Understanding the Personality of Your Characters

By Christine Fonseca

Writing compelling story is more than simply writing a great story with a great plot. What makes a story compelling are the characters! And writing characters that you remember long after you finish the book requires getting to know them – well. Their personalities. Their emotions.

But how do you do that, build robust characters with well defined personalities and a strong emotional arc?

I start with lists. Lots of them.

I begin with a one word description of them – not in terms of looks, but in terms of the “clique” they’d belong to. The cheerleader, the nerd, the cutter, the warrior, etc.

Then I begin to list personality traits, their emotional make-up. Things like strong, confused, a dreamer, etc.

This is where it all begins for me.

As the brainstorming continues, I pay attention to the attributes I subscribe to the main characters of the story. It’s important to me for my heroes to be a bit villainous and for my villains to be redemptive.

Complex, rich, diverse – all of this happens as I list the traits and see all the aspects of my characters.

This list helps me understand my characters – what motivates them to do the things they do. It also helps me make sure my characters are authentic throughout the book.

In my most recent story, A BEAUTIFUL MESS, my main characters are an angelic warrior called a Sentinal and a fallen angel called the UnHoly.

Let’s look at their personalities:

Nesy, the Sentinal:

• Fierce
• Loyal
• A rule follower
• Compassionate
• Deeply emotional
• Controlled
• Passionate
• Afraid

By the end of the story, many of these aspects of her personality have been morphed into something quite different due to the events that move the story forward.

Aydan, the UnHoly

• Passionate
• Chaotic
• Fierce
• Ruthless
• Loyal
• Impulsive
• Relentless

By the end, his traits change too, as some of the more subtle personality traits, including redemption, are revealed.

Our characters should really be as diverse as we – flawed, messy, and a bit unpredictable.

What do you guys think? How do you form full characters?

Bio –

Christine Fonseca writes books for parents and kids related to giftedness, as well as YA novels. Her recent release, EMOTIONAL INTENSITY IN GIFTED STUDENTS is the resource for parents and educators working with the difficult emotional make-up of gifted kids. You can find Christine on her blog or hanging on facebook and twitter.

Christine’s Upcoming Releases:

• Emotional Intensity in Gifted Students (October 1, 2010, Prufrock Press)
• 101 Secrets for Gifted Kids (Spring 2011, Prufrock Press)

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Read. It. Aloud.

In reading words and sentences to pronounce them out loud, we use additional parts of our brains, and I think that’s what makes us more aware of the actual content of the sentences than when we’re reading silently. Necessarily, there’s a tighter focus, too, and less tendency to skim and skip.

As I mentioned, I hadn’t been in the practice of reading my stuff aloud. I now regret that I haven’t been. This epiphany is due to creating podcasts for my latest novel, The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles. The manuscript was copyedited by a reasonably sharp-eyed colleague who performs that function for the university where I work. It was read by my sharp-eyed English-major wife. And I read it again and again and again before publishing it, both in manuscript form and in book form.

Yet reading it aloud has uncovered at least a dozen typos and other linguistic mistakes. Argh! Despite all the care and attention, there they embarrassingly were. I’m almost finished with the podcasts, and will load a revised version into the POD supplier, Lightning Source, when I’m done. Because it costs $40 for me to make that change, current copies purchased will have glitches in them. (Maybe they’ll become collector’s items—get your copy from Amazon today!)

On the other hand, there’s a good chance the errors will go unnoticed. After all, they escaped the beady-eyed gazes of people who were on the alert for goofs. I also think that the nature of the narrative is a factor. There’s plenty of humor to distract you, not to mention seeing the world through a cat’s eyes, and fast-paced action that becomes quite involving. Readers (not all, it does have its critics) speed through the story, constantly racing forward to find out what’s going to happen next in the madcap tale. I like to think that, in a way, quality of storytelling is the culprit.

The goofs have primarily been just that—goofs. A typo now and then. A word out of place. Once a description that didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Here’s an interesting sidebar: I use contractions in the narrative quite a lot, partly because it’s in first person. However, in reading it aloud for the podcast recording, I found that the rhythm and sense of the words play better when the contractions revert to whole words. I’m not going to change them in the typeset narrative, but, when I record, I find myself de-contracting the contractions more and more.

