Latest / Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori / 119. Creating Character Agency for Compelling Fiction

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119. Creating Character Agency for Compelling Fiction · Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori

• 0:05
  Welcome to the Show, Don't Tell writing podcast with me, Suzy Vadori, where I peel back the layers of how to wow your readers with your fiction, your nonfiction.
• 0:13
  Anybody can bang out a first draft, but it takes a little more work to make your book as amazing as it can be.
• 0:20
  Join me as I share the step-by-step writing techniques you could apply to your writing right away, as I host successful writers who share a behind-the-scenes look at their own writing lives, and as I live coach writers on their pages, giving practical writing examples that will make your own writing stronger.
• 0:38
  Nobody is born knowing how to write an engaging book.
• 0:42
  There are real and important skills that you need to learn.
• 0:45
  On this show, I cut through the noise and get you all the info you need.
• 0:49
  I can't wait to see how this information is going to transform your writing Today we're talking about a topic that's near and dear to my heart, and that is agency for your characters, like character agency in your books.
• 1:02
  And I know it's a topic that felt really nebulous to me for a long time, and now I can see it really clearly.
• 1:09
  When I was at When Words Collide last month, I had the opportunity to hang out with Natalie Pohlson, my colleague from Ottawa, who I had never met in person, but we'd worked together online for a while.
• 1:20
  And, uh, we started to geek out a little bit about this topic, and I was like, she's the perfect person to have this discussion with because we think about it a little bit differently, but we're gonna get into the nuts and bolts of it.
• 1:33
  So in this discussion, if you are struggling with agency, if you've ever been told that you have it, that you don't have it in your characters and you're like, "What is it exactly?" We're gonna talk about it not in really nebulous terms, but in really specific terms.
• 1:47
  What can you do in your scenes?
• 1:48
  What does it look like?
• 1:49
  What about this?
• 1:50
  What about that?
• 1:51
  What about in different genres?
• 1:52
  So stay tuned for this one.
• 1:54
  If you've ever wondered about it or if you're thinking about it in your current work in progress, in a future work in progress, if you want to make sure that your characters are driving the story forward and that you're immersing your readers as much as possible, this one you cannot skip.
• 2:08
  Natalie Pohlson is a writer, and she's also an Author Accelerator certified book coach like me.
• 2:14
  She works with women writing historical and speculative fiction, although we talk about all kinds of genres in this episode, who know that there's a better version of their story hiding inside the draft that they have.
• 2:25
  She guides writers to reconnect with the heart of their story and revise toward it with confidence.
• 2:30
  Natalie's graduate degree in education and background in communications shape how she listens and supports writers.
• 2:36
  She's absolutely amazing.
• 2:37
  She lives in Ottawa, Canada in a family steeped in story with filmmakers, musicians, gamers, and jokesters alike.
• 2:45
  Most days you'll find her researching her latest novel with a cup of Earl Grey and her golden retriever at her feet.
• 2:51
  Welcome to the podcast, Natalie.
• 2:53
  So good to see you.
• 2:55
  I'm so excited to see you.
• 2:57
  I was just reading your newsletter this morning and reminiscing about being together a few weeks ago, and yeah, it was a, a fantastic time Yeah, it'll be a minute before this airs, but yes, we were together in August at When Words Collide, and you were absolutely one of those angels that helped, helped me through my slipped disc predicament, just quietly showing up and being there, so thank you, and it's really awesome to have you on the podcast.
• 3:23
  Thanks.
• 3:23
  I'm happy.
• 3:23
  Okay.
• 3:23
  Yes, because we're gonna talk about agency today, and this is something that comes up over and over again, and as many things in my coaching practice, it's something I was really bad at when I first started writing, and I didn't really get till people could throw that word out there.
• 3:38
  Um, what we do at the Show Don't Tell Writing podcast is really decode all of this for writers so that they can actually apply it.
• 3:44
  So if you're listening to this, Natalie's the right person to help us wade through this.
• 3:49
  I'm excited for this conversation to geek out about agency, because it's one of those concepts that writers hear about and they think they're doing, but it's really hard to see if they're really doing.
• 4:00
  Would you agree?
• 4:00
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:02
  I think- I think there's a lot of misconceptions about it.
• 4:04
  I think that it's … If it feels like your character is doing stuff, it feels like they have agency, but that's not entirely what agency is.
