Characterization

Lately I’ve been getting rejected for reasons other than unoriginality. I feel that I’m not creating lifelike characters, flawed yes, but not without some redeeming qualities for the audience to get behind and rally for.

I don’t mean using gimmicks to create characters: no one should have to read about a retarded dwarf with one leg, one eye and a lisp...unless such physical traits are dire to the character’s character and to the plot itself. However, that is all surface anyways – physical traits. Instead, what needs to be done is to create characters with depth. How the fuck do you do that? It takes time, and energy, and a lot of thought to really understand your characters.

What scares your character? You should know...

What I like best, is of course, start with a character sketch. This gives me a full introduction with all the sorts of bio information that would be common: name, age, height, hometown, etc. The surface points. But then you’d have to delve deeper, slightly deeper at first: Why does your character have one blue eye and one brown? Why does s/he have a permanent limp? The answers to these questions scratch the surface, and start to carve out a backstory (history) that should be presented here in the character sketch and not needlessly on the page of your novel. The one thing I hate to read is backstory that seems to have no place in the novel. Information dumps are a sign the author is providing crucial information in an artless manner. Rather, to avoid this, to make sure each word is pregnant with meaning in your novel, write the backstory in the character sketch. I will get to the point as to why this is important in a minute.

Next, after penetrating the first depth, the first layer of the onion, the surface of a character’s physical traits, and the next, why they have such traits, now comes the tricky part: you must carve out the personality...but in the context of the story. This will provide valuable characterization to help drive the story forward, and make the characters seem more believable as real life people.

For example, in a story I wrote, the main character has a different take on fashion sense that is not accepted in his hometown. When he travels abroad, he finally unleashes his threads and finds that other people accept his fashion sense, even compliment his do’s, but the fashion sense as part of the character’s personality is also part of a plot device: because of the way he dresses, he is mistaken for a celebrity, much to his advantage. That characterization drives the story forward.

I guess that would bring about the discussion of ir/relevance: don’t make your character a retarded midget unless it drives the story. IE it reveals an important part of character that is crucial to the theme/ message. 

The main reason why backstory of the character should be written fully in the character sketch is to provide you, the author, with all the information to make sure each scene with that character and bit of dialogue spoken my him/ her is true to character. What I like to assume in speaking, is that not everyone speaks exactly what they want to say. Speaking is an approximation of thought, and sometimes that articulation can be a bad approximation. By knowing the backstory of your character, you will be full well knowledgeable of how this person thinks, behaves, and therefore speaks in certain situations. Some authors argue they had their characters doing unexpected things. My take on that is, nothing is unexpected if you know your characters. All characters react to situations brought before them. Even if a strange reaction is brought about, it is still your character reacting in his characteristically character-like way. (???) Sorry to pound you with that word over and over.  

When you write your first draft, the words the character wants to say may come out in dialogue: but when you re-read it, you hear the words as being too direct, or in some way, out of line with the character and the context. When you revise, reframe the same ideas communicated in the dialogue but in an approximation. People, just like characters, sometimes make the wrong word choice. This could speak volumes about your character, and how s/he is reacting to the context.

So, in so much, I wanted to confess that characterization is more than just tacking on adjectives to your character, more so than physical traits, more so than backstory. Instead, characterization is knowing all there is to know about your characters and then approximating what s/he says in dialogue (never exactly, or so directly 100% linked from thought to speech) and then having your character reacting to situations (scenes) in which s/he is involved in.

If you just remain on the surface, your characters will remain cardboard cutouts, and therefore only vehicles to tell the story. Melodrama is cardboard – dimensionless, surface only – drama is depth. Think hard and long about this aspect.