How
in the world can I make my characters believable? you ask. Well, maybe
you didn't ask but I give you my thoughts anyway. Good believable
characters have flaws. Okay, you already know that. You've given your
hero a chipped tooth and a crooked nose. That are some distinguishing
characteristics that make him seem more human. But how about having him
be emotionally flawed. (And I'm using the male pronoun here just so I
want have to write he/she every time. This is only a matter of
convenience...not to be gender specific.) He drinks or his wife died or
he's about the lose his job. Something that many of us can relate to and
feel as if we know that character.
You don't have to
enumerate his good and bad points. Show that in your writing. If he
drinks have him have too many drinks and fall down and mess up on what
he needs to do. Or show him trying to quit and going to AA meetings. If
he's lost his wife surely he'll recall some good times with her or talk
to her or visit her grave. Now losing his wife doesn't mean that's a
character flaw but how he deals with that loss can show the flaws in
him. Maybe he starts drinking because his wife died and he's about to
lose his job because he drinks every night and comes to work hung over
and messes up everything he tried to do.
Your
imagination can be boundless here. How do you make that character come
to life? Maybe you've had someone in your own family who drank and
ruined their life. Maybe you used to drink yourself. Draw on whatever
life experiences you can manage and if all else fails...go on a little
research trip to your neighborhood bar and observe people. Surely you
see or overhear someone who has had too much to drink. Record in your
mind how they act and then when you write about your character drinking
you'll be able to lend an air of believability to those words.
Okay
that was your hero. How about your villain? Well for one thing you
don't want him to be a horrible, mean, hateful person. Sure he's all
set to be the killer in your book or story but everyone has good points
as well as bad. He may seem on the outside to be a charming person liked
by all. (I cringe when watching most TV crime/mystery shows because
everyone close the victim who was murdered always says..."Everyone
loved Mary. I know of no one who would want to kill her.) But your
charming and probably good-looking villain is seething with greed or
jealousy. Those are traits that you can show when he reacts with family
or co-workers. Just a slight moment that gives you a clue to what could
be inside his evil mind.
Even if your hero/heroine is
flawed, you should somewhere along the line make them likable or
endearing or your reader will decide it's not worth their time to read
your book. I have read books where the main character was harsh or
spiteful and unlikable in the beginning, but I soon learned a reason why
or something happened to make me understand them a little better and
about half-way through the book, I realized I liked the character.
Personally,
I sorta like to start out liking the main character. Whatever their
plight or flaw I began to understand or relate to them quickly and that
makes me want to keep reading about them. I think most readers feel like
that too.
Be careful about trying to make your
character too much like a real person. They might recognize themselves
and get mad at you for showing their flaws. Characters must only be a
product of your imagination. They definitely may be a composite of
several people you know. It's just not smart to make your mother-in-law
the wicked witch even if she is. Of course some people never see
themselves as others see them and may not even recognize themselves, but
you probably don't want to take a chance.
I may have
told you this before so forgive me if I have, but instead of writing out
a biography of your main characters. Write out the contents of their
purse or billfold. This is just an exercise for you. Or write out a list
of magazines they might have on the coffee table in their living room.
You'll be surprised how many little details you'll discover and
hopefully you'll discover their secret flaws. Once you know their
secrets you'll be on your way to making your characters seem like "real"
people. And that kids, is my lesson for the day.
Showing posts with label characters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label characters. Show all posts
30 January 2012
Character Flaws
by Jan Grape
Location:
Cottonwood Shores, TX, USA
10 October 2011
An Alien in my House
by Jan Grape
Cason |
In fact, he says it sometimes three or four times a day. "Whatsssup, Nana?"
My explanation. I have two black cats, Nick and Nora who have lived with me for fourteen years, we're comfortable with each other. The alien?? Is one of my grandsons, an eighteen year old grandson, Cason by name, has just moved into my new house with me. He's like many young people nowadays, just not exactly sure what he wants to do with his life. Tried really hard to mess up his life by dropping out of school when he only has half a semester left until graduation. He already admits that was one of the biggest mistakes he could have made and is getting prepared to take his GED so that if he decides to go to college he'll be ready. At the moment, he's working at a car wash in town for minimum wages and he does know he doesn't want to do that the rest of his life.
Of course the alien part to me is that I haven't lived with a teenager in many years. My oldest are in the youth of middle age and everything is quite different than it was when they were teens and of course totally unbelievable (to them) when I was in my teens. No believes I walked to school and back uphill both ways in twelve inches of snow. Okay, that was a bit of fiction, but I actually walked in sandstorms so heavy that I had to go to restroom to wash the dirt off my face and had to grit it in my mouth half the day. But I digress...