And guess what—I’m finding a word missing now and then, some hidden echoes, and other glitches that have not been seen by the same crew that missed those in vampire kitty-cat—the wife, the editor, and myself. Just this morning I found a line that had a character finishing a beer—only I’d cut the earlier reference to him having one! Argh!

(I’m still interested in finding beta readers for this book. Here’s ad copy I’ve composed about We the Enemy: “Madmen, madchildren, and criminals kill us with terrifying firepower. Revolving-door law spits felons back onto streets uncaught, unreformed. But maybe there are ways to change. A gripping ride in a unique speculative thriller that sparks thought.” If you’d like to give it a read and give me feedback, email me at ray at ftqpress dot com.)

On the positive side, I’m still confident of my narrative ability. I’m finding that the prose reads well and is involving, and doesn’t need much in the way of revision—but I am also seeing ways to clarify now and then, which means a better read. This reinforces the lesson I learned with the kitty-cat novel—storytelling and writing craft abilities aside, my ability to get it right is only 98 percent accurate. Read it aloud. A valuable and humbling lesson learned. I’m going to do it with the other WIP that’s been “finished” for years, Finding Magic.

I ignored this advice for years, to my detriment. So why not do this? Take a couple of chapters of something you feel is polished and tight, right now, and read them aloud. If you don’t discover anything, excellent. But it you do . . .

For what it’s worth.

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Dear readers,

It’s been such a busy month! My new book, It Happened On Night, came out on November 1, and the reviews have been fantastic!

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of my writing at a café not far from my apartment. There’s no free WiFi (it’s a per hour service) but not being attached to the internet while I’m writing keeps me from getting distracted by things like Twitter and email. PLUS I’ve been doing a lot of research for a third book, which is set in a coffee shop. It’s win-win-win all the way around.

People often want to know how I incorporate my research into my writing without making it seem clunky or distracting. While writing It Happened One Night, I was fascinated with wildflowers—the folklore about them, how they got their names, the special characteristics that each flower has. I knew I wanted to write a book set at a wildflower farm, so I spent a lot of time reading about flowers.

As a result, each chapter of the book begins with a little bit of trivia about a different flower—and the trivia is actually a symbol for the action. For example, the book’s “dark moment” takes place in December. At first I thought—“Oh no. What wildflower am I going to be able to use for the winter months?”

But as it turns out, the flowers made it easy for me. There’s a summertime roadside plant, called common mullein, that looks a lot like a thick, tall rod or pipe. The ancient Romans used to dry out the plant, then soak it in fat and store it. During the dark nights of the year, they could use mullein as a torch to light the way. My hero and heroine, in their dark moment, find their own bit of light to keep them going.

Anyway, it was a blast researching wildflowers and now I’m having just as much fun learning about the history of coffee—which is wildly over the top and fascinating.

SO TELL ME: What do you like learning about: food, history, science, culture? One random winner will receive a free copy of my first book Simple Wishes.

Best,

Lisa Dale

www.LisaDaleBooks.com

A lifelong bookworm, Lisa Dale is a firm believer that there are few things in life better than curling up with a novel and a cup of tea. Lisa Dale grew up in rural Northwestern New Jersey before attending McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland. She worked briefly in publishing before going back to school to get an MFA in fiction at Fairleigh Dickinson University. A nominee for Best New American Voices and the Pushcart Prize, her writing appears in many literary magazines, such as Fourth Genre, Flyway, Fugue, Sou’wester, The Southeast Review, The MacGuffin, Many Mountains Moving, and more.

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Every person who is familiar with stories whether they are movies, comics, or books know of the antagonist.  The antagonist is usually the “bad guy” in the story, and without the antagonist there is no story.

As a writer, it is important to never forget this important line about antagonists, “They are people too”.  This is probably the most important maxim that a writer must live by other than “show don’t tell”.

