March 25, 2013
Know Your Character
If your story sounds stilted or fake, the first place to look is your characters. Whether you write character-driven or plot-driven novels, readers engage when they want to travel with the characters you created. It’s not the plot. They all boil down to a handful of approaches. Variety arrives in the form of your unique character. This could be the 247th thriller with terrorists who want to blow up America, but if your guy is Jack Reacher, you’ll plunk down $20 for the hard cover because Reacher is a fun guy to travel with.
Readers don’t like when these new best friends become predictable, boring, or–horror of horrors–act out of character. That means you must know them intimately. There are a lot of ways to do that, but here are a few of the most popular:
Profile them
Before beginning your novel, profile each character. Not just a few paragraphs, but pages–as many as you need to become their best friend. Know height, weight, hair color, eyes, age, astrological sign. If your character has a phlegmy voice, know if it’s from smoking or an injury. what motivates them? What do they want from life? Know where they grew up because that will shape their speech patterns, morality, sense of surroundings. Include odd traits that people will remember–their eyes are different colors, they drink coffee with salt in it, they watch reruns of soap operas. The main character in my current WIP drinks coffee in the shower. I tried it out. Oddly, it’s a great idea.
Keep it where you can access it so your character’s eyes don’t change color when her new love is gazing into them.
Make a list of traits
Make a table in Word, with each character’s name. List traits, potential traits, identifiers in a column beneath their names. For example, here’s my list for my former SEAL-turned-paleoanthropologist:
- intellectual
- patriotic
- bias for action
- caring
- damaged
- family
- jaded
- gut instincts
- loyal
- focused
- problem solver
- conservative
- protective
- brave
- bold
Then, select five that fit best (mine are in red). Keep those by your computer as you write so you can incorporate them into every action. If the antagonist is self-absorbed, how would that make them think and act when he talks to others, jumps into a new experience, or reads a book?
The list must include a flaw. We all have one that explains a lot about our reactions, biases, thoughts.
Write a story about them
This is along the lines of ‘it takes three books to get published’. If you’re writing a serial, consider the first book how you get to know your characters. Throw them into situations and see if you can predict how they would act, based on everything that makes them what they are. When you’re done, don’t print this book–print the next. Later, edit as a prequel
Less time-consuming and almost as effective is writing a story that encapsulates the novel’s plot and lets you see how your characters act in a microcosm of your planned story line.
What’s their typical day
I’m big on this one because it works. From the time your character gets up in the morning, what does s/he do? Start with getting out of bed and cover as much detail as you can. Are her/his slippers under the bed? Is coffee perking, set the night before? Does s/he have to let the dog out before pouring coffee? You’ll learn all kinds of interesting things.
Interview them
Ask your character questions about his/her life as though you were a journalist. This can be especially helpful to jar loose secrets, conflict, and motivation. Here are a few I found on Google:
Find a picture of them and paste it to the wall of your office
I have one for each character in my story. I keep them in front of me, to remind myself Eitan has a huge head that new people can’t fail but notice. Zeke has piercing eyes. Kali has raw beauty that she cares nothing about. If your character is six-four, he’ll have to accommodate that height everywhere he goes.
How do you get to know your character?
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog,Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, she is the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
