Writing Lessons
WRITING LESSON O3:
CHARACTERIZATION, WHAT IS IT?
MOST KNOW A LITTLE ABOUT CHARACTERIZATION:
* IT'S DESCRIBING MY CHARACTER'S PHYSICAL DRESS OR APPEARANCE * IT'S DESCRIBING MY CHARACTER'S INTERNAL MAKEUP OR QUALITIES * IT'S DESCRIBING WHAT MY CHARACTER WANTS Sometimes they end up with a good story. Most of the times the character is drawn well sometimes and then sort of disappears on the page. Or they spend a lot of time describing them physically and little time describing them internally.
BASIC CHARACTERIZATION RULES:
* LEAVE THE LONG PERSONAL HISTORY OUT
One major rule is forget about the long personal history of your character. You may have written ten pages describing their attributes, how they got that scar, why they hate ice ream and love bingo. But asks yourself, did you know the long personal history of your school associates or those you work with?
I bet you can describe who is the cheerleader, the bully, the jock, the nerd, the loner or any of those people you don't know on an intimate or long term level. You see how they act, what they say, how they say it, what they style of clothes they like, how their emotions run hot or cold or netural. You can characterize the new kid in school or person at work almost that same day. And you don't know what state they grew up in or if their parents were good or bad to them. That characterizations!
So while it's good to write a couple pages of back history on your characters, only the tip of the iceberg of this info will ever make in on the page!
* RESEARCH THE LONG PERSONAL HISTORY (11.20.07)
Okay do the long list of personal history, give your characters past jobs and lovers they had; past bad habits or weaknesses they broke or that shapped them. Music they listen to, why they hate the color red, if they ever learn to duck hunt like their father wanted them too; when they bought their first little black dress; what period of world history they like best and wished they could have lived through. Remember though, only a flavoring of all this data will make it into your story. You'll end up with things you know about people you've met for a few months and -- you all have character information to fall back on in case you need it.
* RESEARCH HOW YOUR CHARACTER'S JOB AND PLOT MERGE.
Another rule is to research your character's job or function in the story and how it connects with the plot. If she is the Rodeo Teacher and the story is about canoeing, you can bring out lots of strange anD interesting qualities in the teacher and how she is comfortable or uncomfortable canoeing.
* ICING AND CAKE.
Third rule is respect the icing and cake rule. The icing is the physical characterization, size, skin tone, race, height, hair color, clothing type or style. People like the icing as an introduction into meeting the character.
But without the cake, the substance, people soon tire of the surface character qualities. The cake qualities are a character's motivation (why they want something), methodologies (how they go about getting that something), evaluation (how they measure their progress), purpose (what they want).
Without those four things, people rarely will remember or even care about your character. And if they don't care about your character, they soon won't care for your story or novel.
The cake qualities links to the plot more closely and intimately than the icing qualities.
* GOOD ICING COMES FROM THE INSIDE OUT. * 07.19.09
First imagine yourself as your character. Then write what your character/s sees. Not only will your descriptions be more real and specific to the character's emotional, mental, physical, intellectual but also to their spiritual essence. No two characters will see a horse race the same way. It's impossible! The individual character/s view of that one event becomes essential dialogue (relationship between two characters) between the diverse characters.
These character/s use actions, emotions, ways of thinking and problem solving in how they move about in the world and interact with their environment. The character/s see their world in tiny small bits and pieces and you should describe how they see their worlds.
The ballerina slowly raised her long slender hands like a swan's fluttering wings. She twirled aware of her tutu's almost silent ruffle against the wind. She pulled her eyes open wider and her brown eyes caught her partner's eyes before he lifted her skyward ... holding ... holding her aloft. Good description can only come from movement described in slow motion or in small details viewed in slow motion by the reader.
She jumped into her ballet partner's arms.
or
She pulled her eyes open wider and her brown eyes caught her partner's eyes before she threw her full one-hundred and five pound weight into his waiting, strong tan arms.
or
Her paintbrush strand bang of black hair flew upward as she leapt into her ballet partner's arms.
or
She felt her calves compressing and releasing their energy as she leapt into her ballet partner's arms.
