Hello, friends, and welcome back! I trust Santa Claus found your names on the "nice" list? We had our usual pile under the tree, and because we place people ahead of presents, and love ahead of greed, we didn't spend ourselves into the poor house, nobody got a new car with a big bow on top, and nobody expressed any displeasure with what they did get. I got a couple of def-an'-slammin' video games and two nice books, among other things, but I'm really doing this because I want to highlight my classy gift from my classy wife. The person who's known me longer and knows me better than anyone else believes that I'm a writer, believes it to the point that she doesn't want me writing with a 10c stick pen, so the lovely Miss Bonzo took the opportunity to outfit me in a manner befitting a great wordsmith. Behold not only a stylus with nibs, but a genuine quill to go with that bottle of ink. She thinks that I'll be more inspired using period implements. Time will tell...
Now, as to the subject of the post; as tightly written as these are, you may be astonished to learn that I don't plan too much in advance. Yeah, incredible, isn't it? I keep an ear open on the several sites I frequent, and try to catch a subject that's "buzzing." What I've "caught" this time around is people asking questions about character development and dialogue. Those are two very different subjects, and I'll tackle dialogue down the road somewhere, but I specifically want to hit characters first, because characters are fiction. Think about the people you've known, and the stories you've read. Why does one stay in your mind, and another fade into obscurity? Because of character. You are a person, and as such you are hard-wired to relate to people. When you tell friends about the guy you knew in college or the military, do you not always begin by saying, "That guy was such a character?" Is it not true that a book stays with you because the protagonist was so courageous/humorous/resourceful/roguish? It's far less important what they did than who they were.
The challenge for a writer is to create a person like this from nothing, perform the greatest conjuring act of the modern age, and place him on the page from where he can make the leap to the hearts of readers. For the benefit of my own readers, as well as any aspiring writers in my audience, I am going to attempt to describe how I do this. Of course, that requires that I actually assume that I am able to do it at all, but I have received a number of favorable comments on the characters I have offered up in Beyond the Rails, so I'm going to take that as my license to pontificate.
The greatest characters begin, with me at least, after the story's high points have coalesced, and I know what road the narrative is going to follow. I understand that some writers will develop a great character, then build a story that fits him. I can't do that. My approach takes the form of having this quest to undertake, and interviewing adventurers for their suitability to complete it. So, with all the caveats out of the way, what do I look for in an adventurer?
First off, there isn't just one adventurer to create. There are at least two, and can be as many as six. They take the following form:
1. The PROTAGONIST. This is the traditional "hero," although he need not actually be heroic for the purposes of some stories. In a romance, for example, he may be a bumbling nice guy competing with a charismatic, studly, cad for the affection of the lady involved, and while it's unrealistic, you want to see him win as a feel-good issue.
2. The OPPOSITION. The traditional "villain," he again need not be villainous, but merely have an agenda of needs that will prevent the Protagonist from achieving his goals. Or he may be Doctor Evil. He wants something that it wouldn't be good for the rest of us for him to have.
3. The CONFIDANT. Think Watson to Holmes, and you have it. This is the faithful friend of unswerving loyalty whose only interest in the story if furthering the Protagonist's aims. Care must be taken with this character. The Protagonist is supposed to solve his own problems and save the day, and you cannot have this guy come tripping down the garden path every time something goes wrong; it makes the readers question the limits of coincidence. Also, this character cannot be a "guardian angel" to the Protagonist. He can pull the hero out of the burning building once, but if he does it again, people are going to start wondering why the story isn't about this fellow.
4. The HENCHMAN. It is tempting to call this character the Opposition's Confidant, but that's a trap to be avoided. While the Protagonist must solve his own problems, you can have a very effective villain who never gets his hands dirty. To throw out another Sherlock Holmes reference, "Professor Moriarty, that Napoleon of crime..." The villain can sit calm and seemingly innocent behind his desk while his henchman robs, rapes, and murders.
5 is an extra character on the Protagonist's side who has a vital mission to execute, but isn't part of the "Scooby Gang" for all of that. An example might be a tale in which a seer has dispatched the main characters on a dangerous quest, and after they leave, she discovers something she has overlooked that will spell doom for all of them if they aren't warned. The only option she has is to send her young, inexperienced apprentice after them to deliver the information; this apprentice is character 5.
6 is a similar character who serves the Opposition. In the above example, if your quest party has a cook or pack horse groomer who is secretly collecting information for the Opposition, that is character 6.
