Dynamic Characters- How to create personalities that keep readers captivated

218 Pages·2016·6.29 MB·English

by  Kress Nancy

''Character is plot.''
So said novelist Henry James, master of both, a hundred years ago.
Unfortunately, in an uncharacteristic burst of taciturnity, James stopped there,
leaving several crucial points unexplained. Why is character plot? How do you
use your characters to move your plot forward? What kind of characters must
you create to make that happen, and how do you create them? And why are
characters such a pivotal concern anyway? If you have really exciting events,
can't you just plug in people with enough characterization to carry those events
out? After all, how much characterization do most bestsellers actually have?
Good questions, all of them. This book will address them in reverse order,
starting with: Do you really need strong, complex, original characters to write a
book that might sell?
The honest answer to this has to be ''No.'' Pick up certain
bestselling authors—I name no names—and you can't help but notice that
their characters have all the depth of wallpaper. And yet the books are dazzling
successes, at least in terms of sales. So why labor over creating believable and
original characters?
Four reasons, ranging from the cynical to the idealistic. The most cynical
reason first.
PUT AS MANY BEST FEET FORWARD AS YOU CAN
Novels that sell to editors—and then to readers—must have at least one
strongly appealing characteristic. In books where the plot is all and the
characters characterless, that appeal is the exciting events. Some editor bought
the book because the events are different, fast-paced, gripping. Readers read it
for the same reason. Both editor and readers stick with the book not because the
characters are flat, but despite that fact.
So why not give your book more than one quality to catch an editor's interest?
A terrific plot earns you one point. A terrific plot plus fascinating characters
earns you two. A terrific plot plus fascinating characters plus an eloquent style . .
. but you get the idea.
I said this was a cynical reason for concentrating on characterization. It is. It
assumes that your only interest in writing a book is the eventual sales volume. In
fact, however, that is almost never true. Writing a novel is a major undertaking,
consuming anywhere from several months to several decades, and few people
can last through the marathon of writing one if their only motivation is a large
print run. Which brings us to the second reason for concentrating on
characterization.
WELL, / LIKED HIM!
Those authors with sketchy, hackneyed characters in bestselling books don't
believe they're sketchy or hackneyed. I've seldom met a writer who didn't think
his protagonist felt very real. The most simpering and savorless romance
heroine, stereotyped tough-guy detective, purely evil black-hatted villain—it
doesn't matter. Their creators see in them depth and interest and reality.
The point of this is not that there are a lot of deluded writers out there
(although there probably are). The point is that in order to create a character—
think him up, animate him, stick with him for five hundred pages—a writer has
to be enthusiastic about that character. Even if not everybody else is.
Which means you must believe in your characters. Be convinced of their
solidity. Feel a quickening of interest as you decide what they'll do next. Care
about their fates.
All this is much easier if you have created original, complex, individual
characters in the first place, rather than simply plugging in stock characters from
other people's fiction (or, worse, from TV). Your interest will come through in
the writing. We'll discover more depth in the characters—because you have.
THE MULT/FACETED CHARACTER: MANY THINGS TO MANY
PEOPLE
We all have different friends for different occasions. With John we share a
love of discussing politics. We go to the movies mostly with Karen. Bill is the
one we turn to when we're in trouble. Nobody is as good as Terry at organizing
interesting vacations.
Characters are like that, too. Some are fitted for only one function: the classic
''spear carriers'' who walk on stage, deliver one line and exit. That's fine, for bit
players.
But main characters are another story. Like that wonderful multi-faceted friend
—the one we can talk with, rely on and vacation with— major characters need
to participate in many different kinds of events. To do so believably, they need