Near my home, a world-class vineyard and winery nestles into
a pastoral valley limned by blue mountains. “Yes, Virginia,” more than fifty
award-winning vineyards make the central part of our state a destination for
oenophiles. At Keswick Vineyards, there’s a popular annual competition in which
wine club members are invited into the cellars. There, oenophile aka “nose”
teams compete to create a blend labeled as Consensus.

The
Right Blend

Different varieties of grapes make wines more complex and
maximize the expression of a bottle, as do the right blend of characters in our
stories. As a little Merlot can help soften Cabernet’s tannins or a touch of
Syrah can give some oomph to watery inexpensive Pinot, giving characters
distinguishing traits make scenes interesting and robust, worth savoring, and with
just the right finish.

In his (completely brilliant) craft book WRITING THE
BREAKOUT NOVEL, agent Donald Maas says, “Character differentiation is the
technique of making the characters in your cast different and distinct from one
another . . . contrast is the key.”

Aim for contrast by focusing on personality, voice and worldview:

Personality

Like sweetness and acidity in wine, characters need each
other for balance.

The good-guys need foils–black-hearted scoundrels–to
highlight the good-guys’ white-knight personas. (While an antagonist acts in
opposition to the MC, a foil simply provides a contrast.) Consider Cal and Aron
in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, a novel modeled after the Bible story of Adam
and Eve and their sons Cain and Abel. Aron is pale and delicate, the beloved
son, while the murderous Cain is dark and secretive. Not only do the boys’
personalities provide contrast and complexity to the story, they affect the
choices they make throughout the novel.

Voice

A great wine speaks. Characters resonate with readers
when they’re given accents, nicknames and quirk. A memorable scene in Susan Isaac’s
novel RED, WHITE AND BLUE features a jumble of soldiers sharing a WWII foxhole.
Issacs gives each man a different regional accent making the scene interesting,
compelling, and yes, hilarious. (Though I grew up in Chattanooga, I still giggled
at the guffawing bumpkin from Tennessee.)

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s THE GREAT GATSBY, Jay Gatsby nicknames
Nick Carraway Old Sport, which
implies that Nick desires an old-money lifestyle; he wants to play rich men’s
games at the mansion estates of East Egg, Long Island. Old Sport. How catchy is
that?

STAR WARS Yoda, the ancient Jedi Master, says his wise words using an object-subject-verb pattern. (Maybe that’s what everyone did 900 years ago.) Old style and direct it is. Quirky and exotic it is. And love the wrinkly little green badass we do.

Worldview

Oenophiles use the term “earthy” to describe
wines delivering a sense of place and origin, from where the grapes were grown,
even to the type of soil.

Great characters have complex root systems. We empathize
with them–even the rascals–because we know where they came from and how their
experiences have shaped their worldviews for better or worse. Even if opposing
characters have similar desires or goals, it’s the origin of what drives them that matters.

Contrasting worldviews make characters believable and
relatable. Sharpen your shovel, and dig deep. Give your characters deeply
buried secrets and internal struggles that will trigger the decisions that
drive your plot.

Just as Keswick Vineyard’s Consensus competition affords
noses an inside view of what makes great wines work, allowing readers to see what
makes our characters tick as individuals, makes for richer, fuller, and more satisfying
reading experiences.

Cheers!