Oh goodness, it looks like the CS got another letter from a reader this morning... and no, for a change, this one doesn't need any kind of scathing retort. You can all relax, I promise.
This email came in from a friend of mine who is in the process of writing her first pieces of fiction. She seems to be under the impression that I have at least some minor experience on the subject, why I'm not exactly sure, and wanted to know if I had any advice on creating realistic characters.
Well Ms. Shannon, all I can tell you is what I know works for me. You could walk out of your door right now, visit any library, community college, university, or workshop and find ten thousand different and all very valid ways to create characters. I can even just about promise you that my other friends who are writers and read this blog will probably have their own opinions on what works best as well because it is a process that is works differently for different people.
But, since you asked, here's my guide to creating characters. God help you.
First of all, you need to decide if this character is actually integral to the story or just window dressing. In other words, does this character do anything to move the story along or are they simply 'random guy pumping gas?' (A trick that a lot of mystery writers use that I really like is to make 'random guy pumping gas' actually an integral part of the story in later chapters. But that's a little more advanced story construction than what we're discussing right now.) If the character is just window dressing to flesh out a scene, you obviously don't need to do much with them other than a mention and brief descriptions. How much detail you use is up to you. Some writers, like me, tend to paint very detailed pictures for their readers. Others tend to let you fill in the blanks yourself. It's all your choice. Personally, if the random guy is sweaty and nervous, I'm probably going to make you almost smell the stink.
I'm guessing by your question, however, that you want help creating major characters. Okay, so here's my way to do this. First, I get an idea of a scene from whatever source of inspiration happens to hit me. (I covered this in a bit more detail in a previous post entitled 'Why?' if you want some more information and examples.) Then, as I develop the scene, I start to get a sense of the character from a physical standpoint. Bascially, what do they look like? It's going to sound a little confusing but as I start to see their actions I try to picture what they look like doing them. For example, say you picture a person walking down the street. Pretend you're standing across the street watching them. What do you see? I will admit that most of my male characters start out as big guys, since that's what I am, and then morph into themselves as time goes on. The same can be said for my female characters. They all start out with curly red hair and athletic bodies and then change into something more like them as time goes on. I think a lot of that comes from writing my first book where the two main characters were a tall guy named Nick and a redhead named Dina. Since I have to honestly count those as two of the four most well developed characters I've written in my opinion, I think a lot of the new ones start on that archetype and then change from there.
With all of that said, I have to be really honest and say that physical appearance isn't the biggest thing for me unless someone needs to be attractive or mirror-cracking ugly for the purpose of the character. What matters more to me is who that person is inside. What makes them tick? What are their bad habits and vices? That sort of thing. This is the part that can take a while BUT when you finally get to know your character as a 'living breathing person' the story starts to make a whole lot more sense. Just as an example I spent two weeks 'finishing' a novel that just sucked. Nothing really seemed to flow like it should and I was having a hard time 'buying' the main character. It suddenly occurred to me one night while making a frustration run for ice cream that I wasn't 'listening' to my character and that's what was screwing everything up.
You can stop laughing now. No, I don't need medicated.
What I mean is that I created this character but I didn't let him tell his story. It was my voice instead of his, my interpretations of his actions, etc. Now that I'm rewriting things from his perspective the story issues are evaporating and things are flowing much better.
While I'm thinking about it, don't put too much stock in your character's name to begin with. That part will come on its own. I've literally sat with other writers trying to come up with an interesting name for a character and it's tough. Mine tend to name themselves accidentally. For example the main character in the novel I'm completing now started out named Charles until I was writing a line where his wife yelled at him and the name Malcolm came out. A few pages later, and since the story is written in first person, he introduces himself to the reader as Mack. Go figure, right?
So how do you assemble a person out of thin air? Simple. You steal.
Think of all the people you know. Whether you realize it or not, as even a potential writer you have a Rolodex in your head full of character traits and don't even realize it. I create characters as amalgamations of people I know, stories I've heard, things I've done and said, and anything else I can get hold of. The trick is to blend all of these random pieces into a new character. We'll use my Dina character that I previously mentioned as an example. Here's part of how I put her together: one friend's red hair + another friend's body type + someone else's sexual orientation + someone's oral fixation + another person's artistic flair + a horrific sexual abuse story I heard + a strong streak of smart ass + another person's bad taste in girlfriends + one person's tendency to say 'dude' too much when drunk + a ton of other little stuff borrowed from a lot of other people. Take all those physical and personality traits, blend well, then serve.
