Level Up or Nerf a Character?

You guys! Guess what? This week we're talking about "leveling up" characters, which, being gamerspeak, merges two of my very favorite things in the universe: gaming and storytelling. Basically, this is my happy place. *happysigh*

Sorry, I just had to glee all over you.

Back to the topic.

Should a writer or should a writer not level up a protagonist over the course of a book or series? I think my initial response to that question was kind of, duh, of course. But then I actually thought about it. I mean, yes character development needs to happen. That's kind of what effective story is (don't believe me, read Lisa Cron or Michael Hauge). However, developing or evolving a character does not necessarily mean their power or skills "level up." In fact, I've done it both ways.

Perfect Gravity depicts a character leveling up. The protagonist, Angela, begins at the effect of other characters' power plays, but she takes ownership of more and more of her own power until, by the end, she has fully come into her essence and is one of the most admired and feared people on the planet. The increase in level, or relative power, is a metaphor for how much she has come to control her own destiny. You see this kind of parallel powerification a lot in, say, superhero stories, which I love.

But it's not the only way to tell a story. As I was writing Angela's story, I thought a lot about the potential disconnect between character evolution and superpower leveling up, and when I sat down to write More Than Stardust, I decided to do the exact opposite. In that book, Chloe begins with incredible superpowers -- she literally can begin and end wars and is described by some as a god -- but as she incrementally loses that power, she claims more of her self, her personhood, so by the end she has leveled down in terms of how much she is able to affect humanity or the planet, but as a human person, she is much more evolved. 

In gaming land, we have a term called "nerfing," which is to reduce the impact of a character's power, to render them less effective even if they haven't technically gone down in levels. It's a game balance thing. That's kind of what I did to Chloe, I guess, in order to produce the kind of interior character development I wanted for her. 

Possibly this term could also describe that thing you hear writers talk a lot about: throwing rocks at protagonists. That is, every time a character seems to have leveled up or achieved something, you're supposed to introduce a new or tougher conflict, yet another seemingly insurmountable obstacle, and basically just torture them more. It's supposed to be a good technique for getting characters to dig deep, be scrappy, show grit and determination, and generally inspire readers.

Potential caution, though: Unless the new obstacle is inevitable within the context of the story, I have found nerfing characters to be a little frustrating, both as a reader and as a game player. 

So, leveling up, yes or no? Yeah, leveling up in the superhero way is likely to give you the kind of structure readers are familiar with and will enjoy.

Nerfing though? Much more complicated and difficult to do effectively.

Character Growth: The Point of the Story

 Is it necessary for a protagonist to continually gain power/ability/expertise as a series progresses?

For my book it's imperative the protagonist, at a bare minimum, grows emotionally. They can grow, break, and rebuild over the course of the series. The "break and rebuild" is useful if a series that was intended to be seven books suddenly becomes wildly popular with enough demand to justify continuing the series (hey, I'm allowed to dream, right?). However, if there's no character development internally and/or externally, then the series is Same Shit, Different Monster. That's no fun for me to write. If it's no fun for me to write, then it's no fun for anyone to read. 

Regular visitors to this blog know I'm a planner. I plan the series arc and how many books will be in the series before I begin Book One. By having a predetermined end of the series, I avoid giving my protagonist too much power too quickly, thus robbing her of risks and challenges, which deny her character growth and make the story dull. 

It is absolutely possible to over-develop a protagonist and have them grow too much too fast. Average Joan leveling up to an omnipotent undefeatable world-creator overnight is a trap that happens often in series that aren't pre-planned. The character has no space to grow. They have no believable opposition. They have all the gizmos, all the magics, all the knowledge...and the character fizzles. They're no longer compelling. Readers become bored and abandon the series. 

Yes, there are series with 25+ books holding firmly in the Best Seller lists that have zero character growth. The books are as formulaic as the characters. Obviously, those stories aren't character-driven. Obviously, the audience for those books enjoys the comfort of predictability. Obviously, I'm not dunking on a dedicated fanbase for liking a style that's not mine. It's one of many reasons why there are few hard and fast rules in writing. Most everything is recommendations based on "what works for me. YMMV."

