The Surprising Depth of Ted Lasso

By
Scott D. Parker

I expected the laughs. I kind of expected some drama. I did not expect the characters and their relationships.

The wife and I finally watched both seasons of Ted Lasso, the Jason Sudeikis-fronted program on Apple TV. From the outside, it looked like just a sitcom about an American football coach brought over to England to coach a soccer team with the end goal being to drive said team into the ground. This being the plan of team owner Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) as a get-back to her ex-husband who left her for a younger woman and loved the team.

That might serve as the how-it-started part, but that’s nowhere near where it ended up. By the end of the 22 episodes to date, what we got was a show that could make you crane your ear at the TV to make sure you got the joke a character said in an off-hand manner and then next moment have you mute with emotion, with tears likely rimming your eyes.

Each character has a moment to shine, usually in multiple episodes. With Lasso himself, I expected a overly optimistic, shuck kind of guy where nothing much phases him. That’s certainly Lasso’s exterior, but on more than one occasion, Sudeikis lays bare the coach and reveals him to be a man who hides much behind his veneer of happiness.

That’s not to say his joy isn’t contagious. It was fun to watch his outlook on life wash over all the people in which he comes into contact, ultimately making them better people. Or more real, if you want to get down with the truth of this show.

There are so many things you could say about each character and after I watched the last episode, I got on the internet to read some.

Pro Tip: Never go on the internet when you are catching up on an existing show unless you want spoilers. I learned that lesson long ago and now I watch all my TV shows without my phone in my hand. Well, unless I’m watching the live broadcast of SyFy’s Resident Alien because the cast live tweets and they are hilarious and engaging. (But even then, I put the phone down during the show itself.)

But as much as I enjoyed each character’s moments in the spotlight, what I really appreciated was the depth of their relationships with each other. How great is team owner Rebecca and model/publicist Keeley Jones (Juno Temple). On screen, it’s like their sisters who only discovered each other in adulthood. Unlike other shows where these two might be pitted against each other for, say, to get the same guy, Keeley and Rebecca come to really love each other. They bolster each other when one is feeling down and there’s nary a mean things said between. Super refreshing.

The group of guys surrounding Lasso are also great to see on camera. Dubbed the Diamond Dogs, they consist of Lasso, assistant coach Beard (yup, the character’s real name and not just because actor Brendan Hunt sports facial hair), Director of Football Operations Leslie Higgins (Jeremy Swift), and Nathan Shelley (Nick Mohammed), the guy who went from being a kit manager to an assistant coach. They also keep things together between them and, most importantly, allow themselves to be vulnerable with each other.

By the end of the second season, I found myself thinking about the show over and over while mowing the lawn or commuting to work. The stories, the characters, the depth just stayed with me. Like I wrote about in a review of Resident Alien a few weeks ago, I’m just glad there are shows like Ted Lasso that demonstrate you can have a light and funny show while still delivering the depth and nuance you might only think exists in dramas.

There's a reason so many people respond to this show. 

Guest Post: Roger Johns on Keeping His Series Character Interesting

I met Roger at a mystery conference a while back and we’ve been running into each other at similar events ever since. I always enjoy hearing about what’s happening with his police procedural series, which features Baton Rouge homicide detective Wallace Hartman. I love Wallace--a great, complex fully realized female protagonist--and since the second book in Roger’s series came out this past week, I thought now would be a great time to ask him to share how he’s taking his character forward in this next adventure. - Claire

When I conceived of the idea that eventually became Dark River Rising––the first Wallace Hartman Mystery––I wasn’t thinking in terms of a series. Only after I had completed the first draft did it dawn on me that my main character might have legs.

As much as I liked the idea, there was a touch of anxiety to go along with it. I had no idea how to keep a character fresh across a series of books. In non-series fiction, this is not a problem because the story and the character’s personal journey end at the same place––the final page of the book. But a series character without further room to grow becomes flat and uninteresting.

The solution to this problem, as illustrated in the books of accomplished series writers like the late Sue Grafton, is to have a character’s personal evolution occur very slowly while confronting her, in subsequent books, with the consequences of decisions she made in earlier books.

