Writing Lesson: Developing your characters join for free to get your assignments critiqued by your peers
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A list of characteristics such as physical traits, likes, and dislikes, won’t yield lifelike characters. To truly make your characters come alive, discover—and show—how their way of viewing the world is different from everyone else’s.Lesson© Review Fuse 2009
Lesson Assignment
Think of a single situation that involves conflict: breaking a bone, getting a flat tire, getting fired, failing a test, etc.
Now put two very different characters into that situation. Write a scene (a page or two) for each one. The characters could be ones you’ve already created or totally new ones. Some examples: a football player, a cop, a fourth-grade girl, a lawyer, a fashion designer, a doctor, a stay-at-home mother, a police officer, a cheerleader.
Keep the following in mind:
How do the characters’ reactions differ from one another?
What images from their backgrounds can you compare the conflict to?
What unique elements does each character bring to the table that you can draw on?
What do they value most (ie, what do they want/what motivates each character)?
Generally speaking, a great plot can’t survive without great characters to go with it. But when creating characters, a lot of writers rely solely on profile, which is basically report about the character’s name, age, home town, occupation, eye color, favorites (color, food, books), and so forth.
Profiles can be helpful—especially on page two hundred when you can’t remember if Joe is 28 or 29 or you suddenly refer to Jane’s eyes as green when they used to be hazel.
The problem with relying on profiles is fact-collecting doesn’t create a real person. Who cares if Jenny’s eyes are brown or if she prefers Coke to Pepsi? Those details may add “spice” to the story.
But basic facts won’t impact how Jenny faces the major story conflict and how she interacts with the characters around her. Those things—what drives and motivates—are what create a memorable character and a riveting plot.
Consider how your main character views the world. How does he/she relate to people? What events and people in their background define who they are and what they believe in? What does your character want most? What are they willing to risk? At the core, what motivates them?
All of these things and more should have a great impact on how your main characters tell the story and relate to the other people and events in it.
One great example is Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. He has many point of view characters and a complicated world with many cultures. No matter whose head he's in, every scene is firmly entrenched in one character’s unique way of thinking and viewing the events.
Perrin begins the series as a blacksmith's apprentice. He eventually takes on wolf-like characteristics—a keen sense of smell, the ability to talk to wolves, and so on. Throughout the story, Perrin often thinks and speaks in terms of either blacksmithing imagery (the fire, the anvil, and so on) or wolf imagery (his wife smells jealous, he compares relationships with pack mentality, etc.). Since blacksmithing and wolves are two areas Perrin has an intimate connection with, it feels natural for them to crop up in how he relates to his world.
Elaine, on the other hand, grew up in a palace as a princess. She's also trained in the use of magic. Much of the way she thinks and talks is based on her background: epithets from her childhood nursemaid crop up frequently, attitudes of the nobility, and how to handle situations as a woman and with her magic.
To have Elaine refer to an anvil would sound silly, just as having Perrin commenting offhand about the constraints of palace etiquette would feel off.
A common theme in stories is the fish-out-of-water concept: a person is taken out of their element and put somewhere else. (A few examples among thousands: E.T., The King and I, Star Wars, Madagascar, and many, many more.)
When the displaced characters arrive in the new place, they need to relate to the new situation in terms of their old one, because that's the only frame of reference they have at first. Be careful not to impose the new frame of reference onto the character too early.
What if Mork from the sitcom Mork and Mindy ran into some major problem and made some joke about calling 9-1-1? That would sound like the screenwriter intruding, because Mork, an alien, would be likely refer to his own planet's way of handling an emergency, whatever that is.
In the first Harry Potter book, when Hagrid sends a letter by owl, Harry describes the situation as if Hagrid had just made a phone call. For the time being, the non-magical world is Harry's only frame of reference. A phone call is exactly what Harry would compare it to.
If you as the writer put your frame of reference into a character's head, you're sticking out as the writer—it's what you would think or feel in the same situation, not your character.
Listen to people talk: Men and women will use different phrasing and vocabulary to talk about the same thing. So will adults compared to children. Put yourself deeply into your character's situation, into their head, and figure out how they'd really react, think, feel, and speak. What makes them tick? What specific words or images would they use?