removal involved. Just a woman dressing better and losing the extra weight (and by that, I mean her incompatible boyfriend).

What are the odds of so many people being attractive? Without context, it sounds like a writer just pulling stuff out of her butt, I’ll admit.:))

But here’s the context:

This story is set in California. Some characters are from L.A., where there’s a lot of pressure to look good. I’ve been to Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. I don’t remember seeing a lot of average-looking people.

I looked fantastic too. I made an effort. It was my first time being abroad, and it was Cali, so I wasn’t just going to roll out of bed and not care.

Here’s even more context:

Janie, the main character, is a fashion designer. She knows how to look good.

Kevin, the male main character and Janie’s love interest is a pro surfer. Sports is his idea of fun. He is hot. And yes, it matters to the plot. And remember, this is a romcom drama. How many romcoms have you read or watched where the leads are just meh?

Kevin’s best friends are surfers and they also take amazing care of themselves. This is also not just a superficial afterthought either. This is a tight group of people who are extremely competitive at everything, and they have made a career in the one thing they love most in the world. They are healthy, successful, confident, and radiant. It’d be unusual if they weren’t considered hot.

(If you are wondering how such a happy group will have trouble in life… Well, Kevin has never been in love. He doesn’t even believe in romantic love. Janie’s grieving the death of the guy she thought she’d be with forever. So when they meet, sparks fly, and world views clash… So, don’t worry. The conflicts are strong with this neighbors to lovers/haters to lovers duo.)

Greg is a psychiatrist. He cares deeply about mental and physical health. Just doing what’s good for your body and soul alone will make a big difference in how good you look.

Ben is literally a model.

But what are the odds of them coming together and all the chaos?

Anytime you put an ensemble together and have them experience hilarious (mis)adventures, someone is bound to ask: But what are the odds?

It’s a great and valid question. Luckily, I’ve got the answer for you:

Highly likely, because life is stranger than fiction.

When I was in college, I did two terms abroad in Halden, Norway as an international student. Here’s a very short snippet of what life was like:

  • Once, a German neighbor opened the door with a chainsaw in hand. (He’s a great guy. We were a weird bunch.)
  • The neighbors of a Chinese student didn’t like his housekeeping (or behavior), so they put his bike on the roof of their two-story house.
  • My Austrian neighbor hated my Hungarian neighbor’s kitchen habits, so he threw all of his kitchen stuff out of the window.
  • My Russian and Norwegian neighbors, both with notoriously bad memories, met, forgot meeting, and introduced themselves to each other again after a year. They didn’t notice each other for months, even though they lived in a small two-story house with just 6 other people.
  • My German neighbor with the chainsaw once carved a wooden stake for me in 5 minutes because I wanted to go to the Halloween party as Buffy.
  • All the guys came together and skied off the roofs. For fun.

That’s real life for you. So any time I’m tempted to dismiss a storyline as unlikely, I think back and laugh.

 

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Life is, and probably will always be stranger than fiction. Just think about what we have been through in the world in the last 3 years.

By all means, mind your plot holes. Check your facts. But write what you want. Because chances are, stuff way weirder already happened.

Writing Fiction During A Pandemic: Should Your Story’s World Include The Current Reality?

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Writing during a pandemic
This awesome image is by Stefan Keller on Pixabay.

I have a short and relevant one for you today.

I saw (virtually, of course) a lot of writers discussing whether their current works in progress set in the present should include the realities of today.

And everyone will have their answer according to their taste, current mental state, themes in the story, storylines as well as what they want to accomplish with their work.

For me, the answer is a big whopping no. Not only am not including anything c-word related in my current novel, but I also don’t plan to change what I write afterward. Unless it is a dystopian feature or sci-fi where the story would benefit from my real-world experience.

Here’s why:

I write to entertain. I write to escape. I write to make people laugh, to put a smile on their faces, give them hope and make sure they have faith in themselves, their lives, and the world.

It doesn’t mean my stories don’t or won’t include harrowing conflicts.

In fact, the current novel I’m editing has plenty of real-world issues. It’s a romantic comedy drama featuring ensemble characters. Among other things, it has:

  • Loss of a loved one and grief
  • A severe anxiety disorder
  • Drug use
  • Prejudice
  • Feeling lost and hopeless in one’s career
  • Professional screw-ups
  • Blaming others for your mistakes
  • Failing romantic relationships.
  • Dysfunctional family relationships

Of course, because it is a romantic comedy, it also has:

  • Happy endings
  • Getting through loss and grief
  • Recovery
  • Making positive changes in one’s life
  • Realistic self-evaluation and changing for the better
  • Laughter, fun, partying
  • New and strong friendships
  • Reconnecting with old friends
  • Enjoying life to the fullest
  • Exciting romances

Now, I’d say it is fairly well-balanced. But despite being set in the real world, albeit a pre-pandemic one, notice what it doesn’t have:

  • Cancer
  • Alzheimer’s
  • Abusive partners
  • Sexism
  • Racism
  • Serial killers
  • Heart disease
  • Poverty
  • …..

