Creating Fictional Characters
by Lillie Ammann
Smashwords Edition
©2011 Lillian A. Ammann
All rights reserved
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Chapter 1: Characters Are Story People
Chapter 2: Finding and Creating Characters
Chapter 3: Revealing Characters and Point of View
Chapter 4: Fleshing Out Characters with Tags, Traits, and Relationships
Chapter 5: Developing Background and Traits Using a Character Chart, Bio, Diary, or Interview
Chapter 6: Putting the Right Words in Their Mouths
Chapter 7: Giving Characters Goals and Motivation
Chapter 8: Developing Characters throughout Your Story
Appendix A: Sample Character Chart
Appendix B: Sample Character Chart in Progress
Introduction
Several years ago, I taught classes in fiction writing at a continuing education program for senior citizens. Later I turned my outlines and notes on these classes into a series of posts on my blog, A Writer's Words, An Editor's Eye. Those posts have been quite popular—at least three of the posts consistently rank among the top 10 in Google for "creating fictional characters" as well as among the top 10 posts on my blog. I hope this ebook created from those blog posts will help you create your own fictional characters.
Chapter 1: Characters Are Story People
Fiction writers usually describe themselves as being either character-driven or plot-driven. This is somewhat related to genre--romance novels tend to be more character-driven while action-adventure stories and thrillers are usually more plot-driven. However, characters and plot are both important in all fiction. Plot evolves from character--characters' responses to situation and events creates the plot, and the actions in the plot must be consistent with the characters. Character-driven stories also have plots; plot-driven stories also have characters. Durant Imboden's article "Character vs. Plot" on Writing.org explains more about the relationship between character and plot.
I'm a character-driven writer--I start with characters first then come up with what happens to them. What happens to them--the plot--evolves from the characters..
My friend Billie Houston, aka Barri Bryan (BarriBryan.com), teaches a class on character development. She says: "In real life characters are revealed; in fiction characters are created."
In this short ebook, we are going to talk about how to create characters. As the author, you theoretically have complete control over the characters you create. I say theoretically because many writers have had the experience I've had of characters taking over the story and leading the writer rather than vice-versa. However, characters can't take over until they exist. And they don't exist until the writer creates them.
So what is a character anyway? In Creating Characters: How to Build Story People (University of Oklahoma Press: 2008), Dwight Swain calls characters story people. They are the people in your story, the people who live the plot.
Phonetically, character begins with care, and characters must care and have people care about them.
Main characters must care about something that is important to them, whether it is significant or trivial.
Readers must care about the characters before they care what happens to them. Readers can love the characters, hate them, or be intrigued by them, but they can't be bored by them.
The author must care about the characters in order to make the readers care.
A character is an artificial construction given individual and personal qualities by the author--a created personality with actions, attitudes, thoughts, and expressions.
Your fiction will have a main character (or characters) and secondary characters. Main characters must be three-dimensional and dynamic--they change through the story. Secondary characters, depending on their importance in the story and the length of the work, can be dynamic or static and one-dimensional.
Main characters are essential to your story, and there are several kinds of main characters:
* Protagonist--the person the story is about; the one who changes the most; the one who has the most to lose
* Antagonist--villain or opposition to the protagonist
* Other main characters--protagonist's love interest, partner (Watson to Sherlock Holmes), family
Secondary characters are part of the story but not essential like the main characters:
• Sidekicks, friends, relatives, mentors, work associates
• Minor or background characters--unnamed props like a waitress in the diner
Readers don't necessarily have to care about the waitress in the diner; they do have to care about the hero and heroine who are facing a crisis in their relationship over dinner.
Other valuable resources for character development:
* Building Fictional Characters, Charlotte Dillon
* Ideas about Creating Characters, Clare Dunkle
* Creating Unforgettable Characters, Linda Seger (Holt Paperbacks: 1990)
* Elements of Writing Fiction - Characters & Viewpoint, Orson Scott Card (Writers Digest Books: 1999)
* Kaye Dacus Writing Series (links to series on writing, including several topics related to character development)
* The Writer's Digest Sourcebook for Building Believable Characters, Marc McCutcheon (Writers Digest Books: 2000)
Chapter 2: Finding and Creating Characters
Now we know what characters are. How do you come up with the characters for your novel or short story?
In Creating Characters: How to Build Story People, Dwight Swain says: "You start from a foundation of your fantasies and feelings. Because the character you can't fantasize and feel with will fail. … In other words, you hunt till you find one whose looks you like… one who fits your private standards."
Sometimes it's tempting to base a character on a real person, but that's not a good idea. No two people--or characters--are alike. If you try to create a character just like someone you know, you won't have the freedom to create the perfect character for your story.
However, using individual traits and characteristics from real people works well. Observe people--at home, at work, in the mall, in the media, everywhere you go. Use what you observe to create composite characters. Ask yourself, "What if…" What if someone had hair like your mother's, a facial tic like someone you saw in the office supply store, the voice pattern of your neighbor from another state, and the bubbly personality of a co-worker? And what if that person was a fifth degree black belt in karate?
