I have been struggling with one of my characters. As I’m getting to know him, I’m realizing that he’s much more complex than I first ascertained.  He is driven by forces that I didn’t realize existed until I was forced to delve deeper into his psyche.

He is driven by a father who constantly belittled him. Nothing this character did was right. He was a sinner in his father’s eyes. This character has been talking to me all weekend and I now feel like I can write his story so much better. It will change many components of my novel drastically, but that’s what happens when you go from first draft not knowing motivation for things, to having the knowledge of how someone who’s not the main character, but the main love interest would truly behave. It changes what happens between them.

So I look forward to rewriting much of this novel. I look forward to learning more about my characters.

I found an article on characters that I found interesting, so I decided to share it. It’s written by one of the greats. Someone who knows what he’s looking for when it comes to characters.

Enjoy.

Agent Don Maass Explains Your Tools for Character Building

Posted by Chuck from Guide to Literary Agents Editor’s Blog

Finding a Protagonist’s Strength

Step 1: Is your protagonist an ordinary person?  Find in him any kind of strength.

Step 2: Work out a way for that strength to be demonstrated within your protagonist’s first five pages.

Step 3: Revise your character’s introduction to your readers.

Without a quality of strength on display, your readers will not bond with
your protagonist.  Why should they?  No one wants to spend four minutes, let alone four hundred pages, with a miserable excuse for a human being or even a plain old average Joe.  So, what is strength?  It can be as simple as caring about someone, self-awareness, a longing for change, or hope.  Any small positive quality will signal to your readers that your ordinary protagonist is worth their time.

Finding a Hero’s Flaws

Step 1: Is your protagonist a hero – that is, someone who is already strong? Finding in him something conflicted, fallible, humbling or human.

Step 2: Work out a way for that flaw to be demonstrated within your protagonist’s first five pages.

Step 3: Revise your character’s introduction to your readers.  Be sure to soften the flaw with self-awareness or self-depreicating humor.

Heroes who are nothing but good, noble, unswerving, honest, courageous, and kind to their mothers will make your readers want to gag.  To make heroes real enough to be likable, it’s necessary to make them a little bit flawed. What is a flaw that will not also prove fatal?  A personal problem, a bad habit, a hot button, a blind spot, or anything that makes your hero a real human being will work.  However, this flaw cannot be overwhelming.  That is the reason for adding wise self-awareness or a rueful sense of humor.

The Impact of Greatness

Step 1: Does your story have a character who is supposed to be great? Choose a character (your protagonist or another) who is, has been, or will be affected by that great character.

Step 2: Note the impact on your point-of-view character.  In what ways is she changed by the great character?  How specifically is her self-regard for actual life different?  Is destiny involved?  Detail the effect.

Step 3: Write out that impact in a paragraph.  It can be backward looking (a flashback frame) or a present moment of exposition.

Step 4: Add that paragraph to your manuscript.

Greatness is not always about esteem.  Those affected by great people may be ambivalent.  Whatever the case in your story, see if you can shade the effect of your great character to make it specific and captured nuances. The effect of one character upon another is as particular as the characters themselves.

Excerpted from The Fire in Fiction
(2009, Writer’s Digest Books).  You can
find the book in the F+W Bookstore here.
Donald Maass runs his own agency
in New York City.

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Sarah is writer looking for an agent. She is currently working on novel # 4, editing novels 2 and 3, and querying novel # 1. For more insight to her work, visit: http://legendoftheprotectors.wordpress.com/ or http://legendoftheprotectors.blogspot.com/

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