• 4:16
  Okay, so first question, what's agency, Natalie?
• 4:20
  So agency, character agency is the ability of a character to make meaningful choices or take actions in pursuit of their goal.
• 4:31
  And one of the reasons I love talking about agency all the time is because I often coach historical fiction where characters might be constrained by their gender, by their class, by their race, uh, or other factors.
• 4:45
  And even in my own work in progress, I h- I'm writing a novel about a woman who spends most of the book imprisoned.
• 4:52
  Obviously, there's a significant constraint on her ability to reach her goal, and there is a whole historical backdrop that I'm working with.
• 5:01
  And so helping writers understand how they can create agency in characters who feel constrained is a really big part of my job that I love.
• 5:10
  Yeah.
• 5:11
  Yes, I totally agree with you.
• 5:12
  I actually just this week was going through with a writer, and we were looking at his outline and realizing that in terms of causation like that something causes the next, causes the next, causes the next because he hadn't decided on the agency of his two point of view characters just yet.
• 5:33
  A lot of that was broken because they couldn't make change happen, right?
• 5:37
  And so they're, they're kind of interrelated.
• 5:39
  And we're getting into lots of topics here- … and we're, we're gonna unpack all of it.
• 5:43
  But yeah, let's talk a, a little bit about… Okay, so before I- I wanna also revisit this historical component, especially around repra- you know, oppressed populations or specifically women.
• 5:56
  It happens a lot where we just think that because women didn't have choices that they didn't want them.
• 6:02
  But we're gonna talk about that as well.
• 6:03
  But before we move on to that, you know, agency you said was choices and decisions that they make, and, and honestly, I, I see this as well with writers.
• 6:14
  It's so related to how we approach our work because if we don't make decisions, like I just said, you know, one of my clients, and he's early on, it's, it's perfect, like exactly where he's supposed to be, and early on if we don't make those decisions that everything feels kind of flat, right?
• 6:31
  Yeah.
• 6:31
  And the same is true for your characters even if you have a really tight plot and all these exciting things.
• 6:38
  If we don't know why and they're not actually making decisions that make it happen, it's gonna be less interesting.
• 6:44
  Would you agree?
• 6:45
  Like, what, what's, what's the … How does it work?
• 6:48
  Like, what is the role of agency in engaging the reader really is the question, 'cause it's important, right?
• 6:55
  It's such a good question, and I kind of have a two-part answer that hopefully- Mm-hmm … I'll remember the second part by the time we get there.
• 7:02
  But we-- If you look at Lisa Cron's work, uh, in her books, like Story Genius, she talks about the purpose of storytelling and what we as humans get out of it, and it really is that wanting to see how people move through certain circumstances so that we can learn from their experience.
• 7:22
  That's why we tell stories.
• 7:24
  What is not interesting for a reader, this is the second part, is to be with a character that is observing their world, and then we are just observing it with them.
• 7:35
  And you know that can be kind of interesting for a little while, but it's not gonna sustain you through 350 pages.
• 7:41
  What we want to see is a character acting within their world.
• 7:46
  We want to experience their story alongside them, not just observing setting or observing historical events or observing anything about their story with them.
• 7:58
  We want to live it with them.
• 8:01
  And we are not passive in our own lives.
• 8:04
  Even when we appear passive, it could be still a choice to not act.
• 8:11
  And so yeah, I think the thing that makes agency so important is just that sense of living through the story with a character.
• 8:20
  Yeah, and I mean, you really, like we become the character when we read it.
• 8:24
  Yeah.
• 8:24
  If you've done your job as a writer, then we become your character, and we don't want to float through life and watch as things happen around us, right?
• 8:33
  We want to be there making decisions.
• 8:36
  Whether we agree with the decisions or not might not matter, and we can talk about that in a minute as well.
• 8:42
  Oh my gosh, my brain is exploding, so many topics to explore.
• 8:46
  But we want to be there because as humans, intrinsic- like, just naturally, we actually judge your character based on their decisions, and we decide how much we care about it.
• 8:57
  And- Absolutely … making decis- making decisions shows us that your character cares.
• 9:03
  You know, the, the one point when I will always stop a writer is if they've got a character that says they didn't really care that much about which way it went, right?
• 9:12
  Yeah.
• 9:12
  Please don't write that.
• 9:13
  No.
