On my recent tousle with the muse (namely-my desperate attempts to bribe my way back into her good graces) I realized that somewhere along the way, I lost touch with who my characters were. I’ve penned over one hundred glorious pages only to find myself wondering what the heroines inner conflict was, or why the hero doesn’t come off as ‘alpha’ to the heroine as he does to everyone else. So I sat, contemplated, read, questioned, re-read, and then it happened. The epiphany came and slapped me upside the head. Hard! My characters lacked consistency in their behaviour… or possibly their mannerisms…or something. I know it’s there, just under the surface and yet I can’t seem to grasp hold of it.
This happens to me more than I care to admit. So many articles, books, and topics out there cover this very thing, but what works? Only you the great and powerful author hiding behind the curtain can reveal that. Why you ask? Because as with many things in writing and life it self, more than likely it is different for ever author, character, or story. Just getting the basics down-height, weight, age, hair color, eye color, you get the picture- isn’t always enough.
In the past I’ve toyed with writing character interviews. Always starting at the moment I first spot them walking into our ‘arranged’ meeting space. Something along the lines of this:
Sasha rushes into the French sidewalk café that was located at the famed Paris hotel in the heart of the city. She spots me waving her over, says a few things to the maître d’, smiles, and heads my direction. Heads turn to watch her as she weaves her way through the tables and stops next to my table.
“I am so sorry I am late.” She says as she slides her feet out the flip flops, and sits tucking one leg underneath and drawing the knee of her other leg up in front of her. The waiter quickly brings over a tomato and mozzarella salad with a glass of iced tea. Sasha thanks the waiter by name and returns her attention to me, politely ignoring the stares from the passersby on the strip and our fellow café patrons. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
“Alright then Sasha, let’s get the show on the road. Who was your first boyfriend and what did you like most about them?”
“Boy you jump right into the nitty gritty of it all don’t you?” she says with a laugh, but I don’t fail to notice the gleam in her eye. There is a story there she is dying to get out.
Other times, it is as simple as rough sketching each characters conflicts, goals, and motivation. The point is, when you are developing your characters, you need to truly know your characters, but it shouldn’t be boring. Have fun with it. Or at least that is my intention. I wonder if this is the golden key which will elicit more cooperation from the ever growing characters cramming their way into my head.
So give it up, share, divulge the info, because you know what? I am not as smart as I pretend to be.
Tags: Character Development, Ponderings, Writing
Sometimes it’s hard to get into the story, but it’s a wonderful feeling when everything clicks and the words just come to you.
Morgan Mandel
http://morganmandel.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/morganmandel
Comment by Morgan Mandel — January 22, 2009 @ 9:31 pm
Oh my, been there done that. I have some kind of character sheet I used, not sure where that thing is, but I had to list everything about the character you could imagine. By the time you’re done, you’re supposed to know everything about your character you could know and that’s supposed to help. Wish I could find that darn thing.
Comment by Book Marketing Buzzq — January 22, 2009 @ 10:27 pm
I plan like crazy – Excel spreadsheets with multi-page character interviews, multicolor GMC charts with internal & external conflicts, graphs which plot the growth of the interrelationships…and I still have to write half of the darn book before I know for sure who my characters really are, then go back and fix the beginning of the book. Seems like the only way to truly reveal their character is to dump them into the action. I think different things just work for different people.
Comment by Barbara Romo — January 23, 2009 @ 12:26 am
Hi Moira,
You touch a very important subject for writers. For me, it helps to base my protagonists’ characters on people I know. For example, if I base my hero on my brother, I think, ‘what would my brother do in this situation? how would he react?’ It helps.
Mayra
Comment by Mayra Calvani — January 23, 2009 @ 1:09 pm
Oh. I like Mayra’s idea. My currentest hero is largely based on my hubby [don't tell him!]…but I made him *cough* better. LOL Like my hero is very touchy, where as my hubby is not so much a cuddler or toucher in general. Before my first revision, I realized I had to work on keeping my hero and heroine’s characteristics different. I found that my heroine was reacting very touchyee, too. When, with her background, she should have been the less touchy one. So, little things I’m working on through the revision.
GREAT TOPIC! I should think about getting a good writing topic up on my blog soon. 
Comment by Bethanne — January 24, 2009 @ 2:39 pm