Understanding this killed off most of the anxiety and raised some interesting possibilities. I would let Wallace wrestle with decisions about things important to her that would also be important to most readers: family difficulties, personal emotional challenges, a romantic entanglement. And because she is a police officer, her profession would continue to shape her from book to book.

Wallace is a homicide detective who lives and works in Baton Rouge, a Southern capital city that has an interesting, sometimes dangerous vibe. Her work is intense, and it has positive and negative effects on her. Leaving her vulnerable to the negative effects has been the hardest part for me.

After two or three drafts, during which she seemed to effortlessly conquer all, while barely suffering a scratch, I realized I was thinking of her as nearly indestructible and superhuman. This was a mistake. Instead of making her appear powerful and capable, I had accomplished just the opposite. She looked unrealistic, almost cartoonish. Perhaps a consequence of the hundreds of superhero comic books I read as a youngster.

I should have known better. When, as a reader, I come across characters with seemingly infinite physical and mental capabilities, I stop taking the story and the characters seriously. Lesson learned: In the interest of realism, I would let the clash between the rigors of her profession and her innate resilience define her, rather than subject the reader to a contrived personality.

In the second book, River of Secrets, Wallace is dealing with two significant decisions she made in Dark River Rising. In the earlier book, Wallace emerges from a years-long period of self-imposed emotional exile that came in the wake of her husband’s death, something she feels responsible for because of a mistake she made. This transition plays out in the context of a romantic relationship that she didn’t anticipate.

But, as the reader will see in book two, this part of Wallace’s life proves to be a continual challenge. The demands of her professional life are often at odds with the demands of her personal life, and her struggle with these competing forces illustrates the importance of communication and forgiveness, and shows just how touch-and-go some parts of life can be.

Also in the Dark River Rising, Colley Greenberg, Wallace’s first partner when she became a detective, has been permanently sidelined with serious health problems. His abrupt departure from the police force propels Wallace toward a mindset of antipathy toward having a new partner because Colley was also her friend and mentor, and a new partner signals the finality of Colley’s exit, something she’s not ready to accept.

In River of Secrets, Wallace’s antipathy morphs into a low-level hostility toward her new partner which is aggravated by this new partner’s abrasive personality. As she learns to recognize and deal with the feelings Colley’s absence from her daily life has stirred up, she must also contend with the murder of a controversial politician that has polarized Baton Rouge and touched off waves of violence. Some of her experiences from Dark River Rising enable her to better deal with what she finds here, but she will also have new troubles and joys that will shape her for the future.

ROGER JOHNS is a former corporate lawyer and retired college professor, and the author of the Wallace Hartman Mysteries from St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books: Dark River Rising (2017) and River of Secrets (2018). He is the 2018 Georgia Author of the Year (Detective ▪ Mystery Category), a 2018 Killer Nashville Readers’ Choice Award nominee, and a finalist for the 2018 Silver Falchion Award for best police procedural. His articles about writing and the writing life have appeared in Career Author, Criminal Element, and Killer Nashville Articles. Roger belongs to the Atlanta Writers Club, Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and Mystery Writers of America. He is a member of The ITW Fearless Bloggers and, along with four other crime fiction writers, he co-authors the MurderBooks blog at www.murder-books.com. You can visit him at www.rogerjohnsbooks.com. 

River of Secrets is available at: 

IndieBound

Amazon

Barnes & Noble 

Hudson

iTunes 

Books-a-Million

 

Extra, Extra! New Project!

I've spent the last few weeks getting my creative crap together and refocusing. Projects I've wanted to do for awhile are in swing now, and it feels a lot better doing than thinking about it. The latest project is a podcast I launched with Rae Alexandra of MovieRuiner.com called Mandatory Happy.

The concept is simple, Rae and I, two somewhat cynical feminists, watch rom-coms from every era, and talk about them. We talk about what we like and dislike, and what parts of the movie are nightmarishly problematic. This may sound like it has nothing to do with writing, especially crime writing, but I'm here to tell you it does.

The issues that plague bad rom-coms are the same issues that plague bad crime stories, the same issues that plague bad action movies, etc. It's characters that do things that don't make sense, fall for things they shouldn't, and behave in ways that real humans would never behave.

As crime fiction writers, we're not writing toward a mandatory happy ending, but we're hopefully writing toward realistic characters that catch the reader's attention and feel believable.