• 9:14
  Because if they don't care, your reader won't care, and that's, that's the bottom line.
• 9:19
  If your character doesn't want anything … Here, I'm making my pitch for why they should even listen to this podcast right now.
• 9:26
  People are like, "I think I did good enough." It's not true, because if, if your character doesn't care or want something, then your reader doesn't have anything to cheer for when they succeed and to cry with them when they fail, right?
• 9:38
  And so you haven't hooked your reader without agency.
• 9:41
  Yeah.
• 9:42
  I'm gonna steal from one of our colleagues, Stacy Frazier- Yeah… who has this great way of talking is motive, means, and opportunity.
• 9:52
  And what you were just talking about, the motive part is the why.
• 9:56
  Why do they want this thing?
• 9:58
  Why does it matter to them deeply, in particular, that they are willing to risk everything?
• 10:05
  And so often, this is, like, slightly tangential, but so often when I'm working with another writer and I ask, like, "Why does this matter to your character?" I'll get an answer like, I won't make something up, I'll just draw from my own work.
• 10:17
  One of my protagonists wants to save his mother from her accusations of witchcraft.
• 10:24
  Okay, sure, like any son would.
• 10:26
  Why does it matter to him?
• 10:28
  Like, what in particular about their relationship or about his psychology makes him willing to risk everything to do this for his mother?
• 10:38
  And that answer's not gonna be the same for every son and mother combo.
• 10:42
  So getting at that why your character, why something is important to them, I think is like the critical ingredient to agency.
• 10:51
  And you need to go like … I did a coaching program once where we were always told to go seven layers deep.
• 10:58
  So ask yourself why- Seven layers.
• 11:00
  That's like a dip … seven layers.
• 11:00
  Exactly.
• 11:01
  It's like a great Mexican dip.
• 11:02
  It doesn't have to be seven in particular, but just that idea of asking yourself why, and then asking, okay, take that answer, well, why is that important?
• 11:11
  And have a new answer, and why is that important?
• 11:14
  And just keep unfurling the layers, or I kind of think of it like an onion, trying to get at the core of why something matters to a character.
• 11:23
  Mm-hmm.
• 11:23
  And that is going to be really the thing that drives their agency.
• 11:28
  Yeah.
• 11:29
  I love that, and, and it's, it's work that I do with writers as well because a lot of times you as the writer, I'm gonna talk to you, the listeners right now, you as the writer probably know this, but you forget or it's so subtle, or we don't realize how important it is 'cause we're focused on the plot.
• 11:46
  So when Natalie's saying dig seven layers deep, you're not necessarily having … I mean, you might have to invent it if you haven't thought of it yet if you're writing fiction.
• 11:55
  Or if you're writing memoir, you might have to like really look inside yourself and say, "Why?" Like, why?
• 12:00
  Why did I want this at this particular moment in my life?
• 12:03
  And, and, you know, we're, we're stealing from colleagues right now.
• 12:06
  Let's steal from our mentor, Jennie Nash, which is the question that's related to agency is, you know, what is the deeply personal reason for your character to be willing to go above and beyond?
• 12:17
  'Cause we don't want to read about a character who's not willing to do stuff.
• 12:21
  Willing to go above and beyond in order to get what they want, right?
• 12:25
  Yeah.
• 12:25
  And if we don't know what that deeply personal reason is, then you might have an agency problem in your book, and your book is gonna be flatter than it could be.
• 12:33
  You could have perfect grammar, perfect, you know, plot, everything, and if you don't have this ingredient, readers aren't gonna say, "Oh my gosh, that book sucked" of agency and throw it in the bin, right?
• 12:43
  They don't know this.
• 12:45
  It's like this, all these things that we teach are like these psychological factors that make people love reading.
• 12:51
  If you don't have this, you don't have a story, right?
• 12:55
  No, I totally agree.
• 12:56
  And one of the things that I sometimes find is that you'll have a story where characters are doing things, they're taking actions, they're making choices, but- If those choices and actions aren't aligned to that deeper why, it doesn't resonate.
• 13:14
  It doesn't make sense.
• 13:15
  It's just a bunch of stuff happening.
• 13:18
  Knowing that why for your character, why this matters so deeply to them, is the thing, it's the through line that moves us along their character arc, rather than just having a bunch of stuff happen and- Yeah … choices being made.
