#believable characters

[ahb-writes]

Makocchan will always be my favorite.

(from Skip & Loafer #8)

[fyri-writes]

Fablehaven by Brandon Mull

4/5 stars: Full of whimsy, danger, magic, and a wonderful imagination from the author, this story follows Kendra and her brother Seth as they learn more about the land that their grandparents own.

Full of whimsy, danger, magic, and a wonderful imagination from the author, this story follows Kendra and her brother Seth as they learn more about the land that their grandparents own. Plot/Pacing: Magic is everywhere and I loved seeing how different myths were incorporated, ranging from beauty to discomfort and all unique and fulfilling to the story. I do think the reveal of things was a…

[theauthorpaula]

(via Creating Believable Characters)

[theguildedtypewriter]

Character Stuffs: Contradictions

We’ve all heard it before, “I want a three-dimensional, interesting character.” Of course, that only makes sense. But how exactly do you make one? Well, that is a lengthy prospect and you can see some of the work I’ve put into characters here and here. Additionally, what I’ve found, and I’m sure many other brilliant writers and readers alike, is that some truly interesting protagonists and characters are walking contradictions. That is to say that they exhibit behaviors and have beliefs that shouldn’t exist in the same person but the do.

In fact, I will use myself as an example. 

I love dark scary things, monsters, violent horror writing, writing sadistic villains, what have you. I also don’t enjoy watching horror movies, I hate being scared and haunted houses, but Halloween is my favorite, I love creepy things, but hate clowns. I love kittens and cookies, but don’t you dare call me cute. I enjoy cuddling stuffed bears and talking in what I refer to as my kitten voice. Adorable yes I guess, but also capable of scaring the crap out of you. Don’t fuck with the fluffy, black puff.

Ask yourself how the character is already in conflict with themselves, how they contradict themselves daily. 

Building contradictions into characters provides you, the writer, with a place to go when you want to inject drama, conflict, and tension into an otherwise routine occurrence. You can make situations which aren’t necessary life or death feel that way to the character. Take your potentially stereotypical character and twist it up a bit. Gorgeous prom queen who works with volatile chemicals in her spare time and hates dancing. Pilot who is afraid of heights.

When you have a flat character without any pizzazz build a contradiction into their character. It will add internal and external tension.

Think of Gollum/Smeagol. He isn’t wholly evil and he certainly isn’t good. The ring has made him a horrible, suffering contradiction. He has his “hobbit-ness” about him, funny and simple, but the ring has also brought out the much darker side of him, one capable of killing.

Character contradictions also help to create empathy. The audience starts to care more about a character when they learn their dark actions are the result of a Tragic Backstory. Think about a thief stealing for food, a murderer who watched their own family be murdered, both the victim and the villain. 

Five Places to Inject Contradictions

Names: They have associations and symbolism. When a character’s name goes against their type, it’s saying something. And this might not be observed by the reader right away. You can think of Spike from Buffy, yes it seems to fit that he’s called William the Bloody because he is a vampire but it’s actually a reference to his poet past. Ironic names can be an extremely effective way to pique a reader’s interest, surprise them, or make them laugh.

Appearance. Face, clothes, hair, body type, facial expressions, mannerisms, gestures, and speech tell us about a character. Throw in character contradictions and these little facts become much more interesting. Make the breathy-voiced, buxom blond a doctor, like on Futurama, and we do a double take. Make your millionaire dress in holey jeans and faded tees. He’s sounds a bit like a hipster now, but you get my point.

Motive. What we want more than anything, what drives us, what makes us actually leave the warm heaven that is our beds. Our motivation. The force that drives stories forward and determines plot and character. And of course, motives can be contradictory too. These conflicting desires craft drama. Lying to protect ourselves or others, giving up something or someone we love: our living contradictions. 

History. Knowing your protagonist’s history, or backstory, is crucial to understanding their motives. Subtly inserting backstory into the narrative makes  a character’s contradictory actions understandable. Incongruities can create interest and cause readers to engage more actively. Think about villains whose actions seen downright reasonable when you understand their backstory. A favorite example is Harley Quinn. She is a brilliant psychiatrist but because of what happens to her she enters a violent, dysfunctional relationship with the Joker. She is so smart and can be so independent but still lets the Joker control her.