The first episode (available now, here!) tackles the film City of Angels, which was marketed as a light hearted almost romantic comedy 20 years ago, and instead was a depressing mess of uneven tone and people behaving in unbelievable ways (if you want to know more, you're going to have to click that link, nothing in this life is free).

One thing we kept coming back to in our discussion was characters behaving in ways that didn't make any sense, things happening, and being accepted in the film that weren't really possible (even in a universe where angels walk among humans, sniffing ladies' hair and talking about Hemingway).

While many male writers still admit, sheepishly, that they don't really know how to write women, I think taking the discussion out of what you are writing at the moment, and looking critically at the writing in other mediums can be helpful. And if you do it with us at Mandatory Happy - it can be fun.

I hope you'll check out our first episode and subscribe via iTunes and join in.

Character Perspective

This is a particularly interesting time of year, because it is a significant time for many, but the specifics are determined by perspective. Passover is a remembrance of God sparing the firstborn child of Israelites while striking down those of the Egyptians. This led to their departure from Egypt, where they had been slaves.

Christians celebrate Easter to commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus.

And there are varying perspectives about the possible pagan origins of the holiday.

It's interesting to think about, because it means that how one person views the significance of this time could be very different from how others view it. A non-religious family may only think of the Easter bunny and candy. A Christian family may think of family dinners and special church services. A Jewish family may be focused on gathering to celebrate Passover.

This is just one of many ways to illustrate the importance of perspective with our characters so that we convey a clear meaning. If the text says that the week before Easter was an important time for Saul, we might not connect that to Passover if it hasn't been established that he's Jewish.

It may seem a small thing, but perspective matters. A character shouldn't be different just for the sake of being quirky. Difference should manifest itself in their perspective and their actions. If a POV character is 4'6" then I want to see the world at that height; likewise, if they're religious then that should impact their life, choices and perspective.

We've been watching The Path, and it's really interesting to see how convictions manifest themselves in the different characters. I commend the writers for really getting into the nuances of belief and practice and incorporating it into the personality. One religious nut is not another religious nut. The personality and nuances inform character action, which drives the story, and that means those aspects of the characters aren't just dressing tacked on to give the illusion of character development; they're substantive and organically influence the characters and plot, which is what the greatest character development will do.

I remember for a period of time it seemed like every TV show had to have a token gay character, and at other points it's been a token feminist or a token person of a specific ethnic origin. In well developed work, the characteristics of a character are thought out to contribute to their arc and impact their story.

May we all write complicated characters.

Chekhov’s and Chandler’s Corollary: Character

By
Scott D. Parker

A writer’s trope, attributed to famed playwright Anton Chekhov, goes something like this: if you show a gun on the mantle in chapter 1, then that gun better go off in some future chapter. It’s the art of foreshadowing.

Another trope, likely attributed to some nameless pulp writer, is that if your story is mired down, have a guy show up in a room with guns blazing. Then your characters have to react to the gunslinger. Okay, so I just looked that up and the quote is attributed to Raymond Chandler. The official quote is this: “When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.” Some websites call this Chandler’s Law.

Well, I think the two authors might be interested in knowing a new corollary might now exist: Chekhov’s and Chandler’s Character. I could go with CCC but that reminds this historian too much of the Civilian Conservation Corps from the 1930s.

You see, earlier this week—on Valentine’s Day no less—I was hitting a wall. I was in a necessary exposition chapter, but as I’m writing this novel with my pants on, I wasn’t too sure what would happen next. If I followed Chandler’s Law, I’d have a gunman enter the room. My novel is a western so that’s not too difficult. Instead, however, I created a brand-new character. She walked into the scene—literally—and she solved everything.

In one fell swoop, I had a new character with whom my two railroad detectives could interact. Because she’s a lady, my titular hero, Calvin Carter, a ladies man if there ever was one, suddenly had to make sure his tie was straight and his charm offensive in place. Having Carter charm the ladies is one of the great pleasures of writing the character.

