Quick and Easy Writing Fixes

Sometimes when a story won’t unfold the way we’d like, or sometimes when a novel or script is passed on over and over, I’ve found the key might be the character lacks a “Fatal Flaw.”

Most novels and screenplays are about the journey a character takes because they have something to change or learn. Knowing the character’s flaw can help a writer create more depth in a way that pushes the plot along almost automatically.

A novel or scripted story is where we watch a character make choices under pressure. To apply that pressure, we need to know their flaw—that thing they might not want to admit to but it’s been holding them back in life.

The Fatal Flaw is NOT the same as an ordinary character weakness. More on that later.

Dara Marks, in her wonderful book on the subject, Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc, offers this:

“The FATAL FLAW is a struggle within a character to maintain a survival system long after it has outlived its usefulness. …It’s an unyielding commitment to old, exhausted ways…and resistance to the rejuvenating energy of new, evolving levels of existence and consciousness.”

The law of nature is simple:  If something or someone isn’t growing or changing, it or the character is heading for decay and death.

To find the Fatal Flaw in your character, think about where they’ll be a few years from now if they don’t change. What’s holding them back from being all they can be?

Examples of Fatal Flaws you may have seen in literature and other media:

• A man grew up using fists to get what he wants and still believes in doing that.
• A woman grew up learning how to please everybody else but never herself.
• A young girl shoplifts to feel important to her circle of friends.
• A person keeps remarrying the wrong kind.

A Fatal Flaw is not just a weakness easily corrected or managed. Shyness, for example, isn’t a Fatal Flaw. A bad habit such as drinking too much might be a symptom of a Fatal Flaw but it’s not a Flaw itself. Sometimes a jerk is just a jerk but that may be a symptom of a Fatal Flaw.

Typically the Fatal Flaw took seed early in life, in childhood or the teen years. Look into your character’s past and create the backstory for them. What is it about their personality now that has lingered since that childhood episode and they need to face it now? What is that past “thing” that changed them?

The antagonist or a buddy is often the key character to point out the Flaw, forcing your protagonist to face the Flaw.

Figure out your character’s Fatal Flaw and you’ll have a good story leading to an explosive, emotional Midpoint Crisis and last-act Climax.

Did your manuscript get a pass from maybe 50 literary agents thus far?

Or, is something still bothering you about your manuscript and you can’t put your finger on it?

Do you want a handy tool to help you cut excess words and scenes? Or help finding the missing scenes?

Start revising with your logline (or a new and improved logline).

A logline is that one-sentence summation of a plot. It’s a valuable tool for steering the revision of every chapter of your novel or the scenes of your screenplay.

To write an effective logline, focus on the protagonist AND antagonist. Include a deadline or urgency.

An effective logline is the CONTROL for every chapter and scene. Your writing and revision work has to answer to the logline, chapter by chapter.

TAKE ACTION:  Type the logline at the top of every chapter or at least put the logline nearby so you can read it before going into each chapter.

The logline at the head of every chapter will alert you to what doesn’t belong or what might be missing.

You likely will find things to change, even if it’s only deleting a small paragraph you don’t need or editing a chapter hook you can sharpen.

The logline as a revision tool has 2 basic tenets: 

1) Keep it to 50 or fewer words and one smooth sentence with no more than two commas if any commas at all.

2) Keep it in a pattern answering this:  Who must do what action/decision by what deadline against who or what?

Here’s a quick, off-the-cuff logline example from the movie The Wizard of Oz: “In order to find her way home, Dorothy must survive obstacles thrown at her by the evil Wicked Witch and find the Wizard of Oz.” (25 words)

Every “chapter” of my manuscript has to be about escaping the witch so Dorothy can get home (for serious reasons I also build into the story).

Keep reminding readers of the urgent deadline for the protagonist. The logline is there to remind you of that, chapter by chapter and scene by scene. The story’s scenes/chapters:  A crystal ball shows how much her auntie missed and needed Dorothy; an hourglass with sand sifts down to her doom and the doom for her dog; Dorothy sees friends such as the Scarecrow attacked and left with stuffing pulled out of him. The bad stuff just keeps happening.

Sometimes at chapter beginnings we writers feel we must “build up” to the action or explain something first because the reader won’t “get it” if we don’t set it up. While that might be true here and there, most of the time readers want exciting stuff unfolding RIGHT NOW, with the explanations coming in the “scene sequel” AFTER the action or within the next scene.

An effective logline can save you time and headaches. It’s your “steering wheel.”

