How to Craft Compelling Characters

April 12, 2011 | David Corbett | Comments: 4 FavoriteLoadingAdd to favorites

The source and exact nature of the curious phenomena we refer to as characters r emains something of a mystery, but the craft of characterization is not. Although it s clearly a cause for celebration or at least relief when a character appe ars in the mind s eye fully formed, the reality is that for most of us, this is a rare occurrence. Certain techniques are required to will our characters to life. We need to draw on the unconscious, memory, the imagination and the Muse until our characters quicken, assume clear form and, with hope, begin to act of their own accord. Can this process so inherent to the success of any novel really be condensed into a single method? In my experience as both writer and writing instructor, the answe r is, to some extent, yes. The key is first to understand what your characters r equire from you in order to come to life, and then to determine how you can draw on your best available resources to give them what they need. CHARACTERISTICS OF COMPELLING CHARACTERS The most compelling characters are those who appear internally consistent and ye t are capable of surprise. In my own work, I ve found that the art of crafting suc h fully realized characters can be boiled down to four crucial elements: a drivi ng need, desire, ambition or goal; a secret; a contradiction; and vulnerability. Let s take a closer look at each one. A Driving Need, Desire, Ambition or Goal The fundamental truth to characterization is that characters must want something , and the stronger the want, the more compelling the resulting drama. This is be cause desire intrinsically creates conflict, the primordial goo in which charact er is formed. Take, for example one of the most memorable characters in American literature Blan che Dubois, from Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire. At the start of the story, Blanche has lost her family home and has been left with nowhere to stay. Desperate, she has come to New Orleans to find her sister, Stella, and ask to b e taken in. This is a perfect demonstration that simply by giving the character a deep-seate d need or want, you can automatically create conflict, for the world is not desi gned to answer our desires as easily as we might hope. A Secret For your character, a secret is that inclination or trait (such as a psychologic al disposition to dishonesty, violence, sexual excess, or the abuse of alcohol o r drugs, to name a few) or an incident from the past that, if revealed, would ch ange forever the character s standing in her world, among co-workers, neighbors, f

riends, family, lovers. Secrets inform us of what our characters have to lose, a nd why. Drawing on the example of Blanche Dubois, her secret is that through drink and i llicit sexual liaisons, she has become so emotionally and physically dissipated she could not hold on to the family home. We are our own best source for understanding secrets. We know our own, and if we r e insightful, we understand how they affect our behavior specifically, how they ma ke us afraid. A Contradiction We all know people who are both shy and rude, cruel but funny, bigoted but prote ctive. This complexity, which seems to particularly manifest itself during times of stress or conflict, is what can make a person inherently unpredictable, sett ing the stage for the kind of surprising behavior that can keep readers enthrall ed, wondering what might happen next. Our senses and minds are tuned to focus on irregularities the thing that doesn t qui te fit, doesn t make sense, or is simply changing. This is an evolutionarily adapt ive trait; it helps in analyzing the environment for threats. But it also attune s us to whatever is unusual in what we perceive; contradictions reveal what we c ouldn t predict, the enigma, the surprise. Again, let s look at how this applies to Blanche Dubois: She is desperate and weak , hopelessly vain, with an alcoholic s capacity for denial and delusion but she is a lso fiercely proud and resourceful with a surprising steeliness. It s contradictio ns like these that can automatically pique a reader s interest. Vulnerability Nothing draws us into a character more than her vulnerability. When r wounded or in need of our help, we are instantly drawn to them it reflex. We may also sometimes be repelled or frightened, but either t of the matter is that injury to another person instantly triggers ponse. people appea s a basic human way, the fac a strong res

Obviously, vulnerability may be the result of the character s secret: He is afraid of being found out. Or it may come from the intensity of his need or want because , as we all know, desire can render us naked in a fundamental way. For your char acter, the ambition and focus inherent in a strong desire can imply some form of inner strength, while at the same time rendering the character vulnerable to be ing deprived of what he most wants. Blanche s desperation to find a safe place makes her vulnerable, as does the tawdr y nature of her secrets, which threaten to shame her beyond redemption if reveal ed. In other words, needs or desires, secrets, contradictions and vulnerability are almost always interconnected. METHODS FOR DEEPENING CHARACTERIZATIONS Often our characters first appear to us as we flesh out the idea for a story. Bu t characters who emerge from story ideas can often be flat or two-dimensional; t his is because at that early stage, they serve the purpose of filling a role, ra ther than acting as independent beings with needs and fears and affections and c oncerns outside the story. Compelling characters are not cogs in the machine of your plot; they are human b

eings to whom the story happens. Some stories begin with the characters, of course, and m an exploration of their needs, their defenses, their s, or some problem they face. The trick in those cases ive doesn t meander, creating, as writer Philip Larkin ddle and an end. the narrative emerges fro secrets and contradiction is making sure the narrat called it, a beginning, a mu

