Like I said before, personality is the most important thing in writing. A character must have personality.
For the reader to identify with the character, model the character after someone I know,
They have to have a convincing back story, and be able to engage the reader on an emotional level, though not necessarily in a maner that is sympathetic. As long as we can understand their motivation we are happy to accompany them on their journey. I often start with the name, and let the rest flow from there. Sometimes I have a particular kind of tale that I want to tell, so the idea suggests the kind of character who would best suit that kind of story.
I think that anyone in a story has to have a basis in reality so readers can connect to them.
For a character to be believable, it must be multi-dimensional. The greatest hero will have a touch of temper, or a ego a little too big for his britches. The worst villain will love his mother, or be kind to a pet. Without some "softening" dimensionality, a character is flat and uninteresting.
I keep this in mind when writing, and TRY to make sure that the reader sees the other side of a character, at least in glimpses, so that they will find it easier to relate to the character. But it isn't always easy, and I don't know if I always succeed. :)
Every person I meet is a character. I love to look at people on the street and make up a little story about who they are, where they came from, and where their lives are headed. Then the light turns green and we move on the to next set of characters. To be believable, they must be real, whether they are part checker at the grocery store, seat mate on a long flight, school mate, or enemy trying to kill you. Every one I meet, see, talk to, interact with, all leave a bit of creative phlogiston from which I try to ignite with a spark from my pen to create the life I breathe into a character.
The first and simplest answer is that the reader must be able to relate to the character - to find similarities, shared thoughts or experiences. If you as a reader cannot relate to a character then you will have a hard time accepting that he is real or human and you will not want to get close. Only when you feel that a character is believable can you as a reader begin the process of vicarious sharing of experience, e.g., suspense, feeling of danger when the character is in danger, etc. If you cannot share the character's experiences vicariously, rather than observing them in a detached way, then the author has failed to create a believable character who is human enough for you to sympathize with and want to share experiences.
For a character to be credible, the reader must see himself or herself in the character. The purpose of all fiction is to show the reader the human nature we all share. So start with a character you know -- yourself or someone from your past -- and try to imagine in a given spot what that character is thinking, feeling, seeing, hearing, etc.
In a trip out east last year, I drove by a young woman hitch-hiking. Now, how could she do that? Either she is foolhardy, spacy, terrified or carrying a gun and able to use it. Become that character.
One a reader can relate too. If a reader can place themselves in the roles of the character then the story is easy for them to believe.
My characters are based on real people. Ones I have met in passing, my co-workers that are very colorful and friends or family members.
They have to deal with inner tempation and have some moments where their ideals are compromised by their behavior. Making a hero perfect is totally unrealistic. Even saints have their moments when they are not feeling good or something and they step out of character. And sometimes even bad guys have a moment where they rise to the occasion and do something good. We as people are complex and have many facets. Capturing that multiplicity is a great skill. For myself, I have not actually consciously tried to force my characters to march to my drumbeat. I just sit down and type the story and I see what happens at the end. I'm sure an analytical process would be more effective in rounding out a character but I've gotten good feedback on the characters I create so I have not been hasty to change my process at this time.
Perfect imperfection. My writings on relativity and the Holy Trinity show that as the Hindus and Buddhists say all is illusion. Moses said life is as a dream being told. Man's struggle with mortality and his own desires, illusions and demons and overcoming them, flawed and perfectly imperfect though he or she may be makes the story believable.
Discovery of a greater good within or without that is stronger than the illusion, mortality and flaws where good overcomes evil makes for good reading.
For a character to be believable, he or she needs to be dimensional, to have many sides. With my writing clients (I'm a fiction/memoir writing coach), and for myself, I use a characterization sheet. This three page document is used by novelists all over the world and asks a series of questions, like:
What was your characters parents like?
What religion is your character?
Who was influential in their early life?
To build a strong dimensional character, you must know them inside and out, so that when they react in a scene, they are reacting from an authentic place. I believe character drives the story.
One exercise I use in classes is this. We create two totally different characters using the characterization sheets and then create a setting and throw the two into that setting and see what happens. I used such an exercise to write a short story that was recently published in an anthology called Traps, edited by Scott Goudsward. I created an alcoholic Jewish woman in her 40s who wears black and then a young Christian blonde woman in her 20s who wears floral. I developed the backgrounds for these characters as well, to discover what motivates them. The Jewish woman was recently divorced. The Chrisian woman was trying to get away from an oppressive mother. I created a setting to put them into, an AA meeting in the basement of a Baptist church. I let the characters loose in that basement and watched the sparks fly.   | | |
for a character to be believable they have to have familiar traits I can relate to, and some odd traits to make them memorable. They must be predictable, but also able to surprise me now and again. Their behavior must be consistent and match their background.
My characters grow organically out of their national and geographic background. As I add details to their history (age, appearance, family structure, profession, education) the personality comes into view. I cast the parts in my little dramas very carefully.
A depth of personality or what you might call being lifelike with the same emotions and thinking processes that motivate people we know or meet in everyday life.
When I'm creating a character, I try to become that person--to step into their shoes and see how I'd act if I were them. This means being able to understand how a killer or victim or detective or ordinary person feels about some thing or person. In Death on Delivery, I met a character named Freda who was emotionally repressed. She fixated on a neighbor man and reached the point she thought he could actually love her. Her life was an empty round of verbal abuse from an aunt and a cousin she grew to hate because they treated her like a slave.
So to develop a character, I must understand their history and present circumstances and how they react to those around them. It's an outgrowth one might say of being a child playing dress-up or let's pretend.
I believe characters to be believable need to be like real people. I create my characters by thinking about how certain people behave. I study people a lot even when they don't know I am studying them. Just things, like how they walk, talk or present themselves to others. I pay particular attention to attributes that make them different from other people. This helps me when creating my characters. Sometimes I will sit down and just write about my character, maybe a page or two. This seems to help to bring them to life. But when it comes down to actually writing the manuscript, I write what they would do in that given situation. |
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