I put together a list of things to keep in mind while creating the most crucial character in your book.

1) Who is the antagonist?
Like building any other character, one must create a detailed history of the antagonist.  The financial background, family life, favorite food, etc.

2) Why is the antagonist antagonizing the protagonist?
What is the ulterior motive?  Did the “good guy” in the novel make fun of the “bad guy” in high school?  People don’t just do things, there is a logic behind everything that is done, whether it is sound or not.

3) Give the antagonist a weakness.
No one wants to read a book that the antagonist completely overwhelms the protagonist, making no hope or point in the plot.

4)  Make sure that the antagonist has a soft-spot
Does the antagonist have a thing for fluffy bunnies?  Make sure to keep in mind that the antagonist is a person.

5) Is there a chance at redemption for the antagonist?
As a writer, it is imperative to be clear of the antagonist’s strengths, failings, and heart.  Does the antagonist deserve redemption?  Remember that this will not be in the eyes of you as a writer, but in the eyes of the protagonist.  The protagonist has the power to offer the “bad guy” a second chance if the “good guy” is really good.  Of course, the ball will then be in the “bad guy’s” court, whether he or she will accept the offer.

6) Don’t be afraid to let the tables turn
Let the story run its course when writing without cramping the style of the characters.  They may shock you with what they have done in their past and will do with their new experiences.  Be open to having a role reversal or having the reader understand the antagonist.

I think the most important thing in creating an effective antagonist is remembering that they are not just objects that make life more difficult for the protagonist, the antagonist is a real person.

Ariel Ceylan

http://ceylanthewriter.wordpress.com/

Ariel is a seventeen-year-old girl, a senior in high school, that has published her first book on September 24^th, 2009 through Xlibris, a self-publishing company.

Along with writing, Ariel Ceylan hopes to become a psychiatrist or a neurosurgeon.

Ariel Ceylan is a Girl Scout, a Gold Awardee, a People to People Student Ambassador, and a member of Girls’ State.  In her spare time, she loves to write, draw, sew, and create computer programs.

Her book is entitled The Tales of Whithith: The Assignment.  This book is about Zephyr, a Sorcerer-in-Training who is given an assignment about the mythology of the world he lives in.  Zili is a Warrior who is on a mission to build a watcher-group to monitor the worlds in case anything should happen to them…

Her book is available on Barnes and Noble, online as well as on Xlibris’ website.

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Let’s talk about inevitability.  Okay, let’s talk about it in a way that doesn’t make me sound like a funeral director.  Inevitability:  When it comes to writing, it’s a good thing.  You want it.  But it’s not always as easy to get as the name implies.

When the events and actions in your story are inevitable, they are exactly what should happen – what would happen – given your setting and characters.  They are consistent with all previous events and all character motivations.  They flow naturally from what has come before.  They are the opposite of contrived.  This enables readers to stay immersed in the story.

The funny thing about inevitability is that, when done well, it’s nearly invisible.  When it’s done poorly, people notice.  (It’s a bit like spelling in that way.)  Readers pull back from the story, beginning to think in words like unrealistic and illogical.  They wonder how likely it is for a person to recover from a twenty-story fall but for remaining blind in one eye.  They ask themselves how a mage with the power of flight could be stranded on an island.

The above are over-the-top examples, but this is the basic breakdown of events:  A leads to B.  If someone asks why A leads to B, there is usually a “plot” answer, which tends to be either, “Because B needs to happen,” or, “Because B would be really dramatic/funny/thematically relevant.”  But there had better be an in-story answer, too.  Otherwise, you may have one of the following problems.

Reality Check
Here, A is an event that causes B, another event, such that B is independent of character motivation.  This eliminates one potentially tricky element, but sometimes your plot (or super-cool action sequence, or what-have-you) falls prey to that dastardly scourge, realism.

Let me point out right now that I write fantasy.  Obviously, when I say realism, I don’t mean that readers will drop your story because werewolves “don’t make sense” or “wouldn’t really happen.”  A better term in this case might be consistency, but that’s because consistency defines realism within your fictional world.

