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Tag Archives: characters
Creating characters
I’m gearing up to write something new—you know, when life with a new baby and adjusting to three children all settle in. But even the gearing up phase is going slowly, because I’m feeling like I have to get to know the main character inside and out before I start writing. Before, we’ve looked at creating sympathetic characters, but now I’m just thinking about creating characters themselves.
I know some people do just that—spend hours, days or even months designing a character and bringing him or her to life, tweaking every last nuance of his or her backstory, weaving it into the plot outline, crafting quirks, homing in on weaknesses—all before they start writing a word of the first draft.
And then there are people like me, who outline characters in broad strokes and then launch into a draft. I edit and add to my characters’ life stories as I draft—and often don’t actually create those histories until I have something come to me in a stroke of genius, which usually requires some rewriting of the draft to that point.
Then I get to the end of the draft and have these characters that have evolved over the course of the draft. Even their voices have developed and been refined, until at the end of the draft, they have more distinctive voices, and going back to the beginning, I find bland, voiceless narration.
“Fixing” all that, and further refining and defining my characters, can be a lot of work. That’s part of the reason I wanted to try to get all that figured out in advance. And while I’ve definitely worked to develop my new character, her life story and her personality (with some ideas from The Power of Point of View by Alicia Rasley), I’ll find most of who she is and how she sounds in the writing, and for me, can’t be found any other way.
When do you do most of your character crafting—before, during or after drafting? What are your favorite ways to get to know your characters? (Warning: awesome responses to the second question just might be “foreblogged”!)
Photo credit—Michal Zacharzewski
Are character arcs necessary?
After all this talk about character arcs, I was browsing around on an interesting screenwriting blog, and found an article kind of arguing against character arcs. So are character arcs necessary? The answer, of course, is it depends—and it depends on several factors.
In plot-driven fiction, for example, the characters’ growth and change aren’t what the story is about. Dirk Pitt, James Bond, and Indiana Jones see little, if any, character growth in each episode of their stories (aside from the new Bond movies, maybe). While they are memorable characters, and we root for them to win, we don’t care if they have a life-altering experience to become better people. We’re cool with them staying the way they are. The story focuses on their adventures rather than their experiences.
However, in character-driven fiction, the character arc is central. Reading this kind of fiction enables us the live character’s experiences and feelings, and those are at least as important to the story as the actual actions.
It also depends on the genre. Mysteries tend to be more plot driven. Action stories are usually more plot driven. Romances, especially single-title length ones, are usually more character driven.
Another consideration is whether the book will lead into a series (and if so, how long). If this is going to be a serial character, how many different lessons can s/he learn? It’s possible, of course, to do a metaarc—one that takes the character on a journey from the beginning to the end of the series (Harry Potter?)—but it will probably require considerable planning.
What do you think? Can you think of successful characters who don’t arc? Do you write characters who don’t arc?
Archetypal characters in the Hero’s Journey
As I mentioned yesterday, the Hero’s Journey started with Joseph Campbell looking at heroes across mythology. He found that not only do heroes have a lot in common, but so do other roles in their stories. Again, Christopher Vogler adapted this for writers in The Writer’s Journey, so we’ll be using his terminology.
The Hero is our protagonist. The audience identifies with him (or her). He grows in the
course of the story, and is involved in most of the action. He has a character flaw, of course (if he were perfect, could he grow? And would he be interesting?) This flaw is often the flipside of his biggest strength—his optimism means he has false hope, love of family means he won’t sacrifice his dad’s to save the world, etc. But he must be willing to sacrifice when we get to that climactic point of the story.
The first archetypal character he usually meets is the Herald, the character who issues the call to adventure. His challenge announces a coming change, that all is not well in the Ordinary World. He also gives the Hero motivation to go on the adventure.
The Herald doesn’t have to actually be a person—in Lord of the Rings, it’s the ring; in Harry Potter, it’s the letters; in Star Wars: A New Hope, it’s Luke’s aunt & uncle dying. (You could try to argue it’s meeting R2-D2, but remember that R2 bore a message for someone else).
He usually has a Mentor who teaches him. Often, the Mentor gives him a useful gift as well as motivates the hero into accepting the call. (Technically, the mentor doesn’t have to be a person either—and I don’t just mean disembodied voices and Force ghosts, either. It can be anything that teaches the Hero and prepares him for the coming tests.)
Along the way, the Hero encounters Threshold Guardians who block his path. These obstacles are tests for the Hero—have his skills developed enough? The guardians may be working for the good side or the bad side, or no one at all (but it’s hard to make someone who makes trouble for his own sake believable for very long, you know?)
The Trickster is often a sidekick. He often balances the drama with comic relief and brings things into perspective.
The Shape-Shifter can be his or her own character—or it can be combined with another character type. As the name states, he’s not what he appears to be. Revealing his “real” self can create big change in the story—but they may or may not be evil. They may switch sides, but they may become good. In fact, in a romance, the romantic leads are often Shape-Shifters because they must change to enter into a relationship. (Heck, even the Hero might be a Shape-Shifter, since he has to learn and grow throughout the course of the story.)
