Dynamic Characters- How to create personalities that keep readers captivated

by Nancy Kress

  If your people are questing for a place, consider:

  • Why do they want to go there? (Again, the inseparability of character and plot.)

  • What obstacles stand in their way?

  • Will you let them get there?

  • What will they find when they do? What will it mean to them by then? How will they cope?

  • Do they stay, or go home again (the City Mouse/Country Mouse plot)?

  Finally, characters can be questing for something intangible: a piece of knowledge, the answer to a question that consumes them. (What question? Your answer will be a strong part of their characterization.) Diogenes searched the world for an honest man. Larry Darrell, in W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, covered much of that same world looking for mystical enlightenment. The scientist heroes of Gregory Benford's Timescape devoted all their dwindling resources to the search for a method to send a message into the past. The hero of Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote de la Mancha was on a quest, however misguided, for the good and the true and the beautiful, which he planned to defend as needed.

  It's not always easy to make a search for abstract knowledge dramatically vivid. But it's certainly possible, as the above novels attest. If you try, keep in mind:

  • Why does the character want this knowledge? What's really at stake here?

  • What price will he have to pay for it? (Without a price, there's not usually much story). Is the price worth it?

  • What does he plan to do with it when he gets it?

  • What's the actual effect on himself of his getting it? On everybody else in the story?

  CLASSIC PLOT NUMBER THREE—THE COMPETITION PLOT: HARRY vs. THE OTHER GUY

  Quest plots can be competitive, but they don't have to be. Only one Ahab is out there looking for Moby Dick; only one group of scientists are looking for the answer to tachyons. But in the competition plot, rivalry is the whole point. Two sides compete for the same goal. It's a fight, and may the best man win.

  The competition may be over a lover (many romance novels), or a sports championship (Chariots of Fire), or control of English monasteries (Jean Anouilh's Becket), or control of the entire globe (World War II novels). It may even be competition between two ways of life, as Conrad Richter portrayed so poignantly in The Sea of Grass: the free range vs. the coming of towns and agriculture.

  Sometimes, as in Becket, the two protagonists are pretty evenly matched. Both Henry, King of England, and Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, are men of power, wealth and influence. Henry has barons on his side; Thomas has God. Who subdues whom in the end is an interesting point—and makes for an exciting rivalry. So does the rivalry between The Sea of Grass's Jim Brewton, raw free-range rancher, and Brice Chamberlain, ''civilized'' and sophisticated lawyer. They vie both for control of the western frontier and for Lutie Brewton, Jim's wife. The outcome carries symbolic gains and losses.

  Sometimes, however, rivals are not evenly matched. This variation is the underdog plot, and it immediately enlists our sympathy on the side of the character fighting with fewer resources. David was no match for Goliath. Nor were the mental patients in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for the sadistic Nurse Ratched. Yet both David and at least one of Kesey's underdogs triumph.

  Does your story idea lend itself to a competition plot? Ask yourself:

  • What is the prize here? (It should be clearly defined.)

  • Who are the rivals? Why does each one want this? (It's interesting if they have different reasons. King Henry, for instance, wants control of the monasteries because he is outraged at the thought of an English entity not under his command. Becket wants control of them for the glory of God.)

  • How far will each go to win? (This question should generate all sorts of plot incidents.)

  • Who will win? At what cost?

  • How will you make the other rival end up?

  A competition plot does not have to involve violent control of entire countries. Romantic rivalry, to name just one example, can scaffold a plot without a single drop of blood being shed. Will Elinor Dash-wood get Edward Ferrars, or will Lucy Steele (Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)? All the above questions still apply: nature of the prize, motives for wanting it, extent of stratagems, winner and loser, costs paid.

  A modern variation of the competition plot is the courtroom drama, in which the rivals are represented by professional champions (lawyers). Here, too, is something at stake (usually a murder conviction), stratagems and reversals, struggles and surprises, and of course a winner and a loser. Both Scott Turow and Jane Austen knew that readers can get very involved in fictional rivalries. In very different ways, they made the competition plot work for them. So can you.

