Dynamic Characters- How to create personalities that keep readers captivated

by Nancy Kress

  To return to the bewildered writer's question: Can a story or novel survive if the main character is disliked? Yes. Not only survive but flourish, provided the story gives us something else—perspective or change or justice or point or sheer fascination—to offset our dislike. As with so much else in writing fiction, an unsympathetic protagonist is a trade-off. Are you gaining more than you're losing?

  If so, you don't have to invite him to dinner. Celebratory cocktails— say, in an editor's office—are quite enough.

  SUMMARY: CREATING DISTASTEFUL PEOPLE WE'LL HAVE A TASTE FOR

  • Unsympathetic protagonists work best in ''literary'' fiction, while unsympathetic secondary characters are a staple of commercial fiction. This is even more true if the unsympathetic protagonist is also the POV character.

  • Unsympathetic characters need to be as fully developed as likable ones. Nastiness is not, in and of itself, sufficient characterization.

  • In fact, unsympathetic characters probably need to be even more interesting than sympathetic ones, since the writer loses the interest-garnering technique of reader identification.

  • If unsympathetic protagonists are going to get a comeuppance at the end, either disguise their nastiness early on, or hint that this is a just-wait-he'll-get-his story.

  • If an unsympathetic protagonist is used to make a comment on a particular time and place, make sure the connection is very clear from the beginning.

  FBI agents need to know everything they can about the people who are key to their cases. So do novelists.

  The FBI meets this need by keeping intelligence dossiers, adding to each as new information becomes apparent. Some writers do the same thing. They write biographies of their major characters before starting a book, add to these during the writing and refer to them often. To other writers, this whole idea is horrible. These are the seat-of-the-pants writers who rely on intuition, moment-to-moment inspiration and surprise to construct believable and interesting characters. They also rewrite extensively on the second draft, since they change their minds so often during the first one.

  It doesn't matter which kind of writer you are. Different methods work for different people. But if you are the methodical, preplanning type, you might find this chapter useful before you begin writing a book. If you are the flying-blind type, this chapter can be used after you've finished the first draft and are ready to reconcile all your course changes into a single smooth trajectory.

  What follows is one way to better understand your character: the dossier. It covers information that you should know about your protagonist, and probably should know about the other major characters as well. Different sections of the dossier concentrate on different kinds of knowledge. All sections have the same goal: to stimulate your thinking about your character. You may do only that with the dossier: think about some section(s) of it. Or you may decide to photocopy some, all or none of the sections as they seem to apply to your particular characters in your particular book, and fill them out. If you do, keep them for later reference.

  WHAT KIND(S) OF FOOD?_

  CAN HE/SHE COOK?_HOW WELL?_

  ENJOYS SHOPPING? □ NOT PARTICULARLY □ YES HOW MUCH? □ MILDLY □ A LOT □ ADDICTED

  SHOPPING FOR WHAT?_

  WHERE?_

  HOME

  WHERE DOES THE CHARACTER LIVE?

  □ BIG CITY □ SMALL TOWN

  □ RURAL AREA □ OTHER_

  WHERE WOULD HE/SHE PREFER TO LIVE?

  □ BIG CITY □ SMALL TOWN

  □ RURAL AREA □ OTHER_

  WHY DOESN'T HE/SHE LIVE THERE?_

  WHAT KIND OF HOME?

  □ APARTMENT □ HOUSE □ TRAILER □ OTHER_

  WHAT KIND OF HOME WOULD HE/SHE PREFER?

  □ APARTMENT □ HOUSE □ TRAILER □ OTHER_

  WHY DOESN'T HE/SHE LIVE THERE?_

  DECOR OF PERSONAL SPACE CONTROLLED BY THIS CHARACTER CAREFULLY PLANNED? □ YES □ NO EXPENSIVE? □ YES □ NO NEAT? □ YES □ NO CLEAN? □ YES □ NO COMFORTABLE? □ YES □ NO

  ATTRACTIVE? □ YES—TO WHOM?_

  NOW THAT I KNOW YOU . . .