• 13:34
  And, you know, sometimes you'll read a book and, and a character will do something, and you think,"That doesn't feel aligned.
• 13:40
  Like, it, that's not…" And sure, sometimes that's okay, because we all do things that are out of character, but if you have a bunch of those, then it just feels like a character that's not holding together.
• 13:50
  Yeah.
• 13:51
  And, and it has to be deeply personal.
• 13:54
  I had- Yeah … one of my novels actually that isn't published yet, I was working through with my agent, and I had a scene where my main character has to, has to rescue her best friend from prison.
• 14:06
  And my agent said, "Yeah- That's cool, and I get that she'd want to do that.
• 14:11
  It just doesn't seem gripping enough.
• 14:13
  It's her friend, you know, whatever.
• 14:15
  She's like, "I really liked her little sister, the one that had all these challenges in life in the opening.
• 14:21
  What if her little sister was in prison instead?" And I was like- Mm"What? The little sister isn't even in that part of the book." Right?
• 14:31
  The little sister doesn't even go there.
• 14:34
  And she said, "But what if they did?" Yeah.
• 14:37
  I was like, oh my gosh.
• 14:39
  And we were sitting there and we're like, "I have chills." "Yeah, me too." I, I rewrote that whole section of the book to actually put the little sister in prison instead of the friend, because it has to be deeply personal, and just, you know, your friend, like wanting to do things Okay, this is related to the Mary Sue problem, which is that you have a perfect character, right, with no flaws.
• 14:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:00
  Which is if your character's agency, if your answer to that, if you don't do the se- seven layer dip, sorry I'm gonna call it that, the seven layer Mex- Mexican dip version that Natalie's saying, going deeper, deeper, deeper.
• 15:12
  If you're too lazy to do that, that's okay, but if your answer is that my character wants to do this because it's their duty or it's the right thing to do, I can guarantee you that you do not have a book yet.
• 15:26
  Yeah.
• 15:26
  Because nobody wants to read that, right?
• 15:29
  You know- In real life, I like to think that I do things altruistically, that I do things I, I mean, I do a lot of things for other people.
• 15:36
  I love doing them.
• 15:37
  But if you look, that doesn't make for an interesting story.
• 15:40
  I'm never gonna write my own memoir, it'd be boring.
• 15:42
  It'd be like, "Oh, and then Suzy, they all were happy ever after." Life is pretty plain.
• 15:47
  There's not a lot of challenge in it.
• 15:48
  I mean, I guess there is challenge, but I just choose to see it in a different lens.
• 15:52
  But the thing is, is when I do things, even if it's to help other people, it's often, you know, it often serves me as well.
• 15:58
  I'm an empath, and so if people are uncomfortable around me- Mm … that's really hard.
• 16:03
  I'm not a people pleaser.
• 16:04
  I don't help people so that they like me.
• 16:06
  I help people because then it makes my life easier, actually.
• 16:10
  I'm calm and collected, right?
• 16:12
  Like, if everybody around me, if I have the resources to help, then I do it, and then everything kind of is better for me.
• 16:19
  So what is- But- … a deeply personal reason, right?
• 16:21
  Go ahead.
• 16:23
  It's all part of a deeper psychology and worldview that we have about who we are, how the world works, and what our role is in it.
• 16:31
  And even doing something that might on the outside look altruistic is part of that deeper psychology about how we view the world and, and who we are in it.
• 16:42
  Yeah.
• 16:43
  To a degree.
• 16:44
  Yeah, I like that.
• 16:45
  And readers are judgy.
• 16:46
  I mean, we are as humans.
• 16:48
  We are reading it because we wanna know.
• 16:51
  We wanna know, we wanna judge Especially if they make a poor decision with their agency, and then we're like, "Oh, that's not gonna work," and then we watch it unfold.
• 17:00
  It's like a train wreck, right?
• 17:01
  Yeah.
• 17:01
  Um, but if they haven't made that decision- But we kind of love that.
• 17:04
  Yeah.
• 17:05
  We kind of love that, and if they haven't made the decision for themselves, and something bad happens to them, you can't feel any way about it other than, you know, maybe feel sorry for them.
• 17:15
  But you don't make them responsible for it, right?
• 17:18
  Like that, that's the idea is, is we wanna root for your character to come through this in the end.
• 17:22
  Okay.
• 17:23
  And, and I think it's not really about the decision.
