There is a debate that rages among
writers, both amateur and professional, over the importance of plot versus
character. Personally, I don’t think one is inherently more essential than the
other (they’re equally indispensable elements of any story), but I’ll admit
that I’m somewhat partial toward characters, if only because the act of
creating fictional people that I inevitably find more interesting than anyone
I’ve met in real life has always been one of my favorite parts of writing. Besides,
for me, plot tends to be: people talk + random arguments + a big blur of shit
happening that I’ll figure out later.
Anyway, not that I’m a genius with
character development or anything, but here is some advice that you might want
to heed when populating your novel/short story/script/fan fic/whatever:
Know your characters.
This one seems pretty obvious, but it’s also probably the hardest aspect of character
development and perhaps even writing in general. Anyone can just throw a bunch
of adjectives together and call it a character, but a good writer can delve
into a character’s mind and recite obscure details about his backstory and
inner psychology like a therapist analyzing his patient. If someone asks you
what your main character did on her 10th birthday, you better be
able come up with an answer. Even if you never end up using that particular
piece of info in your story, it’s always good to be aware of it, just in case.
Who knows? That one obscure, seemingly trivial detail could unlock entirely new
doors for your character and shed light on some shadowy corner that you never
would have seen otherwise. Besides, if you’re anything like me, creating
characters is like wandering through a labyrinth: it’s complicated and maybe
even frustrating at times, but it’s addictive as hell, and each turn brings
with it a giddy rush of realization that there’s still more left to
discover. I could spend hours, days,
weeks, exploring my characters and digging up information about their lives and
personalities, their highest hopes and deepest, darkest secrets, wondering what
makes them unhappy (advice-inside-advice: happy characters are boring
characters) and what kind of music they listen to. I do it partly because it
distracts me from actually writing my story, but I also do it because it’s fun
and it lets my imagination soar.
Embrace clichés.
Most writers will probably tell you the opposite of what I just said: that you
should avoid clichés the way politicians avoid responsibility. Indeed, when
used improperly, clichés can range from mildly irritating to throw-the-book/remote-at-the-wall
aggravating or outright offensive (the next time I see a rom-com featuring an
ambitious, career-obsessed woman who really just wants to find true love, I
will write a five-page-long blog post ranting about the egregious lack of
compelling female characters in a genre supposedly aimed toward women). However,
if employed in a clever and discreet manner, clichés and stereotypes can be helpful
tools for creating interesting characters. This doesn’t mean you should make all
of your women passive, your black characters dishonest and your Asian
characters docile and tech-savvy; it means that it isn’t a sin to give your
characters stereotypical traits as long as they have enough depth and nuance
that they feel like real people rather than trite caricatures.
Dear Hollywood: I know it was the 1960s, but fuck you.
Sincerely, people with taste
On
the surface, virtually every fictional character is drawn from some kind of
cliché or archetype: Hannibal Lecter is the mad genius (or charismatic
psychopath, whichever you prefer); Atticus Finch is the crusading (white)
lawyer; Katniss Everdeen is the self-sacrificing hero who just wants to protect
her family; Holden Caulfield is the moody teenage rebel; etc. The difference
between those characters and, say, Mr. Yunioshi from Breakfast at Tiffany’s (pictured above) is that the former aren’t
entirely defined by their stereotypical qualities, while the latter is a
walking, talking – or rather screeching – insult. So, if you don’t want to make
the same mistake as Blake Edwards and Mickey Rooney, here are a couple things
you should remember to do when sketching out your characters. First, be aware
of your character’s relationship toward the rest of society. Unless your story
takes place in some fantasy utopia, chances are, your world is rife with
prejudice, social norms and all those unspoken rules that come with living in
society. Even if you aren’t writing directly about race, class or gender roles,
you should pay attention to how those things affect your characters and the
world around them. Also, search for ways in which you can transcend or
undermine the reader’s preconceived notions. If your protagonist is a disillusioned
suburban housewife, show how she copes with her ennui; maybe she represses her
inner turmoil and deludes herself into thinking she’s happy, or maybe she joins
the local motorcycle gang and secretly spends her mornings hunting deer with a
Winchester M94 rifle. Be creative, have fun and never underestimate the power
of subverting expectations.