  You've compiled the dossier on your character—bit by bit or all at once, written down or not, in depth or just enough to suit his role in the novel. Now what? Besides referring to it as you work to make sure that he isn't forty-three years old in chapter eight and forty-nine in chapter seven, what do you do with the dossier? How can it help you?

  It can help generate plot.

  Ideally, this should happen as you fill it out (bit by bit or etc.). You come, for instance, to ''Pets'' and think, Well, all right, does this guy have a pet? Yes, he has a dog. And ''How does he treat the pet?'' Badly. He's neglectful, which fits with the rest of his character. He forgets to feed the dog. He doesn't give it water in the summer. The poor beast barks in misery. In fact, the dog barks and a neighbor comes over to check on him. Outraged, she calls the Humane Society. And their hassling of him comes to the attention of his ex-wife, who sees a chance to cause him trouble____You've crossed over from characterization to plot. Moreover, the plot development is springing naturally from consistent characterization.

  Another example: Thinking about the dossier, you ponder "What event is he most afraid might happen to him?'' You realize you don't know. You give this question some time, thinking over everything your character has done so far, getting a better feel for his psyche. And finally you realize that he's afraid of public failure. He doesn't put this into words—but now you have. A public humiliation, with everyone laughing at him, would devastate this guy. And if it did happen, how would he react? With rage? With so much shame that he would leave town? Or would he, over time, grow past it and emerge a stronger person, more guided by inner values? Maybe that public humiliation should happen in the book. You see how to set it up. Then, afterward, the character could. . . .

  You are committing plot.

  More on this in the next chapter.

  SUMMARY:

  YOUR OWN PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

  • A methodical approach to investigating your protagonist can make you aware of aspects of character you may not have thought about.

  • The dossier should be used whenever it fits best into your particular writing process—before you begin, after the first draft, somewhere in the middle, etc.

  • Think about the dossier questions more completely for your protagonist than for secondary characters, who may not need to be so fully developed.

  • Use what you learn about your character(s) to generate plot developments for the novel.

  One definition of plot is that it's ''just one damn thing after another.''

  Not, however, just any damn thing. In fact, in some ways, plot is perhaps the most critical aspect of fiction. ''I want well-plotted stories,'' says the Eminent Editor. (Don't we all?) "What's it about?'' asks Semi-interested Reader, holding a new novel in her hand and meaning "What's the plot about?'' ''But it doesn't have any real plot!'' wails the devoted reader of Charles Dickens upon finishing a story by Grace Paley. Plot, plot, plot. It's enough to make you think we're all conspirators in an endless Machiavellian takeover.

  And so we are. We all want—at least vicariously—drama, action, things to happen. But not just any things. Things that catch and hold our interest, which usually means things that have gotten screwed up. Nobody wants to read about things that are humming along in tranquillity. In our lives we want tranquillity; in our fiction we want an unholy mess, preferably getting unholier page by page.

  Perhaps the definition of plot in the first paragraph of this chapter should read ''one damned thing after another,'' because events that are damned—that bedevil our characters with physical or mental pitchforks—are what make up plot. That bedeviling is what we're really after when we read fiction. In short, we want conflict.

  HOW CHARACTER AFFECTS CONFLICT

  Conflict is the place where character and plot intersect. A novel includes several such intersections. Four of the most importan
t are conflict perception, character reaction, conflict resolution, and theme. Let's look at each.

  Character Determines What Constitutes a Conflict

  Different people—both real-life and fictional—consider different things to be a conflict. I know a man who can make a crisis out of anything: a passing remark, lost keys, a slight fall in the stock market. All of it portends doom and leads to endless confrontations, decisions, drama. I also know another man who is so calm by temperament that for him, nothing less than a death in the family would be considered a crisis. And even that wouldn't be a conflict, but only a grief.

