Image Credits: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.
All great stories focus on their characters. Why?
It’s because we want to find out what happens in the story and that usually involves finding out what happened to the lead character in particular. Did they get their happy ending? Were they a rotter who deserved and got their comeuppance?
Only one way to find out and that is to read the story but the character has to interest you enough in the first place to make you want to read on. So how can that be done? I share some thoughts about how I approach character creation and hope you find it useful.
Identifying with your Character
This is not the same as approving of everything they say and do. I can think of a few of my own characters I don’t like. But you do have to understand where your character comes from and why they’re acting the way they are/say the things they do. If you know, for example, your character has faced poverty all their life and now has the chance to break free from it for good by going towards criminal activity, it doesn’t mean you approve of them doing that but you can understand why they would do so.
This kind of understanding helps make your characters more realistic to your readers. They too will get where the characters are coming from. They too won’t necessarily approve. What readers will never buy is a character doing something “just because” (and often that kind of action is coming out of the blue too). Readers have got to see why a character might do XXX even if that is revealed slowly over the course of the story/book.
Outlining – Does it Stifle Creativity?
For me, it doesn’t. If anything it encourages creativity. Outlining also helps me ensure I’ve sorted out my characters and that I really know them well enough to be able to write up their stories. It also confirms to me they do have stories worth telling. If I can’t get behind my characters, nobody else will. It helps to know you are your own first reader so it pays you to be gripped by your story and characters.
Outlining can be as simple or as detailed as you choose. I like to know a character’s major trait as that leads to knowing their minor ones and what they are likely to be able to come up with. I don’t necessarily need to know what they look like, though I find that becomes clearer to me as I draft my story.
Having said that, if appearance would somehow make a difference to the plot, then I will flag it up in some way early on in the tale so the reader picks up on that too. Often knowing what a character looks like is more helpful to the writer to enable them to picture their creation.
I like to know my characters’s voices, literally and metaphorically. How well, or otherwise, do they speak? Are they likely to swear (this is sometimes directly relevant to a character portrayal)? I like to know their attitudes. That colours what they come up with (as it does with us!).
A good question to ask yourself is what would this character do when push came to shove? It has to be something they would not normally dream of doing but in extremis, would they then do it? What kind of pressures can your characters take in their stride? Which would fell them?
With outlining, I can work out if a character is honest, what kind of trouble could that land them in? Honesty isn’t always welcome. In fiction at least it might not always be the best policy for your character either!
I focus on planning out my characters, by the way. I’ve found doing this often triggers ideas for stories I can put them in but I deliberately don’t plan out every single thing. I like to give myself manoeuvre room and for my characters to have the room to surprise me. Often it will be dialogue “they” come out with which will pull me up in my tracks and make me think, yes they would say it like that. This is a good sign of a character portrayal working well. They’ve got to resonate with you to have any chance of resonating with a reader.
Knowledge of Human Nature
This comes into character portrayal so much. Indeed, I don’t see how that’s avoidable. We know what makes stories work from our experiences of books and reading. We also know what humans can be capable of – for good and bad – and we can draw on that knowledge for when we are creating our fictional people/beings of choice. Think about your favourite characters by other writers. What draws you to them?
One of my favourite fictional people is Sam Vimes from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. I love Vimes’ decency, his wise cracks, and the way he evolves over several books. You “see” him change as the books go on and of course it had the effect on me of immediately wanting to read the next one to see what Vimes did next. That is brilliant writing.
Also think along the lines of cause and effect. If your character is honest, put them up against someone who isn’t and watch the sparks fly! All stories have to have conflict and resolution to be able to work at all. Clashes around personality are something we all understand and we naturally root for the character we want to see “win”. We have to read on to see if they do win. Also with this example, there has to be an outcome. Does the honest character prevail here?
Even more interesting is to have two characters who are honest but who have different ideas as to how honesty should play out in their setting.
For example, Character A is rooting for someone to win in the local elections. Character B is rooting for someone else but both believe their candidate is the best. Only one candidate can win so what happens afterwards? If Characters A and B work together, will they still be able to work together if one of them brags about their candidate winning (would they be able to resist it?) and irritates the hell out of the other one?
The story could then hinge on whether the pair ever sort their working relationship out and what difficulties this causes at work for them and their other colleagues. Knowing how people are likely to act and react is a major factor in successful character portrayal.
Conclusion
The writer needs to focus on what readers need to know about the characters. In my flash fiction with its short word count, I don’t have the room to give you chapter and verse. I just give you the salient factors you need to know for the story to make sense.
But I try to make you root for my character, even if it is when you want them to fail because they’re villainous. (I have been known to metaphorically boo my own creations here. Good sign, honestly! If they’ve got to me, they’ll get to my readers).
Having an outline for your characters can help you figure out what you need to know before you write their story up. I’ve found that has saved me a great deal of time. I can hit the ground running with my first draft and do! I know who my character is, why I’m writing about them, and off I go.
With my reading hat on, I love reading well portrayed characters. I want to find out what happens to them after all. This is why, for me, in the great character -v- plot debate, it’s character all the way for me who wins here. A strong character can lift a weak plot. A weak character can let down the strongest plot.
What you want is the best of both worlds – the right, strong character in a plot that brings out the best (or worst) in them, depending on what kind of story you’re writing. But you have to have a way into creating your first draft and for me, getting my character right is the key here.
Related Posts:-
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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