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turbo tax free. is Writing

2:05

Excuses.

2:10

History

2:14

and

2:17

Community.

2:21

I'm Mary

2:24

Robinette.

2:28

I'm Aaron. I'm Dong-Wan, and I'm

2:31

Howard. And today we are going

2:33

to continue our discussion of the

2:35

lens of who, by talking about

2:37

what your character brings with them

2:39

from who they are, their identity

2:41

at its core, the communities that

2:44

they came up in, like, how

2:46

much do you need to know, question

2:48

for the group, about who your

2:50

character was before they entered

2:52

the story in order to tell

2:55

it effectively? I find that I

2:57

often don't know the answer to that

2:59

when I start writing, that sometimes I

3:01

will be writing and will discover a

3:03

thing later as I go, that then

3:06

I have to go back and layer

3:08

into the early part of the story

3:10

before I have made that discovery. in

3:12

order to have my character make sense

3:14

and have them have continuity. In a

3:16

beautiful perfect world, I will have sat

3:18

down and I will figure out how

3:21

old they are and how many siblings

3:23

they are, but a lot of times,

3:25

especially when I'm doing short fiction,

3:27

I just, I just start writing. You

3:29

can backfill that information as you go, I

3:31

think, in a lot of ways, you know,

3:33

and, you know, like you're saying, it's

3:36

not that you have to have pre-written

3:38

the document ahead of time of knowing that

3:40

knowing that, be prepared that when something comes

3:42

up to find the answer in that moment

3:45

and give them that context that

3:47

they're missing, right? Actually, I think the

3:49

layering and backfilling that you're talking about are

3:51

actually the key things that I really want

3:53

to talk about in this episode, which is

3:55

how do the identity, like how does the

3:58

lens of identity and community, how does... that

4:00

way on the story. And the

4:02

reason I mention it that way

4:04

is because sometimes I'll read people's

4:07

work and they will have a

4:09

fact about their character. You know,

4:11

they grew up in this neighborhood

4:13

or they suffered through, they're an

4:15

orphan and they grew up eating

4:18

from the trash can on the

4:20

streets as people do in fantasy

4:22

worlds often. And it's like... I

4:24

hear that, but then when I

4:27

read the story, if you had

4:29

never told me that about the

4:31

character, I would never know it.

4:33

It doesn't feel like it has

4:36

any actual narrative weight. So how

4:38

do we give the identity of

4:40

our character's narrative weight in the

4:42

story? I think it is a

4:45

lot of the, it winds up

4:47

affecting the choices that you make.

4:49

For instance, you know, if I

4:51

am, if I have to walk

4:53

down a dark street at night

4:56

at night, I am going to

4:58

make different choices than a six-foot

5:00

white guy who lives. I will

5:02

be evaluating things extremely differently. And

5:05

so for me, this gets into

5:07

something that we'll be talking about

5:09

later. It gets into some of

5:11

the reactions that the character makes.

5:14

And also the language that they

5:16

use to describe things, the internal

5:18

reactions that they have, all of

5:20

those things are informed by their

5:23

history, their experiences. Yeah, I mean,

5:25

as we're talking about this, I

5:27

can't stop thinking about a meme

5:29

that already feels dated, and by

5:32

the time this comes out, we'll

5:34

feel truly fossilized. But the whole,

5:36

like, you didn't just fall out

5:38

of a coconut tree yesterday, right?

5:40

You exist in the context of

5:43

all that came before, right. And

5:45

the thing is, is when a

5:47

character feels like they fell out

5:49

of the tree yesterday, that's when

5:52

it feels like a failure state,

5:54

right? And, you know, like you're

5:56

saying, like, you can say the

5:58

detail out loud of like, oh,

6:01

they grew up on the street,

6:03

but then they walk into a

6:05

restaurant and like order all the

6:07

food and like feel like so.