For me, my protags have to evolve over the course of a book and a series. Otherwise, what's the point of the story?

You call it “Leveling Up,” and I call it growth.

Okay, so this week we’re discussing whether or not characters need to “Level Up,” as a tale progresses. I put that in quotes because frankly it needs definition.

Leveling up is changing, becoming, at least in theory, more powerful. Well, kids, I have to say this straight away: Unless you’re writing comic books, (and even then) if your character does not change or evolve, or unless it’s actually a plot point in the tale, you’re doing it wrong.

Sorry, that’s just my opinion and I’m sticking to it. Listen. For me it’s like the idea of being the same person you were in high school at the end of college If you haven’t grown, changed adapted or evolved you’re going about life the wrong way.

Now, I don’t m=necessarily men getting more powerful. We’ll get to that in a minute. I mean adapted to your way of life. And, yes, by “you” I mean the characters in your stories. Trust me, I was a very different person at 13 than I was at 18, and the changes kept coming for a long, long time.

So why wouldn’t the same rule apply to characters? Seriously? Now, about those power levels…

Listen, I mostly write horror and fantasy with a side of science fiction If my characters don’t change, (and there ARE EXCEPTIONS) then I haven’t put them through the grist mill enough. Sometimes the transformation of character is from alive to dead (or vice versa) and sometimes it’s an evolution. Mostly it’s on an emotional level but there are as always exceptions.

I have one character who has already had his hero’s journey as it were. He doesn’t change much. Someday I might even tell his earlier tales and explain how he got from where he was to where he is but I’m not there yet and I may never be there. Time will tell.

That said, the story you are telling is supposed to be about a character who is meeting new and interesting (read: often extremely dangerous) challenges on physical and emotional levels. And if you want me, the reader, to care about this character, there better be some transformation going on. People either adapt or stagnate. That’s the way of the world.

In some cases, characters get stronger. In other cases, they are broken by the world. Happens in real life, too. The most blatant example of character evolution I can use in my own writing is Brogan McTyre, the main character in my TIDES OF WAR trilogy.

Once upon a time, while watching late night TV, I came across the original King Kong, when the natives have captured Faye Wray and are offering her to Kong as a sacrifice. Great scene. But it got me wondering why it was that in all the old movies when the sacrifice fails, nothing untoward really happens (in Kong’s case he’s not actually a god. I get that.). And so, I decided to examine that concept. The result is the aforementioned trilogy.

I gave Brogan what I can only call the Job Treatment. One day all was well in his world and the next I added venom and chaos to his recipe and stirred vigorously. In the first chapter of the book, I kidnapped his entire family. They were taken by the He-Kisshi, the literal messengers of the gods in the world I built. They were taken to be sacrifices to the gods. In a fit of justifiable outrage Brogan gathers together the other mercenaries he knows and rushes off to save them all before they can be killed.

He fails. The sacrifice is messed up, he gods are angry and before long Brogan has done horrible things in a fit of rage (read: mass murder and selling lot of survivor into slavery as punishment for killing his family).

Folks, there’s nowhere for Brogan to go but up by the time the third chapter of the book is done. It’s a dark, bleak story about vengeance and death and angry gods. The gods decide to end the world. The only option they offer is to replace their chosen sacrifices (Brogan’s whole family) with Brogan and the mercenaries/friends who came to his aid.

So, the world is being destroyed by the gods, and the only cure as far as the gods are concerned is to kill our hero and all of his associates. Brogan goes a different route. He declares war on the gods. And then he tries to figure out how to kill these deities.