The Hero may encounter a rival—someone who’s competing for an intermediary goal, or the girl, etc. But it’s the Shadow that is the true villain. He tests the Hero’s true abilities and worthiness, and forces the Hero to rise to the challenge. He’s often a shape-shifter, appearing beautiful, elegant or good.
And nothing is complete without a few examples, right?
| Harry Potter | Star Wars IV-VI | |
| Hero | Harry | Luke |
| Shadow | Voldemort | Darth Vader |
| Mentor | Hagrid, Dumbledore | Obi-Wan |
| Herald | Letters | the deaths of Beru and Owen |
| Shape shifters | Literally: McGonagall | Leia, Vader/Anakin, Obi-Wan |
| Trickster | Fred & George | Han, C3PO, R2-D2 |
| Threshold Guardians | Neville, Fluffy | Stormtroopers |
What do you think? How do you see these archetypal characters, either in others’ works or your own?
Image credits: superhero—Stefanie L.; shadow—Michal Zacharzewski
Why I love Burn Notice
Yes, it’s cool and it’s glossy and it’s filled with attractive people. And guns and explosions and spy work and secret undercover coolness. And hilarity.
But that’s not why I love Burn Notice. (Those things don’t hurt, mind you.)
I love Burn Notice because of the characters. Namely one Michael Westen. (And no, I don’t mean Jeffrey Donovan, though he is quite attractive. I mean Michael Westen.) When USA says “Characters welcome,” they mean it.
Michael is a complex character—he’s terrible at interpersonal relationships. He does bad things. And though he wouldn’t talk about it and takes no pleasure in it, he has killed. He’s not above blackmail or letting the bad guys kill each other.
Though he’d prefer not to have to deal with them, Michael loves his mom and his brother and does all he can to protect them. In a recent episode (“End Run“), Michael was blackmailed into working for a bad guy because said bad guy threatened his brother. The writers even made it so that working for the bad guy wasn’t all that bad—he didn’t want a nuke, just a particular electronic interface. “People will go on killing each other in little wars all around the globe, whether or not you steal it,” he says. “The only difference is how much money I make while they do it.” To show he’ll make good on his threat, the bad guy even shoots Michael’s brother in the arm.
It wouldn’t be so wrong, then, would it? It would save his brother’s life (before he bleeds out, too), and it wouldn’t cost the world much.
Michael breaks into the office, gets the weapon and—sees a photo of a family. With kids. While that reminder helps him put together some of the scant evidence they’ve compiled about this bad guy, I think it also reminds him of the greater good. “I’m not handing over a nuke to save one life,” he tells the bad guy, “even if it is my brother’s.”
Michael is a great character because he’s strong—physically, yes, but more importantly, he’s extremely smart/savvy (mental strength, if you will). He even verges on too strong—as a blacklisted spy/former black ops soldier, he knows just what to do in any given situation. But he has weaknesses—the classics: children; his family; oh, and the fate of the entire world. Most importantly, he struggles.
And this time, he struggled because the choice was hard—it wasn’t save or destroy the world (or save the world, sacrifice integrity), it was save his brother or some small number of unknown people—possibly no one. The talented writers made it seem no great sin if Michael had decided to trade the weapon for his brother’s life. And he almost did.
But in the end, he didn’t. And that’s what I love most about Burn Notice.
Who are your favorite television characters? Why?
You can watch the full episode on Hulu until July 30.
Posted in Technique
Tagged burn notice, characters, complex characters, michael westen, strong characters, sympathetic characters, tv
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Creating sympathetic characters
Once upon a time, I wrote a novel where the main character wasn’t likeable. Well, she was—I liked her. But the way I’d written her made her come off as disdainful and arrogant—not qualities I really meant for her personality to convey. So I read everything I could on sympathetic characters and tried very hard to fix her. (One critique partner was adamant that I had not, but no one else objected.)
What does it mean to have a “sympathetic” character? It means that the reader can relate to him/her. The reader feels the things s/he feels, and the reader understands the difficulties that character is going through. (It doesn’t always mean, however, that the reader likes the character, though that can be helpful.)
It often seems like sympathizing with main characters (who aren’t villains or anti-heroes, at least) is automatic—but anyone who’s ever written an unsympathetic character quickly learns that it’s not. Sometimes we writers think we’re doing something avant-garde by creating someone as alienated/sarcastic/cruel/apathetic/distant as a “real” person—but most of the time, we learn that this “cutting-edge” technique has been tried before. Without success.
I didn’t really think I was being avant-garde or even cool when I created my unsympathetic character—I accidentally focused too much on characteristics or behaviors that made my trying-to-keep-her-cool character all but condescending.
Months after all my research to fix her, all that information suddenly crystallized. There are only two things that make a character sympathetic: strength and struggles. The character must have both in some form.
So this month, we’re going to be talking about strength, struggles and sympathy for characters!
Photo credit—Michal Zacharzewski
Posted in Technique
Tagged characterization, characters, sympathetic characters, sympathy
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