As fiction writers, we all have the same
goal—transporting our readers inside the pages of our novel so they feel like a
part of the story. Your characters are that vehicle for transporting your
readers to the world you’ve created. Characters aren’t just a way of
transporting the readers; they drive the story. In fact, I’ve learned to listen
to them when they argue with me.
So as fiction writers, how do we develop,
memorable, effective, characters? We can start with deciding what
differentiates an effective character from an ineffective one. Most writers
like to read, so you can probably think of characters that are particularly memorable
for you and also some that you didn’t feel any connection with. Let’s look at
traps that lead to ineffective characters. They are all connected, because one
often leads to another, and some writers are guilty of all five: they create
characters that are one dimensional, they’re stereotypical, they’re too
perfect, they’re inconsistent, or they’re just plain dull.
Traps and Tips for Effective Character
Development. Part I
Characters
Development Traps
One-dimensional: Writers create a one-dimensional
character when they don’t devote enough time to developing a character. These
characters are flat, don’t seem real. Bear in mind not every character deserves
or merits equal development. Every novel has its main and secondary characters.
Unless you intend to write the sequel to War
and Peace, you can’t develop each and every one of the secondary
characters.
One-dimensional
characters are fine if that character’s role is not important. But if your
character has a significant impact on your story, then by all means take the
time to flesh out your character and develop his or her strengths, weaknesses,
habits and foibles. For example, you have a character in your novel who is a
detective, and he’s married to a woman who is described as a Southern
housewife. She may be described physically, but if all we know about her past,
her personality, and her motivations is that she’s a Southern housewife, that’s
not very much to go on. We only know that she can cook fried chicken and
chitlins. A character like that is going to fade from the stage of our memories
quickly. One way or another, we’re not going to care what happens to her.
Stereotypical: Because they’re not unique,
stereotypical characters are uninteresting. It’s important to note here that
being stereotypical is not the same thing as being consistent. Your characters
should behave in ways that are consistent with how you’ve developed them, but
that’s not the same thing as being stereotypical. What would you think of a
fantasy novel where all elves are haughty and all dwarfs are gruff, and they
hate each other? Or a story where all the rich people in your stories are
shallow, greedy, and uncaring? Or of the wealthy women are tall and
extravagantly dressed, and they’ve all had plastic surgery? It’s when a character
breaks free of the stereotype that he or she becomes believable and memorable.
These are stereotypes. But a novel where the Elves are pot smoking hippies or
the munchkins are cannibals would pull you in and make you keep reading. Real
people don’t act according to stereotypes in every respect. Everyone is unique
in some way. You don’t want your readers to think, didn’t I just see that
character in so-and-so’s work. Only now he’s got another name and brown hair?
You want your characters to be unique and therefore memorable.
All-too-Perfect:
These characters tend to make reader’s eyes roll. If you’re doing a parody it’s
okay to have a character who is perfect in every way. But in real life
perfection doesn’t exist, so it shouldn’t exist in your writing. It’s hard to
empathize with a perfect person, because none of us is perfect. Everyone, no
matter how noble, is flawed in some way. For example, an effective character
might be someone who is heroic in almost every way—he’s a good fighter, he’s
nice to look at, he rides well and shoots well, and he’s brave and
compassionate—but he’s totally indecisive, so if he has to take command in a
battle, everyone’s going to die. It’s much easier for readers to relate to
someone with a flaw, because they can say, “Yes, that’s just like my buddy, Jeff. He’s a great guy, but he can’t make up his
mind to save his life.”
There’s
also a particular kind of too-perfect character you could refer to as the Betty
Jane or Gary Plain characters. They’re the kind of character that is the
writer’s idealized version of himself or herself. This character comes from
humble beginnings, achieves impossible goals, ends up saving the galaxy, and
then dies in the arms of the King after having become the first female knight
of the realm. How is any reader going to relate to that except you, the author?
This is an author living out his or her fantasies. Every writer does that to
some extent, but Betty Jane is the extreme version of that kind of wish
fulfillment. You need to be conscious and careful of your character.
Inconsistency
In Your Characters: Nothing is more jarring and pulls your readers out
of your story faster than an inconsistent character. You take the time to
develop a character with certain traits. Readers will expect your hero or heroine
to behave in accordance with his or her motivations and personality as you
defined them. If that character behaves in a way that doesn’t make sense, your
readers will notice it every time. Consistency applies to everything from small
things, such as a character’s eye color, to big things like the character’s
manner of speaking and important choices they make. If a character has blue
eyes in chapter one, she’d better not have green eyes in chapter five. Unless
you have a good reason why your hero or heroine speaks like an aristocrat one
minute and uses street slang the next, it’s going to take the reader right out
of the story. Or if a character slaughters a bunch of innocent children and
then goes into a monologue about the evils of child abuse, that’s inconsistent.
The fictional characters you create must feel like real people to the reader.
If you don’t have a firm picture of them in your mind, they’re going to become
shaky on the page. You should be able to see them and hear them speak and watch
them go through their actions. And because you know them that well, they will
be consistent; they will tell you when you’re stepping out of bounds for them.
Do this and you won’t fall into that trap.
Just
Plain Dull Characters. Of course, some characters are supposed to be
dull, but in that case they’re usually foils for more interesting characters or
events. If you think you might have a dull character in your book, the first
thing you should ask is whether you need that character at all. Why is that
character there? What is his or her role in the story? If you can’t come up
with an answer, then that character is just stage dressing. Some stage dressing
is allowed, but if you don’t even need the character for stage dressing, maybe
it’s time to do away with that character completely. Another option is to make
a dull character come alive by adding some unique traits. Perhaps your drab
character has a secret fantasy life or an intriguing hobby, indicating that he
or she is much more interesting than appears on the surface. That sort of thing
will give a character life.
Okay,
so now you’ve avoided these five traps. Now your characters are
three-dimensional, unique, flawed, consistent, and interesting. My next post
will be on tips that can make them even better.
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