I’ve read everyone’s comments on the blog the last couple of days and have found a way to make everyone happy. We’ll continue our discussion of characters until it runs out of steam. Then we’ll transition to talking about high-concept novels. I may even be able to get John Olson to contribute to that discussion, but he’s on a deadline right now, so it’s better to wait till the end of the month on that.
But first, everyone check out the account of my deathmatch with Camy Tang.
In real life, Camy is a friend of mine who writes Asian chick-lit. I ran an interview on this blog with Camy a couple of months ago on branding. Of course I teased her a bit, but everyone knows I think the world of her. She is one smart lady.
OK, on to character development. Last week, I talked about the first step in character development, which is defining the character’s “physiology” which is a fancy word for the character’s inherited traits. (I am here summarizing the high points of the book HOW TO WRITE A DAMN GOOD MYSTERY, by James N. Frey.)
The next step is to define the character’s “sociology” which is a fancy term for the character’s environment. The old debate of “nature versus nurture” is silly. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and. Part of who you are comes from what was done to you or not done to you.
So you need to know what kind of home your character grew up in. What kind of parents? What kind of family structure? How many siblings and what gender and what birth order? What religion, if any? What social structures? What’s the political situation? Economic situation? How big is the house, and did your character have his own bedroom and if so, how many cockroaches were under his bed? Did he have a cat or a dog or a stegosaurus or what?
You need to know this stuff. You won’t use it all, but you still need to know it. You can figure it all out in advance, or you can make it up on the fly. Either way, you need to write it all down somewhere, so you don’t have him the middle son in a Democratic family on page 40, and the oldest son of a herd of Republicans on page 400.
This reminds me that Holly posted a question yesterday:
Here is my dilemma. I have given myself my 20th migraine doing character charts – really, truly, simply I can’t do it. I dread it. It’s the lurking monster in the night for me. But can a writer create believable characters through story alone?
When I try and map out my characters, analyze them, they cease to be real to me. Real people to me are always a mystery, a puzzle to solve and appreciate. But in charting, half the details I try to record on my characters are blatantly wrong, different from the story and then I get confused – who are these people, why do they look different in real light versus story light and which is the right one?
But I know who they are in story and don’t worry about it during writing. Am I doomed to 2-dimensional characters here???
Randy sez: Create your characters any old way that works for you. If you need to create them in advance, then do so. If you need to discover them by writing the story, do that. Whatever works. The only rule in writing well is . . . to write well.
But once you’ve figured out who your characters are, Holly, do write down the important stuff so you’ve got a reference document that tells what color eyes they have, and all that stuff. Without that, your poor editor may go crazy trying to break the deadlock created by an inconsistent manuscript. And editors have enough problems as it is.
Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the essential conflict between “physiology” and “sociology.”
Thank you very much for everything told and explained above. You have just addressed at least three of my major problems with creating a character.
I love creating characters. It’s my favorite part of writing. Thanks for this great post. I am teaching a writing class to 11th graders at my cottage school and I am going to have them read this. They are writing their first novels this year! So far they have developed their characters, plots, settings, etc. on worksheets and are putting them together now for their first chapters. I am so impressed with how well this works for them!
Every writer is so different. I have one kid who whips out great chapters in one sitting (but his grammar is horrible!). I have another kid who is allergic to paper and the computer keyboard. He just freezes up. I have tried everything I can think of to boost his confidence in his ability, but nothing seems to work.
The fact is, I think, that those of us compelled to write do it because it’s a gift. And there are others who couldn’t imagine trying to do it at all.
I feel so blessed to get to be one of the ones that loves it!
Randy, are you going to start tapping into the homeschool market your with your writing workshops? I think you should!
I’ll take a couple of those Ninja Snowflakes that make julienne fries. They’ll make great Christmas gifts!
I totally feel Holly’s angst, and great moves in the deathmatch, Randy…hilarious!
I feel character outlines, bore me sometimes. They have the ability to sap away the enthusiasm I have for a story idea, but it is a good test of how solid your idea can be.
If you get bored of your characters before you start introducing the plot, then the story will struggle and bore the readers. But one thing to remember is stories evolve. Sometimes what you originally intended to write is not what comes to a head in the final wording. So it’s important for characters to be willing to grow into deep realistic representations of what you’re trying to write.
Which makes a character outline helpful so you know where your characters can gain depth. I think Darwin might agree with me that evolution has to start with a basic structure already in existence, and we’re writers so it’s helpful to have those basic outlines. Besides it’s important for a character to have the same eye color throughout a story, and if a character’s eye color can evolve then we might have a scientific battle on our hands.
Happy Writing
Thanks for the advice on character development. I have always ‘seen’ my main characters as if they are acting out movie scenes in my head (their physiology is very clear). But these little glimpses aren’t always sufficient to propel them together into the plot I’m trying to create. It’s like trying to figure out how individuals, viewed separately at various times on a bus, would interact if suddenly thrown together, to combine these scenes realistically. Their sociology is what I was missing. Good of you to point that out, Randy.
Great imagery in the deathmatch! I really enjoyed that.
The Deathmatch was wickedly hilarious! And skillfully done. Hard to know who to cheer for, but, being a woman, of course I was in Camy’s corner. 😀
On the character worksheet, I’m with Holly and Valerie. I cannot do one ahead of time. But, as I write, and the charater(s) develop and they start to talk to me, I pull out a worksheet and jot down things as they reveal themselves to me. It just works better for me that way. Glad to know I’m not the only one. Oh, I’m a SOTP writer, too, or wasn’t that obvious?
See, now I LOVE to do the character charts. I love it when I start a new story, and I have to sit down and think up all these neat things for my MC. It’s so much fun – kind of like solving a puzzle. However, that doesn’t mean that once I start writing that things can’t change. Of course, they change. As I write I get to know the character even better, and if they need to have brown eyes instead of blue, I simply go back to my “character sheet” and change it.
See, now I LOVE to do the character charts. I love it when I start a new story, and I have to sit down and think up all these neat things for my MC. It’s so much fun – kind of like solving a puzzle. However, that doesn’t mean that once I start writing that things can’t change. Of course, they change. As I write I get to know the character even better, and if they need to have brown eyes instead of blue, I simply go back to my “character sheet” and change it.
Thank you, Randy!
I’m the opposite of Charlotte above – my characters come to me with full sociology and a developing understanding of their nature, but I struggle with the details of the physiology. Amazing how different and quirky we all are yet somehow we all write books.
I have been trying to solve my dilema with how to discover my characters’ details (after the 1st draft!) without charting, and have been playing with having my characters tell me detailed descriptions of eachother. This is still story to me, and I don’t mind description, so this is good!
The charts help me remember physiology because that is where I’m the weakest I think. I have no problem with figuring out their temperaments, accents, attitudes, etc. But I do fail sometimes to describe their physical traits to my readers.
I think if I’d had a few more minutes, I’d have taken you down!
Camy
I read the title in my RSS reader and I Said “Killing Spree!” I doesn’t help that I was doing Computer Game Design until reacently.
Me? In my stories, if the person has a Name, they will not only have another scene, I’ve planned out some of their inner workings.
The only one who didn’t get done like that was Miss Kieya, I named her then got her job and inner workings after it.