Getting "Into" Your Characters

My character BunnyYou'll always put a little of yourself into every character. And sometimes, we put more than a little into them. The photo is me, but technically, it's really Bunny, a character I created for "The Four Redheads of the Apocalypse."

Bunny is the new War of the Four Horsemen--or rather Horsewomen. She, and the other three Redheads of the Apocalypse, came about on the return drive from Houston back to Dallas. Maybe we were punchy, but the characters are developing recognition in area conventions among fandom.

At the 2008 Denvention World Con, Julia S. Mandala (who's Famine) and I were stunned by the number of people in Denver and some from as far away as Seattle who recognized us as two of the Four Redheads.  Of course, the four of us are the cover models. Which brings me back to putting yourself into your characters. In the case of the Four Redheads, we lend our characters our physical features.  For Bunny's personality, I envisioned something between the classic Marilyn Monroe "dumb blonde" and Ginger Grant from Gilligan's Island.

Besides modeling Bunny physically after me, John Ringo "turned me into a character." In his novel, "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," I'm the basis for theTuckerized character, Linda Donohue. (Note the slight change in spelling of Donahue.) I'd met John in Kansas City at ConQuest and we hit it off and talked a great deal. He said he was going to put me in one of his books and sure enough, not long after, I received an e-mail confirming that I was in a book. Furthermore, he didn't kill "me" off. Instead, he gave "me" a character arc and said I'd probably be in the next book. And . . . sure enough . . . he later e-mailed to say I was in the next book. His editor also e-mailed and told me the "news."

While a lot of authors draw from people they know to create characters, most don't use the actual names. John is a special case and a lot of fun if you ever have the chance to hang out with him. And while John used my name, my description, and my science background, there's a lot about that Linda Donohue that isn't like me at all. That's where John's character-making skills came in. So if you borrow from real life, remember to borrow slightly.

Giving Character To Your Characters

Writing is an art dealing in illusion. Just as you give only enough details to create an image, your character will have only enough traits to appear a whole person. Real people are inconsistent. They change their taste and their minds frequently. What makes a real person mad one day may roll off his back another. Real people have fluctuations in brain chemistry. They have issues at home interfering with work; issues at work interfering at home; they have hobbies, health and other interests on their minds. They have far too many traits to give to a character--even a character based on real life in a story based on the actual event. All characters whether in fictional stories or those "based on a real event" must be streamlined to a manageable handful of character traits.

There's no right number of traits. In general, characters in a long-running series will develop closest to real people. But just like real people have years to develop, these characters have thousands of pages. Characters in a novel will be more fleshed out than those in a short story. That doesn't mean a character in a short story will seem two-dimensional. Remember, you're dealing with illusions here. What you want to do is create a writer's version of the artist's 3-D illusion drawing. (You know, spiraling cones that seem to point in, then point out.)

Even though real people are inconsistent in behavior, inconsistent characters don't feel real. That's because we know real people so well that we view a person's odd behavior today as having a cause and we might even know enough of that person's history to guess the cause.  Since we can rationalize a reason for seemingly inconsistent behavior, we don't find the inconsistency inconsistent. But that's not true for a character.

An inconsistent character will more often than not feel badly written. Readers, in general, don't want a page or even a paragraph of back-story to explain the reason for a character's inconsistent behavior. If nothing else, recall that we read to escape. Most readers like to escape to a world with things make sense. How often does "things not being right . . . not making sense" drive you nuts? In fiction, we want things to make sense. That desire affects character, world building, and plot. This issue is also addressed in those sections.

For the purposes of character, making sense means having a character behave the way we anticipate given what we know about that character. As with all things, attempt to show a character's traits rather than tell them. For example, showing a character making donations to charity is more effective than stating the character is generous or charitable. The trick is to filter in these actions so that they are (preferably) relevant to the plot or (at least) enrich a scene or create a sense of world building. As an aside, all scenes should try to advance the plot, enrich the world and develop the character.

Real people are inconsistent. Yet as an exercise, think of people you know--but not people you know well. Choose a classmate or coworker you haven't really spent a lot of time with. That person is still very real to you, even without knowing his/her family, background, or even anything personal. Now write down five to ten words that fit that person's personality, as you perceive it. Use words like quiet, tenacious, silly, slow, mouthy, etc.

Personality words, as apposed to purely descriptive words (such as tall, pretty, young) are more important in creating the feel of real character. Using description alone to define a character is what makes a character 2-Dimensional. A description is what's on the outside, the image, a flat picture. But personality words relate what's on the inside of a person; it's what gives a character depth and makes a character consistent.

Say a character's five personality words are: quiet, stubborn, obsessive, patient, and thoughtful.

Now if that character suddenly delivers a hundred-word speech, something is amiss . . . for quiet people don't deliver speeches. And if one does, as a writer, we must establish a strong reason for it. Likewise, if the patient and thoughtful character acts rashly, without all the facts, another inconsistency is instantly illuminated.

