Be a Better Writer--CHARACTERIZATION
Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 9:54 am
This week’s lesson is for writers of fiction or creative nonfiction—so you writers of devotionals and Bible studies and other nonfiction genres get a week off (or you can stretch yourself and work through the lesson and the homework). I’m going to be covering…
Characterization—the process by which a writer reveals the personality of a character.
Readers are definitely drawn to fully-realized personalities--whether a character is good or evil, human or not—the more we feel that we know that character, the more we’ll be invested in the story.
So—how do you develop a character?
1. By telling your reader directly what the character is like. But be careful—don’t limit yourself to simply adjectival descriptions. It’s far better to write Joe kicked the puppy than Joe was mean.
2. By describing how a character looks and dresses. Be careful not to just write a list: Suzy was model-thin, with shining blonde hair and vivid blue eyes. She was wearing a pink tennis skirt, a designer polo, and a bracelet studded with diamonds. Instead, work these details into descriptions of the action.
3. By letting your readers hear the character speak. If you’re writing in 3rd person, the readers will “hear” their actual dialogue. “Gracious me!” said Millie. “I do believe the turkey may be overcooked!”
If you’re writing in 1st person, your readers “hear” the character through both the dialogue and the narrative. Distressed, I pulled the blackened turkey from the oven. Gracious, burned again. “Well dear, the sweet potatoes will still be delicious…”
I’ve done whole lessons on writing dialogue, so I’ll just hit a few points here:
• Make it sound natural. Real people speak with contractions, hesitations, fragments. They interrupt each other. They use slang.
• If you use a dialect or an accent, be authentic. If this is not a dialect or an accent that you’re intimately familiar with, reconsider using it. Inauthentic accents are very off-putting to the reader.
• Make sure that the character’s speech is consistent with her personal traits: age, education, economic status, gender, profession, geographic location, time period.
4. By revealing the character’s private thoughts and feelings. Here’s where you get inside your character’s head and heart, and write those great italicized bits.
Jan glanced over at the treadmill collecting dust in the corner and shoved a huge bite of donut into her mouth. I’ll exercise later today. Or maybe tomorrow. Definitely by the next day, for sure.
5. By their actions. The little example above reveals something about Jan by her actions as well as her thoughts.
This is a good place to mention a few other terms having to do with characterization: flat characters and rounded characters.
A flat character is a character who lacks defining personality traits, or whose personality traits are utterly predictable. That character might be defined by just a simple, stereotyped descriptive phrase: the best friend…the street thug…the wealthy heiress…the country bumpkin. Flat characters don’t change much (or at all) in the course of the story, and if they’re not the main character, sometimes they’re just introduced as a device to conveniently move the plot along.
A rounded character is far more interesting to read. This character has distinctive personality traits: she has quirks…he is complex (neither all bad nor all good)…she has experiences that challenge her beliefs or her behaviors…he thinks one thing and does another. In short, a rounded character is not one who can be described with just a phrase, because there is far more to the character than can be defined by just a few words. A rounded character changes during the course of the story.
If you’re writing for the challenge, it may be difficult to write fully rounded characters; after all, you only have 750 words. But it can be done, and using the five methods I’ve laid out here is a good start. You may have to introduce a flat character in a challenge entry, but certainly your main character should be more than a paper doll.
If you’re writing a longer piece of fiction, then it’s vital that all of your main characters be rounded characters. Give them physical habits…quirks of speech…favorites and dislikes contrary to expectations…personality traits that differ from other similar characters in the novel (not all teenage girls say “like” and have slumber parties, not all husbands barbecue and watch football)…fears and hopes. Don’t have them simply say lines of dialogue and go places and do things; give them deep motivations for the things that they do, and show that motivation to the readers.
Here’s a Writing Challenge story with four characters: a mother and a father and their two children: Junie and a newborn baby. You should be able to see right away that only Junie is a rounded character; the others are flat. Hang on to that thought; there’s a homework question about it.
HOMEWORK:
Incorporating the five points above, write a little character study of an interesting person. Keep it at about 100 – 150 words, and be sure not to just describe this person. Use dialogue, actions, description, and thoughts to help your reader get to know this character. OR
Read Unconvinced, the story linked to above. List some of the ways that Junie is made to be a rounded character and some of the reasons why the characters of the mother and the father are flat. You could also look for examples of #1 – 5 in the characterization of Junie and tell which ones you find.
