by Unknown
Finally, knowing what your character wants (and focusing on it) goes a long way to keeping your story character-driven instead of event-driven. I like stories where things happen—in fact, I vastly prefer action over characters who sit around contemplating the meaning of the universe—but fiction that resonates with readers is about people first. Action is the best way to reveal character, but if the cool "stuff" that happens in your story is the main focus, you are not going to connect with nearly as many readers as you will if the people are the heart of your work.
Part of the reason I’m bringing this up now is that I’ve read a slew of stories lately (everything from novels to short stories) where the author starts with a bit of a mystery or a bit of action (or even a lot of action), but the minute the action or the mystery eases up, my interest in the story dwindles, frequently to next-to-nothing. Even when the writing is professional-level, the voice resonates, the setting is interesting, and the characters are rich and alive, when it hits me that there’s nothing that the main character really wants, I lose interest. The character has no goal, no objective, no unmet need. They simply got swept up in events around them; nothing more.
Even if the situation that the writer puts the character in remains hazardous, I can only stay interested in a leaf that’s blowing in the wind but for so long. That leaf might be blowing inside a hurricane or a tornado, but it’s still an inert object. And inert is just another word for lifeless.
There’s a saying: "Where there is life, there is hope," and that saying applies to this situation in many ways. The bottom line, however, is this: If you want editors to buy your stories, make sure there is life. And you accomplish that by making sure your characters—protagonists and antagonists alike—want something.
Even if it’s just a glass of water.
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A.J. Hartley
Great point, Ed. As Stuart will, I’m sure, agree (as my fellow MW writer with a foot in the theatre) this is one of those notes which overlaps literary and performance arts. Stanislavski is great on this for actors: characters always want something, large scale "super objectives" and moment to moment wants (which might conceal less conscious "needs": the stuff of the much ridiculed but essential "motivation" which is the core of how good actors function on stage and screen. Just as crucial to writing as well.
Carrie Ryan
Excellent post and something that's always great to be reminded of! Recently I was listening to a lecture on craft where they distinguished between what the MC thinks s/he wants and what s/he really wants/ needs. Their idea was that you should give the character what he most wants in the beginning of the book and force them to face the "oh, now what?" because they then face the real possibility that they were wrong about what they wanted or needed.
Of course, I'm also someone who rarely figures out what the characters want or need until the end of the first draft (if then) so that's always a big part of my revising.
Befriending Your Characters
David B. Coe
How do we make our characters work? What is the secret to creating believable, compelling characters who will capture our readers’ hearts and make our stories more than a set of plot points? I’m of the opinion that good characters are the single most important element of effective storytelling. There’s nothing earth-shattering about this; lots of people would agree with that. But while most of us might agree on the things that make for good characters, we would probably have a harder time explaining how one goes about creating them. How do you teach character development?
I’ve written before about the background work I do on my major characters. I try to establish a history for each of them, much as I would for a world I create: upbringing, family life, major events from childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood (assuming the character is an adult). I gather as much detail as I can on the circumstances of his/her current life: profession, friendships, romantic relationships, etc. And I establish personality traits: easygoing or prickly, even tempered or moody, social adept or awkward, gregarious or a loner; confident or insecure.
Naturally, the choices are not always as clear-cut as that list implies; there are gradations. But you get the idea. I do everything I can to get to know my characters so that when I start writing about them or narrating from their point of view, I can get the voice right and make each character something more than a list of attributes. Ideally, I want my characters to come alive, to begin to carry the story and even change the story to fit his/her needs.
But there is more to character than developing this portrait and then animating it in prose. I believe that ultimately the creation and development of an effective character is an act of empathy. I begin by gauging what my own emotional responses would be to the situations I throw at my characters, and drawing on my own emotional experiences, the good and the bad. We all carry this stuff within us. At one point or another in our lives we’ve felt a tremendous range of emotions. When I was a younger man, I was prone to terrible bouts of jealousy—not admirable, and not conducive to healthy relationships. But though I’ve learned to tame my inner green-eyed beast, I haven’t forgotten what it felt like. And thank goodness! I can write jealousy quite well now, thank you very much.
Many years back, I lost both of my parents within a year of each other. It was a difficult time but one that made me a stronger person, and that has given me insights into emotional pain that have served me well in the years since.
So we draw upon our own emotional responses, and impart them to our characters. But first we also have to blend those personal emotional responses with our understanding of the character herself. We all respond to things differently depending on our temperament, our experiences, our upbringing, our moods at a given time, etc.—all that stuff we learned about our characters when doing that background work. Good character work takes all of these things into account.