  CLASSIC PLOT NUMBER FOUR-THE ROMANCE PLOT: HARRY IN LOVE

  Not all romance plots, of course, are competition plots. All, however, must have some kind of obstacles set between the lovers. The range of these is limited only by your imagination. Writers have used all these as obstacles:

  • parental disapproval (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)

  • a pre-existing engagement (Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility)

  • a pre-existing marriage (Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome)

  • class differences (Willa Cather, My Antonia)

  • disagreements about having children (Avery Corman, Fifty)

  • indifference on the part of one party (W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage)

  • too-similar natures (Georgette Heyer, Bath Tangle)

  • too-dissimilar natures (Philip Roth, Goodbye, Columbus)

  • strange personal scruples (Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure)

  • war (Elswyth Thane, Yankee Stranger)

  • revolution (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)

  • murder (Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn)

  • disease (Erich Segal, Love Story)

  • abduction by pirates (Anya Seton, Avalon)

  • abduction by Bolsheviks (Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago)

  • abduction by space aliens (Catherine Asaro, Catch the Lightning)

  You name it, it's been used as an obstacle to a love affair—which doesn't mean it can't be used again, by you, for your characters.

  In fact, you'd better have some obstacle to divide the lovers, because without it you don't have a story. They'll just get together, and that's that. Obstacles are one requirement of the romance plot.

  A happy ending is not. Some of the lovers in the above novels end up together, some do not. Some start together, seemingly without obstacles early in the book, and then break apart as the obstacles manifest themselves (Brenda and Neil, for example, in Goodbye, Columbus). Some end up together but would be better off if they hadn't (Ethan and Mattie in Ethan Frome). The romance plot, more flexible than some commercial publishing lines would seem to indicate, can end up wherever you wish. It doesn't have to be happy, or sentimental, or sweet.

  It doesn't even have to include a man and a woman. Any fiction which features as its main storyline two people strongly bound together by love, against obstacles, is a romance plot. Kramer Versus Kramer (Avery Corman) is a romance plot about Ted and his son Billy, who learn to genuinely love each other only when Ted's wife walks out on them both. The obstacle comes when she returns and wants Billy back—but not Ted.

  Evelyn Waugh's bitter and brilliant novel Brideshead Revisited is a sort of double romance. Charles Ryder falls in love with Sebastian Flyte; the obstacle is Sebastian's erratic, alcoholic nature. Years later, Charles falls in love with Sebastian's sister, Julia. This time the obstacle is Julia's deeply ingrained Catholicism. She has already married once, and cannot bring herself to the excommunication a second marriage would entail.

  Using the romance plot for your characters means knowing the answers to these questions:

  • Who are the lovers?

  • What obstacle is keeping them apart?

  • Do they overcome it? If so, how? If not, why not?

  • How do they end
up?

  These simple questions make the romance plot sound as if it were the easiest archetypal plot to write. In fact, it's the hardest—precisely because the questions are so simple. To keep the romance plot from being banal, or cliched, or melodramatic, you must create characters that are more believable and interesting than you need for, say, the average action thriller. An exotic setting or snappy dialogue will not save a romance plot with boring characters. These people's emotions are your plot, and they must be absorbing enough to carry it pretty much by themselves.

  If you can do that—try a romance plot.

  CLASSIC PLOT NUMBER FIVE—THE SACRIFICE PLOT: HARRY GIVES UNTIL IT HURTS

  Related to the romance plot, but not identical to it by any means, is the sacrifice plot. In this archetypal plot, the protagonist is motivated to give up something of great value for the sake of others.

  The motivation may be love of another person. Sydney Carton, in Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, dies in order to save Charles Darnay, beloved of Carton's beloved, Lucie Manette. Carton goes to the guillotine uttering the famous anthem of the sacrifice plot: ''It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.'' There wasn't a dry eye in Victorian England.