Link to an entry of yours that you feel is a good example of characterization, and tell us a bit about it.
Questions or comments about this skill? I’d love to hear them.
As always, I welcome ideas for future lessons.
Characterization—the process by which a writer reveals the personality of a character.
Readers are definitely drawn to fully-realized personalities--whether a character is good or evil, human or not—the more we feel that we know that character, the more we’ll be invested in the story.
So—how do you develop a character?
1. By telling your reader directly what the character is like. But be careful—don’t limit yourself to simply adjectival descriptions. It’s far better to write Joe kicked the puppy than Joe was mean.
2. By describing how a character looks and dresses. Be careful not to just write a list: Suzy was model-thin, with shining blonde hair and vivid blue eyes. She was wearing a pink tennis skirt, a designer polo, and a bracelet studded with diamonds. Instead, work these details into descriptions of the action.
3. By letting your readers hear the character speak. If you’re writing in 3rd person, the readers will “hear” their actual dialogue. “Gracious me!” said Millie. “I do believe the turkey may be overcooked!”
If you’re writing in 1st person, your readers “hear” the character through both the dialogue and the narrative. Distressed, I pulled the blackened turkey from the oven. Gracious, burned again. “Well dear, the sweet potatoes will still be delicious…”
I’ve done whole lessons on writing dialogue, so I’ll just hit a few points here:
• Make it sound natural. Real people speak with contractions, hesitations, fragments. They interrupt each other. They use slang.
• If you use a dialect or an accent, be authentic. If this is not a dialect or an accent that you’re intimately familiar with, reconsider using it. Inauthentic accents are very off-putting to the reader.
• Make sure that the character’s speech is consistent with her personal traits: age, education, economic status, gender, profession, geographic location, time period.
4. By revealing the character’s private thoughts and feelings. Here’s where you get inside your character’s head and heart, and write those great italicized bits.
Jan glanced over at the treadmill collecting dust in the corner and shoved a huge bite of donut into her mouth. I’ll exercise later today. Or maybe tomorrow. Definitely by the next day, for sure.
5. By their actions. The little example above reveals something about Jan by her actions as well as her thoughts.
This is a good place to mention a few other terms having to do with characterization: flat characters and rounded characters.
A flat character is a character who lacks defining personality traits, or whose personality traits are utterly predictable. That character might be defined by just a simple, stereotyped descriptive phrase: the best friend…the street thug…the wealthy heiress…the country bumpkin. Flat characters don’t change much (or at all) in the course of the story, and if they’re not the main character, sometimes they’re just introduced as a device to conveniently move the plot along.
A rounded character is far more interesting to read. This character has distinctive personality traits: she has quirks…he is complex (neither all bad nor all good)…she has experiences that challenge her beliefs or her behaviors…he thinks one thing and does another. In short, a rounded character is not one who can be described with just a phrase, because there is far more to the character than can be defined by just a few words. A rounded character changes during the course of the story.
If you’re writing for the challenge, it may be difficult to write fully rounded characters; after all, you only have 750 words. But it can be done, and using the five methods I’ve laid out here is a good start. You may have to introduce a flat character in a challenge entry, but certainly your main character should be more than a paper doll.
If you’re writing a longer piece of fiction, then it’s vital that all of your main characters be rounded characters. Give them physical habits…quirks of speech…favorites and dislikes contrary to expectations…personality traits that differ from other similar characters in the novel (not all teenage girls say “like” and have slumber parties, not all husbands barbecue and watch football)…fears and hopes. Don’t have them simply say lines of dialogue and go places and do things; give them deep motivations for the things that they do, and show that motivation to the readers.
Here’s a Writing Challenge story with four characters: a mother and a father and their two children: Junie and a newborn baby. You should be able to see right away that only Junie is a rounded character; the others are flat. Hang on to that thought; there’s a homework question about it.
HOMEWORK:
Incorporating the five points above, write a little character study of an interesting person. Keep it at about 100 – 150 words, and be sure not to just describe this person. Use dialogue, actions, description, and thoughts to help your reader get to know this character. OR
Read Unconvinced, the story linked to above. List some of the ways that Junie is made to be a rounded character and some of the reasons why the characters of the mother and the father are flat. You could also look for examples of #1 – 5 in the characterization of Junie and tell which ones you find.
Link to an entry of yours that you feel is a good example of characterization, and tell us a bit about it.
Questions or comments about this skill? I’d love to hear them.
As always, I welcome ideas for future lessons.