Most importantly, however, Aurora Ashe was able to link the story Carter had experienced up to that chapter and the rest of the story. (I have a decent idea of the ending, but nothing close to 100%.) Her presence unlocked the door that allowed me to walk through it, fingers flying across the keyboard, words magically appearing on the screen. It was rather liberating. The word count reflected the change, too. On Monday, I only eeked out 1274 words. Valentine’s Day was 1591. The 15th saw 2456. With her on stage, I was again on the fast track to the end of the book.

Have y’all ever had that happen in your writing, when a brand-new character you never saw coming suddenly takes over and clears the cobwebs for you?

Out of Character

Sat July 16 I was scheduled to read at Noir at the Bar event in DC. I'd tried working on a few different projects, but nothing was coming together. My most recent stories were too long and couldn't be pared down to the length needed.

Channeling my inner high school procrastinating skills, on Thursday July 14 I penned a short story. Initially at 2600 words, it too needed to be trimmed. I was confident I could squeeze it down to 1500 or so and be ready for Saturday.

One of my fellow Radioactive Writers read it and sent back notes, and we discussed the story at length over Skype. Rewrite followed rewrite.

For the purposes of Saturday's event I wanted to; a. Keep it to 1500 words or less, b. Keep it crime, and c. Tuck in some inside jokes for Marietta Miles, who was also reading at the event.

The inside jokes were references to The Walking Dead.

As the process of revision unfolded my critique partner suggested a reference to a Tom Waits song. It was a song Beth sang in the hospital.

Now, the song didn't make the cut. That's not the point. The point is, the suggestion got me thinking about Beth. Would sweet, innocent, sheltered Beth sing Tom Waits? Keith Green, sure. Tom Waits? Undecided.

I posed the question to Brian and that's when he pointed out to me that in some of my books I've had characters reading certain novels he doesn't think that character would read. He says it's common for authors to make that mistake to name drop friends' books.

Of course, I argued back with him that despite his and Bry's own views on religion they're all up on Parker Millsap, despite a lot of God references scattered throughout his lyrics. (And, I mean, who isn't all up on Parker Millsap? I guess anyone who hasn't heard of him, but damn, is he talented.)


However, he has a point about the book references in novels. They often pull the protagonist out of character to serve the author's agenda instead of maintaining character consistency.

Now, I'll be the first to say that I think people can be more diverse than story characters often are, and real people are often filled with contradictions that aren't accepted in character development (as I pointed out to Brian). However, both of those aspects of character development involve narrowing the focus on the character in a story. Inserting musical or written references that contradict the perception of the character don't expand that character; they simply contradict how they've been developed.

Maybe after the apocalypse, after the barn and the brutal deaths they'd seen, maybe then Beth would have listened to Tom Waits, but the only way for her to sing that song was if she knew if before the world turned to hell, and it feels like a stretch to me. I just wasn't convinced. Wild child Maggie, sure. Naive little Beth? Hmmmm. Not sold.

Whenever a character does something to suit the author's purpose the risk is that the reader will be pulled out of the story, and when that happens you risk losing them. Works that are character driven flow from a consistency of character with believable choices the characters make that drive the plot forward.

The other end of the spectrum is placeholder people who do what the author needs to follow their plot. The dumb people who, after being chased by a freak with a knife, hear a noise in the cellar and go to see what it is instead of running away. Or, you know, Kevin from Bloodline, who does everything he's told not to do.

This is an issue that crops up a lot in plot-driven writing. When the focus is on outlining and following a formula for storytelling, the compromise can be wooden characters who don't flow organically through the events because the author's more focused on scenes they want to incorporate than telling a story about a protagonist that flows from their motivation.

I was trained in outlining. When I took my creative writing diploma I worked under the tutelage of an author who had several books to her name. I felt apologetic telling her why I'd continued a manuscript (that eventually became Suspicious Circumstances) but abandoned the outline and why.

Her response? "You've a real writer." She credited me for knowing the limitations of the outline and being able to toss it aside when necessary in order to ensure the development of the characters and the story was organic and believable.

Ask if a character would really do something, and if so, Why? What's their motivation? If you can't answer those questions for a novel you're reading or writing chances are the character isn't well developed.

When Bad Guys Go Too Bad

by Holly West

Before I begin this week's post, I'd like to announce that Thomas Pluck will be sharing Wednesdays with me starting next week. I always enjoy when Tom writes a guest post, so I think we can all look forward to some insightful and entertaining content from him. Welcome, Tom!

