You Imagine discussion

Character. Why are your characters so important when writing a story? How do you make them memorable?

People get involved in a book when they can relate to the characters and character is especially important where there is very little action, e.g. in Beckett's 'Malone Dies' where there is only one character and he's bed-ridden. He becomes the plot, discovering whatever we can about him. Remember F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "Character is plot, plot is character."

Everything I write is character driven. I don't think I could outline a plot if you paid me in fact in some of my short stories there is no discernible action at all. The trick though is somehow to get your readers to root for that character, to invest themselves in them.

In my first novel, the protagonist is an underdog, and we Brits love rooting for an underdog but he's not the most likeable of underdogs and then I put this guy in a position where we would never want to find ourselves, forced to face up to every truth about ourselves. I guess you would expect me to say that if we won't care about our characters then no one else will but I'm not going to. I think it's more important to be faithful to a character. In just the same way as an actor should never drift out of character then the words you put in your character's mouth and the way he reacts need to be consistent; he has to be believable even if not altogether endearing.

I gave a very early draft of my first novel (actually only half the novel) to a girl to read and she came back to me after finishing it with the opening enjoinder: "How dare you…" And she meant it. She had taken ownership of the character and was defending him against the nasty writer who was doing even nastier things to him. It was on that day I knew I'd got it licked. I'd written a character that someone was willing to fight over.

Good point, Jim. I'm glad you included F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote that, "Character is plot, plot is character."

Robert Newton Peck talks about that very thing in Fiction is Folks: How to Create Unforgettable Characters

You might remember Peck for the Soup series of YA books as well as A Day No Pigs Would Die.

Peck maintains that if you take the time to create characters and write down their characteristics, looks, idiosynchrasies and so forth, that when it comes time to write the story, the characters will write it for you, because you will, as a writer, know what they will do and how they will respond to events.

Character was everything for the Belgian writer Simenon. He said:

"I write the name on a manila envelope. Then I put down everything about him; his teachers, his grandmother, his telephone number, and so on. I won't use these details in my novel, but I need to know everything about the man or woman who will be my character...

"I ask myself, what would happen that would change this character's life? It's what I have to find. And when I do, I have the first chapter. And then I start. I write a chapter a day. From then on, it's the character who commands, not me. I know the end only when I finish. But during the time I'm writing, I concentrate, concentrate on my characters – I don't say 'story' because I am not interested in the story. My stories are sometimes very poor. Only the characters matter."

He wrote 500 novels so he must have been doing something right.

Characters are so important, even in plot-driven, action novels. For me, the first thing I must know is what they look like, as this is often the first bit of description that goes in. I often start by figuring out which actor or actress would play each character in the movie version, so that I have a visual to go from. I think take a legal pad or notebook and set to work describing them to myself, as I would in the book. In sentences, metaphors and flowery language and all. Most times they morph from the celebrity into another version, "my" version of the character, and I suddenly have a more rounded picture: the Scottish warrior has a scar across his chest? Why? Who gave it to him? Does it affect his perception of himself and events?

Then, as we've been saying, once I know these people, I know what they would do and say, and often they start doing and saying before I'm ready for them!

characters are SO important because they give personality to the story. without good characters, you might as well be writing about a bunch of moving sticks... though that COULD possibly make for a good story... :)

Reading through your comments I just realized what I didn't like about Farenheit 451. Bradbury's character's weren't very deeply fleshed out. I liked the book overall, but the characters didn't 'win me over'.

Good comments from all.

Characters are very important and I feel they work better if you can somehow connect to them or even become part of them. You also need to do that will the villain too to have a good villain. He needs good morals (yes going crazy is an option) for his motives and needs to be MORE than a mindless killer. The main character is the most important; spend time developing them mostly.

If you make a main character perfect, there's no story!!!!! I mean, barely. If you make a perfect character, it's boring.

"Just as the Creator in most religious and spiritual traditions allows you the free will to live your imperative and forge your story through the living of it, your call is to allow the beings who leap from your heart, mind and vision the same freedom. Gently guide when necessary, but allow them — and yourself — to experience their story as it writes itself onto the page.

"Your job as creator is to let your characters and their story emerge from the formless void and to breathe life into them so that they — and you — can experience all they have come onto your page to live."

- excerpt from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write (more excerpts at http://calltowrite.com)

I hated A Day No Pigs Would Die. My son had to read that in high school English and when I asked him what it was about and he gave me a brief synopsis, I thought, the kid's going to lose his pet pig before that story's over. I've often wondered why it seems to be the consensus that maturity only comes if someone loses the thing he/she loves--especially in such a brutal way. Can't anyone ever mature with happiness around them or does happiness and contentment make one weak. Perhaps I missed the point of the story, but I still remember it today--and perhaps that's what the author wanted.

I don't think I've ever started a novel with just a situation or setting in mind. It's always been about SOMEONE...and then what happens to them. Sometimes the characters change after the story starts. The hero of my novel BLOODSEEK started out as an outer space bounty hunter (a kind of Boba Fett) following a pack of marauders. He evolved into a medieval knight hunting for the barbarians who kidnapped his betrothed. Same story, just a different intention. Sometimes the characters have run away with the story and it took some skillful maneuvering to get them back under control. A couple of times, they refused to be obedient and the story took a new direction. Recently, I've gone back to stories I wrote when I was younger, in which the characters aged, and now that I'm the age the characters are, I've revised the way they act and react. I had a reviewer tell me she had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach while she read one of my books because she was afraid of what was going to happen to the hero, and when something DID happen, she felt even worse. I guess that's what characterization is all about!

My favorite types of characters are ones that aren't perfect. I kinda hate the ones that are so perfect in every way, not flawed, they seem so shallow to me. So whenever I'm writing, I try to make a list of what they're good and bad at, and try to make it at least somewhat even. I usually kill of characters that are too perfect. :P

I'm with you! NObody's perfect so in order to make the story credible, characters need flaws. I start each novel by doing character sketches of all major characters. They have good qualities (enough to make the reader care) and also at least one character flaw. I go far enough to include their physical makeup, their emotions, hangups, poor judgements, etc.
Since I'm writing a series, my protag makes plenty of mistakes but also grows through the series. She also adds knife and bullet scars to her physique and emotions.

I need to work on this--develop some personal flaw that makes the characters endearing to the reader my main character in Dead On Arrival-is commitmentphobic due toa failed marriage and still carries the ""baggage" It makes her likeable as people can relate to the problem.

Constructing a character seems so alien to me. I started my stories with no set plans at all, and the development of the story was an study of them, trying to see what they would do in the situations I came up with, unable to write anything until I got it right, and then the words came.