The Psychological Thread, Part III by Nancy Rue

Hey writers, Annette here for another Mixing-it-Up Monday. Nancy Rue has returned today to continue her series on including a psychological thread in your novel. I love her tip on following a thread through the ms. Read on!

The Psychological Thread, Part III

by Nancy Rue

We authors tend to enjoy the psychological research part we talked about last time because it’s like procrastinating without the guilt. Eventually, though, we have to stop gathering and start plotting. Our question for today is: how do you weave the psychology into the story?

I’ve always been a planner – of everything from my outfits to the amount of chocolate I can consume. Naturally I plan my novels in detail before I start the second draft. Calling the outline the first draft has staved off many a nervous breakdown. Even if you’re a seat-of-the-pants writer (though I’m not sure such a person exists), some form of the following is essential in the psychological development of a protagonist. These are not linear and will overlap, but they’re all necessary.

Know things about your character that may never appear on the page. Whether you discover this by journaling or having your protagonist fill out an application to appear in your book or determine it as you go along, you need to know that character’s background, formative childhood experiences, basic personality traits (which sometimes serve her well and sometimes don’t), adult traumas, and relationship history. Know the fun stuff, too: How does he take his coffee and how many cups does he have to consume before anyone can talk to him? Does she like theme park rides or do they make her puke? Whatever you do in your daily round, consider how your protagonist would do it. Then you’ll never have to wonder, “How would she react to that?”

Establish your protagonist’s goal. This usually happens at the end of that first act, about a quarter of the way into the story. A change has taken place in his ordinary world that causes the character to set a goal. That’s the spine of the plot. What that objective is and how he’ll pursue it depends on the protagonist’s inner world that you now know so well. That thread will remain strong, even as it weaves its way through the subplots and the supporting characters.

Understand how your protagonist has to change. This is where it gets tricky. It’s one thing to know that character down to the nose hairs, and another to allow her to grow. If the character doesn’t transform in some way as a result of what happens to him, you’re writing a Hardy Boys mystery. The skill comes in keeping that change consistent with the character’s God-given traits—the true self. Early on, I look at the plot skeleton and determine specific turning points where the protagonist has to make a decision, has a realization, changes direction or moves on with greater intensity. I mark those with a TP in the outline and read them through one after the other to make sure that thread hasn’t frayed or tied itself into a square knot.

This is not the easy part, especially if you freak out about how you’re going to actually write it. We’ll talk about that next time. For now, just sit down with your protagonist over a couple of lattes (you can drink hers, too) and say, “I’d like to get to know you.” It will be time well spent.

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Nancy Rue is the author of one hundred and ten books, including nine novels for adults, seventeen for teens, and sixty for tween readers, as well as two parenting books, thirty-two non-fiction books for tweens and teens, and the features for the FaithGirlz Bible. Her Lily Series, published by Zondervan, has sold well over one million copies. Her ability to relate to a wide audience has made her a popular radio and television guest and an in-demand speaker and teacher for writer’s conferences across the country. Her latest titles include The Reluctant Prophet and Unexpected Dismounts for adult readers (David C. Cook) Limos, Lattes, and My Life On the Fringe (Zondervan) for teens, and That Is SO Me (Zondervan), a year-long devotional for tweens, in addition to a book written with her husband entitled What Happened To My Little Girl: A Dad’s Guide to His Tween Daughter. A student of the Academy for Spiritual Formation, sponsored by the Upper Room, Nancy continues her own spiritual journey even as she writes and speaks for mothers, daughters, and would-be writers about theirs. For more information, visit her website at www.nancyrue.com.

The Psychological Thread, Part II by Nancy Rue

Writing is a ministry to our readers, right? Hey everyone, Annette here. This month, Nancy Rue is here on Mixing-It-Up Mondays to share tips on including the psychological aspect of our characters to better minister to our readers. I'm enjoying all the nuggets in her posts. Read on!

The Psychological Thread: Part II

by Nancy Rue

Last week we talked about finding the thread—the hidden need—you’ll want to follow in writing a novel where you’d dealing with your characters’ psychology, which is every novel except a Nancy Drew mystery (because we all know Nancy is perfect, so what’s to deal with, right?). Figuring out how your unique protagonist responds to that hidden need is today’s topic. In scholarly terms, how the Sam Hill do you do that?

Because the Sullivan Crisp novels (Healing Stones, Healing Waters, and Healing Sands) are centered around a psychotherapist and his one-client-per-book (a therapist’s dream, I’m told!), I had to get it right, but the approaches I’m offering you can be applied to any novel.

• Consult a professional. Once I had a basic outline, I reviewed it in depth with psychotherapist Dr. Dale McElhinney. He not only told me when I had Sully crossing some kind of professional boundary (“He can’t hug the client, Nancy. Sorry.”); he explained how a person such as Lucia (using Healing Waters as an example) would react to what was happening in her life and how Sully would guide her accordingly. I then sent chunks of the first draft to Dr. Dale, who gave me invaluable feedback. Even if you don’t have access to a therapist who can give you this kind of time, most are willing to at least answer specific questions. I’ve never known an expert at anything who didn’t love to talk about his or her passion.

• Go to the source. Once I have a basic story skeleton, I concentrate on the protagonist—the only who has the inside scoop. She and I go to a book store and select just the right journal to fit her personality. Lucia and I looked at several registered-nurse looking ones until she finally owned her beautiful side and picked out one with a pre-Raphelite painting on the cover. Over the next few weeks, I asked Lucia questions, such as, “What was your childhood like?” Though hesitant at first, she became very good at giving me answers from her soul which I wrote in her journal. I know you’re thinking, “There’s medication for this kind of thing.” But what artist doesn’t live in her imagination a great deal of the time? This approach takes you all the way into your right brain, where the character already lives.