 

The list goes and on. My point? No one novel is going to reflect the world as is – whether you are talking about good or bad. It’s impossible.

It would be a depressing, mundane, and mostly boring  20-part series where each novel is 7000 pages long.

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That said, I’d like to underline once again that there is no one correct, absolute, universally valid answer to this question.

You have to make the right call for yourself, readers, and your story.

How am I going to write an R-rated romantic comedy with sex scenes featuring smart characters if my story is set during a pandemic? And as for writing about a post-pandemic world, we haven’t seen the end of this yet.

It would also beat my purpose of escaping and helping the readers escape with me.

While a lot of people are binging movies like Contagion, Outbreak, 28 Days Later, and Train to Busan, I’m avoiding those kinds of movies like the plague – despite having enjoyed Contagion and Outbreak being one of my 90s’ favorites. These are literally the last films I want to see right now.

The other day, I went in the completely opposite direction and watched A Thousand Words starring Eddie Murphy.

I laughed my ass off!

While some of its messages regarding family and relationships are on the nose, it is hilarious enough to make up for it.

And while the character shares none of our problems like not being able to touch people or going outside, I’d argue he has a worse problem:

He has 1000 words left to say or write. Once he says the 1000th, he will die!

Imagine that! Can you think of a worse fate for a writer? Especially if it is a writer who also loves to talk, like myself?

Since that movie is set in the literary world due to the protagonist’s profession, expect a review from me for this blog’s Writing Characters in Movies section soon.

Until then, read and watch what makes you happy.

And if watching outbreak movies make you feel better, keep at it!

What about you? How’s the current situation affected your fiction?

 

 

 

 

Writing The Ultimate Historical Romantic Drama: Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society Film Review & Writing Lessons

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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society
Image via Evensi.

Juliet Ashton (Lily James) is a young writer slowly recovering from the emotional trauma of World War II with the help of her career, her best friend/publisher Sydney (Matthew Goode), and her handsome officer boyfriend Mark (Glen Powell).

Farmer Dawsey (Michiel Huisman) runs a book club called Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society (aff. link) with his neighbors, which they had to start to get out of trouble during the German occupation of the island.

When Juliet receives a letter from Dawsey asking where he can find a copy of one of her books, the two start corresponding and bond over their mutual love of reading. Juliet is excited about the book club, and she decides to write an article about them.

Much to Sydney’s objections (due to her publicity tour), Juliet hops on a boat to meet the bunch. While she is at first greeted with enthusiasm, one of the members turns hostile when she expresses intent for writing the article.

The more she gets to know the members, the more she bonds with them. And after she learns about the fate of one of the members, she sets out to find out what exactly happened to her and where she is with some help from Mark. Her growing feelings for Dawsey will further complicate and enrich her situation…

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Thoughts on the film

Based on the novel (aff. link) by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows, Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society is the ultimate delightful historical romantic drama. Filled with rich, relatable, and likable characters; realistic and humane conflicts; and a sweet love story with a gorgeous geographical background, it is a film to be enjoyed again and again.

It is also not without comedy. The casting is also perfect, and one of my favorite characters is Isola (Katherine Parkinson – The IT Crowd, Humans–aff.link)- the friendly, warm and romantic bestie Juliet makes in Guernsey. She is the friend we all wish we had.

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Writing Lessons and Inspiration from the film Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society

  • When writing a story that is close to your heart, you need it to finish it, even if it is just for yourself. You need the closure and the therapy.
  • When you get the bug for a story, follow that bug.
  • Sometimes the story you set out to write won’t be the one you end up writing, and that is okay. Sometimes you will need to follow the story wherever it leads you.
  • You either need to live an exciting life or know interesting people with different life stories and varying personalities. Preferably both.
  • Your first book might not sell very much and that is okay.
  • It is important to have people in your corner who believe in you, your writing and who will stand by you during all stages of your career. But it does help if one of those people is your best friend and/or your publisher.
  • It is okay to listen to your heart when it comes to what story you are writing, but it definitely helps you have resources when you are writing that story.
  • Writing a story when everything is fresh in your memory helps you write faster and with more raw emotion. (You can always edit later.)
  • Book clubs rock.
  • Traveling inspires all writers, so is following your heart and going off your plans.
  • Love, romantic or otherwise, inspires us immensely.

 

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What are your takeaways from this lovely film?

 

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