Environment: Without a doubt we are shaped by our environments. Nurture always plays a role. Your character will be influenced by their family, friends, home life, work/school, and physical settings. The environments you put your character in can be funny because your characters are so out of place in them, assassins in daycare, villains in self-help circles, etc. Think about My Fair Lady. Or, environment can be a vehicle to explore thought-provoking social concerns and today’s problems. Whether you’re writing oxymoronic characters like wealthy hillbillies or well off criminals, setting contradictions can lend a story drama, resulting in valuable insights for readers.

People, which your readers are in fact, make assumptions based on what we see or know about a person. When you take the time to pair unlikely traits, the rewards can be great. Character contradictions exist everywhere. Incorporate them into the characters you create and your stories will be all the more authentic for it.

[aetherscribe-blog]

Character Motivation

Making your characters seem less wooden and more... “meaty”?

   Somebody submitted a few questions to me over the past couple of days - which was an awesome experience by the way as I feel that I am actually helping people now! I found that a pattern emerged in the questions that were asked, such as how to fill out your chapters with sub-plot and how to make characters seem less like they just revolve around one person - questions that boiled down to one reoccurring answer - Character Motivation. It’s something that many writers tend to forget or even stumble on and so, despite posting the questions on my blog, I felt like going into further detail regarding this simple yet paramount factor in character creation.

   Many times, a writer will go through their story and as they write, they possibly feel like a character just isn’t cutting it. They seem to just float around near the action and not contribute much and this is usually caused by the lack of a Motivational Goal. Their motivation, of course, could be something from any number of goals. Good grades at school, avenging their murdered parents, training to become a legendary ninja or just wanting a new rug, the Motivation should serve as the forward motion for any character - the gunpowder that ignites and thrusts our characters into the very cement of any story - Conflict.    Their motivation should simply shape the choices they make - choices that will undoubtedly lead to consequences, alignment with other characters they befriend or clashes with somebody who wants the same thing for themselves. It’s like how the Antagonist wants to destroy the world, whereas the Protagonist wants the world to keep on going. The conflict that erupts in that story is quite easy to see, but let’s take another example.

   Let’s talk about the movie The Big Lebowski. For context, the movie is about a lazy man, the Dude, who shares the same surname as a Millionaire, thus leading to thugs entering his home and urinating on his rug in an act of extortion for a debt the Millionaire owes, only to realise they made a mistake and leave without making amends. When the Dude goes to to the Millionaire to get compensation in the form of a new rug and fails, he just simply takes one from his house.    The Dude’s motivation of getting a replacement rug has been achieved, but the costs? When the Millionaire’s prize wife gets kidnapped, they call on him to pretty much sort the mess out in exchange for the rug he so clearly ran off with, which in turn lands him in a whole heap of trouble. I suggest you watch this movie as it is hilariously good and I am seriously glazing over it’s plot.

   But the Main Characters are easy for this a lot of the time, because they are the people most likely to get directly involved with the bigger, looming plot. Minor Characters, on the other hand, are a little trickier. To a degree, all notable characters should have at least minimal interaction with the main plot and their own personal Motivation.    This works well in the Harry Potter series, where many characters otherwise considered unimportant at the beginning of the series such as, for example, Neville Longbottom, later become much more involved. This is because Neville starts off with the simple assumed motivation of “Surviving school as a wimpy kid.”. True, Neville occasionally does a couple things important to the plot in the first few books, even if accidental, such as getting Gryffindor those pivotal ten points at the end of the first book. This is minimal involvement and lets us know that he’s not just a background character.    Later in the series, Neville becomes far more involved in the story because something changes - the Wizarding World is threatened by Voldemort’s tyranny. This is the big looming plot, as Neville and many other minor characters have to step up because they know that everything they've grown to love is in danger and they do things you would never have expected them to do a couple of books before. His original motivation carried him on into the main plot and forced his hand, certainly making for a huge leap of character development as Neville becomes unthinkably brave to the point of openly defying Voldemort himself and steadying the wavering morale of many otherwise doomed characters.

