Lesson 5: Character Building.
This lesson shows how to develop credible and suitable characters.
Characters in Focus.
Character Specifics.
Protagonists.
Character Tips and Pitfalls.
Fantasy, Science Fiction and Animal Characters.
Writing exercise.
Characters in Focus.
CHARACTERS.
The characters of your story are just as important as theme and plot. Think of them as the actors in your narrative. They are not real people. They cannot act and react exactly as real people would. And this is not from lack of skill on their author's part.
Just as actors use thespian techniques to make their artificial personae seem real, so you, as author, must learn to use literary techniques.
In real life, people often act out of character. Real people often fail to make decisions, make small talk, spend the day doing nothing much and gripe a lot about their friends or family.
Characters cannot act like this. It may be realistic, but it isn't entertaining. Readers need to understand what's going on, and what might happen later. They achieve this, in part, by "reading" the characters.
In real life, we can tell a lot by "reading" atmosphere and body language. That tiny, exasperated sigh of Diane's, the small crease between Rhoda's eyebrows. The clasp of Gavin's hands on his paunch, the jut of Jack's lip. The faint shrug Sandy gives, the twitch of Myra's thumb. All these tell intimates something about Diane, Rhoda, Gavin, Jack, Sandy and Myra.
Perhaps Gavin's son knows that the "paunch clasp" is Gavin's way of signalling the end of a discussion. (It mimics the pose of someone about to settle for a snooze.) Rhoda's auntie probably knows the crease heralds Rhoda's request for headache tablets. Diane's sigh as she hangs up the telephone tells her husband his mother in law was nagging again. And so on.
Readers don't have the familiarity that family members and close acquaintances have achieved with these characters. Nevertheless, they must feel some kind of connection very quickly, or else they won't bother to finish the book.
In real life, we tend to "read" people all the time, often without even thinking about it. This is what allows most of us to get through the day without too much trouble. Just a few people seem to lack this skill.
Remember the kid at school who couldn't "read" the teacher's moods? He'd persist despite the storm signals until the teacher snapped. Then he'd be surprised when he found himself in trouble and in detention.
So, how do characters differ from real people?
Let me count the ways.
MOTIVATION.
Real people do a lot of things for no apparent reason. They do things because it seems a good idea at the time.
Your characters can't act like that. There always has to be a reason for their actions and reactions. It's no use saying "Chris has to act like that because the story won't work if he doesn't." That may be true, but it isn't enough. Chris must have a personal reason for acting in that way, and you must know that reason. You may not choose to let the readers know - yet - but you need to know.
As author, you have an overview of your story. Readers know as much about what is happening as they can pick up from your clues and their own experience. Chris knows his own part in the story from the inside; otherwise he can only observe.
All this comes down to motivation. Chris must act and react in his own way, for his own reasons. If he must do something for the sake of the plot, then he must also have a personal reason for doing it. He must act in the way dictated by his own character, and by his past experience.
And here we come to one thing that stands out in writing rounded characters. A rounded character has a past. S/he is the product of family and experience. A character seemingly sprung from nowhere is usually a cardboard cut-out.
Another way in which characters differ from real people is in speech patterns. In real life, most people have characteristic speech peculiarities. They insert "um", "y'know" and "ah" in their everyday speech. We filter this out, accepting, subconsciously, that "um" is nothing but a brief pause for thought. If you reproduce such dialogue in a book, readers become very annoyed very quickly. The eye doesn't edit out the "um" the way the ear does. Thus a character should use this very normal linguistic trick rarely, and always for a reason. In a character, "um" denotes doubt, guilt or shyness. In real life, it denotes normality.