• 17:26
  I mean, that's the key ingredient.
• 17:27
  It's the thing we're look- it's the thing that we want to be showing character agency, but what the reader is looking for is the consequence of that decision, and that's the thing that is moving your story forward.
• 17:40
  Mm. And where I think a lot of writers get stuck, especially in historical fiction, I'll bring it back to that 'cause it's what I coach often, is when you have, true of epic fantasy as well, I think, when you have, like, this big plot where things are happening, and especially in historical fiction when you might have, like, real events that actually happened that you're trying to tell a story around, the thing to remember about agency is not necessarily that your character is- impacting the broader events of the story.
• 18:15
  What they're doing is making decisions and taking actions that impact their own narrative arc, their own, uh, existence in this story, not necessarily always the events of the story itself, if that makes sense.
• 18:30
  It's a little bit splitting hairs, but I think especially in historical fiction when you have real events that you're trying to work toward, I don't have characters who are making laws or starting wars, or like, you know, doing all of these big things, but they're dealing with the consequences of those things, and they're dealing with it by making decisions and taking actions that move them along their character arc.
• 18:55
  Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's really easy, I love the historical fiction reference because it's very easy for us to look at the past and sort of see the bullet points of what happened in the past, and make assumptions like that was the first thing they tried, or that was just what happened, right?
• 19:12
  And we don't, we don't remember all the time, and that's why historical fiction's so important, that we don't remember all the time that these were living human beings that made millions of decisions every single day.
• 19:23
  You know, whether it's to blink, oh, I mean, you don't make decisions to blink, but you know what I mean, like, you're making- Yeah like, all these tiny micro decisions, and also big decisions.
• 19:31
  But for example, you talked about, you know, women in the past.
• 19:36
  That's a big one, especially if I'm working with any type of world, and you're right, fantasy has a lot of these echoed even if it's not historical.
• 19:45
  Even if it's dystopian, a lot of times we have repressed genders or repressed populations, and in those cases especially, if you think about a woman in the past, what if her duty wasn't, you know, and we're like, "Oh, she's trying to get married," right?
• 19:59
  Like, this is the story, and she's trying to affect her circumstances.
• 20:03
  But to get at the agency and to be able to demonstrate it, and like you said, to withstand it through 350 pages, we need a little bit more than that.
• 20:12
  What if she was a woman in modern day?
• 20:16
  What would her vocation be?
• 20:17
  What would her job be?
• 20:18
  What skills does she have?
• 20:19
  Her job isn't to get married, right?
• 20:22
  That is- Yeah … not necessarily what every, what every woman at that time, I mean, it was a means to an end, and it could definitely change the way that your life unfolded, whether you had means or not, or whether you married someone who was gonna treat you well or not, absolutely.
• 20:38
  But they're, they're complex human beings, and I think that's what, you know, historical fiction has such the beauty of bringing to light, is that they aren't just these flat facts from the past.
• 20:48
  Right.
• 20:48
  They're actually flawed human beings trying to get through just like we are.
• 20:53
  Yeah.
• 20:53
  And so what are those things, right?
• 20:55
  Listeners, listen up.
• 20:56
  If you don't know that about your characters, go and search it up.
• 21:00
  It's really, really common.
• 21:01
  I see it a lot in fantasy, especially YA fantasy, where there's this girl and she's trying to get the guy, and she doesn't have any skills or any, like a brain in her head, and that's not, you know, that's not a strong character.
• 21:14
  No, and they, I mean, one of the things that I ask writers to do often is, is create a, a bit of a chart where you have constraints on one side, and then a middle column, which is the choices that your character can make within those constraints.
• 21:30
  And, you know, sometimes, I'll finish one thought before I jump into another, so constraints, choices, and then the consequences of those choices.
• 21:38
  But those choices itself can be, like, we wanna see how your characters are navigating these constraints.
• 21:44
  How are they, like, subverting them, adapting them, resisting them, all of these things.
• 21:51
  And what resources are they bringing?
• 21:54
  What skills?
• 21:55
  What kind of traits?
• 21:57
  Who are their allies that might be helping them that they can draw on?
• 22:00
  What knowledge are they bringing?
• 22:02
  And when we talk about suppressed populations, there is this kind of, I don't know, like simplification, or we have a very simple view of people's lives as if they just kind of accepted where they were, but they were actively working within these constraints and pushing against them all the time.