A sharp logline can make revising easier and more rewarding.

Sometimes a pass by agents/editors/publishers is because of…

Vocabulary. Your “word wardrobe.”

How does your vocabulary look on the opening pages?

You’ve tended to plot, characterization, action, and scene design. Your critique group loves your novel. Then 50 to 75 agents pass on your submission. 

When looking at your manuscript opener, scrutinize vocabulary because it reveals one BIG thing publishers and readers want to buy—VOICE.

If going through your entire manuscript to improve word choices seems daunting, step back from that. Focus on the first five to 30 pages—that portion most often sent when querying. 

Even minor vocabulary changes can help an agent pause and be impressed.

Vocabulary as your “word wardrobe” dresses your novel for its interview with agents and other readers. A novel’s word wardrobe is part of your author voice.

How can you change pages with ordinary or dull language overnight?

1) Apply more “private language” from the character’s profession, special skills or hobby.

Pastimes have “private language.” Even if your character is a child in first grade, choose words that make readers think differently about first grade but also authentically. If your character is a banker, how do I know that on page one? Read the first three pages of Pulitzer Prize-winning Trust by Hernan Diaz to see how money talks in an understandable, approachable way. Try a similar approach.

What if your character is a thug or ordinary person doing ordinary things? 

Every character has lived a life or they care about something that gives you license to use more interesting words. What do they do for transportation? For food? Clothes? Housing? What do they dislike or like? Find that terminology to sprinkle onto the page.

Often, this exercise can bring in humor not present previously—also always a reader hook.

The trick with “private language” is to not over-do it. Try two really good words on page one. Two more on page three. See how that feels to you.

2) For a better voice—do word hunts! 

Read your prose on page one and two aloud. If it sounds too flat or ordinary, use this quick fix: 

Find 5 or 10 popular and well-reviewed novels and sit down with them. Now find two words that stand out on every page in the first few pages of each novel. Or flip to the final 10 pages or the middle and skim for interesting words.

Bring those words into your manuscript’s opening pages. Not all words will fit, but they might inspire you to find a similar word that creates page magic.

3) Look for lyricism, playful words, and those that appeal to the 5 senses. 

Be bolder with colors and describing objects or sounds. Bring in pleasant alliteration or assonance. (Sure, those repetitions with consonant and vowel sounds can be overdone, but that’s not going to be what you do.)

Here are words from the opening pages of Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt:  intellectual prowess, penchant for, emboss, backlit by glare, fogbound sky, sneakers squeak, satisfying swoosh. 

Van Pelt’s opening pages tuck in MANY instances of alliteration and assonance.

Swap out old words on your page one and use two new words that pop. Use “prowess” and “penchant” in Sentence 1 or soon after. How does the page feel now?

Be less shy about being lyrical or mystical. Van Pelt used “fogbound sky.” Maybe you have a “fogbound pond” or a character with a “fogbound outlook.”

Let poetry, too, give you “word gifts.” Look up a poet’s quirky words in a synonym finder or thesaurus and use what you like or what works for your sensibilities to surprise us on page one.

4) Character history or background can bring better vocabulary and voice—in contemporary novel pages or any genre.

Try mentioning in brief your character’s history or cultural background on page one and two, and ten. In very shorthand language on page one, who are they? How did they come to be? Readers—agents included—find ancestry or character history fascinating.

Tell in a sentence “how” your protagonist or antagonist came to be or why they have a certain trait. Do this on page one or two. Where did the family migrate from? What year? Was your thug’s great-great-grandfather a pirate in the Caribbean? Or the chef at a king’s palace? Does your thug cling to that history and therefore it defines him?

With FASCINATING ancestry or historical reference on page one, you’ve likely drawn in the reader, who might become your literary agent.

In conclusion:

With a better word wardrobe dressing your pages, you have four quick-fix tricks to improve your “voice” and the potential for better appreciation by a literary agent, editor, publisher, reviewer, or any reader.

Effective dialogue grabs readers or viewers and moves a story along in an entertaining way.

Effective dialogue is usually about “power” and power grabs.

Two professional tools accomplish a power tussle:  1) SECRETS, and 2) POWER-AND-RANK.

Before you write that next scene, ask:  What does the character want to keep SECRET?

Knowing that helps a writer build tension into the dialogue of a scene. Characters striving to uncover secrets need to ask interesting questions. Parrying might unfold. One character asks a question and the other character ignores it. Or the second character delays answering until later in the scene, or doesn’t answer the question directly. Or, a character answers a question with a question.