Find your character’s
voice. This one is pretty straightforward, but it may be the most important
aspect of character development and the key to accomplishing tip #2. Unlike in
film, TV and theatre, novelists don’t have the luxury of actors who breathe
life into their words, so they have to manipulate the narration and dialogue in
order to most effectively convey the essence of their characters. Even the most
seemingly lackluster character can feel vivid and multifaceted if given a
distinct, compelling voice. The key is, obviously, to make sure that your
character’s voice – the way she thinks and speaks, the things she pays
attention to – is true to her personality and background: Is she educated? Does
she curse? Does she notice trivial details? For the most part, it’s best to limit
the affectations – accents, flowery language, etc. – unless absolutely
necessary; a criminal who grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood and dropped out
of high school would most likely not describe the stars as a “resplendent kaleidoscope
of phantasmagoric diamonds”, and if not used carefully, written accents tend to
come off as distracting and contrived rather than authentic. The best way to
get a grasp of your character’s voice is simply to write. Feel free to
experiment with point-of-view, tense and all that other fun stuff until you
find something that feels natural and appropriate. Also, do your research. You
don’t have to write a dissertation, but if your character is radically
different from you (say, he’s a brilliant theoretical physicist or he’s from
some obscure country in Africa that you’ve never been to), you should at least
pretend you know what the hell you’re talking about; for example, I know I
shouldn’t expect too much from Hollywood, but it would be nice to see at least
one movie psychologist who doesn’t violate basic ethics principles on a regular
basis.
Don’t think of your
characters as characters. You know what I mean: how many times have you
watched an episode of Glee or pretty
much any horror movie ever made and thought, what the fuck is he/she doing? All too often, you see characters making stupid or
nonsensical decisions for the sole purpose of adding forced tension (see: Alien), moving the
plot along (latter-day
The Office) or conjuring up a
plot out of thin air (I’m looking at you, The Lucky One).
But any good writer knows that characters are not simply objects you can manipulate at will because you want X to
happen; even in satire, horror and other genres that frequently build their
characters around archetypes, characters are, for all intents and purposes,
real human beings (or dogs, dragons, dinosaurs, whatever) and should be treated
as such. You can fuck with physics all you want and push your audience to
suspend its disbelief plot-wise (to a certain extent, of course), but even if
your world has no attachment whatsoever to reality, your characters have to
behave in a way that makes sense with what readers know about their personality,
motivations, fears, etc. It’s like Newton’s first law of motion – which, for
those of you who have erased your high school physics class from your memory,
states that all objects exist in a state of rest or move in a straight line
unless compelled to change by an external force acting upon it: characters
should act according to their own internal rules unless their external
circumstances can reasonably suggest
otherwise.
Oh Pete Campbell, you smug, insensitive bastard, never
change.
Well, I guess that isn’t always true; if it was, I wouldn’t be watching Fringe, and The Lord of the
Rings would not be my favorite movie of all time. But in general, as my fellow
blogger CE Jenkins said in a post all the way back in December 2011, the
most fascinating fictional characters are those that aren’t perfect. They have
weaknesses, flaws, contradictions, embarrassing secrets, regrets, selfish
desires and all those things we real-life people love about ourselves. Even if
you don’t want your character to be a raging misogynist and an unapologetic
douchebag, he should still have actual personality, psychological or moral
issues – and no, it doesn’t count if you say he’s unpopular at school and call
that a flaw (*ahem* Easy A *ahem*). I
don’t care if your story takes place in Heaven: NO SAINTS ALLOWED. The fact is
that, when it comes to fiction, people are sadists. We like to see characters
suffer horribly, especially if their suffering is brought about by their own
doing; how else would you explain the immortality of Shakespeare’s tragedies
(well, other than the poetic language)? Don’t feel compelled to make all of your
characters people you’d want to be best friends with. There’s a reason why
everyone adores Han Solo, and no one gives a shit about Luke Skywalker.
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