Whether you’re talking about something that happens in real life or something fantastical, it needs to obey the rules of your world.  If you’re writing realistic fiction, those are the rules of the real world, making it that much easier to research.

On to the example.  Our A is a twenty-story fall; our B is the loss of vision in one eye.  Likely?  Not especially.  While it is a writer’s prerogative to have fun with unusual cases, you do have to make sure that you’re not talking impossible cases.  Luckily, the fix is pretty straightforward.  Either change A or change B.  Figure out which is more important to the plot.  Either Ed has got to take the plunge, even if that means more serious consequences (like, um, death), or Ed needs to be blind in one eye, in which case you might start thinking more along the lines of “tragic running-with-scissors accident.”

Note:  Screenwriters get some leeway on reality because it’s easier to make people suspend their disbelief when the thing that shouldn’t be happening is happening, visibly, right in front of them.  That, and, when you’ve got a killer special-effects budget, “It would be awesome!” tends to trump, “But it breaks all the laws of physics!”

Once More, with Motivation!
Here, A is a situation, and B is a character’s reaction.  Sometimes, your plot begs for a reaction that simply makes no sense – it’s out of character, or sometimes just plain dumb.  There’s little more frustrating to a reader than seeing a character do something obviously meant to move the plot.  I myself have a special angry face for characters who are unnecessarily helpless, not doing everything in their power to prevent or fix things that they really want prevented or fixed.

Motivation is often more complicated than regular reality.  To know whether an action is in character, you have to keep in mind backstory, as well as what the character knows and is feeling when s/he takes the action.  Remember that your reader, too, should know about whatever is justifying the action.  Since A here is a whole situation, it encompasses both an event that affects a character and the internal world of that character.

Example time!  Let’s call our mage Milly.  Milly Mage*.  Milly is bad news.  She once tried to conquer the world, but was stopped and marooned on an island.  After ten years, she escapes by stowing away on an unlucky ship whose captain didn’t know enough to avoid the dot on the map labeled, Island of Milly, Who Will Totally Kill You.  She then goes on a rampage, destroying cities, wreaking dire vengeance, etc.  Our protagonist finds her, initiating an epic battle in which Milly takes to the air using her magic before Patty Protagonist delivers the final smackdown.

Here, A is a situation in which Milly is stranded on an island, given that we also know that Milly is a vengeful mage with the power of flight.   B is Milly’s reaction – not leaving the island until ten years later, when she has the opportunity to stow away on a ship.

Dealing with motivations puts a twist on the change-A-or-change-B solution.  The choice is now, “change the character or change the plot.”  Some people would rather let their characters run free and see what happens, even if the result is not the B they expected – maybe Milly escapes the island right away, or else decides to build an evil base there.  Others will adjust A by tinkering with Milly’s backstory or abilities – maybe she can’t fly long without a rest, or maybe she actually likes living on the island until the ship arrives with sailors who cut down her favorite palm tree.   A and B do not perfectly parallel character and plot – for example, you can change the initial situation by tweaking plot.  If you made it clear that Milly acquired her ability to fly after her escape, then that changes A as we’ve determined it above.

In my examples here, the flaws are obvious.  You know that you don’t want to mangle the laws of nature (whatever they are in your world), or make your characters act in ways that don’t make sense.  Sometimes, though, these things are subtle.  You want every little occurrence in your story to follow smoothly, to have readers saying, “Of course!”

“Inevitability” is a term I got from my parents, who are both visual artists.  They use the word to describe a look that they hope to achieve in their work – a look that makes people accept the work as a whole, that says, “This is the way it is.”  For writers, it’s a quality that means readers don’t have to worry about what should happen or what could happen, and are free to trust your story as what does happen.

*Or Annie Antagonist, if you like that better.  Ed, from the first example, is properly named Edward Expendable.

Anica Lewis
Anica writes YA fantasy, though occasionally straying as far as nonfiction.  She has published several short stories, mostly humorous fantasy.  Her shingle hangs http://www.anicalewis.com and you can read one of them http://www.spindlejournal.org/artists/alewis.html

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