After you put all of those pieces together, you're left with the one thing I think so many people underuse as a means of character building: dialogue. Once you can describe someone well, what they say and how they say it are critical to making them realistic. I believe in writing conversations. I want my characters verbally play back and forth. I think the world needs more wit and banter on occasion so I tend to write it in to the worlds I create. I would give you one word of caution: don't be artificial in your dialogue. Try to write the words as you imagine hearing them. Don't fall into letting your characters sound like bad actors trying to dry read Shakespeare.
Yes I know this isn't the funniest or most entertaining thing to read but hopefully this has answered a few of your questions or at least given you an idea or two. My personal opinion is that you can never know your major characters too well. I think you'll find that once you flesh them out fully in your head you won't have to work too hard at creating viable stories for them to play in.
For everyone else, we'll try and get back to the funny and ranting and raving later this week.
With all of that said, I have to be really honest and say that physical appearance isn't the biggest thing for me unless someone needs to be attractive or mirror-cracking ugly for the purpose of the character. What matters more to me is who that person is inside. What makes them tick? What are their bad habits and vices? That sort of thing. This is the part that can take a while BUT when you finally get to know your character as a 'living breathing person' the story starts to make a whole lot more sense. Just as an example I spent two weeks 'finishing' a novel that just sucked. Nothing really seemed to flow like it should and I was having a hard time 'buying' the main character. It suddenly occurred to me one night while making a frustration run for ice cream that I wasn't 'listening' to my character and that's what was screwing everything up.
You can stop laughing now. No, I don't need medicated.
What I mean is that I created this character but I didn't let him tell his story. It was my voice instead of his, my interpretations of his actions, etc. Now that I'm rewriting things from his perspective the story issues are evaporating and things are flowing much better.
While I'm thinking about it, don't put too much stock in your character's name to begin with. That part will come on its own. I've literally sat with other writers trying to come up with an interesting name for a character and it's tough. Mine tend to name themselves accidentally. For example the main character in the novel I'm completing now started out named Charles until I was writing a line where his wife yelled at him and the name Malcolm came out. A few pages later, and since the story is written in first person, he introduces himself to the reader as Mack. Go figure, right?
So how do you assemble a person out of thin air? Simple. You steal.
Think of all the people you know. Whether you realize it or not, as even a potential writer you have a Rolodex in your head full of character traits and don't even realize it. I create characters as amalgamations of people I know, stories I've heard, things I've done and said, and anything else I can get hold of. The trick is to blend all of these random pieces into a new character. We'll use my Dina character that I previously mentioned as an example. Here's part of how I put her together: one friend's red hair + another friend's body type + someone else's sexual orientation + someone's oral fixation + another person's artistic flair + a horrific sexual abuse story I heard + a strong streak of smart ass + another person's bad taste in girlfriends + one person's tendency to say 'dude' too much when drunk + a ton of other little stuff borrowed from a lot of other people. Take all those physical and personality traits, blend well, then serve.
After you put all of those pieces together, you're left with the one thing I think so many people underuse as a means of character building: dialogue. Once you can describe someone well, what they say and how they say it are critical to making them realistic. I believe in writing conversations. I want my characters verbally play back and forth. I think the world needs more wit and banter on occasion so I tend to write it in to the worlds I create. I would give you one word of caution: don't be artificial in your dialogue. Try to write the words as you imagine hearing them. Don't fall into letting your characters sound like bad actors trying to dry read Shakespeare.
Yes I know this isn't the funniest or most entertaining thing to read but hopefully this has answered a few of your questions or at least given you an idea or two. My personal opinion is that you can never know your major characters too well. I think you'll find that once you flesh them out fully in your head you won't have to work too hard at creating viable stories for them to play in.
For everyone else, we'll try and get back to the funny and ranting and raving later this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment