Deep Character Analysis Contd.: Lit Analysis

Literary Analysis

So there’s this gap. It’s a gap that exists between wanting to do something and actually being able to do it with any kind of authority. It’s a gap that exists at the outset of every artistic/athletic/professional journey, and it’s a gap that we must bridge with a combination of knowledge and experience. I was once a little girl who wrote a terribly-spelled “book” about Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, and a thirty-year-old who just released her twenty-second violent adult novel. In between those very different stages came a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. A lot of hard work, a lot of studying, a lot of failures, and a few quiet victories.

What I’m getting at is this: we all start somewhere. We are all students of the craft in our own ways, and there is no right path. But I do believe that – structured or informal – literary analysis is an important part of becoming a stronger fiction writer.  

I was lucky enough to have the chance to study literature in high school, and in college, but that is by no means a requirement. Because, truth told, I’ve learned more from self-directed study at home than I did in school. Do you have to study literature formally in school? No. Do you have to study in some way? I believe yes. And it’s not as intimidating as it sounds.

If you’ve ever engaged in a conversation about a book you enjoyed, you were performing your own literary analysis. The most important trait of a successful writer is the ability to create an emotional connection between your characters and the readers. Being able to break down and understand the literature that did that for you is an important step in the learning process.

*Fair warning, before we go farther, with the exception of my first books, the Walker Series, I tend to write about characters who would be deemed “problematic” for the morality police of the book world. So the following example is about craft and character, not about morality. Morality has no place in my writing, thank you!*

Let’s take a closer look at an example with my character Mercy (since he’s arguably the most popular of the bunch).

I’ve talked at length in the past about the fact that Mercy was heavily inspired by Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, and is my modern day, outlaw biker take on the Byronic Hero. If you wanted to write a character like Mercy, then my recommendation would be to go read Bronte’s novel, and then, for clarification, check out some literary criticisms of it. Because superficially, those two don’t have much in common. Mercy is, after all, a Cajun biker with a seedy past who likes to hit people with sledgehammers and then goes home to read Tolstoy in bed with his old lady. But, like Heathcliff, Mercy is temperamental, passionate, violent, and deeply, almost childishly vulnerable. He’s obsessive. He loves with a singular focus that would, rightly so, frighten most women. He’s the kind of guy who is, let’s face it, darkly romantic on paper, but rather terrifying in real life.

The reason readers love – or even hate – Mercy is because he’s a complete person, flaws and all, and though simple on the surface, becomes slippery when you try to pin him down in a formal book review. But why? It’s because Mercy is a character designed to draw strong reactions out of readers, and he usually succeeds. Despite initial impressions, readers don’t actually love him because he’s tall and has long dark hair; nor do the haters hate him because he kills with relish. No, Mercy is the kind of character who preys on a reader’s desires and fears without, haha, mercy. Indiscriminately.

Okay, let’s break it down.

When I design a character, I start with the deep questions first. Who is this person at heart? What are they afraid of? What do they want most? What do they lack in their lives? In the early stages, I decide things like family history, shortcomings, religion (even if it’s never touched on in the book), phobias, and guilty pleasures. The answers to those questions, just like when we ask them of real people in our real lives, are rarely simple. Early character design is like a psychological evaluation.

For me, Mercy was always fascinating because of the stark dichotomy within his nature. He’s very mature, and also very immature. He’s incredibly cold, and incredibly tender. These could be traits of any number of fascinating fictional characters. The mature/immature dichotomy shows up often in characters who were forced to grow up too quickly, or without exposure to peers, and so have had an unusual emotional development. You see the cold/tender combination quite often in BDSM fiction, in which the urge to punish is then overwhelmed by the need to comfort.

It's the dichotomy that makes Mercy interesting. The books, the sledgehammer; being sweet to Tango and then torturing Ava’s ex for intel…all of that is window dressing. Those are the symptoms, if you will, that allow us to see deeper into his psyche to unearth the traits that lie at the core of him.

His physical size is a superficial strength – it’s his unfailing loyalty that is a true character strength.

As a writer, it’s your job to know the core of your character, and reveal it slowly through increasingly-in-depth scenes that reveal the superficial first, and then peel back the layers as you go.

As a reader, you have to work backward, starting with what you can see, and then digging deeper and deeper.

So, your homework: pick a favorite fictional character and try to break them down to their base parts. See what you can come up with. It isn’t a tagline or a particular nervous tic that makes them loveable – it’s who he or she is. Learning how to “diagnose” characters, if you will, will be a huge help in creating your own characters.