Ever read The Fault in our Stars by John Green? It’s a YA tear-jerker, a story about a teen girl, Hazel, living with cancer (she hates the image of “battling” or “fighting”) who falls for a 17-year-old cancer survivor, Augustus, but is afraid to get too close to him since she knows her diagnosis is terminal.
If you haven’t read it–READ IT! It’s so good (warning: have a box of kleenex nearby).
I have read it before, so when Jennie, my book coach, used it as a point of reference to help me with my own novel, I knew what she was talking about.
It’s narrated from Hazel’s first-person point of view, but the story works so well, Jennie said, because it could easily have been narrated from Augustus’s perspective. She pointed out how well-rounded Augustus is, how real. He is his own person who happens to orbit Hazel.
Everyone is a hero in his or her own story. The concept is not new to me, nor is applying it to literature, nor even, is using it in my own writing. In my previous versions, I had David, Lyra’s love interest, fleshed out with a family, a backstory, even an internal desire. (The irony: I knew secondary character David’s internal desire better than I knew protagonist Lyra’s internal desire).
Here’s where I went wrong (ok, maybe not wrong, but not quite right enough): I only used David’s backstory at the end, when I needed it to flesh out Lyra’s story. I didn’t think about how his own past would be reflected in his interactions with Lyra throughout the story.
So when Jennie asked me to write my next scene, one with my new-and-improved (and entirely different) David, she reminded me that every time I write something about David, I have to know his perspective, as he were the star of the show. I don’t write it all, obviously, but if I know what he’s thinking and why, then how he reacts to Lyra will feel real, whole and, most importantly, believable.
To prepare, I went back and re-read The Fault in Our Stars. Every time I came upon a scene with Augustus, I imagined his own perspective, what he might be thinking that Hazel wouldn’t (at this point) know. This exercise works because I already knew the ending, so on my second reading, I could envision what Augustus was thinking.
Example: Augustus shows up at Hazel’s wearing a basketball jersey of a Dutch player. He takes her on a picnic, spreading out an orange blanket and offering her a Dutch cheese sandwich. Hazel (and, by extension, us) guesses what Augustus is up to, but she (nor we) know for sure until the reveal of the big surprise (a trip to Holland). On second reading, knowing Augustus’s plan, I can see how the author wove in Augustus’s own motivations, how his own backstory made that scene possible.
What’s even cooler is that the same concept worked for another character, a rude, pathetic, belligerent man. I’d forgotten this character’s motivation, his internal desire, but by re-reading with different eyes, I see how his behaviour makes complete sense. This character, too, had his own story, one in which Hazel and Augustus play secondary roles.
This depth is what makes the novel come alive.
I’ve worked on Lyra and her background; now I need to figure out David’s life before he meets Lyra. The best thing about fiction, though? I can make it all up so that it neatly mirrors Lyra’s life.
‘Cause after all, it’s still Lyra’s story. Everything else–the plot, the secondary characters–are all put there in service of Lyra’s quest.
I’ve just got to do it in a way that won’t make you, the reader, realize it’s all so carefully crafted.
Give David his own story–as long as it helps Lyra.
No problem. This will be easy. Easy as… quantum physics.