Charachter Study

Carole said:

Where do you look when developing charachters? Is it something that just comes to you or do you have a method?

I've been brainstorming a little and I'm having difficulty adding depth to some of my charachters without it seeming trite.

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I wish I knew. I've had editors comment on my characterisation being very strong, but I don't actually know what I'm doing to make them strong. I suppose it's good to know I'm getting something right. I just wish I knew what I was doing!

I sort of imagine myself in the character's situation, with the character's attitude and outlook, and think about how I'd react in that situation... It's a bit weird, but they sort of come to life when I do it... It's almost like acting out the character in my head, in the situation they're in.

Try taking about fifteen or twenty minutes and write your characters (one at a time, even) into a scene that has nothing to do with your book. Put them in an entirely different genre, even.

How do they react? What happens? After you're done, you can go back and read it again to look for the "why."

I like Katiemac's idea.
What I did was to write extremely and unnecessarily detailed description of them. Starting with physical (any scars? how did they happen?), to family, childhood, home, how much clothing they own and what style, whether they take showers or baths, how they decorate, if female do they wear makeup and how much, how many friends do they have, how often do they see them, what do they do, etc.
There is a suprising amount of crap that this generates, with each detail leading to ten more. I really don't know whether all this is strictly necessary but for me it helped really feeling like I knew these people, and thus could more or less predict how they would act in a given situation.

Characters

Carole said:

Where do you look when developing charachters? Is it something that just comes to you or do you have a method?

I've been brainstorming a little and I'm having difficulty adding depth to some of my charachters without it seeming trite.

Click to expand...

Look around you. How many friends do you have? How many people have you known? How many have you observed? How many in your extended family.

Don't develop characters, use real people. And let your character be real people. Listen to them, just let them act and react. Don't try to force characters to do this or that, or to be this and that. Let them be themselves.

Possibly you could try basing them/apects of them on your perception of people in the media/public eye or if you´ve read a good biography on someone use that person or other people in the biog as a kind of template. For example Oliver Cromwell believed he was being driven by his god and made statements to that effect. He was also a believer in destiny and had a "lucky day". If I ever write a character who exhibits these traits I will think first of Cromwell and then others and see how they behaved, justified things and reacted in certain situations.

For example you may want a character who is a young girl from a very wealthy background desperately trying to get attention by doing things to get in the news. I can´t think of any off-hand but I´m sure if you searched a bit you´d find someone similar to that profile and be able to draw something from it.

I´m not a published fiction writer (haven´t submitted yet!) so feel totally free to ignore everything I´ve just said

There are a couple of techniques I use whenever a character is being particularly stubborn in becoming "real" to me.

The first one I use when I have a plot in mind, but the characters aren't following. I call it the "connect the dots" or the "weaving" method. I'll use the example as I taught it to my 9yo son recently.

Me: "Ok, so your main character is a kid, right?"

9yo: "Yeah, and he's a spy."

Me: "Let's just focus on the fact that he's a kid for now. What can we automatically assume about any kid?"

9yo: "Um, he has a Mommy and Daddy?"

Me: "Well, kinda. We know that since he's a kid, he has someone that's taking care of him. Does your kid spy have someone that takes care of him?"

9yo: "Yeah, his grandma and grandpa."

Me: "Does he get along with them?"

9yo: "No. Not really. They made him be a spy."

Me (surprised): "Oh really? How did they make him be a spy?"

9yo: "They told him to."

Me: "Sounds like the kind of kid that would just obey whoever is in charge of him. That sounds like it could be really important. Does he like being a spy now?"

9yo: "Yeah. He thinks it's lots of fun. He does lots of running and jumping."

Me: "So he's very athletic. Was he always that way, y'know does he play any sports or did he just get into it because of spying?"

9yo: "He plays baseball too."

And so on, back and forth like this. Asking questions about "What kind of character would do this and why do they do what they do?" until something solid happens.

I'll then bring in the second technique when the first one just isn't quite working and I'm having difficulty making the character interesting. Sure, he or she sounds human/solid/whatever but there's just that "something" that isn't making that personality interesting enough to actually write about.

I'll use another example, this time from a long ago abandoned novel I called "The Game." The premise of this novel required that each of the characters be in top physical condition, so that was a given. Since this was written in the 80s and famous female athletes weren't as common as they are now, creating my MC was a piece of cake. Her nearly as important teenaged brother, on the other hand, was quite a bit more difficult. All I knew was that he was a skateboarder and that his parents were the same as hers. I also knew that he got along with the MC and that their motives for joining "The Game" were similar (prize money...what else?) but he still refused to come to life. I gave him a skateboard for his athleticism which made him long and lean

Next, I started "putting" other stuff in his hands. First, common everyday stuff: pen, cup, soda can just to see if how he held them would give me any clues to his character. Next, other hobby-based items. A football didn't quite fit, a surfboard did, but that didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. Knitting needles he held as if it were diseased, but a violin? That one surprised me. He held it as if it belonged there. Sure, he wasn't a serious player and would certainly not get into Julliard with his skills, but this gave me a key not only into the depth of his character, but other insights as well. Such as the arguments he would have with his sister and how he may not be able to hear his parents calling him down for supper.

