Creating Characters

Alice Walker said that while she was writing The Color Purple her characters gave her back talk about how they should or should not act. I experience that with my virtual companions, too, and I’m sure you do the same. So, how do we as writers develop believable characters? We can’t always wait until one sits on our couch and rebels by saying, “I don’t care how you write it, I ain’t doin’ it, no way, no how.”

Some writers create complete biographies for every one of their characters: birth date, siblings, report cards, first sexual experience, wardrobe, job history, height, weight, medical history, birthmarks. Only when they know more about the character than the character would know about him or herself, do they set pen to paper or finger to keyboard. Others wing it letting their character develop with the story. However you develop the character completely or partially, they do have a life beyond your use of them.

Writer Kim Edwards says, “For a character to be convincing, what’s on the page must somehow evoke knowledge that extends beyond what’s strictly visible.” It’s like when we meet people at a party. This may be our only contact with them, but they have existed before we meet them, and they will exist after they leave.

We can define characters in many ways:

Clothing – There’s a photo of Richard Nixon walking on the beach wearing a suit and tie. Anyone else would be in a bathing suit or at least jeans and a sweater. I suspected Nixon slept in his suit and woke up with his trousers creased.

Place – A man working on a farm will have a different character from a man stuck in a corporate cubby.

Time – If your story is about a sixties hippie in 1969, he would be reacting to the War. If he is still a hippie in the 90s, he might have sparse gray hair pulled back in a ponytail. If he’d gone corporate, he might be in a three-piece suit and drive a Subaru. Today he would be a frail old man sharing memories with mocking or adoring teenagers.

Speech can reveal education and age, and sometimes it can show even more. Think of Laertes’s speech in Hamlet: “Neither a lender or a borrower be…” it shows him as a pompous man much more than a wise man. The contrast between his character and words is a classic. Speech needs to be education specific. A person with a doctorate might use slang, but a person with an eighth grade education would probably not give a lecture on quantum mechanics. Slang also needs to be time specific. “Stoned gas” would work for the 60s and “Been there, done that” for the 90s.

Actions – This is where your character develops and become real. Through what they do and how they react to events in the story their inner ‘self’ shows, and that’s when your characters will refuse to act as you would like, or do unexpected things: their actions are “in-character,” and the more you ‘feel’ them, the more they’ll be credible and real to the reader. Sometimes, startling events happen, situations that would push anyone to the border with madness, and your character will change, act in unexpected ways, ‘out-of-character,’ for so to speak, but the discerning reader will feel the struggle and ponder: “My goodness, how would I have reacted if it had happened to me?”

Characters can be created without a specific effort to create a portrait and details can be added in a seemingly casual way. Let’s show an example with fictional Karen:

Within seconds of walking into her house, Karen tore off her navy blue suit, kicked off her heels, and shook out her hair. As she padded into her bedroom, she glanced around. A pile of dirty clothes stood in the corner. She sniffed the sweatpants she’d worn the day before. Good enough for a quiet night at home.

A whole weekend alone awaited her. Yes. Her colleagues at the law firm planned to hit the pub for yet another Happy Hour, but she excused herself. She’d pleaded a previous engagement, not wanting to tell anyone that her fondest dream was to do the laundry, put on the CD she’d bought at lunch, and let Bach’s harpsichord provide a background as she attacked the canvas waiting for her. Two whole days without having to listen to any husband trying to do his wife out of her share of their joint assets.

From these details what do we know about Karen’s character? Karen is working as a lawyer. She needs to escape from her work. She lets her clothes pile up, so she isn’t a total neatnik, but she does do laundry. She likes classical music. She probably lives alone and likes it. She doesn’t reveal herself to her coworkers.

Massimo Marino is a scientist envisioning science fiction. He spent years at CERN and The Lawrence Berkeley Lab followed by lead positions with Apple, Inc. and the World Economic Forum. He is also co-founder of “Squares on Blue”, a Big Data Analytics service company.
Massimo currently lives in France and crosses the border with Switzerland multiple times daily, although he is no smuggler.

As a scientist writing science fiction, he went from smashing particles at accelerators at SLAC and CERN to smashing words on a computer screen.

He’s the author of multi-awarded Daimones Trilogy.

His novels have received the Seal of Excellency from both AwesomeIndies.net and IndiePENdents.org

• 2012 PRG Reviewer’s Choice Award Winner in Science Fiction

• 2013 Hall of Fame – Best in Science Fiction, Quality Reads UK Book Club
• 2013 PRG Reviewer’s Choice Award Winner in Science Fiction Series
• 2014 Finalist – Science Fiction – Indie Excellence Awards L.A.
• 2014 Award Winner – Science Fiction Honorable Mention – Readers’ Favorite Annual Awards

His novels are available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble (Nook), iTunes Apple Store, and many other retailers around the world.

Join his mailing list for new releases, or follow him on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.

 

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