Wattpad 101: Your guide to the world of Wattpad

The Group Mentality Chapette

This will be a little bit of a shorter chapter. A chapette, if you will. The reason is because the point of this chapter can be more or less summed up in a few sentences. I mean, I'm still going to take twenty paragraphs to say it, but you know, it's the thought that counts.

When I first started writing, I had a great deal of difficulty dealing with groups. Upon reading stories on Wattpad, I occasionally run across people who make the same mistakes as me. The problem is a simple one. You write something and need to describe more than one person doing something in tandem. Therefore, you group them together. It seems like a simple enough thing to do.

Perhaps your fingers cramp every time you write, "George and Sam did this, George and Sam did that." Perhaps you have a group of five or six people, and saying, George, Sam, Bill, Fred, and Greg did this just seems a bit tedious and long winded. So, for whatever the reason, you settle on a few buzzwords to identify your group.

The nasty result? You start referring to a group of people under a certain name. Simply put, you call them "the group". You've never done that? Well, it might not be "the group". It might be the "gang", or how about "the couple" if we're talking about two people. Sometimes it's 'the duo' like your characters are about to start fighting crime. Or 'the pair'. Or, the worst one of all 'Everyone'.

I said he was stupid.

Everyone replied, "You're the stupid one!"

The first reason I have a problem with this should be fairly easy to grasp. The second you start referring to a group as "the group", you start to lose things like individuality. Even if your group actually is a group, let's say the "Scooby Doo gang", you quickly loose something when you start referring to them in the singular. Velma, Shaggy, Scooby... the second you start describing them as 'the gang' as in "the gang entered the haunted house", you start to lose their characters.

It's rare that everyone in the room is doing the same thing, so describing a group of people by their actions already touches me in a bad place (I'll show you where only on the anatomically correct doll). It makes everyone seem like a robot, moving in one direction, as one joint entity. Twins can move as a pair. Crime-fighting sidekicks can work as a duo. Zombies can move in a group. But people? Normal people? Not so much... or at least not if we want to maintain their individuality and personality. Even when you have a situation where everyone really is doing the same thing, each time you refer them by some poor connecting term, it can lead to even more troubles.

For example, it can change how you perceive the characters. Like I mentioned above when referring to a 'duo', obviously the first thought that comes to my mind is some crime-fighting super hero and his sidekick. You're implying some connection between them. When you call this boy and girl a 'pair', are you suggesting they are a pair of people (two) or a pair (lovers). That difference might give the reader the impression they're in a relationship. Calling a group 'the group' makes it seem like they have an actual group. It implies they are bound together in some way. If they are a group of friends, this can work, but if they are just a group that happens to be moving together, it suggests a unity that just isn't there. Unless they're the goonies, your group probably isn't a group.

Of course, there are times where calling two people a pair is applicable (when they are dating), and times when referring to them as the gang works (If you're writing about the Crips, you're clear). I am merely pointing this out as a pitfall in writing, something you should be aware of and avoid, especially if you find yourself falling on group behavior too much. When you start treating a large number of personalities like some mob following group mentality, you start oversimplifying. A group of people should never read like one person, and I think that's the mistake I see the most.

"The group walked into the house. Everyone took a slice of pizza.

"Mm, this is good!" Jack said.

The group laughed. The gang thought his joke was really funny.

Suddenly, all the people turned their head and looked at the door. Everyone's eyes turned red.

"We are Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile." The group said.

But... if it's not okay to call a group a group, then how do you write? Well, first off, 'they' isn't a dirty word. There is no reason you can't say that 'they' did this or 'they' did that. A second option is to try to be a little more specific. The boys did this, and the girls did that, presuming your group is built of both boys and girls. 'The younger ones present' is another way.

These are only stop gaps. You're still doing things as a group, but your trying to maintain some sense of logical connectivity. If you're trying to make a sex related joke (biological, not pornographic), then it might make sense to have all the boys act one way and all the girls act another. However, that same distinction used in place you didn't intend it can lead to sexism, picking up a 'girl acts this way, boy acts this way' mentality in your writing.

And all of that is assuming you're stuck in a place where you have to write everything as group. The simplest way is to direct one person as the main of the group, and then mention the rest of the people as a subordinate. This is often how humans function anyway. We're all fine with the pack mentality in many social situations, where the loudest and most outgoing does the speaking most of the time.

Have you ever noticed in movies there is always a group of bullies, but only one of them gets a lingering name and developed personality? Then, whenever they approach the main character, they do all the talking while the others just sit in the background and snicker like the background noise they are? This is a trick seen countless times in movies, but it's also a trick that can work for writing.

So, "The group of bullies approached me." becomes "Zach, the local bully, and his two friends, approached me."

This is a minor tweak, but when you're first starting out it might be something you need to focus on. It gives the group a personality and an identity. A bunch of people becomes Zach's group. And this isn't to suggest no one else should talk, or that no one else should be a developed character. It'd be nice if every person you bother to put in your book for any significant time does have their own personality and back story, but, when trying to make a seen with a lot of people work, you're going to need to focus on a few characters at a time.

Where group mentality can scour away a character's personality, the opposite can be dangerous too. Having too many people on screen (in the scene) all talking can quickly lead to a work that becomes hard to read and confusing. The fix most people use is to fall on the "group" mentality. Instead, I'd recommend the focused approach. However, the focus only allows 2-3 characters at a time, so this can be troublesome if you're deal with much, much larger groups. The answer is to create several groups and switch focus when needed. So, if it's a massive dialogue amongst hundreds of people, identify those people by the groups they are in. Each group might have a designated 'speaker'. Once again, this is like in real life. Assemblies usually do just that, so the people who are talking are only 3-4 interested leaders, rather than hundreds of people talking over each other.

Groups can be hard. I know it too well. In my story, Hawtness, I'd sometimes get screen time with 9 different boys needing to insert their input. At that point, it got really difficult to keep all of them active in the conversation while giving each of them a voice and keeping from turning them into just 'the boys' or some other group name that treats them like a drone rather than an individual.

I achieved it in the same way I suggest you do, focus on the leader, and do things in terms of your point of view character. And don't be afraid to just list out the names when you need to for clarification, or to just call them 'they' when you don't. Well, I guess that wasn't short at all. 

Either way, good luck, and happy writing.