Make your characters fit your story--people who can do interesting things and still be credible. If you're writing an amateur sleuth mystery, your sleuth has to have some reason or motivation to solve the crime. Maybe she has an insatiable curiosity, has always been intrigued by a puzzle. Your action-adventure hero needs to have the physical and personal traits to enjoy adventure, or he must have some strong motivation to overcome his limitations.
Real people don't always act consistently and don't always know why they do what they do, but they rationalize their behavior. Rationalization provides plausible (but not necessarily true) reasons for actions, in life and fiction. Even when characters' actions aren't logical, the characters have to feel they are justified.
Just as in real life, we form dominant impressions of characters based on what we see:
* Sex -- woman, man, girl, boy
* Age -- young, old, 18-years-old, baby, teenager
* Vocation -- doctor, nurse, housewife, bag lady, construction worker, lawyer
* Manner -- surly, bubbly, sloppy, friendly, pompous, fun-loving
But if you built characters with dominant impressions only, they would be shallow and flat characters, not the dynamic, three-dimensional characters main characters should be.
In a list of do's and don'ts for character development, Holly Lisle, author of Holly Lisle's Create a Character Clinic, recommends: "Do start developing your character by giving him a problem, a dramatic need, a compulsion."
Now you're starting to make your character interesting. A woman who is a young lawyer with a fun-loving manner is a stereotype. A woman who is a young lawyer with a fun-loving manner and a hatred of drunk drivers because her parents were killed by a drunk driver who is assigned by her law firm to defend a man accused of drunk driving--that's an interesting character.
In my novel Dream or Destiny (GASLight Publishing: 2008), Marilee Anderson is a business consultant who is strong and confident in her business but quiet and shy in her personal life. She dreads being in the public eye, and, more than anything, she hates being mocked for her psychic abilities. Then she has a dream that puts her in the spotlight in a sensational murder case, a target of media attention and public ridicule for her dream.
Chapter 3: Revealing Characters and Point of View
In previous chapters, we've learned what characters are and discussed how to find and create them. Now, let's talk about how to reveal characters in your story.
Although it may be tempting to describe your characters and tell the reader all about them when you first introduce them, that doesn't work. After all, when you meet people, you don't learn all about them right away. You usually notice their physical appearance first, and you probably learn a few facts about them--maybe their name, where they live, what they do for living, their marital/family status. Each time you meet them, you learn more. Reveal your characters the same gradual way.
You can reveal character in several ways:
* Through the eyes of another character: how the other character sees/describes the person, how they respond to him or her, what they say to and about them
* Through dialogue: what the character says and how they say it
* Through actions: what the person does, both large actions and small things like habits and patterns of behavior
* Through inner thoughts and flashbacks: what the person thinks about and remembers when they are faced with a particular situation or person
In revealing character, you must understand point of view (POV). Point of view is the eyes the reader sees through, the camera lens that captures the scene. In real life, we are limited by our POV, and so are our characters.
For example, imagine yourself at a large party. You are in the corner of the room talking with a small group of people. You can probably see other groups and individuals nearby, but you can't see in the opposite corner of the large room or outside in the hall or in the kitchen.
If an argument breaks out, you might hear it if the people get loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the conversation around you. However, you probably can't see who is arguing. Whether you know who is involved in the disagreement depends on how well you know them. You'll recognize the voice of your spouse or best friend, but you won't know who's arguing if you just met the individuals in passing at the party.
For you to know everything that happened, someone will have to give you a blow-by-blow description. However, if you run across the room and get close enough to see and hear, you get it all firsthand.
Your characters are in the same situation. They can know only what they can see and hear and experience.
You can tell your story from several different POVs:
* First person (I)--the protagonist tells the story: I did this and thought that.
--Advantages: It is distinctive, natural, intense, and easy for the writer.
--Disadvantages: You are limited to what the narrator sees/knows--anything that happens off the stage of the protagonist must be revealed by another character or in some other way (such as reading something in a newspaper), and reading I for hundreds of pages can become boring.
* Third person singular (he/she)--the narrator tells the story from the viewpoint of a single character: He did this and thought that.
--Advantages: The same advantages apply to third person singular as first person except for immediacy.
--Disadvantage: Like first person, the action is limited to what the protagonist sees/knows.
* Third person multiple limited (multiple he/she)--the narrator tells the story through the eyes of several people: He did that and thought this. She did this and thought that.
--Advantage: This POV provides several perspectives and enables reader to feel the emotions of more than one character.
--Disadvantage: Avoiding head-hopping can be a challenge. In my description above, I "head-hopped," meaning I jumped from one POV to another. In third person multiple limited POV, most experts advise you should stay in the POV of one character for a complete scene. I admit I don't always follow this advice, but however long you stay in one POV, you must keep from confusing the reader. It should be obvious when the reader is seeing the story through the eyes of a different character.
There are two points of view that are generally not recommended:
* Second person (you)--the narrator tells the story as if the reader is the character: You do this and you think that.