  What constitutes a conflict for your character should grow out of what he values, what he struggles for, what matters to him individually. For some characters, leaving home (physically, emotionally) is an immense struggle. Others just pack and go.

  What is giving your character problems? To answer, you must know who he really is.

  Character Determines How Your Protagonist Copes With the Conflict Once He Has It

  The list of ways human beings meet conflict is endless. It includes:

  • denial that there is a • becoming ill with stress problem • relying on hope

  • rational problem-solving • creating art

  How does your protagonist react to the conflict you've given him? The answer will depend on his individual character. And his reactions will in turn determine plot incidents.

  Character Affects, if Not Determines, the Conflict Resolution

  Sometimes the resolution, admittedly, is beyond your character's control. Frederick Henry in Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms could not control the fact that Catherine dies in childbirth. Francis Urquhart could not control the fact that he is brought down as Prime Minister of England in Michael Dobbs's novel To Play the King (although not in the television version).

  In other books, however, the protagonist does resolve the conflict by summoning from within himself aspects of character that he himself may not have known he possessed. Jane Eyre, to take a classic example, refuses to marry Mr. Rochester for reasons of morality (he has a wife living) and self-respect (she will not live with him as less than his equal). This paves the way for Mr. Rochester to become a grieving recluse, who is alone with his mad wife when she sets the mansion afire. He, because of aspects of his character, tries to save her life, and in the process she jumps from the roof and he is blinded. This clears the stage for Jane to return to him. Had she not left in the first place, the book's resolution would have been much different.

  Or, consider a more contemporary example: John Grisham's best-selling The Firm. Mitch McDeere, the protagonist, is not responsible for the fact that he is in life-and-death conflict with the Mob, the FBI and his employers. They have created this situation. But Mitch resolves it by outwitting all three antagonists. He does this by exercising certain aspects of his character: intelligence, daring, ambition and a certain disregard for the law—despite being a lawyer himself.

  What aspects of your protagonist's character will affect how the conflict ultimately is resolved?

  Character Decides How the Protagonist Feels About the Conflict Resolution

  This is actually your story's theme, and so will be more fully discussed in chapter twenty-four. For now, let's look at just a brief, hypothetical example: Two novels are written about a woman's struggle to find love. In both books, she doesn't find it. In the first novel, she ends up defeated and bitter. In the other, she discovers that she is strong enough to stand alone, and even enjoy it. The resolutions are identical, but how the protagonist feels about each resolution is not. This means that the first book conveys the message ''Love is destructive.'' The second conveys ''Losing something can show a person positive paths.''

  How does your character feel about the plot resolution—based on her individual personality? What does that say about the worldview implied by the book as a whole?

  So we're agreed: Character affects plot at several critical places. But how do you actually construct all this? How do you first choose a protagonist? After that, how do you weave conflict and character together? Where do you start?

  Anywhere you can.

  GETTING TO CHARACTER FROM ANYWHERE ELSE AT ALL

  Let's say you have an interesting idea for a story. Or a setting. Or a character. Or maybe just an intense image. Ursula K. Le Guin began The Left Hand of Darkness with no more than that. So did William Faulkner, with The Sound and the Fury. Le Guin's image was two figures hauling a sledge across a remote sheet of ice. Faulkner's was a little girl with muddy underpants up in a pear tree.

  But now what? How to go from image—or character or setting or idea—to an actual story?

  The first step is to turn whatever you have into a character. Fiction (like life) happens to people. So you need questions to ask yourself that will give you a vivid character with many fictional possibilities.

  If you're starting from a setting (for more on starting with setting, go back and reread chapter three), ask yourself:

  • Who lives here?

  • What does she want?

  • Why does she want it?

  • How hard is this goal to reach? (It should be hard. It may be impossible. The setting should contribute to its difficulties.)

  • Who else lives here that might affect the protagonist's pursuit of her goal?

  If you're starting from an idea (for instance, ''I want to write a book about the effect of AIDS on a family,'' or, ''I want to write a novel about a terrorist attack on the White House,'' or, ''I want to write a romance about two people working for opposite sides on an oil-spill dispute''), ask yourself:

  • Who will be affected by this idea? Make a list.