• 22:22
  Or, like subverting them, or even, what is the word I'm, that I'm looking for?
• 22:28
  But com- being complicit Being complicit is a choice Yeah.
• 22:34
  Accepting, right?
• 22:35
  Like, yeah, absolutely, and that's a choice, and it, it might be go along to get along, right?
• 22:40
  Um, but that's again a choice.
• 22:42
  And the beauty of this, okay, so a lot of times writers come to writing, and they've watched a lot of movies and Netflix, and they come to writing, and then they, they don't realize the one thing that we have in writing that we don't have in other mediums is inner thoughts.
• 22:57
  And so when… Yeah, so when- I wish the video was there so that Natalie just did this, like, cool thing with her, like, pointing at her brain.
• 23:04
  Yeah, it's inner thoughts, right?
• 23:06
  And so we can actually be there with them and understand these decisions much more than you can if you're climbing up on the wall and being Spider-Man up there, you know, looking from a thousand feet view.
• 23:18
  We actually are in their brains, so we c- we get to see how they came to these decisions, and some of those big decisions, like, those are moments when you can stop and slow down from a pacing perspective and spend the time.
• 23:30
  Like, that's when you wanna zoom in and say, "Well, why did they make that decision?" Sometimes those big decisions are buried in the middle of a paragraph, and I'm like, "Well, what, why?" Like, how did they, what logic made them do that?
• 23:43
  And so those- Yeah … are the pieces that are important.
• 23:45
  Interiority.
• 23:46
  I mean- Yeah … I think when you have a character who is under a lot of constraints that might restrict their agency, their, your, their active interiority is really the thing that will make them feel like they have agency.
• 24:01
  And if you look at a book like Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace, um, so, like, my character, she is imprisoned.
• 24:08
  She has a very active interiority, and, and you can see kind of- The tensions that arise in her, we understand kind of why she's making her decisions.
• 24:19
  We see her subtle manipulations.
• 24:22
  We see how she reframes her circumstances, which is its own kind of agency.
• 24:28
  So rather than … She kind of embraces this, this moniker of murderess because it, it sounds so much better than being a murderer.
• 24:38
  And, you know, just, uh, her whole interiority makes her feel like sh- this is her story and she's driving it forward, even though she's practically quite at the whims of, like physically she's imprisoned, and she's being forced to do all of these, these things.
• 24:57
  So it's fascinating.
• 24:59
  I love that, Natalie, and I love that you've chosen such a huge constraint for your book.
• 25:04
  I mean, I'm sure it's personally challenging to write.
• 25:07
  Um, and- Mm-hmm … I'm sure that you're doing an amazing job.
• 25:10
  I can't wait to read it.
• 25:11
  But like, we don't necessarily want to do that, 'cause it's difficult.
• 25:16
  Like, you've chosen the difficult route.
• 25:19
  Um, I actually have a client this year, he's writing a ps- a psychological thriller, and the second half of the book, his, his protagonist was meant to be in prison.
• 25:27
  And when he got there, he, he didn't wanna do it, right?
• 25:30
  Like his brain was like, "Ugh, this is really not what I wanna do," right?
• 25:35
  Uh, and so we revamped it so that his cl- like his actual protagonist didn't have to be there that long,'cause it was, uh, really challenging.
• 25:43
  But when you do it well, I'm sure it's like amazing.
• 25:47
  But again, like you have to really want to do it.
• 25:49
  So if you're listening out there and you're going, "Oh, I don't have those constraints, I'm gonna do that," just make sure that you're up for the challenge.
• 25:55
  Um, 'cause- Mm-hmm … Natalie's a super talented writer and probably chose that on purpose, that huge constraint.
• 26:02
  Well, I chose historical events that I wanted- Yes … to investigate, and that's just- Yeah … those are the- Absolutely… the plot pieces that I'm borrowing from history that I really have to work around.
• 26:14
  But all of our writing is about constraints, right?
• 26:17
  Your character has a goal, and then we throw obstacles in their way.
• 26:21
  The reason why I say agency is so key to your character's pursuit of their goal is because these, these constraints, whether they be gender or race, or like whatever the constraints are, just reframe that as an obstacle.
• 26:36
  Yes.
• 26:36
  It's like any other obstacle that you're putting in their way Absolutely.