6:10

comfortable in that. It's like a

6:12

different, it's like, is that really

6:14

a character who just came off

6:16

the street, right? Or like, what

6:19

is the context that led to

6:21

that? And so it's not that

6:23

you have to pre-write all the

6:25

context before, but you do need

6:27

a consistency of it. Like when

6:30

you introduce something, you need to

6:32

make sure that that feels felt

6:34

in the choices in the work,

6:36

in how you're describing it and

6:39

how they speak and how they

6:41

speak and what they do. This

6:43

is a micro scale version of

6:45

the game that I'm always playing

6:48

with the macro of world building,

6:50

where I have to look at

6:52

the implications of a thing that

6:54

I've put in my world. If

6:57

this character is someone who grew

6:59

up during the Great Depression, they

7:01

have behaviors that don't make sense

7:03

to me. Lada. a lot of

7:06

hoarding of things that don't necessarily

7:08

need to be hoarded. It's something

7:10

that you'd find from that generation.

7:12

And so I'm always asking myself,

7:14

are there implications that I need

7:17

to examine of whatever this backstory

7:19

is? And sometimes I invert it.

7:21

I have the character do a

7:23

thing and then I ask myself,

7:26

this is an implication. This was

7:28

implied by something in their backstory

7:30

that I don't know yet. What

7:32

is that thing? Should I write

7:35

that thing now? Or should I

7:37

just put a pin in it?

7:39

Maybe have another character put a

7:41

pin in it for me. Hey,

7:44

why are you hoarding Mason jars?

7:46

You know, why are you keeping

7:48

Mason jars? And nobody answers the

7:50

question, because someone else wondered. Why

7:53

it was there can I can

7:55

I offer a very specific example

7:57

from from something that I wrote

7:59

were? I had to backfill character.

8:01

So I have this whole Lady

8:04

Astronaut series, and it started

8:06

with a book, a novelette

8:08

called The Lady Astronaut of

8:11

Mars. And in that my

8:13

character Elma, who in the

8:15

novels is Jewish, is not Jewish.

8:17

That's not a decision I

8:19

had made for her. And I'm

8:21

not even certain that she's southern.

8:24

I think she probably is,

8:26

but there's a line in that...

8:28

in Lady Astronaut of Mars,

8:30

in which she talks about eating

8:33

crawfish as a child, which

8:35

is not something that

8:37

most Jewish kids who are

8:39

observant would do. So when

8:42

I went back to

8:44

write calculating stars, and

8:46

I had made the decision

8:48

to have Elmbe Jewish

8:51

for a number of

8:53

different structural plot reasons,

8:56

I had to come up with the backstory

8:59

that would have allowed

9:01

her to have that experience

9:03

as a child. And that

9:05

then informed every decision that

9:07

she made going through the

9:09

story and then every subsequent

9:12

thing. And so it is

9:14

something that I have both discovered,

9:16

but also that I had to...

9:18

I had to shape the lens through

9:20

which she was viewing the world in

9:23

order to have that make sense and

9:25

have a consistency for the character. That

9:27

her family grew up secular because her

9:29

father was in the military and they

9:31

were trying to mask the fact that

9:34

they were Jewish to outsiders. What I

9:36

love about this story is, you know, there's

9:38

a little bit of a way in which

9:40

we've been talking about this so far that

9:42

almost makes me feel like a burden. Like

9:44

how do you keep track about it is

9:46

the way in which... history and

9:49

identity and community

9:51

are opportunities, right? Like you

9:53

found a thing and that

9:55

gave you an opportunity to make

9:58

the character feel more. and

10:00

nuanced and three-dimensional, right? All of

10:02

these elements of introducing aspects of

10:04

a character's context of their history,

10:06

of their connection are storytelling prompts

10:08

for you to then fill out

10:10

your world more to find a

10:12

plot in it, right? And, you

10:14

know, it's what I love about

10:17

characters and role-playing games is that

10:19

you'll just say a thing or

10:21

introduce a thing, then it's suddenly

10:23

like, Oh, the whole character is

10:25

descending from this one prompt that,

10:27

you know, the turn of phrase

10:29

of the use or an attitude

10:31

that they had, you know, Aaron,

10:33

you and I were in a

10:35

game together recently, and I introduced

10:37

a character who was extremely contentious

10:39

and fought with everybody. And so

10:42

then the question kind of became

10:44

a little bit, why is she

10:46

like this? And then we developed

10:48

a whole relationship of like, oh,

10:50

she was siblings with your character

10:52

and like all these other things.

10:54

And the joy for me is...

10:56

finding that opportunity and letting that

10:58

be a seed for character story

11:00

conflict all the things that we

11:02

want to make a story work.