• Keep God in the loop. When I’m working on a novel, I pose questions to God during my quiet time, as if I’m praying for my character. I’m really praying for the readers who will go on the journey with Lucia or Demitria or Ryan or Sully and perhaps understand themselves and their God a little better. My note card box is jammed with notes I’ve scribbled out while reading Job or Luke or Lamentations (don’t dismiss any possibility!). The Bible is rife with psychological insights, and I have found that God is eager to point them out to me.

As you become intentional about discovering your characters’ psychology, you’ll probably discover needed information oozing from every pore of life, whether it’s a song lyric, a commercial, or a line from your own diary. God wants you to get it right too. With some deep focus, I know you will.

~~~~~

Nancy Rue is the author of one hundred and ten books, including nine novels for adults, seventeen for teens, and sixty for tween readers, as well as two parenting books, thirty-two non-fiction books for tweens and teens, and the features for the FaithGirlz Bible. Her Lily Series, published by Zondervan, has sold well over one million copies. Her ability to relate to a wide audience has made her a popular radio and television guest and an in-demand speaker and teacher for writer’s conferences across the country. Her latest titles include The Reluctant Prophet and Unexpected Dismounts for adult readers (David C. Cook) Limos, Lattes, and My Life On the Fringe (Zondervan) for teens, and That Is SO Me (Zondervan), a year-long devotional for tweens, in addition to a book written with her husband entitled What Happened To My Little Girl: A Dad’s Guide to His Tween Daughter. A student of the Academy for Spiritual Formation, sponsored by the Upper Room, Nancy continues her own spiritual journey even as she writes and speaks for mothers, daughters, and would-be writers about theirs. For more information, visit her website at www.nancyrue.com.

The Psychological Thread, Part I by Nancy Rue

A few years ago, I (Annette) toted a very specific book on a business trip. This novel had gotten a lot of buzz. People raved about how the story was so strong, so raw they couldn’t put it down. I have to admit, I was intrigued. Then, I picked it up, read just the first page, and I was hooked too. Check out this first sentence: I sneaked down to the boat that night to say this couldn’t happen anymore. See what I mean? Healing Stones is the title. The Sullivan Crisp novels are full of real-to-life characters whom Sully counsels. I was so impressed with Nancy Rue’s and Stephen Arterburn’s treatment of “characters in therapy,” I’ve asked Nancy to write a series for us this month on including that psychological thread in your fiction. She graciously agreed. No matter what you’re writing, I believe you’ll glean many nuggets from these posts. Read on.

The Psychological Thread, Part I

By Nancy Rue

I have to admit that when Steve Arterburn asked me to write a trilogy of books about a psychotherapist who works with women in dark places, I was intimidated. Not by Steve, and not by the issues of infidelity and betrayal and loss, but by the “psychological thing.” Getting inside the heads of both the hurting and the healer was enough of a challenge. Getting it “right” seemed comparable to scaling Half Dome. Not getting it right just wasn’t an option.

My first step was to enlist the aid (perhaps rescue is a better word) of a professional psychotherapist as my consultant. More on that in next week’s post. My second step was to realize that I have been delving into the psychology of my characters ever since my first teen novel in 1984. Every author who creates a work of fiction has to understand what makes the characters do what they do, or the story has no heart. Where we tend to choke is when we think we have to cover every aspect of every character’s personality—a thought that has landed many an unfinished manuscript in the recycle bin.

That doesn’t have to happen if we keep it simple. Here’s how I accomplish that. Let’s use Healing Stones, the first in the Sullivan Crisp trilogy, as an example.

I start with a word. Just one. It’s always a large word, an important word that’s been niggling at me for a while. For Healing Stones, that word was forgiveness.

Since volumes have been written about practically any word-concept we come up with, it has to be narrowed down, so I next ask a specific question about that word— the question I want to answer or at the very least deal with in the course of the story. In Healing Stones I asked: 

“What do you do when you are repentant of grievous sin, but Christian forgiveness is not offered to you?” That not only focused Demitria’s story but allowed me to explore how she, with her distinct personality and history, would respond to being rejected by everyone whose forgiveness she asked for. There is freedom in limitation. It’s the difference between shopping for something to wear, and shopping for a great pair of gray pants.

The final step in this preparation is to discover the answer to that question. That involves spiritual research, which I’ll also delve into in next week’s post, and it’s worth doing because this answer determines your protagonist’s hidden need, the one that must be met in the end if yours is to be a satisfying story. Demitria needed to come to the place where she realized AND lived this answer: You have to accept God’s forgiveness and use it to redefine yourself. You may have to move on without the forgiveness of others; forgive them for that.

Those three steps create the psychological thread that establishes your protagonist’s story. 

We could all write books based on the answer to the question I asked in Healing Stones and each of our characters would get there in a different way. How to know what that way is—I’ll talk about that next time. Meanwhile, relax. You don’t have to be Sullivan Crisp to figure this out!

Blessings,

Nancy Rue

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To learn more about Nancy, visit her website at www.nancyrue.com. Her latest release, Unexpected Dismounts, follows the award-winning book The Reluctant Prophet in the series of the same name. I've read the first in this series. Fantastic. I highly recommend the Sullivan Crisp novels as well.