Creating Character: An Introduction to Creating Unforgettable Characters

 



 

 

I think my
favorite thing about the writing process, with dialogue running a close second, is
creating my characters. Bad guys, good guys, and the extras; I think about
every single character in a story in meticulous detail. I didn’t realize how
detailed I tend to get until I started this NaNo insanity. A third of my
outline was the main characters and their personalities. So, this post will
launch a longish series of articles on creating characters and an introduction
to some of the ones wandering through the various settings I’ve created.



Memorable
characters are three-dimensional, which means they are physical, emotional, and
spiritual beings. Doesn’t matter what role they play, whether they’re bad or
good, major or minor, all of your characters need to breathe for the reader to
be able to fully immerse herself into their story.  



To create a
character that readers will remember, you have to incorporate little details
that give the reader insights to these three dimensions. This way your reader knows the
character didn’t just fall out of the sky the minute you wrote the story. Sure, that's exactly how it happened, but for the reader he should seem like he existed before
you introduced them.



Everything
about your character—speech patterns, clothing, body language, etc.—shares
something physical, emotional, or psychological with the reader that makes them
both universal and unique. WTF? Exactly. How can one be universal and unique at
the same time? Easy.



Universal
traits are those most of us can identify with and feel empathetic toward, and
they're usually tied to our emotions. Not all of us have murdered someone, but we’ve
all experienced a desire to do so, even if it’s only fleetingly. Never? You lie. Just to prove it, pretend
you’re the mother of a small child. One morning you flip on the news and you
hear that droning morning show voice telling you a convicted rapist, who’s on
his second go-round in the prison system for repeated brutal assaults on women, has been
released early. Oh look at that, he's going to be living right near your house. Gotta love that early release thing, right? No room in the
prisons, so keep the thieves inside and let the ones physically and emotionally scarring
folks for life out onto the streets.



You let it
go, because you always hear bad news on the radio.  And besides, maybe the guy is reformed. The following week you’re
enjoying dinner with the family, and you get a call from a friend. The police have issued a warning. Apparently the rapist is wanted for assaulting
another woman, one the same age as you, and murdering her in front of
her two small children.



Tell me, how
do you emotionally react to this news? If it were you, your sister, your wife, or your daughter, could
you understand the urge to commit a little torture? A little murder? Imagine the
children. But wait, what about the parole board? How do you think the person
who signed the release papers feels? The guard who let him outside? Imagine the
frustration and rage of the community, the families. Imagine the guilt, the
shame, the pure, red hot anger. How does a bit of lynching sound to you?



These are universal
feelings we can all relate to, even if the story isn’t quite as emotionally
charged or the feelings as negative as the scenario I’ve given. Our characters must feel the reactions that
many of us human beings share so that no matter what the story is about, the
reader can relate.



We simply don't relate to experiences as much as we relate to feelings, because everyone experiences
hate, shame, love, embarrassment, grief and fear. We understand that shit
because we’ve all been there, even if the event itself is something we’ve never
personally experienced. Feelings are the common bond that most humans share. They’re the
universal traits we give our characters to bring the reader in, no matter
what’s happening.



But none of
this explains how uniqueness fits into the picture.

 

Well, unique traits are
those applicable to us personally: beliefs, biases, ethics, social mores, and all
of the other traits that come with our personal experiences and make us who we
are. Unique traits are those that force us to take a stand, or that make us back down and cower in a corner. We choose which of
these we emphasize in our character and this is what makes him unique, yet
still relatable.



When you’re
bashing your head against the keyboard trying to figure out how to make your
characters unique, ask yourself if you've given them any quirks; the small details that make each
person you know an individual. Giving each character a quirk or a tiny detail
unique to them makes them stand out. Don’t go all crazy, just something subtle
and believable. For example, I hate feet. My daughter smells everything. My
brother won’t drink from a glass unless it comes from his own home. Even then,
he won’t share glasses, not even with his girlfriend. Kurt scratches is back on door jambs. These are real quirks
that would work with fictional characters. You might choose to incorporate
emotionally-linked or less obvious quirks, and that’s fine too.


And let’s
not forget that unforgettable characters aren’t perfect, they’re human. Even if
they’re not actually human. Make sense? Of course. Find your character’s
greatest weakness or vulnerability (internal conflict) and stomp the shit out
of it (external conflict) using plot as your shitkicker. Flat characters have
no conflict the reader can identify with, because they’re either too flawed or
too perfect. Either way, the reader doesn’t get them. Three dimensional
characters are easy to relate to, easy to root for and they have “real”
problems.






So, how do
you know your character is memorable? Some writers do character interviews and
such, but you can simply ask yourself a few questions about each one.  Determine what you know about your character physically,
emotionally, and spiritually/psychologically.




How do they interact with family? Friends? Enemies?

Who is the most important person in their life?
What angers them? Excites them? Scares them?
Do you know in your own head every high and low, every success and failure of the character’s life?
How would he describe himself?
Is he confident or a bit self-conscious? Is he arrogant, funny or smart?
Is he sociable or withdrawn?
What are his dreams?
What does he fear or hate?





When all of
this is clear in your head, you’ll be able to judge the character’s reactions
and motivations, and determine if you’ve made all of that believable.



Later you
can think about the character in relation to other characters. How do they see
him? And hey, if you’re having trouble with the emotional shit, look at the
physical first. This will smooth the way into the intangible traits. Note the
character's environment, social and economic status. How does he speak? What
does he say and how does he convey his thoughts, feelings and such? This helps
get a little further into the right mindset for judging emotions.



The idea
behind character interviews, no matter how silly they seem to a logical mind,
is that the writer invests time exploring the story and its characters so that
you know them inside and out, and learn a bit about yourself along the way. The
more time you spend discovering your characters and understanding your own
feelings and motivations for creating them, the more able you will be to write
about each one. Each character will act, speak, and think in such a way that it
seems to fit him perfectly.



And it does
work. When you focus intently on something, you absorb a ton of information
about it, without even realizing you’ve done so. Our sensory perceptions are
always switched on, but we usually ignore this stuff. Good thing your subconscious
ignores nothing and it forgets nothing. With every plot detail, line of
dialogue, surprise twist or bump in the road, our subconscious uses the
information we’ve gathered to correct little conflicts that we don’t realize
exist as we write. Ever notice how you get to a problematic point in the story
and have an epiphany? The plotting and events seem to lay out perfectly for
just such a moment, and when you realize it’s there, and that you already
shaped the story to suit this moment you never planned to write, you’re kind of
amazed at your own skill, if a little uncertain how it happened. This happened
because as you wrote, your subconscious mind was sensing what's broken in the
story, and then fixing it and spilling it out onto the page with all (or most)
of the kinks repaired.



In spending
time with our characters, climbing inside them to experience life through their
eyes, we develop a bond with them. This frees the character to develop, and it
makes the character breathe. It also helps us see the plot in a bigger way. It
personalizes the story so that if we’d put any other character in that
character’s role, it would change the story immensely.



Do this
with every character, major and minor. When you create one that seems
inconsequential, like a means to an end or a prop, spend a few minutes with
him. If you could insert anyone into his role without changing the story, then
he doesn’t belong. Nix him. A truly memorable story is full of memorable
characters that belong.