The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: character

  • Am I Supposed to Have a Character, or Be One?

    This week’s question: How do you develop your characters?

    I would like to object to the form of the question in that it involves facts not in evidence: to wit, that I am a fiction writer.

    Yes, I have on occasion committed fiction. Each November I do Nanowrimo, stringing together some 50,000 words of original— well, dreck is not too harsh— and there are a few instances of fanfic in my past (I was young and naive, all the cool kids were doing it, I didn’t inhale…). Every once in a while a stray plot bunny hops into my yard to die of neglect. But my bread and butter, quite literally, lie in non-fiction writing.
    When I write fiction, it is entirely an exploratory exercise. I’m building a world, manipulating my characters, applying my hard-won wisdom to their travails (also inflicted by myself). Sometimes it’s glorious. Often it’s a disaster. I don’t care either way, because I’m far more interested in the experience of creation than the end product.

    When klutzy, unathletic me was involved in sports, I always enjoyed learning the skills, but I never cared to compete. Other athletes couldn’t understand this at all, “What’s the point if you don’t want to be a champion?” they would wail, utterly befuddled. The point, of course, was the inward journey, the acquisition of skills, strengthening and using my body—never the score. In fact, I found scores and rankings the complete opposite of motivational. Who wants to see their name constantly at the bottom of the list?

    The same is true for having others read my fiction. I have friends who are published, and congratulations to them all. But I have no desire whatsoever to follow in their footsteps, to seek notoriety, glory, or acclaim for my work. There are those who ask, “What’s the point if you’ve not going to becomes a Big Name Author?” I have no answer except for the inside journey. I don’t need to seek anyone’s approval to keep writing. I don’t even want their approval. It would ruin the fun.

  • Where the Character Leads, I’ll Shine a Flashlight

    Thinking about how I develop characters is tricky, because I’ve never given it tons of thought. My only truly conscious choice is that I don’t particularly care for giving characters physical descriptions. As a reader I tend to apply my own biases to envisioning the character. For instance, I read Pride & Prejudice while envisioning the actors from Bridget Jones’ Diary. So I try not to bother beyond broad strokes.

    But that’s not the important part, is it? Everything else is And honestly, I don’t need to know most of the meat of a character I start: just a name and a general idea of who they are. I find that the more time I spend penning back story, the less likely I am to write the actual story.

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  • People Watching

    Found on the web at: http://www.worldsstrangest.com/neatorama/stained-glass-d20/

    We were sitting on the steps leading down to Centennial Park from the parking lot of the old burger joint one night, drinking cheap beer advertised on TV and talking about girls. My friend was older than me, maybe five or six years older, maybe a little more, but he was wise and full of insight to my eighteen year-old self. If I think back, a lot of things my friend told me have stuck. I’ve lost touch with him in the intervening years, but I can hear his voice if I think hard enough.

    I tell you that story to tell you this: there’s no secret to developing characters. Anyone can do it. Some writers run their people through a kind of boot camp by interviewing them and knowing all sorts of details that may or may not be revealed in the course of a story. Others take a more organic approach and allow plot to reveal character through action. In the business we call this ‘pantsing’ for ‘flying by the seat of my pants’.

    I fall somewhere in the middle. I need to know more than just a little bit about my characters in order to write about them and often their actions determine the path of the plot. This happens when I ask the question: “What would (character name) do in this situation?” If the answer isn’t dramatic enough, I change the situation to suit the character. The one thing I need to know is whether the character will zig or zag in a given situation.

    Dictionary.com defines Character as “the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing”. The same site goes on later to define a character as “(of a part or role) representing a personality type, especially by emphasizing distinctive traits, as language, mannerisms, physical makeup, etc.” Some writers – as I said above – need more than others. When we’re talking about aggregate features and traits that represent a personality type, we’re talking about people. That’s not a secret, either, but I think it’s something that’s often forgotten by writers of all stripes.

    There are two sides to “Write What You Know”. First, yes – write what you know about, share your expertise and be passionate about the stories you want to tell. Second, don’t limit yourself – find out what you don’t know and expand your base of knowledge. Then you can more authoritatively “Write What You Know” because you just learned it. When I don’t know characters that I think will be essential to the telling of a story, I have to find out more about personality types. I consult books, watch films, read interviews with real people who I think are like the character I want to create. Sometimes I go places to people watch. Sometimes riding public transportation will inform a character.

    I’ve used all kinds of character sheets as I’ve been learning about writing. Everything from a basic D&D character sheet to Nancy Kress’ character interviews have been helpful in determining all sorts of things I need to know or don’t. I don’t necessarily need to know everything about the characters’ childhoods, but I do need to know things like one important event that occurred in their past. The one thing that they hold on to, that shapes them and drives them to be the person they are. Where and when it happened, how old the person was when it happened, who was involved, how it affected him. Everyone’s got a story that’s painful. If I know that one story about any of my characters, they’re easier to write.