The trick with this technique is to not go so far that you start doing "reverse cliches" such as "hooker with a heart of gold" or the like, but to add something unexpected to an otherwise stereotypical character such as "skater kid", "working mom" or the like.

My method is a holdover from the days when I dabbled in screenplays. I generally have an idea of the story first, then need to figure out the characters involved.

So I cast the character with a photo of an actor/actress/model/singer/someone. Google has a great image search function, as does Yahoo.

Once I know what this person looks like, everything else seems to come to me. Name, family, background, education. I'm a very visual person, so having that image to refer to helps tremendously.

A few years ago, I wrote an entire screenplay based on an idea I got when my dad made this random comment: Have Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson ever done a movie together?

Dad gave me a setting, the characters sprang up from that. Just like artists, sometimes it's nice to have a model.

Try writing a biography of each character, a couple of pages in length. Go into as much detail as you can. Of course, you probably won't need all that detail in your story, but at least your character will hopefully feel a bit more real by the time you are finished.

My characters tend to start off as a mixture of people I have known and people I observe in the street. It seems to be the best way for me, since at least they turn out to have realistic mannerisms, speech, reactions, etc.

Like a few others mentioned, I take bits and pieces of friends, acquaintances, random strangers, etc.

I also try to remember that people are made of different layers. Even the "nicest" person can have a cruel, vindictive streak.

Yeah, I'm like most people. Characters come to me from real life, whether it's family, friends, or strangers.

I like the idea of writing a biography. It's worth a go, but people should be careful to avoid info dumping for the sake of using the information you came up with when writing the bio.

Carole said:

I've been brainstorming a little and I'm having difficulty adding depth to some of my charachters without it seeming trite.

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My MC is a family tradition witch-- so with that in mind it would make sense that the "black sheep" of that family was a conservative Christian, especially with the setting being the present-day South. I made Gordon be a deacon in the Church of Christ simply because I know that belief system better than, say, Assemblies of God or Baptist.
So that gave him certain characteristics: adult male, too young to be an elder, probably some half-grown kids, a wife... and the fact that his sister and cousins are practicing witches is a constant trial for him. But since he's in the story, and not a villain, he has to at least be pleasant about it. This was my prompt not to make him into a stereotype, and find some places where I could play against expectations. And that rounded him out-- his own conflicts and self-justified inconsistencies. Other things I just threw in there as he was being written, like the fact that he can't carry a tune to save his life, because they were fun to play with.

bsolah said:

Yeah, I'm like most people. Characters come to me from real life, whether it's family, friends, or strangers.

I like the idea of writing a biography. It's worth a go, but people should be careful to avoid info dumping for the sake of using the information you came up with when writing the bio.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree, and since I come up with so much useless crap in the bio, I have to watch out. In fact, almost nothing from my bios actually appears in the story, but it's a handy reference. Does this persoin have any brothers or sisters? I can check quickly.
For me it just helps in predicting their actions, because I feel like I know them well.

I have this love-hate thing with bios. I'll constantly update them as I'm writing a story to make sure that if the character had a brother or sister in Chapter 2, he or she still does in Chapter 16. But, then I'll come across a scene where the MC needs to be an only child, say in Ch 24, and I'll change it. Forgetting that I needed it earlier. If only I could learn to leave the original bio alone I'd be fine. :/

Ah well, that's why we have more than one draft eh?

I usually use a bare-bones bio and add details as I go along. For me, it helps to use a chart or table to remind myself of the details.

I do use some bios sometimes, but usually begin with a weakness in the character and try to see the strength that will uprise out of that. I put a lot of me into the writing, its exactly why I don't enjoy people reading my first drafts. It can be quite scary.

In plot (situation) driven stories, I take the back-assward approach to charater development. A mundane situation arises and the character reacts in a certain way. This reaction gives me some sense of his values, and character traits. I can build on those later in the story as the real crisis unfolds.

I don't force a character to steal the censer from St. Lukes Catholic Church and smelt it down for the silver content, or use it as a really big ganja fogger. He just does it...or not. He also stops his car and moves a puppy out of the road just before he steals an old lady's social security check....or not. If the story needs him to do those things, he will. If the story is better served by having him do something else, he will.

Each situation and reaction reveals a bit more about the character.

In character-driven stories, I still begin with the basic premise, then consider what type of person could confront, endure, and ultimately overcome (or succumb with dignity after a helluva fight) such a dire situation. I begin with what I consider necessary character traits for such a trial, then flesh in the idiosyncracies as the story progresses. Usually, somewhere between the beginning of chapter two and the end of chapter three, I have the protag and antag pretty well defined in my mind.

I may, or may not show all those traits. It all depends on the story, and sometime the story just doesn't need me to get down in the weeds with all those character details. Sometimes, less is indeed more.