But more often in mainstream fiction and especially genre fiction, the novel beg ins with a story idea, and the characters need to be fleshed out to keep them fr om being stock players in the drama. We might wonder how many uniquely memorable world-weary detectives there can be, for example and yet every year at least one more seems to emerge from the wave of crime novels crashing onto bookstore shelv es. It takes skill and insight to breathe life into stock characters, something too often dismissed by those who disdain genre fiction as inferior. So how do we flesh out our characters when they arise from the needs of our stor ies, or when they otherwise lack the specificity, uniqueness or power necessary to engage a reader (or the writer)? The best inspiration often comes from within us and from our experiences with the people in our lives. Real-Life Characters Near the end of his life, John Updike wrote a poem titled Peggy Lutz, Fred Muth, i n which he thanked his childhood friends and classmates the beauty and bully, the fatso and others for providing a sufficiency of human types all a writer needs. Whether we know it or not, our minds and hearts are populated by all the charact ers we will ever need though we may disassemble them and rearrange the parts into composites for variation. To fully tap this potential, begin by reflecting upon the following real people in your life jot down their names, fix them in your mind, remember a few details a bout their lives, their physical appearances, the effect they ve had on you, and a nything else you think would be important if you were to describe them to someon e who didn t already know them. Include in your exploration: A family member you feel particularly close to A family member you particularly dislike, or from whom you re estranged Your closest friend from childhood with whom you ve lost touch Your closest friend from childhood with whom you re still in contact A stranger whose path crossed yours this past week A person you know personally and admire A person you know personally and fear The love who got away The love you wished had gotten away Your first love Your greatest love Your greatest childhood nemesis Your greatest adulthood nemesis The person from childhood who annoyed you the most The person in your present-day life who annoys you the most Your favorite neighbor Your least-favorite neighbor Your favorite co-worker Your least-favorite co-worker Your postman or someone else you deal with on a business level daily An older person who has inspired you A child who fascinates you

Someone for whom you harbor a secret crush or feel sexual attraction Someone you believe has a crush on you A person who believed in you A person who thought you would never amount to anything A person whose life you would never trade for your own The list can go on, of course; it s limited only by one s own inventiveness. But wri ting out such a list provides a larger cast of characters than we originally mig ht have realized we possessed. We can sometimes unwittingly get into ruts, writi ng variations on the same character over and over the overbearing parent, the need y lover, the insufferable phony, the lonely aunt. The value of using people we k now to inspire our characters is that we already see them so vividly and specifi cally. Emotional Triggers Of course, we know a great deal about the people in our lives, but we don t know e verything and this is why real people provide excellent but not perfect source mat erial for characters. We will also have to draw on our own lives, at least as a starting point, to fathom a character s inner world. It often surprises me how frequently writers, especially young writers, fail to explore the rich veins of emotion they possess in their own lives, so they can t ranslate that to their characterizations. The most important emotional incidents to explore in a character s life and one s own ar e: THE MOMENT OF GREATEST FEAR: This is perhaps the most important emotional trigge r, because almost all of our limitations, failures, frustrations and disappointm ents and thus our secrets and vulnerabilities can be traced back to or relate to som e fundamental fear. THE MOMENT OF GREATEST COURAGE: This may be physical valor, moral isolation or s imply persisting in the face of some dread. THE MOMENT OF GREATEST SORROW: Think of death, grief, loss. THE MOMENT OF GREATEST JOY: It s strange how nebulous moments of joy can seem and wh at a loss. At what stage in your character s life (or in your own) did the golden moment occur? What s happened since? THE WORST FAILURE: Ouch, I know, but don t shun this moment; from a writer s point o f view, it s golden (as are all our travails, sorrows, embarrassments and screw-up s embrace them). THE MOMENT OF DEEPEST SHAME: Shame is connected to self-image, and this moment w ill be when that image was seriously undermined in a particularly personal way i n front of others. THE MOMENT OF MOST PROFOUND GUILT: This involves some violation of a moral code. It may also make us ashamed, but guilt involves having knowingly done something wrong. THE MOMENT OF MOST REDEMPTIVE FORGIVENESS: If you ve been forgiven for some seriou s wrong, it s not likely you ve forgotten it. It s permitted you to regain your place with some crucial loved one. When performing this exercise, my students sometimes get caught up on trying to think of the greatest such moments. Don t fall into this needless trap. Instead, thi

nk merely of one moment (presumably of many) of particularly strong impact in an y one category. Obviously, plumbing your own life will not provide access to the whole of your c haracters inner lives (unless your characters inhabit the same world you do). Rat her, these moments provide touchstones, points of access to begin the exploratio n into similar moments in your characters lives a necessary but not sufficient prec ondition for a compelling portrayal. Each of these triggers a vulnerability or a secret, perhaps a desire, maybe even a contradiction, depending on context. By envisioning these scenes in your char acters lives, after first exploring them in your own, you gain key insights into the formative episodes in their emotional lives, and, with hope, begin to see th em more vividly in your mind s eye, the better to render them on the page. The key is to intuit the character so distinctly she seems capable of acting on her own volition. Once this happens and as I said at the outset, it s a mystery how or why it does you re capable of beginning the dialogue that will form your story, a sking your character: Where are you going? Why? How will you get there? With who m? And who will you have become when the journey is over?