It has been fun being around Cason. He's good-looking, funny, smart, charming and full of life and himself. He's part man and still part child although he's around 6 feet 3 inches tall. I'll admit it's so much easier dealing with a grandson than a son or daughter. Having that generation gap makes most of what he does seem like, "I've been there, done that, and bought the T-shirt," and doesn't upset me. Much.
I'm learning again what teenagers like and don't like, and a little about how they think which certainly will help me next time I want to create a teenage character. In my most recent book, What Doesn't Kill You, Cory was sixteen except she lived so far out in the boonies they didn't have cell phones or computers. Today's teens have no concept of life without iPhones or iPods. They are totally fluent in cyber technology and how computers work. That's what they've grown up with and it is second nature to them to "Google" for information. I want to reach for a dictionary or an encyclopedia and while I'm looking something up, Cason has already found it on Google.
Music is so different now than when my daughter and sons were teens. They were into The Beatles, Heart, The Eagles and the music of the 70s and 80s. Cason is into rap and rap and more rap and there's something he calls "the beat." None of it sounds like music to me, but I'll admit my music is boring to him. He has an iPod and those earplugs in his ears all day and all night. He'll pull one side out to listen to me and to talk to me, then put it back in and is quickly back to moving his body to the beat.
He doesn't watch TV, can't sit still long enough for most TV shows. Things have to move fast, be action packed. Attention spans are not very long for teenage boy-men. He loves junk food: chips, dips, taquitoes, corn dogs. pizza rolls and pizza. He will eat a Caesar salad if pressed to eat some vegetables. He loves to be with his friends constantly and fortunately is able to make friends easily. He loves to "chill" as he calls relaxing. One of the new words cropping up lately from adults is "chillaxing." I'm sure a teen thought of it first.
Cason has lived in the Nashville, TN area most of his life and that's too far away from Central TX for overnight visits so we've not been together often or for very long at any given time. So I'm getting to know this alien in my house and am enjoying every minute of this bonding experience. I definitely can see that my alien may still be a mystery to me, but I'm learning more every day.
Now if I can get him to sit still long enough so I can't pick up more of his lingo. I definitely want my teenage characters to sound like teenagers.
24 September 2011
Character, character, character
My new blog brother, John M. Floyd, with whom I will be alternating Saturday posts on SleuthSayers, said in his introductory post last week that what matters most to him as a writer and as a reader is plot. For me, it’s character. I can think of many reasons this is so, and they fit right into the task of introducing myself on this new blog.
I write what I love to read.
Complex personalities and intense emotions fascinate me. I love how series characters and their relationships develop over time. I go back over and over to character-driven novels in which the characters seem so real that I experience a longing to be one of them—not to be, say, Harriet Vane or Judge Deborah Knott, but to dine in Oxford with Harriet and Lord Peter Wimsey, adding my two cents (shillings? “P”?) to the conversation, or to hang out with my guitar on that North Carolina porch with Judge Deborah and her family, preferably singing along.
I am a character.
A few decades ago, I was relaxing in a hot tub with a couple of women friends (there’s a great Charles Addams cartoon of three witches doing the same in a cauldron), and one of them said, “What do you really want to be—not do, but be, ultimately?” Without any conscious thought, I said, “A wisewoman and an outrageous older woman.” I’ve been working on both these roles ever since. First I got the “Outrageous Older Woman” T-shirt. Then I wrote the song. And now it’s the title of the album of original songs I’m about halfway through recording.
I’m a shrink.
That’s the wisewoman side of me. I know many people believe that most therapists are crazy. I disagree. If your therapist is nuts or has a disastrous personal life, you’re not getting your money’s worth. Therapy is all about character (although I’ve heard some rollercoaster-ride plots while listening to clients’ stories). Therapists thrive on connection. They love their work because it opens windows onto the intimate world of others. That makes therapists a lot like storytellers. When I was active as a poet, I used to say, “All my stories are true.” As a novelist and short story writer, I say, “I make things up.” (Alternatively: “I tell lies for a living.”) But it’s really the same thing.
I was born to schmooze.
I’m a New Yorker. If I can say it, with my voice, my hands, or my fingers on the keyboard, I probably will. I love book launches and book tours, conventions and conferences, not for the books I’ll sell or the craft and business secrets I’ll learn, but for the schmoozing. Yes, I’m on Facebook. And I do love blogging.
I want to make people laugh and cry.