Any of these characters may be a Romantic Involvement as the writer wishes, but you must never have more than six viewpoints, and that only in a very long work. More than that, and you'll have your reader flitting from head-to-head until he feels like a tennis ball.
So that is the pantheon of characters. How, then, do you go about creating a memorable character that will live in your readers' hearts forever? Well, that magic is performed during the writing, but every builder must have a foundation to construct his edifice upon, and writers are no different. Behold the Character Sheet:
I call this a "sheet," but it can expand into a folder full of papers, or several pages in a notebook in my own method. Every character has his own sheet, and the point is, you can't tell me about this guy until you know who he is. So you write, and you think, and you write some more. The obvious considerations are physical appearance, height, weight, build, eye color, hair style, tattoos, etc. Set aside a section with some blank lines, and add anything you can think of to flesh each person out. Patience Hobbs has a small tattoo in a place where no one would ever see it who wasn't a lover (or a torturer?). I know when and where she got it, who put it on her, and what it signifies. You, the reader, may never become aware of its existence, but it informs her character in subtle ways in everything I have her do.
Then consider Background. In Clinton Monroe, I needed a character who was so at home in the air and in a leadership position that his background had to explain those qualities. Who else but a blimp commander in Her Majesty's Aero Forces? Why would a man of that caliber end up trucking cargo around Kenya in a cobbled-together airship barely worthy of the name? Had to have been disgraced, unjustly (or maybe justly?) cashiered, set down on his luck. Again, even if you never learn the details, I have to know them, because his past basically defines the man he is today, his attitudes, his mannerisms, his speech patterns. He may hang out with waterfront bums and uneducated day laborers, but he remains a product of the British Officer Corps, and isn't going to change his personality overnight. Too ashamed or too proud to return home, he settles on the far frontier and turns to the only thing he knows to earn a living.
With a firm grasp of the character's background, you can then begin to put together his personality. This means the personality as it relates to the story. What makes him a hero; a villain; loyal or disloyal? You may have heard actors say there is nothing to compare with playing a nasty villain. This is because the hero is limited to one box, regardless of period or genre. The hero must be Virtuous. It is this virtue that allows him to see right from wrong. He must be Courageous in order to act on that knowledge. He must be Likeable in order for the audience to, you know, like him. And he must be Competent in order to carry out his courageous actions. These last two items have some flex in them. If the hero is incompetent, you will wander into farce or slapstick; think Beverly Hills Ninja. If he isn't Likeable, you'll have an antihero on your hands, and these are very difficult to pull off. It can be done, as witness Paul Newman in Hombre, but I don't recommend making things more difficult for yourself on purpose. The Confidant may pick his nose in public and fart at Milady's table, but never the hero.
Leave a space to fit in Mannerisms. If your hero takes off his hat and rubs his head when he's nervous, you want him to act the same way every time. Don't have him start rolling steel balls in his palm one time, and open a stick of gum the next.
Now that you know what brought your character to this point, you need to know a few other things. The character's Personal Life is a must. You're going to see him in the field most of all, but you need to know where he lives, who lives with him, who are his friends, how does he socialize? Again, you may never put these things on the page, but you need to know them in order to bring your character to life.
Private Life, same thing. What does he do when he's alone? Does he have hobbies, interests, vices? You have to know his secret. It may have been Dean Koontz who said that every character has one secret that they'd rather die than have exposed. Once you know what that secret is, the character jumps off the page.
Work Life. What does the character do for a living? Does his job drive the story, or interfere with it? Does he have rivals at work? Allies? What does he get from it, and how does it affect his pursuit of the story?
Strength. This applies to you knowing what aspect of your character's skill set that he turns to and relies on when he is in extremis. Does he fall back on nobility? Resourcefulness? Ju-jitsu, as Patience does? Skill with a firearm as in the case of David Smith? What is his go-to solution for the big problem.
Weakness. This is similar to the above, but in the case of the Protagonist applies specifically to the thing that the villain will use to attack him. If he has a fear of heights, you may be sure that their final battle will take place at the top of the church steeple.
And now that you have your character sheets assembled, you are ready to write a book or story about a group of people that you know as well as you know your own family members. Knowing these things isn't a magic solution. You still have to know how to write, but knowing the people you write about is essential to the process. Look, if being an author was easy, we'd all be on the best seller list. It is an incredibly difficult and convoluted task, but if it's in your genes, you're going to do it. All you can do is make every effort to do the best job you can. That's what I've done, and about twenty people profess to have been impressed by my work. That's enough for me...