Let me put this another way. In my mind, my characters are real people. They have distinct voices. They have needs and desires and impulses. I write them, but I don’t control them. They surprise me all the time, doing things as I write about them that I don’t expect, sometimes taking my stories places I didn’t foresee. Now, you can argue that they are part of my subconscious and that on some level I AM controlling them. But that’s not how it feels. When my creative juices are flowing, they feel like independent beings and I listen to them and give them consideration the way I would my real world friends.
And that’s what it comes down to. When we deal with our friends, we don’t deal with them in exactly the way we would want to be dealt with ourselves because we understand that each friend is different. We try to put ourselves in their shoes, to see the world from their perspective, so that we can help them with a problem or share their outrage or their joy or their excitement. That’s where the empathy comes in, and that’s what we all need to learn to do with our characters.
I have lots of insecurities, but there are a few things I feel confident about. I believe that I’m a good husband, a good father, and a good friend. I listen well, and I’m good at anticipating the emotional needs of the people I love. I also write good characters. There are other things that writers do better than I do, but I feel that my character work is pretty strong. And I believe that the things that make me a good dad and husband and friend are the same things that make me a good writer. I listen to my characters. I step out of myself and into their minds and hearts, and I feel what they feel.
Befriend your characters; treat them as you would the people in your life who mean the most to you. It will make you a better writer. And—this has certainly been the case for me—it might also make you a better friend.
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Chris Branch
David, the trap I’ve fallen into is to empathize with characters so much that they’re often too nice to each other. Because when I’m in the head of each character—even the bad guys—I try to think "How would I behave here?" But sometimes you need your character to be rude and nas
ty, and the problem I have is: in my mind there’s never any excuse to act this way—regardless of your childhood, current circumstances, strongly held beliefs, whatever. So let’s just say I have a lot of trouble justifying the behavior of the antagonists!
David B. Coe
Chris, what a great comment. I know exactly what you mean, and have the same problem, though it’s most troublesome for me with my good guys who have prickly personalities. They do and say things I would never think of doing or saying myself. But when I’m writing them I have to turn off my own filters and speak with their voices. Very hard to do. And yes, it can be just as hard with my "bad guys." Again, great comment.
I Know Who That Is!
Misty Massey
Last Friday morning, I had the delightful pleasure of being interviewed via webcam by the Dutch Fork High School "Beyond the Best Sellers" class. I was nervous—I’d never been interviewed that way before! When the connection went through, several of the students growled "Arrrrr!" in their most terrifying piratical fashion, and suddenly I was at ease. They asked me interesting questions about writing, about pirates and about my characters. There was one question that stuck with me. It wasn’t all that unusual of a question, but it stayed with me for days. The student asked me, "Where did you come up with the character of Philip McAvery?"
For those of you who have not read Mad Kestrel (and why not? It’s available in all sorts of places, so run on out and buy a copy. I’ll wait.) McAvery is a good-looking rogue who could be Kestrel’s dream man or her worst nightmare. Maybe both. People are always assuming I based him on my own husband. Part of the confusion lies in the names—McAvery is my husband’s faire name, which he came up with for a gaming character long ago. I used it in the book because I liked it. And yes, my husband is nice-looking and a pin-wearing, card-carrying rogue. But the character of McAvery is very different from my husband. Philip’s a little bit my husband, a little bit of that old gaming character and a little bit someone else entirely. When you see him on the page, he’s his own person.
But it doesn’t just happen with McAvery. I’ve had friends insist they know who Shadd really is, or Olympia, or even Kestrel. The thing is, they’re right, after a fashion. Just not in the way they think.
It’s hard to write a compelling novel without characters who come alive for the reader. The characters are our storytellers, our guides through the world of the book. If the reader doesn’t connect somehow with the character, he’ll never care about the story. So writers have to create characters who live and breathe and suffer and rejoice just like real people. It’s not enough to give them different colors of hair and eyes, or to let one like country music while another prefers Beethoven. It’s the little things that make us unique. Small characteristics that you probably don’t always notice are the best.
But if you don’t always notice them, how are you supposed to figure out what traits to write in?
The easiest way to do this, of course, is to watch real people. Try to do this when they don’t know you’re watching. Look around at a meeting sometime. One man is bouncing his leg so hard he could tip his chair over. Another seems to be listening intently, but if you look closer, his eyes are far away and he hasn’t blinked in five minutes. A woman at the end of the table is humming so quietly that you can hardly hear it. She may not know she’s doing it. Heck, I have a tic myself. When I’m nervous or stressed, I’ll start tearing at the skin of my fingers, and unless someone brings it to my attention, I won’t stop until I draw blood. These are all tiny, insignificant behaviors, yet adding them to your writing will grant your characters a layer of texture you wouldn’t have had before. They’re the things that make a character an individual.