11:04

Yeah I think that to me

11:07

like identity is such an important

11:09

thing and it drives a lot

11:11

of the trying to figure out

11:13

the way why a character is

11:15

the way they are and all

11:17

the things that they carry with

11:19

them is a huge part of

11:21

writing for me I think it's

11:23

why I love voice so much

11:25

and I think that one of

11:27

the a lot of times we

11:29

think of identity as noun-based. It's

11:32

about the things, like, this person

11:34

carries this item, or eats this

11:36

food, or, you know, goes to

11:38

this place of worship, or what

11:40

have you. But I think that,

11:42

and Mary Robinette, you sort of

11:44

alluded to this earlier, to me,

11:46

the interesting thing about identity is

11:48

identity as a verb. The way

11:50

you make choices, the way that

11:52

you, like, take action in a

11:54

situation, is going to be hoarding,

11:57

is like, that's a verb. Do

11:59

you know what I mean? collecting,

12:01

the keeping, the fear of things

12:03

being taken away from you. And

12:05

I think that really thinking about

12:07

how can we take identity... from

12:09

feeling like a noun which I

12:11

think can sometimes make things feel

12:13

more shallow. Like I added all

12:15

the right nouns, how come this

12:17

person doesn't feel like they embody

12:19

this identity, it's because their verbs

12:22

haven't changed. Only the nouns have.

12:24

There's a 90s sitcom, I can't

12:26

remember the name, I don't think

12:28

it ran past one season, but

12:30

it had Jenna Elfman in it,

12:32

and at one point she is

12:34

very upset that she's... Go into

12:36

this place and she's not going

12:38

to identify with anybody. She comes

12:40

from lower income or something, I

12:42

don't remember, and her brother says,

12:44

you'll be fine, y'all were raised

12:47

by the same TV. I remember

12:49

loving that line because in the

12:51

90s, we were kind of all

12:53

raised by the same TV. But

12:55

that's no longer a thing. There's

12:57

a different set of cops. We

12:59

weren't all raised by the same

13:01

YouTube. the same cnn.com, the disparity

13:03

of pop culture background or the

13:05

diversity of it is so significant

13:07

now that you can't all be

13:09

raised by the same TV. And

13:12

so I now ask myself, often,

13:14

rather than, you know, what are

13:16

the implications or, you know, how

13:18

is this one character different in

13:20

terms of background? I ask myself,

13:22

how is everyone the same on

13:24

any point and why? What is

13:26

it that they would all have

13:28

in common? How could they possibly

13:30

have all that in common? Which

13:32

is a great time to say

13:34

that something that all of our

13:37

episodes have in common is a

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break, and we'll be right back

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always recommend writers have their own websites. It's

13:45

important to have a place on the web

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and establishing a digital identity is incredibly important.

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So when Kinster reached out, we... thought

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at turbo tax.com/free. All right, thinking a little more

18:02

about identity and community. So we've

18:04

talked a little bit about what

18:06

you do with it. But how

18:08

do you, and I feel like

18:10

I've said this in an earlier

18:12

who episode, how do you actually

18:14

figure out what your character's identity

18:16

should be? You talked about making

18:18

a character Jewish for specific story

18:20

reasons. Is it, like, when we're

18:22

picking the identity, the community of

18:24

our characters, what are things that

18:26

we should be looking out for

18:28

so that we can find those

18:30

opportunities to make our stories richer?

18:32

I have talked about this in

18:34

previous episodes, the wonderful book, Why

18:36

Are All the Black Kids Sitting

18:38

Together in the Cafeteria? And this

18:40

introduced me to the idea of

18:42

access of powers, which is why,

18:44

when I needed, with Elma, I

18:46

made her Jewish, was that I

18:48

try... to think about where my

18:50

character sits in axes of power.

18:52

Where do they have power? Where

18:54

do they not have power? And

18:56

I try to make sure that

18:58

all of my characters have at

19:00

least two areas where they do

19:02

not feel like they have power,

19:04

where they feel subordinate in the

19:06

larger society, because that introduces vulnerability,

19:08

but it also often introduces some

19:10

of their strengths, some of the

19:12

ways that they define themselves. So

19:14

that was one of the reasons

19:16

that I did that with Elma

19:18

was that in... Lady Astronaut of

19:20

Mars, she's older, she's a caretaker.

