by Elizabeth S. Craig/ @elizabethscraig
At some point when we’re writing our book, there comes a happy time when our characters become real. It’s like Pinocchio turning into a real boy.
Of course, it’s only natural to have it happen over time. Think about how well you know the closest members of your family or your oldest friends. You can almost predict their reaction to any given situation that comes up. You know what they’ll say, what they’ll do, how they’ll act. You almost know what they’ll think. That’s because we’ve spent so much time with them.
That’s, I think, one of the main reasons I love series so much. I love them as a writer because I want to hang out more with the characters I’ve created. As a reader, I become invested in other authors’ characters. I’ve spent a lot of time with them, gotten to know them. They’ve either made me laugh or made me sad or even scared me. I feel like I know them and it’s easy to go to the writer’s next book in the series because I don’t have to do all the work of learning new characters again…I already know the main ones.
When we’re writing the first book in a series, or a standalone, we have to work a little harder to get acquainted with our characters. I’ve heard lots of different approaches for doing this. The most popular are to base the character on a person the writer knows, make the character an amalgam of different personalities the writer knows, and use character worksheets to help flesh the character out.
One of the ways I like to get to know a character is to spend the day with my character by imagining them near me throughout the course of my day—thinking about how they’d react in the situations that I face, how they’d handle things differently, what they’d rather be reading or watching on television.
Once you know your character, you really know him. I’m still editing that first backlist book of mine and I keep thinking (horrified), “Myrtle would never say something like this!” I’ve deleted a ton of dialogue. It’s funny that I feel almost offended that Myrtle had the wrong words coming out of her mouth. But then….the book was written over five years ago. Myrtle has evolved over time. And her voice has gotten stronger.
How do you make your characters real? Do your characters evolve over time?
Sometimes you get a character who you understand completely from the moment of creation — you know them before you even know their names. And some characters take a while before the let you in.
As for the dialog… on the WIP I find that some of my characters have infectious verbal tics. (Like George is always saying “Absolutely!” and after a while everybody, including me, is saying it. Although I think that’s actually something they would do. And it can make for a good joke.)
We must get to know our characters to create them and make them into the people in our stories. A great post, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth – That’s what makes characters sparkle – when they become real to the author. And I know just what you mean about looking back over what we’ve written and spotting things our characters would just never say or do.
How do I make my characters real? I imagine them in situations I get into (e.g. What would ___ do if she got a flat tire/earned a pay raise/lost her phone?). That gives me some insight into my characters.
Hi all,
I can’t agree more with everything Elizabeth had to say about characters. I haven’t brought my character around with me for a day and thought about how they would react to everyday things that I face but I LOVE the idea.
I’ve turned to a book called 45 Master Characters and it is filled with fantastic content — you can view my review at: http://mysterywritersunite.blogspot.com/2011/10/product-review-45-master-characters.html
Characters can become infectious :-)
Becky
Evolving sounds good – and I like the idea of taking my current protagonist along with me for the day (how would she be in my therapy sessions???) Well, she’s a doctor so all right I guess. I don’t think we’d be close pals though -she’s so buttoned up – especially at the beginning of the book.
The characters are the heart of all my stories – I’m definitely a character-driven, rather than a plot-driven, writer. So I basically can’t even write the story until I know the MC inside and out, because then I know what sort of a story would happen to him/her. I rarely need worksheets or anything like that – and I would consider it next door to a crime to base anything in any of my characters (aside from a purely physical trait) on a real person – but by just thinking about them, picturing them in everyday scenes (“Hey, we’re at the park. What would Maia be doing here?”), writing snippets of scenes that may or may not make it into the actual book … they come alive.
I try and get to know my characters before hand but they always evolve as the story progresses.
I love your idea of having the MC travel with you for the day. I try to get myself out of the way as much as possible to allow my characters to come ‘alive’. Sadly, it took me a long while to learn this and I have the duds in the drawer to prove it. Great post.
My characters do evolve, but I write so slowly that they can evolve in the course of a single book! My writing is so character-driven I couldn’t do otherwise, the plot (such as it is) depends on them growing and learning and discovering that there is a plot.
The Daring Novelist–I’ve had a couple of characters that just jumped, fully formed, into my head. But you’re so right–others are cagier. They’re more introverted and harder to know. None of them are like me, so it takes a while to get to know them.
And the verbal tics make it easy for the readers to identify the characters, too, especially if they’ve been offstage for a while.
Jan–Ha! You know, I’ve thought about that before, too–would this protagonist be someone that I would ordinarily have in my circle of friends? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. :) I still love them all, but some I’d hang out with more than others.
E Louise Bates–I think your approach makes a lot of sense and can really help give us insight into how a character behaves and thinks.
Journaling Woman–Thanks so much, Teresa!
Laura–They do, don’t they? Whether we planned it, or not, sometimes!
Margot–Putting your characters in different imaginary situations is a nice way to learn more about them. :)
H. L. Banks–Oh, we’ve all got our duds in a drawer! I’ve got a whole manuscript graveyard. :) I think I was 20 when I first tried to write a book and I couldn’t figure all the mechanics out.
Author Guy–I love character-based books best. At least you have time to get to know your characters during a book!
Becky–It’s a great way to get to know a character. The only treacherous part is that it makes me a little foggy/daydreamy all day, so it isn’t perfect for a day I’ve got to really focus on something (a meeting, a volunteer event, etc.) But it works really well. :)
Thanks for the link! I clicked over and the book sounds fascinating. I’ll check it out.
I used to dream my characters, then wake up and write down what they did and said. I don’t do that so much anymore. For my latest character, I began to write her as a child. It felt as though I was channeling her. But I had to stop when I realized I’d written probably 60 pages. Only bits and pieces of that went into the end story, but I really got to know her.
I got so attached to my characters, I even dreamed about them! After five books, they really get into your head.
That’s what I enjoyed about writing a five-book series. My characters all began in their late teens and I got to see them grow up over the course of five books. Who they were in the first book is so different from where they were in the last one.
That’s why I jumped ahead twenty years for the second book with Byron – I knew he would’ve changed and grown during that time.
Helen–Now that’s a neat idea–write the character at a different stage of her life. Love it!
Diane–I love the idea of growing with a character!
Alex–20 years! That would be so much fun to do with a character…cool!
One of the things I like to do, especially for novel-length works, is to write a few flashbacks of the most key times in their life before the book starts. I don’t write them planning to use them in the finished product, but just to get to know them better before I dive into the full book.