  • Of the people on the list, which ones will be hurt the most? (These people, or their direct advocates, make good protagonists. They have the most at stake.)

  • Why is this protagonist involved? What does he want?

  • What can go wrong with this idea? (Remember, fiction is about things going wrong.)

  • How does this character react to things going wrong with his plans?

  If you're starting from an image, ask yourself:

  • Is it an image of a person? If so, who is this person? What is she doing? Why? What is she trying to accomplish? What are her emotions at this particular moment? Why?

  • If there's no person in the image (a deserted Aztec pyramid, a jeweled music box that plays a lost Mozart song), who can you put there? Who is interested in this image? Why? What does she want? What is she trying to accomplish? Why?

  If you're starting with a character, so much the better. Now ask yourself who this person really is. Use the dossier in chapter fifteen to focus your thinking, if you wish. In fact, no matter where you start, the dossier can be of use in pointing your character creation in directions that may not have occurred to you.

  So now you have a character. On to the next step.

  GETTING TO PLOT FROM CHARACTER

  Probably some plot elements have already occurred to you at this point; it's hard to picture a character in a total vacuum. Most likely he's doing something. But it's possible the plot is still rudimentary, fragmented or unsatisfactory. Now what?

  You need something to further direct and focus your thinking. One way is to go to the source: the wellsprings of human behavior. Concentrate on those universal drives that power all of our actions, in all times and all cultures. Here lie rich motherlodes of fictional gold.

  Let's illustrate how you can mine them using two of the strongest human emotions: fear and love. Psychologists tell us that these drives directly or indirectly motivate much behavior. They can also motivate your story by weaving together character and plot.

  FEAR: THE BOGEYMAN WILL GET YOU

  Human infants come with a few fears built in: fear of falling, fear of very loud noises. During the first year of life, the number of fears grows: fear of separation from Mommy, fear of strangers, fear of dogs or vacuum cleaners or elevators or lightning or dozens of othe
r possibilities. Babies differ (a few aren't afraid of anything, which makes their parents afraid). In coming years, children will add fear of failure, fear of ''looking dumb,'' fear of being different, fear of not being unique, fear of being unlovable, fear of death.

  Over time, rather than face fear directly, the mind will also learn to fear symbols of its real anxieties. Thus, by the time we're adults, we're capable of fearing almost anything, for buried and twisted reasons of self-protection. And I mean anything. There are people who are morbidly afraid of spiders, or thunderstorms, or driving a car, or leaving their house, or comets or forks or asphyxiating constriction by their own underwear (really).

  What does all this have to do with plot?

  Knowing what your characters fear is a wonderful way to generate plot ideas and story resolutions. Think about two things: what your character fears, and how that fear is likely to make her react. You do this on not one but two levels: the immediate situation and her subconscious terrors. The latter drives the former.

  This is getting complicated. Let's clarify it with some examples.

  FEAR AND REACTION IN THE MATERNITY WARD

  Suppose you are writing a story about a couple searching for a name for their new baby. This doesn't sound like a very dramatic or fearful situation—certainly not the equivalent of, say, a detective faced with a serial killer. Yet even in the quiet of a hospital maternity ward, fear can help you understand your characters and develop your plot.

  What is the wife afraid of, deep down? Perhaps she's the kind of person who has always been afraid of being abandoned. She reacts to this fear, which she doesn't even know she has, by constantly trying to please other people. Do you know anybody like this? I certainly do. They're accommodating to the point of being doormats. People take advantage of them all the time. They just cling harder.

  How is this likely to make her react to the search for baby's name? On the surface, such people react by saying, ''Oh, I don't care. You choose.'' But perhaps the new mother is clinging to more than one person (this is common). She doesn't want to displease any of them. And her father wants his grandson to carry his name, since he has no sons to bear it. His only son was killed during Desert Storm.