I’ve heard of some writers hanging out in malls, sitting in the food courts with a notebook and a pen, making notes all day about the behaviors they see. I’d be afraid of someone deciding I was a stalker, but if you like this method, go for it. I tend to draw from people around me. I’m lucky enough to work in a place with lots of people around. One person I know always walks with her head down, as if she’s charging through the crowd like a bulldozer. She’s perfectly friendly at all other times, so this is odd. Another friend always blushes during ordinary conversations with me. Yet another person lifts her chin and closes her eyes when she’s talking, only opening her eyes again when she finishes what she is saying. And of course there are two people I know with hazel eyes that change color with their moods, clothing, and location. It’s a perfectly natural phe-nomenon, but I lifted that for the character of McAvery because it has always enchanted me.
So okay, sure, maybe you do know who my inspiration for McAvery was, because of how he looks. Maybe you know me well enough to think you’ve figured out all the characters. But remember that I also took traits from other people to make each one his own person. There may be a little of you in there, too, something small you did when you didn’t think I was paying attention. Be careful when you’re in the company of writers, because you never know when we’ll be writing you into our next novel.
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David B. Coe
I’ve always found that the characters I write from scratch (as opposed to those who I base on people I know) are the ones who come out best. Maybe it’s because when I base a character on someone I wind up limiting my creativity and preventing that character from becoming his or her own person. That said, you’re totally right: basing a character on someone is one way to go, though I rarely do it myself, drawing on the quirks, habits, mannerisms, etc. of people we encounter can be enormously helpful in making each character we create unique and recognizable.
Creating Characters in Small Spaces
Stuart Jaffe
So, there I was, hard at work on my WIP, barreling down the final stretch, feeling the light at the end warming my skin, when all of a sudden my team of heroes comes up against the Big Bad. The Big Bad has been talked about throughout the whole book. We’ve heard about him from other characters and seen the devastating results of his handiwork. We’ve come to know him as the dark specter lurking in the shadows waiting to strike.
But now we actually meet him. For the first time. As a writer, I had to create a full, three-dimensional character with very little space left in the book. The big question: how?
For the answer, I turned to my training as a short story writer. In short stories, you face this question with every character. From the beginning to the end, you have limited space and must learn to convey large amounts of information as concisely as possible. The tools at your disposal are the same as that of the novel writer—description, dialogue, action, thoughts, etc. The only real difference is the space allotted.
Below is the opening page of my short story "A Final Battle" (from the Rum and Runestones anthology), in which I must create the two main characters and establish the world in less than 200 words:
George Worthington groaned as he clambered back to his feet, his ears ringing with the echoes of cannon fire. Remnants of the battle covered the ocean in a milky fog and the familiar tang of gunpowder filled the air. A blood splotch near the staysails marked where Captain Taggart fell—his body had been removed to his cabin. Straightening his red waistcoat, the short, stout Worthington headed toward the foredeck.
Butler rushed up beside him and said, "Sir, sir, they’ve run. They’re gone."
"Of course they’re gone, Mr. Butler. They’re lucky if they don’t sink by sundown."
"Aye, sir," Butler said, moving back and forth on his feet like a child that has to pee. "Um, a question, sir."
Worthington ignored the man and stared at the fog. Their enemy, His Majesty’s frigate Osprey, had not suffered serious damage and would not be sinking anytime soon—it just left. Why? They had killed Captain Taggart. They had blasted an enormous hole in the Annabelle’s side—a little lower and the brigantine would have sunk. Why leave with victory so close?
Now, let’s go through it again, this time with notes:
George Worthingt
on groaned as he clambered back to his feet, his ears ringing with the echoes of cannon fire. Remnants of the battle covered the ocean in a milky fog and the familiar tang of gunpowder filled the air. A blood splotch near the staysails marked where Captain Taggart fell—his body had been removed to his cabin. Straightening his red waistcoat, the short, stout Worthington headed toward the foredeck. This paragraph clues us into the world (one of cannon fire, staysails, and foredecks) and two crucial events (a battle has just ended and the Captain is dead). We also learn the name of our main character and get a bit of description—short, stout. But the key item is "Straightening his red waistcoat". While the cannon fire is still echoing, Worthington is not running around screaming orders or hiding or anything big—he’s making sure he looks proper. The reader may not consciously pick up on that, but she will visualize the moment and in doing so, she starts to see Worthington. That’s how to use an action to create a character.
Butler rushed up beside him and said, "Sir, sir, they’ve run. They’re gone." Butler, the other major character, is introduced in contrast. Contrasting characters gives us information about both at the same time—two for one! By having Butler rush up, it underscores the previous waistcoat bit showing both Butler’s panic and Worthington’s calm. Next, I use dialogue to further both characters. Butler speaks in unsure and stumbling ways ("Sir, Sir" or later "Um") while Worthington is very proper and confident.
"Of course they’re gone, Mr. Butler. They’re lucky if they don’t sink by sundown."