Elements of Fiction Writing - Characters & Viewpoint

by Orson Scott Card

make sure your readers know exactly what the question is, even if they don’t know the answer.

Our objective as storytellers and writers isn’t to make money — there are faster and easier ways of doing that. Our objective is to change people by putting our stories in their memory; to make the world better by bringing other people face-to-face with reality, or giving them a vision of hope, or whatever other form our truth telling might take.

What can go wrong? This is a fundamental story question,

the minute something worked to stop the crying, the story would be over.

If you stop with the first acceptable answer, the first “good enough” version of the story, you lose the chance to move from shallowness to depth, from simplicity to complexity, from a merely fun story to a fun but powerful one.

the person who has the most need to change things

Characterization is not a virtue, it is a technique; you use it when it will enhance your story, and when it won’t, you don’t.

At the beginning of the story, all the characters are equal — we don’t know any of them at all.

much of what makes the difference between major and minor characters is the amount of time you spend on them. And the amount of time is not absolute — it is relative to the total length of the story.

If the other characters all regard a character as dangerous or powerful, the readers will, too.

A character doesn’t have to appear all that often, as long as every time he does appear, what he says and does has an important effect on the plot.

Passive characters will never seem as important as active characters.

The character who suffers pain and the character who inflicts it are both made more memorable and more important.

you increase the power of suffering, not by describing the injury or loss in greater detail, but rather by showing more of its causes and effect.

If your characters cry, your readers won’t have to; if your characters have good reason to cry, and don’t, your readers will do the weeping.

Self-chosen suffering for the sake of a greater good — sacrifice, in other words — is far more intense than pain alone.

if a character deliberately chooses to cause someone else pain, the effect is even stronger.

The greater the jeopardy, the stronger the pain when the dreaded event actually occurs.

Jeopardy magnifies the stalker, the savior, and the prey, just as pain and sacrifice magnify sufferer and tormentor alike.

Sexual tension intensifies the audience’s involvement with all characters involved.

sexual fulfillment has the same effect on sexual tension that the death of the victim has on jeopardy.

in having to choose between characters they love, the readers will be forced to decide on the basis of the moral issues between them. Who really should prevail?

Most seeming anti-heroes are really heroes who need, metaphorically speaking, a bath.

My point is not that description of characters is bad — just that in print, at least, it isn’t anywhere near as effective as other techniques for winning audience sympathy.

If you want the audience to sympathize with Pete in his rescue attempt, you need to show his reluctance to intrude and the urgency of Nora’s situation. It also helps if Nora gives some signal that she wants to be rescued.

If Nora has a decent alternative to being sacrificed, the audience will insist that she choose it,

Besides specific plans, your characters will have continuing needs, hungers, hopes, and dreams.

audience sympathy increases with the importance of the character’s dream and the amount of effort the character has already expended to try to fulfill it.

The audience will like Nora better when they see her take physical, social, or financial risks to do what she believes is right or necessary.

Along with courage, there must be a sense of fair play,

If Nora is faced with a task that requires great courage, and it won’t bring her much glory — no one will ever know she did it — the audience will sympathize with her most if she volunteers. It will diminish her if she has to be forced into acting. On the other hand, if the task at hand is one that will bring fame or fortune, then the audience will have much more sympathy for Nora if she doesn’t put herself forward, but modestly waits to be called on.

Don’t underestimate the importance of a promise in fiction.

combined with all the traits that do arouse sympathy, the flaws only make us love the characters more.

To make us dislike somebody, simply show her deliberately causing someone else to suffer in body or mind.

used their power to torment the little guy. That’s the worst thing a character can do in fiction

Murder and other crimes will only make a character into a villain if he commits the crime for selfish reasons, and if the crime harms people who don’t deserve to be hurt.

The villain’s crimes made us hate him. The heroes’ crimes made us love them.

One of the nastiest things you can say about another person is that she is self-appointed.

If he later proves that he deserves his new place, if he earns the respect of others, then he ceases to be an interloper.

an insane character is almost never viable as the main character in the story.

To make us dislike Pete, make him humorless, completely unable to laugh at himself. When things go wrong, have him whine and complain and blame everyone but himself. When things go right, have him take all the credit and boast about his accomplishment. Make sure Pete never shows regard for other people’s feelings, judges people without listening to their explanations, and never trusts or believes anybody. Pete always treats rich and influential people better than he treats the poor and powerless, and he has no qualms about being a flaming hypocrite. In short, he treats other people as if they exist only to serve his purposes. You can be sure the audience will detest him.

the bad guy has found a way to justify his actions to himself, and if you’re going to depict him honestly, you have to let your readers know his version of events.

Just as you can make a hero more believable by giving him endearing imperfections, you can make a villain more believable by giving her compensating virtues.

The storyteller’s strongest tools for provoking the readers’ antipathy cannot be overwhelmed by the tools for arousing sympathy.

storytelling keeps drifting toward extraordinary heroes, so that the common people have to be rediscovered every few decades or so.

The character may wear the mask of the common man, but underneath his true face must always be the face of the hero.

If there is no awe, there is no audience.

Often when you find yourself blocked — when you can’t bring yourself to start or continue a story — the reason is that you have forgotten or have not yet discovered what is extraordinary about your main character.

comedy almost always deals with pain, and comic characters almost always suffer. If we believed in them with the same intensity we bring to straight characters, their pain would be unbearable.

The goal of the comedy writer isn’t doubt, but rather controlled disbelief.