I doubt that reading exactly which model of AK-47 a fictional assassin used moves even the most technophilic reader to tears. Nor is even the most ingenious locked room puzzle hilarious. Suspense arouses emotion, certainly, and good thriller writers can sure ratchet up the anxiety, frustration, and dread as the reader turns the pages. Suspense works even if the character is so flat that the only possible answer to the question, “What’s he like?” is, “Well, he was Tom Hanks in the movie.” But I don’t like to be scared. I want to be moved. It’s the characters, their emotions, and their interactions with each other that move me, and I want to move readers of my books and stories in the same way.
“So what have you written, Liz?”
Having given you a character-driven introduction, I guess I should mention my publication credits. My mystery series featuring recovering alcoholic Bruce Kohler (and his friends, Barbara the world-class codependent and Jimmy the computer genius) started with Death Will Get You Sober and includes Death Will Help You Leave Him and four short stories, the latest just out in the anthology, Murder New York Style: Fresh Slices. The third novel, Death Will Extend Your Vacation, is due in April 2012. My short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and various anthologies and e-zines. Three have been nominated for the Agatha Award for Best Short Story. The two most recent, both in EQMM, featured Diego, a young marrano sailor with Columbus, whose story continues in a YA novel (so far unpublished). A standalone story about art theft at the Met will appear in EQMM next year. My author website is at www.elizabethzelvin.com. Along with SleuthSayers, I’ll continue to blog weekly at Poe’s Deadly Daughters.
I write what I love to read.
Complex personalities and intense emotions fascinate me. I love how series characters and their relationships develop over time. I go back over and over to character-driven novels in which the characters seem so real that I experience a longing to be one of them—not to be, say, Harriet Vane or Judge Deborah Knott, but to dine in Oxford with Harriet and Lord Peter Wimsey, adding my two cents (shillings? “P”?) to the conversation, or to hang out with my guitar on that North Carolina porch with Judge Deborah and her family, preferably singing along.
I am a character.
A few decades ago, I was relaxing in a hot tub with a couple of women friends (there’s a great Charles Addams cartoon of three witches doing the same in a cauldron), and one of them said, “What do you really want to be—not do, but be, ultimately?” Without any conscious thought, I said, “A wisewoman and an outrageous older woman.” I’ve been working on both these roles ever since. First I got the “Outrageous Older Woman” T-shirt. Then I wrote the song. And now it’s the title of the album of original songs I’m about halfway through recording.
I’m a shrink.
That’s the wisewoman side of me. I know many people believe that most therapists are crazy. I disagree. If your therapist is nuts or has a disastrous personal life, you’re not getting your money’s worth. Therapy is all about character (although I’ve heard some rollercoaster-ride plots while listening to clients’ stories). Therapists thrive on connection. They love their work because it opens windows onto the intimate world of others. That makes therapists a lot like storytellers. When I was active as a poet, I used to say, “All my stories are true.” As a novelist and short story writer, I say, “I make things up.” (Alternatively: “I tell lies for a living.”) But it’s really the same thing.
I was born to schmooze.
I’m a New Yorker. If I can say it, with my voice, my hands, or my fingers on the keyboard, I probably will. I love book launches and book tours, conventions and conferences, not for the books I’ll sell or the craft and business secrets I’ll learn, but for the schmoozing. Yes, I’m on Facebook. And I do love blogging.
I want to make people laugh and cry.
I doubt that reading exactly which model of AK-47 a fictional assassin used moves even the most technophilic reader to tears. Nor is even the most ingenious locked room puzzle hilarious. Suspense arouses emotion, certainly, and good thriller writers can sure ratchet up the anxiety, frustration, and dread as the reader turns the pages. Suspense works even if the character is so flat that the only possible answer to the question, “What’s he like?” is, “Well, he was Tom Hanks in the movie.” But I don’t like to be scared. I want to be moved. It’s the characters, their emotions, and their interactions with each other that move me, and I want to move readers of my books and stories in the same way.
“So what have you written, Liz?”
Having given you a character-driven introduction, I guess I should mention my publication credits. My mystery series featuring recovering alcoholic Bruce Kohler (and his friends, Barbara the world-class codependent and Jimmy the computer genius) started with Death Will Get You Sober and includes Death Will Help You Leave Him and four short stories, the latest just out in the anthology, Murder New York Style: Fresh Slices. The third novel, Death Will Extend Your Vacation, is due in April 2012. My short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and various anthologies and e-zines. Three have been nominated for the Agatha Award for Best Short Story. The two most recent, both in EQMM, featured Diego, a young marrano sailor with Columbus, whose story continues in a YA novel (so far unpublished). A standalone story about art theft at the Met will appear in EQMM next year. My author website is at www.elizabethzelvin.com. Along with SleuthSayers, I’ll continue to blog weekly at Poe’s Deadly Daughters.
Labels:
characters,
Elizabeth Zelvin
Location:
New York, NY, USA
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