Traps and Tips for Character Development Part 2 by Richard Draude

Continuing my post from last time here are five tips to help develop characters to draw your audience into your novel.

Character Development Tips

The Devil Is In The Details. Some writers have a tendency to throw too much at the reader all at once—to give a full physical description, tell the life story, and reveal the innermost thoughts of a character as soon as he or she is introduced. But that’s not necessarily the best approach. Think about a character you’re introducing as someone the reader is meeting for the first time. When you are introduced to a person for first time, you do take in that person’s physical appearance, but only on a fairly perfunctory level. Think about the people you met today, you don’t remember very much about them except that she had dark hair, and he wasn’t very tall. You don’t remember every detail about what they’re wearing, because you didn’t notice. If one of the people you met was wearing a Princess Leia costume, or was dressed as Captain Kirk you would remember a lot about that person, and it would certainly be worth including in a story. So we don’t notice everything at once when we meet a new person. We do, however, notice a few details that can give us some idea of that person’s personality and life situation. Is the character well dressed? Does he or she bite their nails? It makes it easier to stay consistent too, because you have a fully developed idea of the character’s personality right from the start. The slow reveal is the best. You don’t tell the reader your character has a phobia, instead that fear comes out when he or she comes face-to-face with what they fear.

Observe Human Behavior. Another way to develop characters is to observe human behavior. You can base characters on real people you don’t know. Sit at a mall, I like the food court, and take notes. People-watching is best done where multitudes congregate. You can observe them when they’re at their best and worst. Pay close attention to how they talk, their mannerisms, hand gestures, what they wear, their attitudes and body language. You can pull all that into your stories. Combining gestures and habits from one or more people is another good way to build your characters.

Everybody Has A History: Our experiences determine who we are today. Life shapes us and molds us. Even if you don’t reveal your characters’ pasts to your readers, you should know about them, at least for your primary characters. You should have complete biographies for your main characters in mind (better yet written down) so you understand what drives them. Why is this important? Because if you don’t understand a character, your readers won’t either. An example of an effective character history, is Captain Quint’s back story in the movie Jaws. In one scene, Quint, Chief Brody, and Matt Hooper, are in the cabin of Quint’s fishing boat, and they start comparing old scars. Quint has a tattoo that was removed, and Brody asks him about it. In response, Quint tells the other characters a horrific story about many of his friends on the USS Indianapolis (true WWII story by the way) being eaten by sharks, and all of a sudden it’s easy to understand Quint and his hatred for sharks. Can you imagine Jaws without Quint’s back story?

Don’t Neglect Secondary Characters. Sidekicks can be some of the most likeable and interesting characters in the story. Often, they are the readers’ favorites. One example of this is Pippin Took, from Lord of the Rings. Pippin acts before he thinks about the consequences of what he’s about to do. That leads him into great peril, yet at the same time his brashness propels his character into a driving force of the story. Well developed secondary characters can, and will, enrich your book. They’re like the supporting instruments in a symphony. Secondary characters can be a gold mine of wit and charm, and every one serves a purpose. Some add color or assist in world building, and some act as foils for the main characters. Foils are characters who can’t stand your hero or heroine. They do nothing but gripe about them behind their backs. They can be great fun. Make sure you know a lot about your secondary characters even if you don’t end up revealing all of it to the reader.

Detail Your Villain: Pay close attention to your villain, without whom the story would not exist. Often, I hear authors tell me that the villain is their favorite character, the one they love to write about. Bad guys can be very tough to do well, and it can be even tougher to get readers to empathize with them. Whenever you write a villain, keep in mind that he or she needs to be just as well developed as your main characters. Instead of being flawed, however—because obviously all villains are flawed—the villain should be imperfectly bad. In other words, the villains should have redeeming characteristics where our heroes have flaws. In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkin’s use of Gollum is a great example. While we can empathize with Gollum, even feel sorry for him, sometimes, we have hope for him, and wish he could be redeemed. And then we loathe him, and despise him, and because he’s so annoying, we wish somebody would just cut his throat. Gollum is a character who is definitely ruled by evil most of the time, but he also a victim, an unwitting pawn of the ring’s power, so we can empathize with him. He is a great antagonist. These can be among the most difficult of all characters to create but also some of the most satisfying.

So there you have it, five traps and five tips. Whether you write good characters or poor ones will determine whether your readers stay with you to the end of the hero’s journey or abandon him or her after your first book. If the characters fail, the story fails. Hopefully this post will help you avoid that, but if it does happen, pick yourself up, write the next book, and develop more complex and complete characters. Remember, always look ahead, but learn from the past.