He has a lot of help, but believe me, Brogan McTyre levels up a few times in the course of the story. Musty he levels up by finding a way to actually interreact with the gods in the first place. He uses sorcery to aid him in discovering a method wherein a mortal can physically reach and deal with a god. In the process, he gets a few godlike abilities. Weird as this sounds not as many as you might think. Mostly he finds out where he can physically reach the gods and he discovers a weapon that will let him combat them on a relatively level playing field. He does not get godlike abilities (well, he does, but only for a few minutes) but he is forever changed in the process. He is emotionally changed since the start of the first book. He is physically changed by the end of the last book and he is not alone in that process.

A necessary evil. Either Brogan is leveled up, or the entire tory evolves around him ranting at the gods while they ignore him and have him hunted down and killed. The entire story revolved around him being altered until he can successfully defy the gods. That is his “hero’s quest.”

Let me clarify here, that at best Brogan McTyre is an anti-hero. He is not at all altruistic, at least not at the beginning. He is forced to change and adapt if he’s going to survive and win. That is his only choice. The rest of the story revolves around his transformation and his drive to save the world after he screws it up. His level of success varies greatly. He is literally wading through Armageddon as he seeks to find way to fight the gods.

Is he a very different person by the time the story is done? Dear heavens, yes. He is different emotionally. He is different physically He has been changed by the events in his world Does he level up? Well, yes and no. he can still be killed by a well-placed arrow, but he can also go toe to toe with the gods of his world. He can be captured poisoned and killed. He can defy the gods and fight them on their own turf. He is “leveled up” but only in certain ways.

We’re not talking about Mary Sue here. Everything he does costs him. Every action he makes changes him, some for the better, some for the worse. Because that’s the way life is, frankly. We learn We adapt. Sometimes we become better for it. Sometimes we are scarred by our actions and never fully recover.

Jeffe's One Rule of Character Leveling-Up

This coming Friday, July 30, at 6pm Mountain Time, I'll be joining these great friends and powerhouse Fantasy Romance authors for an online panel! Tickets are free for this event sponsored by Love's Sweet Arrow bookstore in Chicago. Join me, Jennifer Estep, L. Penelope, and Lexi Ryan for a chat moderated by Jen Prokop. Ask us anything!

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "Leveling-Up: Is it necessary for protagonists to continually gain power/ability/expertise as a series progresses?"

I had to mull over the basic premise of this question. Do I do this in my own books? I don't always have the same protagonists in successive books of a series, but when I do, do they continually level up?

I guess... yes. That's the pattern I've followed. 

My usual rule with writing in general and worldbuilding in particular is, when I discover I'm implementing an element or trope without consciously examining it, that indicates some programmed ideas I need to investigate. 

Thus the mulling. 

So, is it necessary for the protagonist to continually gain power/ability/expertise? No, it's not necessary. BUT, character growth is fundamental to my concept of storytelling and the progression of ability to control one's personal power is a key metaphor in books that are about magic. I suppose you could have the magical/paranormal abilities remain constant and have the character grow in other arenas. As human beings, however, our lives are largely about gaining and refining our skill sets. That aspect of humanity makes it an evergreen topic of interest for us. 

Now that I think about it, it might be fun to have a wizard at the top of their game get tired of it and try a new career, learning an entirely foreign skill set. 

The rule I do cling to is, if a fundamental of the world is set as a limitation of powers, then that can't be discarded in order to level up later. This is akin to making a disability magically vanish, or an incompatible species couple suddenly have a magic baby. Some limitations should be real and permanent, not exploded for plot sparkles. So sayeth I.

MICE Preference

Greetings from the Hemingway House garden in Key West, FL. No mice here. Too many polydactyl cats on the property. They have the run of the place. They are pampered and well cared for and they own the place. 

Like everyone else this week, the MICE tool is new to me. The concepts aren't, but I had never heard of them brought together this way. Still, who doesn't like a good acronym?  

I love a good milieu. See photo at left. So. Milieu, Idea/Inquiry, Character, and Event. Those are my options.

Okay. Pre-existing conditions: we know Marcella is a character-driven writer versus being a plot-driven writer. This means that no matter what other MICE element I might use to frame a story, character is always, always a part of the picture in that frame. 

