Ever read a book that didn't engage you? Of course you have. You didn't care what happened to the characters and you (very likely) put it down and possibly even mentioned to a few people how much you didn't like the book. Ever read one that absolutely held you riveted? Geez, I hope so, or I'm going to be depressed for a week.
The difference of being the latter type vs. the former is, of course, the characters -- how well developed they are, how unique, how they resonate off the page and with the reader. So what is the secret to doing this well? I think there is one angle into developing characters that I haven't seen anywhere else (yet, who knows?), and it's a simple thing.
Shame.
I'll get back to that in a moment.
When I first start writing about a character, I already have a sense of the type of person he or she is. This is born as much from the kind of person and the type of problems that personality would encounter as it does from the type of story I'm writing. For example, I'm not going to write an action / caper with a heroine who is passive. In that type of story, a passive heroine would require someone else to step in and do the saving, or at least do a majority of the saving, and frankly, the passive woman-in-jeopardy story isn't something I'm interested in writing. I wouldn't be interested in that character's growth because I'd have to spend so much time demonstrating her passivity when I'd be secretly wanting to smack her and make her stand up for herself. So for me, the type of character I'm going to write about is determined by the type of story I want to tell and the type of person I'm interested in watching go through obstacles and grow and learn and, ultimately, become. Become more of who their are, find their own strengths, weaknesses, make an effort to improve, etc. Most people don't radically change after the outcome of something major so much as they examine who they are and what they did wrong or right and they make some decisions. It's more of a continuum, not an abrupt change, and I'm interested in that art of becoming. That feeling of growing more comfortable in our own skin.
So, that said, story and character type help me narrow down a character's personality, but then I have to figure out the details to bring this character to life. The goal is to do it so richly, they become memorable. Becoming memorable in this cluttered world is hard as hell, so I can't rely on surface personality "traits" or "quirks" to accomplish that goal. Given that, there is a sort of checklist of things I look at to develop my characters which will help me get started:
What does the character need?
Want?
Does the "want" conflict with the "need?"
Character history (particularly as it pertains to need / want).
What is the character's goal in this story?
How does the goal amplify and / or conflict with either the "need" or the "want?"
Now, all of these things will get me a character, maybe even a great character. It helps me eliminate random traits and craft the character into a cohesive person. And sometimes, I'll get really inspired when I'm thinking of a character history and something will just click for me and I'll have my hook in how the character acts and talks and walks which makes them stand out. Even so, I go back to that emotion I first mentioned -- shame -- and I ask the character, "What have you done that you're ashamed of? What would you never, ever, admit to unless forced on pain of death?"
When you key into someone's self-inflicted shame, when you know what they've chosen to do which humiliates them and makes them hold that as a secret, as a thing against which much be guarded, as a potential for future damage, then you know your character.
Shame is a difficult emotion to peg. People get embarrassed at certain things, certain failures, of goofs or lapses or mistakes, but real DNA-rattling shame speaks to their core beliefs as to what kind of person they ought to be, what they see as their own potential and how they've betrayed that potential. That choice to betray something they believe in is an important insight to the contradictory nature that makes us human.
Sometimes, people will be ashamed at the strangest things which wouldn't bother someone else. Figuring out what someone would do that would create shame, something that they do in spite of being aware that they are creating a very bad emotion they'll have to endure, tells you their priorities and more about their secret desires and how they contradict what they'd like to believe about themselves. A man who thinks he's a moral person, yet, when he gets in a big financial bind, steals from his employer and is horrified at his own actions (and hides them), is someone who hasn't come to grips with the fact that maybe he's prioritizing "keeping up with the Joneses" much higher than what he thought of as his moral character. Will that make him cynical? Depressed? Sad? Will he over-compensate? Joke it off? Ignore it? Bluster? Fake not caring? That sort of personal conflict gives a writer a lot to work with and makes the character more memorable than simply describing a funny or dark "quirk." Quirks are easier to paste on, but they don't render a character as real or memorable.
Now the benefit to figuring out the shame of the character isn't necessarily to use it on the page or incorporate it into the book. It may not be necessary. If I know what a character is ashamed of, even if I'm writing something humorous, I know how that shame informs who they are and the choices they'll make -- from dialog to action.
True character is revealed by the choices a person makes when everything is going to hell. I think we often surprise ourselves by our own weaknesses and the things that can influence us when we thought we had more control or backbone or moral fortitude, and it's that sort of contradiction which can help a writer render a character memorable. One of the best writing exercises I was ever given... (wait... I digress... it's the only actual writing exercise I remember from four years of an English degree and then two for an MFA in Creative writing... that's sort of sad, I think)... anyway, the most memorable writing exercise was when a professor said we had to write a one to two page scene where the POV character was ashamed of something they were doing / were about to do, but we couldn't say they were ashamed or have them think that. In fact, they had to do the deed and through their actions and dialog, we had to show their goal to get the thing done and yet their own self-loathing at having done the thing without ever once allowing them to admit the shame. It was one of the hardest two pages I ever wrote, and the most illuminating. I highly recommend it as a tool to use if you ever need to figure out how to make a character spring to life.
Posted by toni at March 12, 2006 04:56 PM