    My day job allows me to interact and observe hundreds of people each day. I roll the dice every time I’m out among them as to which things I will absorb, which traits and features will be filed for later use. A lot of times it’s as simple as getting someone to tell me a story about their day or something that they’re passionate about. A lot of people like to talk. It’s listening that’s the secret.

  • Warped Characters?

    In the very first draft of my very first novel, I struggled with character a lot–I didn’t have any bad ones.  Nope, all my characters were well-meaning, with great heart and minor, excusable flaws.  Even the person who burned down the church had a perfectly good reason for doing it–not a justification, exactly, but certainly enough rationale to make him a sympathetic character.

    Readers commented that my characters were all just too unbelievably well-behaved and pleasant.  So, in my next novel attempt, I did try to make some more believable bad guys. Really. There were some guys in a lab, there were some military guys, there were some guys who just wanted to protect their own ill-gotten power. But then it turned out they all had interests in the situations, and that in some circumstances they were wonderful supporters of all that was good and right, and only in certain other circumstances did they release their inner villain.  Of course, this time, the person who burned down the church had absolutely iron-clad reasons for why he had to do it, and he was a hero, not a villain.

    In my third novel, I think I finally managed to make some bad guys–actually some people with anti-social interests sitting in a room plotting to wreak havoc on the lives of those around them by taking away their health insurance and jobs, or something like that.  Truly bad guys, the sort that wanted to return rampant inequality and hierarchical authority to the world.  And then, people got to yell at them for a long time about how much they wanted to hurt them.  At least I got through that book without any new arsonists!

    Writing heroes and heroines is relatively easy for me.  I can invent past lives, ambitions, dreams, quirks, and speech patterns.  I can describe days in the lives of, their homes, their companions.  But writing characters who intentionally do evil things is a struggle.  At those times, I tend to go to stock characters and stereotypes.  I need to work on building characters who are human, who do bad things, who might feel bad about doing those bad things but still are not totally redeemed at the end of the day.  Like Alec in Tess of the D’Urbervilles, who is totally a villain and totally understandable and mostly redeemed and still experiences poetic justice.  Writing a villain like Alec would be the  crowning achievement of my writing career!

  • Unusual Bedroom

    I'm sure there's an explanation for this…

    Almost all of my stories start with a character. Even when I only have the vaguest idea of what the story is about, or where it takes place, some loudmouthed character starts telling me what’s up. “This is my story. This is what happens to me. You’re gonna tell it right now.”

    Why do my characters always have an attitude?

    Before I start a new story, I have a variety of character worksheets I like to fill out. It helps me nail down the particulars of my protagonist. This character is a person with a whole life from birth to present, and I’m only telling a small section of it. Knowing that person’s history, even if it never makes it into the story, helps turn a character into a real person.

    When I’m actually writing a story, it’s a whole different experience, the way characters develop. They tend to crop up out of nowhere. Some character my protagonist meets in passing – a barista, a cop at a crime scene, a random coworker – ends up turning into an important supporting character. I never worry about developing them too much. They know their place in the story better than I do, since I didn’t expect them in the first place. I learn about them in how they interact with my protagonist (or antagonist), and they reveal their own backstory as I write them.

    As far as the reader? They don’t get to know everything. They get to know what I tell them. What I let them see. I get to pick and choose what traits best portray my character. They do get a firsthand look into the character’s mind, and everything that is going on from the time the story starts til when it ends, but as the writer, I have to put that character in context without writing the character’s entire life story. I try not to get too bogged down in character details in the telling of their story.

    The reader wants to know what happens next, not what the protagonist’s bedroom looks like.

    Unless it is somehow significant to the plot. Or unless it’s an unusual bedroom which illustrates something important about the character’s personality.

    Besides, I think I am obligated to uphold something like a doctor/patient confidentiality agreement. Author/character confidentiality. Some stuff my characters tell me in confidence.

  • I Hate You! Please Hang Out with Me.

    Hard truth here: I freaking HATE my characters.  And not just the current batch either.  I’m talking all of them.

    Now before you get all judgmental, hear me out.  Your characters are not your friends.  They are lazy, needy little bitches who expect you to do all the heavy lifting.  I, for one, am tired of it.  So I’ve started fighting back.

    When I’m setting up a scene, or even a story for that matter, I usually start with a goal.  What is the overall story question of the book?  In this particular scene, what is the protagonist trying to accomplish?  Does he or she get it done?  Regardless of the answer, what are the consequences of the outcome?

    I put a lot of thought into the architecture of the story, and along those same lines, I have very specific ideas about what roles the characters will play in each of these scenes.  Ideally, you could add a face and a name to each of these roles, and then wind ‘em up and let ‘em go.  But ideally makes for a shitty read, and this is where characters really start to piss me off.

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