  Other motivations besides love are possible for the sacrifice plot. Norma Rae, in the Sally Field movie of the same name, sacrifices comfort and safety to get the textile mill where she works unionized. Her motivations are better working conditions for herself and others, a sense of fairness and justice, and a personal stubborn cantankerous-ness, in about equal proportions. The mixture makes her interesting and saves the movie from preachy saintliness, which is a major pitfall of the sacrifice plot. You want to move readers, not preach at them.

  Human nature being what it is, there's a dystopian version of the sacrifice plot. In this version, a character makes a major sacrifice— sometimes even death—and it makes no difference. Things go on just as before. The child named Father Time, in Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, makes his shocking sacrifice to lessen the burdens on his parents—which instead are only increased. This may be the ultimate depressing plot.

  Depressing or uplifting, sacrifice plots need these answers:

  • Who will make the sacrifice? Of what?

  • Why is she doing it?

  • What is gained for the other characters? Is it a real gain?

  • How will the sacrificer be remembered by the others—or won't she be?

  • How would you like your readers to regard this sacrifice—as a noble act? A simple requirement of being human? A waste? (We are definitely into theme here. See the next chapter.)

  CLASSIC PLOT NUMBER SIX—THE REVENGE PLOT: SOMEONE DONE HARRY WRONG

  The revenge plot has two parts. First you show the character being dumped on. Then you show him getting even. There is something very satisfying (if forbidden) in the whole idea of revenge, so this plot is a perennial favorite.

  Stephen King's Carrie, his first novel, is a spectacular revenge plot. So is Shakespeare's Hamlet. Prince Hamlet is shown by the ghost that he has a grievance: His uncle killed the king, thereby depriving Hamlet of both his father and his rightful kingship. Hamlet then spends five acts brooding on the situation and trying to trap the uncle into admitting guilt, until finally Hamlet just goes for revenge and the stage is awash in blood.

  Sometimes the revenge plot ends more happily. Alfred Bester's classic science fiction novel The Stars My Destination gives us Gully Foyle, abandoned and left to die in space by the passing ship Vorga. Gully rescues himself and then makes it his life's business to become rich and powerful enough to bring ruin upon the owners of the Vorga. Except that when he's finally in a position to do that, he no longer wants to. As he transformed himself for revenge, revenge became a less worthy goal, even to him. The stage does not end awash in blood.

  However you conclude your revenge plot, here are the elements you must build into it:

  • Who gets dumped on? How? Why? The more dramatic this is— while still being plausible—the more we'll be rooting for your character to even the score. Nearly the entire length of Carrie is taken up by detailed descriptions of the cruel pranks played by

  her classmates on Carrie White, the dumpy girl with the unsuspected powers of telekinesis.

  • What does he decide to do to get even? How does he set up his revenge? Show us; don't just tell us.

  • Does he go through with it?

  • At what cost? Whether or not the revenge is gone through with, there must be a cost. Hamlet pays with his life. So does Carrie. Gully Foyle pays with the increased vulnerability of his world to the forces he's loosed upon it.

  • How do both revenger and target end up? Is the possibility still open for another round, even if only by implication?

  An inverse variation on the revenge plot is the atonement plot. In this, the protagonist is the one who does the dumping on someone else, causing considerable harm. He then spends the rest of the novel trying to make up for that harm. Examples include Anne Tyler's Saint Maybe, in which Ian Bedloe believes he caused his brother's death and so devotes his life to raising his brother's children. Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim is also an atonement novel. For his one moment of cowardice, the protagonist pays with the rest of his life.

  The elements of the atonement novel are the same as for the revenge novel: dumper, dumpee, plan to even the score, carrying out of the plan, personal costs and general results. The difference is that in the atonement story, you show us redemptive action from the point of view of the sinner, rather than punitive action from the point of view of the sinned against.