The following post will be a bit spoiler-y, particularly if you haven't watched the last-ish seasons of House of Cards, Nurse Jackie, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos and Orange is the New Black. No plot revelations, but I'll be discussing character development of these shows.

I'm sure I've said this before, but I love a flawed protagonist. They are, in fact, my favorite kind of protagonists. I'm attracted to misfits and characters who walk the thin line between good and bad. Characters who are fundamentally good but for some reason do a lot of bad things--maybe because they can't help themselves or they can't get ahead in life or they don't feel they have a choice. Maybe it's their job. Characters who are somehow able to justify the bad things they do in such a way that the audience is able to root for them in spite of their flaws.

Oh, how I loved Tony Soprano.

Take Tony Soprano. In the beginning, he was the perfect flawed protagonist. Admittedly, he was more bad than good, but that works for me. He did terrible things, but dammit, he really loved those baby ducks. And his struggles with his mother? I'd watched my own father have similar ones with his mother. I could relate. Tony was so simple and yet so complex and I loved him completely.

And while we're talking The Sopranos, what about Nurse Jackie (played brilliantly by Carmela Soprano--er, Edie Falco)? Another superbly flawed character whose drug addiction causes her to lose nearly everything. At first, the awful things she does are balanced out by her brilliance as a nurse but eventually, she hits bottom and we're left to wonder if redemption is possible. Has she pushed us too far, like she pushed away everyone else in her life?

Which brings me to the point of this post: what happens when characters go so bad they're no longer enjoyable to watch/read? I'm not talking about the bad guys--the guys whose job it is to be terrible. I'm talking about the so-called good guys. Flawed or not, the ones we tune in for each week (or turn each page or buy each book in a series) because they're compelling and sympathetic in spite of the bad things the do. In some cases, because of it.

In Tony Soprano's case, it became increasingly harder to empathize with him as the series wore on and that made him less interesting. There was no chance of redemption for him as a character because he'd pushed me to my limit and he wasn't giving enough back. Where are the baby ducks when you need them? I was ready to let him go before the series actually ended (though I loved him so much in the beginning, I still wanted him to live on in some kind of alternate universe, even if I no longer wanted to watch him).

Oh well.

I'm not saying that a character shouldn't, over the course of a series, become unredeemable. Often, that's a compelling arc and I'm into it. But as writers we need to be cognizant of when a character has reached the pinnacle of his/her evil and not let it drag on too long. Know when to cut him off at the knees. He can't go on indefinitely without consequences (and sometimes, the consequences are the end of the series).

A good current example is House of Cards. At the end of season three, I wondered if perhaps the Underwoods had become truly evil and whether I wanted to watch them any further. They no longer seemed to have any moral dilemmas--their only problems were keeping the power they'd gained and not getting caught for their many misdeeds. I'd watched for three seasons thinking they were working for some kind of greater good only to learn that they themselves were the greater good. Womp womp. But then, the season three finale ended with a good cliffhanger so I watched season four. Unfortunately, I think I'm through with the Underwoods--the series should've ended this season (and if you've seen it, you know they had the perfect opportunity).

I also mentioned Orange is the New Black. We're half way into the latest season I'm having trouble with the main character, Piper. Perhaps the goal was to harden her as the series proceeded (because let's face it, she is in jail and even if the inmates are magically able to have sex whenever they want it's still taxing) but she's lost most of the vulnerability that was so appealing at the beginning of the series. She's one-dimensional now. Not complex and not interesting.

Want an example of a show that did it right? Breaking Bad. The series ended at precisely the right time. I could still root for Walter because he was in the end stages of his disease and well, that's got to fuck a person up, but really, he'd turned so bad that having him live on would've been tedious. His story was finished and it was time to kill him off and move on.

I'm aware that I've only discussed television shows here. But these rules apply to books, though maybe not in the same way, unless you're talking about a series. Thinking about these issues reminds me to work harder at character development. Add some subtlety. Maybe a quirk or two. Good fiction demands we magnify some of qualities for effect, but no one is all good or all bad and we need to keep this in mind. We're creating characters here, not caricatures.