19:22

Both of those are sliders on

19:24

that axis of power that are

19:26

farther down. But when I move

19:28

all the way back to calculating

19:30

stars, she's young, she's beautiful, she's

19:33

smart. And I didn't have enough

19:35

sliders that were lower on the

19:37

power structure, and it was 1952.

19:39

So I made that choice, but

19:41

for me, that's what I start

19:43

looking for. is where do they

19:45

feel like they are lacking in

19:47

power and where do they have

19:49

power that they are unaware of?

19:51

I love axes of power as

19:53

a framework here and I think

19:55

kind of ties into how I

19:57

think about it, which is... States,

19:59

right? When you have a character,

20:01

plot derives from character in my

20:03

mind because of stakes, because of

20:05

characters, how they relate to other

20:07

characters, how they feel about them,

20:09

how they feel about themselves, right?

20:11

And so when you're looking at

20:13

what stakes do I want this character

20:15

have, what relationships are at risk by

20:17

choices that they make, or what pressures

20:20

are put on them by the world

20:22

that puts those relationships at stake, that

20:24

leads you to the point when you're

20:26

now asking questions about history and community,

20:29

right? who are they connected to, what

20:31

history do they have with that person,

20:33

and why is that relevant for

20:35

the story I'm trying to tell, right?

20:38

You get to plot by developing

20:40

these stakes, but as you're asking

20:42

questions of, what is this book

20:44

about? Why am I writing this book?

20:46

I think that's where you get

20:48

to start layering in those pieces

20:50

of history and identity and

20:52

a sense of self. One of

20:54

the other things that... When

20:57

you were talking about community,

20:59

one of the other things

21:01

that I have begun using

21:03

as a shorthand, since we

21:06

did the Space Economy Camp,

21:08

is thinking about the idioms

21:10

that they grew up with, because

21:13

those shape the opinions that

21:15

we have, they are parts

21:17

that we don't... we often don't

21:19

interrogate because it's like, well,

21:21

everybody says, no such thing

21:23

as a free lunch, but

21:25

that's extremely different. If you grow

21:27

up with that as your truism,

21:29

it's extremely different than somebody who

21:31

grows up with their core idiom,

21:33

their core truism as rising tide

21:35

raises all boats. Like those are

21:38

two different ways of interacting with

21:40

community. And so I will often

21:42

think about how the community defines

21:44

that. where the community sits with

21:46

that. And if my character embraces

21:48

that or if they pushes it.

21:50

Like no one ever asked that

21:52

question because there's an idea that

21:54

that's a default. Yeah. Like that,

21:56

why wouldn't they? That's just Jimmy hanging

21:58

out with Jen versus like. If I'm

22:00

hanging out with somebody, then something

22:02

is wrong there. Something is off.

22:04

And so being able to recognize

22:06

the axis of power and what

22:08

your relationship is to them, do

22:11

you understand where you are in

22:13

the world? Like, do you understand

22:15

the axis of power that you're

22:17

on? Or is it one that

22:19

you either can't ignore or that

22:21

you're in denial about? Like, what

22:23

is the relationship? I also think

22:25

it's interesting to think about like...

22:28

I love relationships between individuals and

22:30

structures. You know what I mean?