Finally, let me hasten to add that I am not the genius these dissertations may make me appear. Over half a century of trying to improve my writing, I have read and incorporated lessons from dozens of how-to-write-books books. One might say I stand on the shoulders of geniuses, and I can only hope they will forgive me for my audacity.
Now get out there and live life like you mean it!
Now, as to the subject of the post; as tightly written as these are, you may be astonished to learn that I don't plan too much in advance. Yeah, incredible, isn't it? I keep an ear open on the several sites I frequent, and try to catch a subject that's "buzzing." What I've "caught" this time around is people asking questions about character development and dialogue. Those are two very different subjects, and I'll tackle dialogue down the road somewhere, but I specifically want to hit characters first, because characters are fiction. Think about the people you've known, and the stories you've read. Why does one stay in your mind, and another fade into obscurity? Because of character. You are a person, and as such you are hard-wired to relate to people. When you tell friends about the guy you knew in college or the military, do you not always begin by saying, "That guy was such a character?" Is it not true that a book stays with you because the protagonist was so courageous/humorous/resourceful/roguish? It's far less important what they did than who they were.
The challenge for a writer is to create a person like this from nothing, perform the greatest conjuring act of the modern age, and place him on the page from where he can make the leap to the hearts of readers. For the benefit of my own readers, as well as any aspiring writers in my audience, I am going to attempt to describe how I do this. Of course, that requires that I actually assume that I am able to do it at all, but I have received a number of favorable comments on the characters I have offered up in Beyond the Rails, so I'm going to take that as my license to pontificate.
The greatest characters begin, with me at least, after the story's high points have coalesced, and I know what road the narrative is going to follow. I understand that some writers will develop a great character, then build a story that fits him. I can't do that. My approach takes the form of having this quest to undertake, and interviewing adventurers for their suitability to complete it. So, with all the caveats out of the way, what do I look for in an adventurer?
First off, there isn't just one adventurer to create. There are at least two, and can be as many as six. They take the following form:
1. The PROTAGONIST. This is the traditional "hero," although he need not actually be heroic for the purposes of some stories. In a romance, for example, he may be a bumbling nice guy competing with a charismatic, studly, cad for the affection of the lady involved, and while it's unrealistic, you want to see him win as a feel-good issue.
2. The OPPOSITION. The traditional "villain," he again need not be villainous, but merely have an agenda of needs that will prevent the Protagonist from achieving his goals. Or he may be Doctor Evil. He wants something that it wouldn't be good for the rest of us for him to have.
3. The CONFIDANT. Think Watson to Holmes, and you have it. This is the faithful friend of unswerving loyalty whose only interest in the story if furthering the Protagonist's aims. Care must be taken with this character. The Protagonist is supposed to solve his own problems and save the day, and you cannot have this guy come tripping down the garden path every time something goes wrong; it makes the readers question the limits of coincidence. Also, this character cannot be a "guardian angel" to the Protagonist. He can pull the hero out of the burning building once, but if he does it again, people are going to start wondering why the story isn't about this fellow.
4. The HENCHMAN. It is tempting to call this character the Opposition's Confidant, but that's a trap to be avoided. While the Protagonist must solve his own problems, you can have a very effective villain who never gets his hands dirty. To throw out another Sherlock Holmes reference, "Professor Moriarty, that Napoleon of crime..." The villain can sit calm and seemingly innocent behind his desk while his henchman robs, rapes, and murders.
5 is an extra character on the Protagonist's side who has a vital mission to execute, but isn't part of the "Scooby Gang" for all of that. An example might be a tale in which a seer has dispatched the main characters on a dangerous quest, and after they leave, she discovers something she has overlooked that will spell doom for all of them if they aren't warned. The only option she has is to send her young, inexperienced apprentice after them to deliver the information; this apprentice is character 5.
6 is a similar character who serves the Opposition. In the above example, if your quest party has a cook or pack horse groomer who is secretly collecting information for the Opposition, that is character 6.
Any of these characters may be a Romantic Involvement as the writer wishes, but you must never have more than six viewpoints, and that only in a very long work. More than that, and you'll have your reader flitting from head-to-head until he feels like a tennis ball.