• 26:39
  And I think, you know, the more I do these interviews, and investigate, and talk with writers, and all the things, in my brain, like all of these individual… You know, the topic today is agency, but all of these individual writing things that you're learning, if you're getting overwhelmed, or you're listening to the podcast, you're like,"Oh my gosh," they're all related.
• 26:58
  So when Natalie's just talking about consequences, and constraints, and things like this, is this, what does your character want?
• 27:04
  Does this sound familiar for those of you who are querying, right?
• 27:07
  We think it's so difficult to write a query pitch, which is, again, just to back up, if you're not to that stage yet, it's when you're trying to find an agent to get traditionally published.
• 27:17
  Then you have to write a letter, and in that letter, a piece of it is this couple of paragraphs that sums up your entire book.
• 27:24
  Here's what we want.
• 27:25
  What does your character want?
• 27:27
  How are they… You know, what are they willing to do to get it?
• 27:30
  What are the consequences i- and the stakes if they fail?
• 27:33
  Is this all starting to feel familiar?
• 27:35
  And this becomes really difficult to write if you haven't addressed this in your book, and there's a reason that this is what agents are looking for, because they wanna know that you've done the work.
• 27:46
  And it's not just a, you know, big movie meets big book type mashup, right?
• 27:53
  Yeah.
• 27:53
  We wanna know that you've done the work and that your character has this drive, and if you can't say that in a few sentences, then you haven't done the thinking, and they know that the book isn't ready, right?
• 28:04
  And so they don't look at it.
• 28:05
  They're not even gonna read your pages if you can't answer those questions.
• 28:08
  So it's all kind of related.
• 28:11
  It's absolutely related, this idea of goals, and stakes, and obstacles in your character's way.
• 28:18
  And then the agency piece is, well, what are they doing to make decisions, make choices, or take action that are moving them toward that goal?
• 28:28
  Yeah.
• 28:29
  And sometimes they move backwards.
• 28:30
  Yeah.
• 28:30
  Sometimes they make the wrong choice.
• 28:33
  But because we are reading to see the choices, the kinds of choices people make, and the consequences of those, because that's how we're, like, psychologically wired, that's just as valid.
• 28:44
  That kind of one step forward, two steps back, you know, that will really engage a reader.
• 28:49
  I love when a character makes a poor choice, uh, and you can see, like you were saying, that train wreck coming.
• 28:56
  We're wired to kind of love that stuff because we're waiting to see the consequence.
• 29:00
  We wanna learn from the fallout.
• 29:03
  Absolutely, and you just- we mentioned this once already, but again, in this whole spirit of everything is connected, you just talked about basically narrative drive.
• 29:12
  What is- Yep … bringing, what is driving the story forward?
• 29:15
  What is propelling your character's change?
• 29:16
  What is propelling the, the, the plot?
• 29:19
  And the relationship between agency and narrative drive is exactly that.
• 29:22
  You know, what decisions are they making that is making things happen, that is changing, that is choose your own adventure and changing the outcome of the book?
• 29:30
  Because otherwise, we would know what the ending is if they just kind of let it happen, or we wouldn't care what the ending is.
• 29:35
  Yeah.
• 29:35
  Um, we wouldn't care at all.
• 29:37
  Okay.
• 29:37
  I mean, in historical fiction you sometimes do know the ending.
• 29:40
  I'm working with an ending that's already predetermined, but figuring out my character's emotional journey, her individual arc through those historical events, that's, that's where I get to play with agency.
• 29:53
  And that's the fiction part, and that's the- Yeah … you know, humanizing the events of the past, which I absolutely, absolutely love.
• 30:00
  So cool.
• 30:01
  Historical fiction's actually my absolute favorite genre to read for pleasure.
• 30:06
  I don't write it because I don't wanna do the research, but that's just me.
• 30:09
  I'd rather make things up, which is why I'm a fantasy writer.
• 30:12
  But thank you for doing that work, because you're right, you do have these constraints, and you do know the outcome.
• 30:23
  Thanks for tuning in to the Show, Don't Tell writing podcast with me, Suzy Vadori.
• 30:27
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• 30:34
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• 30:38
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• 30:47
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• 30:49
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• 31:04
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• 31:05
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• 31:11
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• 31:20
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• 31:22
  Remember, that book you're writing is gonna open doors that you haven't even thought of yet, and I can't wait to help you make that it the absolute best it can be.
• 31:32
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