My first book opens with Ari being someplace she doesn't to be in a context she doesn't want and an EVENT kicks off her story. 

For book two, EVENT again. Someone Damen Sindrivik cares about becomes a target. Cue mayhem.

Book three mirrors the first book. Edie is someplace she doesn't much want to be in circumstances she doesn't want. Then someone drops a burning spaceship on her head and things get worse. So again. EVENT. 

Book four - - someone help. I seem to be stuck in a rut. The heroine is a prisoner sentenced to die in a war on a miserable planet in the middle of nowhere. And EVENT. Huh.

The Urban Fantasies start with character and a bit of milieu ,but then, that's the genre, isn't it? This makes me wonder if your MICE choices might be partially dictated by genre expectations. Idea/inquiry is going to show up reliably in mystery and thriller. UF really wants to linger in setting. Space opera requires a steep on ramp to an inciting incident - the event. Women's fiction usually lasers in on character. I feel like I rarely see a single element used from the MICE toolkit. It's usually a combination of two. I'm trying to think if I've ever seen a story that used more than that, though. I'm coming up empty. Can you think of someone who's used more than two tools at a time? Bonus points if they do it really well. 

Writing with the MICE quotient

This picture of a triangle piece of watermelon is the closest thing I have to fitting this topic...at least it's a triangle? Maybe that's an idication to my contribution to this week which is:

MICE!

Milieu

Idea

Character

Event

Jeffe did her homework and explained the MICE quotient, check it out and her links to The Writing Excuses Podcast! 

For me, I don’t consider myself a technical writer and couldn’t have told you the four elements that start a story before Sunday. I just write. I see a story in my head and I put the words down.

And if you’re curious, after reading the four options I can say I start my stories with Event—nested in character. When I write fantasy or science fiction the stories start out with something big that changes the status quo and the endings are a resolution to the new normal. 

There really can’t be a return to the old normal. Characters progress and change and when that happens normal is altered. 

I wish I had more to offer on the topic, but I'll bow out and leave a giant arrow back to Jeffe and KAK's posts. 

What element do you use in your writing? 

MICE Brackets & Story Starters

With which MICE element do I normally start my stories? 

MICE = Milieu, Idea/Inquiry, Character, Event

Check out Jeffe's wonderful explanation and examples of MICE in Sunday's post (lawd knows I consulted it many times whilst writing this post!). I absolutely love the analogy of MICE structure being similar to HTML nesting brackets as described by Mary Robinette Kowal to mean "where does the story open and where does it close."

For my Urban Fantasy series, I start with Inquiry, since the first chapter lays out The Mission and the final chapter details its completion. Whether the mission is figuring out whodunnit or howdoit, it's always mission-centric. Thus, my UF opening/closing "brackets" are Inquiry. 

For my High Fantasy Larcout, Event started and ended it. For the High Fantasy I'm currently writing, the bracket is Character. 

The argument could be made that Milieu/Setting is the appropriate starting point for any HF since world-building is so critical. However, I interpret Milieu to mean "launching from home" and the story closing with "returning home." To me, that's not the same as establishing the setting or raising the curtain. As a matter of style, I structure chapters to open with a "you are here" visual (if the setting has changed from the previous chapter), but there is no implied promise that the story will close the journey back "home."  Similarly, I might introduce the protagonist in the opening paragraph, but there's no promise that the character is going to go through a metamorphosis of fulfillment. The theme relayed in the opening chapter should echo throughout the story. Indeed, it should often be repeated to remind the reader of "this is the goal."

As the good folks over at Fantasy Faction note in their explanation of MICE: 

All stories will contain all elements, but there is usually one that dominates the others and determines the story structure. It is the element that the author cares for the most and spends the most effort on, shaping the whole narrative.

For me, using MICE structure to know how to start a story is less about the opening sentence/paragraph and more about determining the function (and limitations) of the opening chapter.

Um. Yeah.

Interesting read on ghe MICE Tool. Sadly, no time. I have deadlines. Sorry, folks.