   Every character should have a motivation - an external goal that will settle an internal conflict. Sure, your character may want to become filthy rich but why? They might want to get rich so they can afford surgery for a loved one or even just prove themselves better than everybody else or they may even just love the shiny look of gold coins - an external goal that they can realistically achieve in order to settle an internal conflict that acts as a distraction from a crippling insecurity to them.    These are two such simple and laughably easy things to and yet supremely important. It’s like going from being puppeteer to a host of characters all at once in a messy tangle of strings, to programming your characters to be autonomous and convincingly lifelike - to be able to make their own decisions based off of their own goals. Fred And George Weasley want to open their own magical joke shop business, but that’s not happening when Voldemort’s screwing with the world!

   If all else fails, ask yourself - is what your character doing relevant to their Motivational Goal? If so, get them in on that moment. If not, then they have somewhere else to be that is far more interesting to them.

   I hope this helped anybody out there reading it! If anybody has a specific writing question they want answering, however, please do not hesitate to ask! Happy writing, and a huge thanks to the Anon who kicked this whole thing off with those questions! I wish all the best for your story!

- CR

[camikahayes]

Thoughts on the Art of Storytelling

Thoughts on the Art of Storytelling

The art of storytelling is so complex. It’s difficult to sum it up in a few tips and pointers, or to point to a specific type of character for the reason a story just works. Can we really narrow down a vast world of stories into just a few factors? Photo by Brett Jordan from Pexels That’s what writers strive to do. We know that regardless of whether a character is likable or not, the importance…

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[thenovelincubator]

Exploring Character Through Memoir

Curious Expeditions Fiction readers expect more of characters than they do of people in real life. In life you can have a person who does inexplicable self-destructive or transgressive shit, and friends and colleagues just shake their heads and say, “Oh, that’s just Charlie being Charlie.” But if you have a character who is behaving in an inexplicable way, what you hear is, “But I don’t…

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[classes-specifically-zut]

Characters to Remember

The five "C's" of fiction: based on characters caught in a preceptive conflict. Brandy Collins<\p>

Do you set down a problem although it comes to fleshing out your characters? Chord superego encounter who they are? Their likes and dislikes?? There are tricks and tools to help!<\p>

One tool I use is a character sketch clan I've made and saved respecting my computer. It has evolved over split schedule and will vibrate to do so as my growth in writing continues. You tush with agonizing slowness win a form in contemplation of fit your spill it style. I'll use mine in place of an reference. I institute with the basics; name, age, height, weight, eye and hair color and even a birthdate if superego strikes me to do ever so. Now imagine a decrease and get out of a little more access understanding. What kind of duologue patterns do they have? Are they from a disjoin of the world that has a unrepeated underscore? Devil they use slang? Do they tend towards use certain words or phrases? These kinds of things are what makes your characters stand outgate. How does your sure sign dress? Blue jeans or designer labels? Do they fall a certain article relative to clothing that is their trademark? Jewelry? Tattoos? What are their quirks? We all have them. I know a man who tugs at his eyebrows when concentrated on speaking terms intelligence. As writers, we should utilize these traits in contemplation of our advantage. <\p>

What kind anent story does they\she fathom? HER do this whether I plan in passage to use it trendy my work cream not. I cover their parents, and siblings, schooling, career, and marital clan. What is your character's economic status?<\p>

In the sequel I move doing to their preferences. What color, food and slurp up i beg you they like? Dislike? Do they martini or smoke? If similarly, what type or brand? What kind of music turns them up against? What tone regarding agency do superego drive?<\p>

Now let us look serial deeper. HE mentioned quirks, how about flaws? What do they hum and haw? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Habits? Do they beguile of a high spot in favor of panjandrum or someone? Cover any prejudices, hobbies, skills, attitudes and outlooks they may deceive.<\p>

I finish disharmonic my sketch with a inconsiderable specific questions such in this way, what would my character be found doing on a rainy day.<\p>

Ethical self may add or disengage questions as well you note the requisite. As historically mentioned, my own list has evolved. This tool is fun to wear and helps to develop deeper and item believable characters. It assists a writer into becoming acquainted with those chap\she will go on writing about and, in turn, allows the novelist to put forth a stronger shooting iron of work<\p>