So that is the pantheon of characters. How, then, do you go about creating a memorable character that will live in your readers' hearts forever? Well, that magic is performed during the writing, but every builder must have a foundation to construct his edifice upon, and writers are no different. Behold the Character Sheet:
I call this a "sheet," but it can expand into a folder full of papers, or several pages in a notebook in my own method. Every character has his own sheet, and the point is, you can't tell me about this guy until you know who he is. So you write, and you think, and you write some more. The obvious considerations are physical appearance, height, weight, build, eye color, hair style, tattoos, etc. Set aside a section with some blank lines, and add anything you can think of to flesh each person out. Patience Hobbs has a small tattoo in a place where no one would ever see it who wasn't a lover (or a torturer?). I know when and where she got it, who put it on her, and what it signifies. You, the reader, may never become aware of its existence, but it informs her character in subtle ways in everything I have her do.
Then consider Background. In Clinton Monroe, I needed a character who was so at home in the air and in a leadership position that his background had to explain those qualities. Who else but a blimp commander in Her Majesty's Aero Forces? Why would a man of that caliber end up trucking cargo around Kenya in a cobbled-together airship barely worthy of the name? Had to have been disgraced, unjustly (or maybe justly?) cashiered, set down on his luck. Again, even if you never learn the details, I have to know them, because his past basically defines the man he is today, his attitudes, his mannerisms, his speech patterns. He may hang out with waterfront bums and uneducated day laborers, but he remains a product of the British Officer Corps, and isn't going to change his personality overnight. Too ashamed or too proud to return home, he settles on the far frontier and turns to the only thing he knows to earn a living.
With a firm grasp of the character's background, you can then begin to put together his personality. This means the personality as it relates to the story. What makes him a hero; a villain; loyal or disloyal? You may have heard actors say there is nothing to compare with playing a nasty villain. This is because the hero is limited to one box, regardless of period or genre. The hero must be Virtuous. It is this virtue that allows him to see right from wrong. He must be Courageous in order to act on that knowledge. He must be Likeable in order for the audience to, you know, like him. And he must be Competent in order to carry out his courageous actions. These last two items have some flex in them. If the hero is incompetent, you will wander into farce or slapstick; think Beverly Hills Ninja. If he isn't Likeable, you'll have an antihero on your hands, and these are very difficult to pull off. It can be done, as witness Paul Newman in Hombre, but I don't recommend making things more difficult for yourself on purpose. The Confidant may pick his nose in public and fart at Milady's table, but never the hero.
Leave a space to fit in Mannerisms. If your hero takes off his hat and rubs his head when he's nervous, you want him to act the same way every time. Don't have him start rolling steel balls in his palm one time, and open a stick of gum the next.
Now that you know what brought your character to this point, you need to know a few other things. The character's Personal Life is a must. You're going to see him in the field most of all, but you need to know where he lives, who lives with him, who are his friends, how does he socialize? Again, you may never put these things on the page, but you need to know them in order to bring your character to life.
Private Life, same thing. What does he do when he's alone? Does he have hobbies, interests, vices? You have to know his secret. It may have been Dean Koontz who said that every character has one secret that they'd rather die than have exposed. Once you know what that secret is, the character jumps off the page.
Work Life. What does the character do for a living? Does his job drive the story, or interfere with it? Does he have rivals at work? Allies? What does he get from it, and how does it affect his pursuit of the story?
Strength. This applies to you knowing what aspect of your character's skill set that he turns to and relies on when he is in extremis. Does he fall back on nobility? Resourcefulness? Ju-jitsu, as Patience does? Skill with a firearm as in the case of David Smith? What is his go-to solution for the big problem.
Weakness. This is similar to the above, but in the case of the Protagonist applies specifically to the thing that the villain will use to attack him. If he has a fear of heights, you may be sure that their final battle will take place at the top of the church steeple.
And now that you have your character sheets assembled, you are ready to write a book or story about a group of people that you know as well as you know your own family members. Knowing these things isn't a magic solution. You still have to know how to write, but knowing the people you write about is essential to the process. Look, if being an author was easy, we'd all be on the best seller list. It is an incredibly difficult and convoluted task, but if it's in your genes, you're going to do it. All you can do is make every effort to do the best job you can. That's what I've done, and about twenty people profess to have been impressed by my work. That's enough for me...
Finally, let me hasten to add that I am not the genius these dissertations may make me appear. Over half a century of trying to improve my writing, I have read and incorporated lessons from dozens of how-to-write-books books. One might say I stand on the shoulders of geniuses, and I can only hope they will forgive me for my audacity.
Now get out there and live life like you mean it!