22:32

So it's like you and an

22:34

access of power or you and

22:36

community. Are you someone feeling like

22:38

you're in the midst of your

22:40

community well embraced by them? Do

22:42

you feel on the outskirts of

22:44

one community but the in in

22:47

another? You know, and how close

22:49

are they to how you view

22:51

yourself? If a community that you

22:53

think is very core to who

22:55

you are is also one that

22:57

you feel at odds with, that's

22:59

a very different character. Absolutely, like

23:01

I am that community, we view

23:03

things exactly the same way, we

23:06

use the same idioms, we do

23:08

the same things. And so I

23:10

think thinking about how your character

23:12

relates not just to other people,

23:14

but to other structures is a

23:16

really fun way. Yeah. Yeah. One

23:18

piece that I want to come

23:20

back to is the idea of

23:22

these lenses as a way to

23:25

examine, or you know, away the

23:27

audience experiences the story. You know,

23:29

we're talking a lot about, you

23:31

know, who these characters are, what

23:33

their, you know, their history, their

23:35

tradition, their influences, so on and

23:37

so forth. Sometimes I'll have to

23:39

ask myself whether the, uh, the

23:42

plot MacGuffin action, you know, whatever

23:44

it is that needs to happen

23:46

to resolve things, could that have

23:48

been done by anyone who came

23:50

from this tradition? Because those are

23:52

actually two very different stories. I

23:54

like the story where anybody could

23:56

have solved the problem if you

23:58

know they brought tools to bear

24:01

and tried to solve the problem

24:03

but this character solved the problem

24:05

in this way because of who

24:07

they were. And that, for me,

24:09

those are the stories that feel

24:11

the most real. Those are the

24:13

stories that when I read them,

24:15

I feel like I could have

24:17

been that person. I'm experiencing the

24:20

story as if I were there.

24:22

You're making me think of something

24:24

just tying it back to something

24:26

that... that Aaron was saying was

24:28

just that you're using the tools

24:30

that you have available because of

24:32

the experiences that you have. And

24:34

one of the things that I

24:36

enjoy doing is thinking about this

24:39

community, this connection, when you're looking

24:41

at how to bring that to

24:43

life for the character on the

24:45

page, for the reader, I often

24:47

think about the pieces of the

24:49

community that imply larger pieces of

24:51

a community that imply larger pieces

24:53

of a community. that if you

24:55

if you if you say oh

24:58

yeah you know you had to

25:00

do that on my naming day

25:02

it's like that suddenly implies this

25:04

whole that there's that there's that

25:06

there's a whole thing about naming

25:08

days and that that then implies

25:10

this this bigger ripple especially if

25:12

your characters like oh my god

25:15

I had to do that on

25:17

naming day my parents made me

25:19

it's like okay so there's a

25:21

difference it's implying these these levels

25:23

of that there's more than one

25:25

way to view the thing. There's

25:27

more, you know, and that then

25:29

implies that there's multiple groups within

25:31

a larger group, which I think

25:34

is fun. I love, I love

25:36

that, but I also think that

25:38

it only works, you can't do

25:40

it with something that is existing

25:42

in isolation. Like you can't just

25:44

say, oh yes, on naming day,

25:46

we all do this. It's got

25:48

to be tied to the emotion

25:50

of the character. It's the connections.

25:53

I mean this to me is

25:55

like the flaw of like a

25:57

certain type of dystopian YA right

25:59

like that was very popular was

26:01

it was so focused on just like the

26:03

one thing that was different and existed

26:05

in isolation and just didn't

26:07

feel like there was other connections to

26:10

that right there wasn't further context

26:12

so when a character came from a place

26:14

or had an identity or any of those

26:16

things it felt very reductive in a

26:18

certain way right like and so without

26:20

the further context and complexity it

26:22

didn't feel rich enough right and I

26:25

think the ones that succeed very well

26:27

something like hunger games does a great

26:29

job of pulling in those other details, pulling

26:31

in those other contexts around the central thing,

26:33

and then ones that I think did not

26:36

do as well were ones that failed to

26:38

ask the further questions, failed to look

26:40

at intersecting axes of power, failed to

26:42

look at the ways in which this

26:44

event connects to all these other events that

26:46

happen in a person's life, right? And I

26:49

think that's what makes... it work when

26:51

somebody uses a tool in an unexpected

26:53

way. If there have been all these

26:55

connections, you understand how they got there

26:58

and how something that character A sees as

27:00

an, oh my gosh, an obvious tool I

27:02

could use, character B would never recognize as

27:04

a tool at all. Do you know what

27:06

I mean? And I love that type of

27:08

thing where one character is like, yes, the

27:10

answer is so obvious. and another character is

27:12

like, I don't even understand the

27:14

question. Yeah. And that is like

27:16

such a beautiful moment of character

27:19

because even if we don't understand

27:21

that culture, that identity, that context,

27:23

we do understand that there are things

27:25

that we know that others don't and

27:27

things that we don't understand that

27:30

others live in. When you look

27:32

at these connections between characters

27:34

and society and traditions and

27:36

economies and there's this enormous...

27:38

network of things which as

27:40

a writer you can become very

27:43

very oppressed by because

27:45

drawing a matrix in which

27:48

you have defined every point

27:50

and drawn every line is

27:53

nightmarishly difficult.

27:55

The tool that I use, you treat

27:57

that matrix as a net.

28:00

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