Many thanks to Mike Owens for his presentation, "Developing Characters." He has graciously shared his slides with us.
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Building Fictional Characters
Presented by
Mike Owens
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“Great characters are the key to great fiction.” (Donald Maass)
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Preliminary Work: Roughing It In
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Story Type
– Classical (standard)
– Minimalist
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Classical Story Format
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Fully described characters
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Proactive
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External conflict
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Causality (coincidence is deadly)
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Character arc
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Minimalist Version
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Hemingway’s iceberg theory: 7/8 underwater
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Internal conflict
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Character more reactive than active
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No real denouement, reader must figure it out
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No real character arc
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Assigning Roles
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Protagonist (whose story is it?)
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Object of desire (what the character wants)
– Choose carefully: “Tell
me what a character wants, and I shall tell you who and what that character is.”
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Obstruction/villain/conflict
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Who’s Going to Tell Your Story?
(Point of View)
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First person
– More character:reader
intimacy
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Third person
– More flexibility,
shifting POV among characters
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Second person, nope
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Omniscience, nope.
– Neutral POV, won’t
work
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General Notes about Characters
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Homo fictus vs. Homo sapiens (James Frey)
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Fictional characters are bigger than life, so don’t use real people in
your story.
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Still must be believable (and interesting)
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Using unlikeable characters
– Ex: The Beans of
Egypt, Maine, Carolyn Schute
– The most important
thing is having a likeable narrator
(Ethan Canin)
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Round vs. Flat Characters
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Round characters
– Fully developed,
appearance, habits, motivation, etc.
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Flat characters
– Less important,
appear once, then gone
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“And Mrs. Miff, the wheezy little pew opener—a mighty dry old lady,
sparely dressed with not an inch of
fullness anywhere about her—is also here.” Dickens, Dombey and Son
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Stakes, Goals…Gotta Have Them
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Major source of conflict, desire vs. obstruction
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Thrillers…big stakes, apocalyptic, zombie hordes, and such
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Always be thinking, how can I make things more difficult for my
character?
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Fictional characters head toward conflict, not away from it, and they
don’t quit
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Stuff We Should Know
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The Laundry List
– Physiological,
sociological, psychological elements
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What does he keep in the box stashed under his bed?
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What does she keep hidden in her closet?
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What are his/her habits? (consistency)
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Details Should Be Specific
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“Ms. Stafford lived alone. She always did her shopping on Tuesday
morning, two hours on the button. That’s when Jimmy decided to go exploring. He
started in her kitchen.”
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What did he find in her cupboard?
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Where Stuff Comes From
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Observation (journaling…great practice)
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Your own autobiography, family
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“You are going to love some of your characters because they are you or
some facet of you, and you are going to hate some of your characters for the
same reason.” Anne Lamott
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Still stuck? Write down the 10 times you were most afraid, most worried
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More Sources of Stuff
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Imagination/creativity…right-brain stuff
– Mostly hard work,
discipline
– 1% inspiration, 99%
perspiration
– The Muse, and how to
get it.
– Walk on the beach
– Music
– Meditation, yoga, etc
– Even with all this “stuff”
you won’t really know your characters until weeks, even months after you’ve
started working with them.
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Methods of Characterization
Indirect (telling)
Authorial
interpretation (Omniscient POV)
Ex: “The woman walked into the room, kicked off
her shoes, then took the gun out of her purse.”
By
another character
“She watched as he stopped in front of the mirror,
straightened his tie, then admired himself for a long moment. She thought him
the vainest man she’d ever known. How could she possibly be so attracted to
him?”
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Methods of Characterization
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Direct Methods
– Appearance
– Action
– Thought
– Speech (dialogue)
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Appearance
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A lot or a little (sometimes less is more)
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Stopping to describe a character also stops the forward momentum of the
plot.
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Action
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Our characters must act, not be acted upon
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“Passive protagonist” is an oxymoron
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Physical movement (stage direction)
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Action involves choice, moves plot forward
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Crisis action
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Thought
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Unique ability of the writer
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We can present thoughts, plans, schemes
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What character really thinks vs. what he or she says or does.
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Two friends meet on the church steps. “Good morning, Mrs. Jones. So
nice to see you, and such a lovely outfit you’re wearing.” God, she thought,
that dress must be a hand-me-down from her grandmother.
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Dialogue
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“Dialogue isn’t just conversation. It’s conversation’s greatest hits.”
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RULE: Dialogue must do more than one thing at a time
– Move plot forward
– Characterize speaker
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“One line of dialogue that rings true reveals character in a way that
pages of description can’t.” (A. Lamott)
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Writing Dialogue
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Short sentences, avoid long speeches
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Don’t use dialogue to inform reader
– “As you know, Bob…”
(info dump)
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Dialogue tags: only function is to identify the speaker (use “said”)
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Telling tags
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Tom Swiftys
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“We must hurry,” said Tom swiftly
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“Pass me the shellfish,” said Tom crabbily
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“I might as well be dead,” Tom croaked
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“We just struck oil,” Tom gushed
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“I wonder if this radium is radioactive?” asked Marie curiously
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“Bingo,” Tom exclaimed winningly