  CLASSIC PLOT NUMBER SEVEN-THE TRANSFORMATION PLOT: HARRY CHANGES INSIDE

  The transformation plot is what we dissected at such length in chapters twenty and twenty-one. A character encounters some heavy weather in his life, and as a result he changes.

  Each of the previous six plot categories can feature character change. But it's not a requirement. Harry can conclude his chase, complete his quest, win his competition, lose the love of his life, make his sacrifice or take his revenge without being any different at the end of the book than he was at the beginning. The butcher's boy, Sir Galahad, Jim Brewton, Romeo, Norma Rae and Dirty Harry don't change during their respective stories.

  In the transformation plot, on the other hand, internal change is the whole point of the fiction. It is the story. If you need to refresh your memory on how, when and with whom to construct this type of plot, reread chapters twenty and twenty-one.

  CLASSIC PLOT NUMBER EIGHT-THE RISE-AND-FALL PLOT: HARRY GETS AN ENTIRE LIFE

  The rise-and-fall plot is a large-scale plot, covering years (or even decades). Its basic outline is this: A character starts life near the bottom of whatever social heap you're considering. Through talent, corruption, betrayal, ruthlessness and/or sheer determination, he rises far in his world. But eventually his past sins and/or attitudes catch up with him. They bring about either a spectacular downfall or a spiritual emptiness that haunts his superficial success.

  The rise-and-fall plot includes the Aristotelian tragedy, in which the protagonist is felled by a fatal flaw in an otherwise sympathetic character. It also includes the completely nonsympathetic protagonist who is a heel from the opening scene—but a crafty heel. The main point about the plot is that it has the shape of a long arc: rising trajectory, apex, falling trajectory. The shape itself has a satisfying symmetry for readers.

  Within that basic shape, the variations of actual character, tone and events are legion. A sampler:

  • Elmer Gantry (Sinclair Lewis), in which Gantry rises to become a successful preacher, based both on hypocritical oratory and an intense attractiveness to women. The latter brings about his fall.

  • Richard III (Shakespeare), about a king who schemes and murders his way to the throne, and ends up murdered himself by a rival backed by Richard's more outraged subjects.

  • The House of Mirth (Edit
h Wharton), concerned with the nineteenth-century social rise of Lily Bart, who starts out a penniless orphan. The fickle venality of Lily's world, plus certain aspects of her own character, bring about her fall; she descends into poverty and dies in a charity ward.

  • The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje), an elliptically told version of the rise-and-fall plot. Throughout the 1930s, Count Almasy is a successful, respected explorer of the Libyan desert, living with great contentment the hard and solitary life he has fashioned for himself. When he falls in love with a married woman, he rises to heights of passion and intensity he never suspected existed. Then, as his beloved desert falls into the horror and chaos of World War II's African campaign, Almasy's life, too, declines into despair, then treason, then death and disfigurement.

  It would be hard to imagine four more different characters than Elmer Gantry, Richard Lackland, Lily Bart and Count Almasy. Nor are the specific events of their books the same. But all share that same curving trajectory to their fascinating lives. If that plot shape sparks your imagination, some things to consider are:

  • Do you want to cover a hefty chunk of time? Rise-and-fall plots don't occur in just a few weeks. You will, at least in flashback, be dealing with years (even decades).

  • Can you set your trajectory against a larger social background? All of the above rise-and-fall stories do this (using, respectively, nineteenth-century religious fervor, the demise of the Plantagenet dynasty, ''old New York'' upper-crust elitism and World War II). Weaving your plot from historical circumstances gives it scope, interest and significance. The arc of your character's personal life becomes a comment on the world around him.

  • Where will your character start out? Usually this is somewhere near the bottom (illegitimate poverty, backroom local politics). However, it may be only at the start of his career (Almasy), or at a place that looks privileged to the rest of us but inadequate and demeaning to the character (Richard, after all, was born son to a king). Wherever he starts, depict it for us vividly, either chronologically or in flashback. We need dramatization of his beginnings in order to fully appreciate how far he's come.