Secrets are precious gold, and rooting them out creates wonderful dialogue.

Who holds the secret? Does that character hold the power? Sometimes, but not always. Play with it. We’ve all seen movies or read novel where a lawyer, a sheriff, a mother, or anybody who NEEDS to know something is willing to needle the other character effectively for the secret.

Secrets can create entertaining “cat-and-mouse” conversations. A perfect example is in the play and movie, Arsenic and Old Lace, where the man asks questions of the two elderly aunties to find out the secret regarding what is really going on in that basement. Humor, irony, scary truth come out in a great dialogue cocktail!

Unearthing secrets doesn’t always depend on questions. A character might “make nice” to gain the secret or a confession, guilting somebody into spilling the information.

POWER-AND-RANK is a term for the type of dialogue we often see in court scenes, or a street scene with thugs versus our hero, or where a kid faces a bully on the playground. Power-and-rank scenes exist in all good literature and genres.

A character “pulls rank” or uses their power to get information or keep a secret. When you set up a scene, decide who is going to be willing to show their power through the dialogue. Sometimes “power-and-rank” turns into famous lines delivered by actors such as Clint Eastwood: “Go ahead, make my day.”

Characters can grovel or beg, too, or consciously show a lower rank in a bid to win favors and information or save their own life in a story.

Improve your dialogue today by employing SECRETS and POWER-AND-RANK.

Writers often come to me after a manuscript has collected several “passes” from agents/editors/publishers. If indie publishing, the writer might have received lukewarm reviews and wants to improve responses to the next book. 

Let’s assume your manuscript is edited well with clutter words reduced or deleted, excellent punctuation, a solid plot arc, and fine characters. You might even have received compliments from an agent or editor, BUT they passed.

One possible solution:

I look for the “come-to-realize” moments or lack thereof. Without a character “coming to realize” their need to change—and WHY—a novel and character are flat.

And, if the “come-to-realize” moments are trite, that also affects opinions and votes by agents, editors, and reviewers/readers. (“Trite” versus “simple.” Big moments can be simple.)

It’s easy to put off “come-to-realize” material until the ending or resolution area. After all, that’s where plot and emotional change are typically summarized or explained. For a satisfying novel, don’t let that last act or final chapter be the only spot for “come-to-realize” material. Big, important realizations may come right before (or after) many character decisions throughout a novel.

Create or improve “come-to-realize” moments in at least two other places besides the last act:

—Midpoint Crisis decision plot point (true manuscript middle), and

—Act 3 Pre-Climax Bleakest Moment where the character wrestles with the big decision to take on the final “battle.”

And a third place often forgotten is this:

—Early-on decision areas that are monumental, perhaps painful or embarrassing.

Make the moments a time for serious self-reflection or confession. Another character might be involved. There must be “weight” to those “come-to-realize” areas.

If it helps, use the word “realized/realizes.” That wording helps you and readers recognize emotional depth has arrived in the manuscript.

The “come-to-realize” moment may take a big paragraph or two pages or a whole chapter. Feel free to mix internal narrative, dialogue, action, and conflict, depending on plot and scene dynamics. The moment can also be just one sentence, of course; there are no rules but consider that skimpy explanations about this important stuff might be your manuscript’s popularity problem.

Sometimes a simple yet meaningful object can bring a moment of “realization.” What object brings emotional dimension to your character?

This may help, too:  Deepen (or change) the Fatal Flaw for your protagonist and the Flaw’s origin story. What about the character prevents them from being a “whole” and happy person? What in their past gnaws on them? Do you have a true Fatal Flaw or does your character just have a bad habit? 

Regrets can also deepen your character. Are the regrets interesting enough, appropriate to the situation, and painful enough?

The “come-to-realize moment” can happen anywhere, even on your first page and in your first chapter. 

A prime example of a first-page/first-chapter “realization” that acts as a hook is Chapter One of Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Demon Copperhead, 2023 Pulitzer-Prize winner. The character “realizes” his troubled status from birth and thus this sets up readers for difficulties and suspense to come. The word choices also give this realization moment terrific “voice.” This is a novel specializing in “realizations” all the way through.

How many “come-to-realize” moments can a novel have? There are no rules. If you’re new to writing novels, strive to develop these moments near or within the three major plot point areas or decision points of any story—Plot Point 1, Midpoint Crisis, Plot Point 2.

In summary: 

Use deeper and/or more “come-to-realize” moments to garner better responses from readers of your material.