Besides using personality words to spot where the character is written inconsistently, they help avoid the inconsistency in the first place. When something happens in the scene, before having the character react, stop and ask, how would a patient, thoughtful, quiet person react? So often, these inconsistencies are really places where we as writers intrude upon our characters, where we have written in our own reactions rather than the reactions of our characters. So while writers all put a little of themselves into their characters, as a writer we should be aware of when that is and what it is we're adding. Certainly, we don't want to write only ourselves and ourselves all the time. Part of the fun of escaping into reading and into writing is the ability to become someone else. So when writing someone else, know that person and write the way that person would react. Then characters will have their own personality.

What Does a Character Look Like?

Where does the physical description come in? That's a personal preference. Some readers prefer to imagine their own physical features to "become" the character. Some readers want to know about every freckle and mole. Mostly, the physical needs to come in where it affects the character on other levels.

Consider this description of an elderly woman, four feet tall, eighty-eight pounds, and ninety-two years old. Now, will she be a lifeguard at a beach? Not likely. So the physical will impose physical limitations. Likewise, appearance can have a psychological or emotional impact on your character. Moreover, appearance can have an impact on how other characters will treat this character. Simply consider how in life we allow appearances to have an effect. Then use that to create a sense of reality in your writing.

Everybody Does Something

For me, the physical is the last thing I determine about a character.  I start with the character's job. A job--in the broadest sense of the word--has an impact on a person's definition. When people think of a teacher, there's a physical image and an idea as to what type of person this is. The image may have some variations, but pin-up girl isn't the first image to pop into most people's heads. The same thing applies to most occupations. So yes, I'm talking about stereotypes, but stereotypes exist for a reason. For good or ill, for right or wrong, job descriptions and stereotypes create expectations. Whether or not a writer uses expectations is a personal choice; but all writers need to know these stereotypes or expectations exist. It's no different than knowing a rule before breaking it. Remember, absolutely everybody has some expectations at some time or another. For instance, most everyone pictures a doctor as being clean. Sure there are health codes and laws, but that doesn't make the expectation or stereotype any less real.  And while there's no law requiring an oilrig worker to be dirty, realistically, no one expects them to be as scrubbed clean as a doctor.  It's still a stereotype.

I start with the job because that's usually an integral part of the story I'm telling. While the Harry Potter books are about Harry . . . they're not about just any old kid named Harry, but Harry Potter the wizard. His being a wizard is integral to the plot. Make him an ordinary kid and the stories can't happen.

Once character has a "job," evaluate any preconceived notions regarding that job. Define "job" to mean whatever it is the character "does" regardless of whether he/she is paid. So "job" can refer to a hobby the character is involved with. It can be absolute nothing at all, as in the character is "homeless." Consider what a homeless person does in order to survive. Anything and everything can be a "job" by this definition.  Even a coma patient lies there . . . and possibly dreams.

Let's say the job is wizard.  What traits does one normally assign a wizard? Then choose to adopt some or all of those traits or alter a few traits to make the character different. Suppose in breaking a stereotype, a doctor character is almost always filthy. How could he still practice medicine? Maybe he's in a third-world country where it simply isn't possible to be scrubbed clean.

Certainly don't take away any traits necessary for the character to exist in the role assigned, that role determined in part by the world in which he/she will inhabit. Nor take away any traits that would require altering the story being told. Alter traits for purposes of creativity and originaltiy. For instance, one trait long associated with doctors was that he/she possesses a good bedside manner. Now consider Gregory House (of the television show House.) He certainly hasn't a good bedside manner. In fact, his patient attitude is the sort that would have any other doctor fired or without a practice because patients wouldn't see him. But House is an exceptional doctor, a brilliant one. And so he is allowed to have traits that would normally hinder a doctor and his/her career.

Defining the Traits

Good bedside manner would be a personality trait. House's limp is a physical trait. One way to create richer characters is to dissect and study other characters. Do the following exercise on characters you know well (whether from film, TV, or books) to dissect and study them.  Then do the same exercise to help create your own characters.

1) Determine the character's "job."
2) Make a list of personality (non-tangible) traits in one column and in another, list physical traits that
    are associated with that job..
3) Draw a horizontal line and below, using the same two columns, list those personality traits and
     physical traits that contradict or break the above expectations.
4) Draw another horizontal line, and continuing to use the same two columns, add in those traits that
     are not associated whatsoever with the job. 

Fleshing Out A Character

Number four of the exercise considers things which give a character flavor. Some call it adding a twist. For example, creating a hard-boiled detective character who also enjoys gardening or knitting. This is all part of fleshing out the character.

Characters have history. The writer will (and should) always know more about his/her characters (and world, for that matter) than the reader ever will. Nonetheless, adding in something more can create an instant 3-D feel. It can also feel artificial or wrong. Too much "twisting" can make a character inconsistent or unreal. Too little and the character is flat. This isn't an exact science but an art. In general, the amount of twist or length of history is proportional to the number of pages a character gets.

In most instances, less is often more. Find the right unusual trait and one is plenty. Readers don't need to know everything that happened in a character's past, but knowing that one decisive event can explain everything.