* GOOD ICING GIVE THE CHARACTERS SOMETHING TO DO, TO COMPLETE
Keeping with seeing and therefore writing inside-out written descriptions, give your characters a project they are doing. Digging up a new garden. Driving to the mall. Remember describe the action in almost microscopic detail. Get down to the mechanical level of detail.
* A GOOD ICING METPHOR IS ONE PART OF ONE OBJECT BLENDED/TIED/YOKED/MELTED ON TO ANOTHER PART OF A SECOND OBJECT.
The character/s from inside-out sees unique metaphors or objects important to them alone.
His arms were the tree house limbs of my youth, the ballerina thought after her successful leap into her partner's arms.
* GOOD ICING GIVE YOUR CHARACTERS THEIR OWN TONE, STYLE AND SLANT.
From inside-out a New York, Wall Streeter is going to talk differently, use different words, pauses, tone, style than a oil rigger from New Orleans. Even if they used the same words, the words would come out in different style, tone and speed!
* GOOD ICING AUTHENTIC SELF VS SOCIAL SELF
From inside-out your character would act and talk different at home by themselves; and inside their own minds than they would act and talk outside the home and socially. The Authentic Self is the person at home or inside their self where no one can see or hear or understand. The Social Self is the person for public consumption.
In Astrology, the Ascendant and Sun is the Social Self. The Authentic Self is the blend of the entire astrology charts planets and signs and houses interacting with one another!
* PREVENT CHARACTERS FROM GOING BACKWARDS IN LIFE
Fourth rule is irreversible change. Put your character in an uncomfortable situation or an odd one that automatically causes for them to stretch themselves and change. The new challenges will make it easier for you to plot the story and make the story more fascinating in how the character will deal with it.
* SHOW THE ACTION, FEELINGS, OPINIONS, THOUGHTS IN YOUR WRITING.
Show, don't tell. Hmmmm....
Show the character's icing and cake qualities in action, interacting with the situation they are in the environment and the people they encounter.
* EVERY MAIN CHARACTER SHOULD CHANGE
Imagine your charcter's progress from the beginning to the middle to the story's end. Did they learn anything? Did they come to terms with their moral code? Is their understanding of the world any different at the end than at the beginning? If not, why did you write the story?
At the story or novel's end, your main character has to solve her own problems and usually this means solving it with a cake characteristic. If your character's going to go sky diving to win his bride, you should let us know early on -- even though he is afraid of heights, his entire family routinely sky dives. So he's been hearing how it is relatively safe overall all his life. He's been hearing about the equipment? The plane altitude. Landing on his feet. Don't make your character suddenly develop some new characteristic at the end of the novel or story to solve his problem.
* EVERY CHARACTER HAS CONFLICT, OPPOSITION FORCES
What's conflict or opposition forces? Mary has a little balloon and a giraffe came and took it away. Now Mary has a conflict. Does she forget about the balloon? Not much of a story if she does. Does she cry about the balloon and asks someone else to get it? Again, not much of a story if someone other than Mary solves the problem. Or does Mary go after the giraffe and recover her balloon? Yes! That's a story. It's Interesting! It has conflict! This would be Mary vs the Giraffe.
Suppose Mary is turning 18 and realizes everyone considers her an adult. What does this mean to Mary? Is Mary comfortable being accepted as an adult? Does Mary want to do different things like get her own apartment now that she's an adult? This would be, Mary vs Society considering her as an Adult.
A character can be against herself. Perhaps she doesn't like her hairstyle and wants a new one? Perhaps her conflict is against a machine, time, a place, a situation, a group, history. Every story has to have conflict or there really no reason to read it. The character, Mary, gains or looses something in the process, but the struggle and problem solving was worth it to Mary so, it will be worthwhile to the reader.
* WHEN DID YOUR CHARACTER FIRST RECOGNIZE THE PROBLEM IN YOUR STORY
Situation: is what immediately sets the novel/story/play/poem into motion. When main character first recognizes the trouble.
* YOUR CHARACTER MOVES THROUGH A SCENE-SEQUEL APPROACH
I. In a Scene your character goes for goal.
II. Disaster happens in form of either
III. Yes or
IV. No or
V. Yes but, or
VI. No! and furthermore!
VII. Sequel Review of the scene by your character
VIII. From an Emotion or Quandary point-of-view (frame of reference)
IX. The character questions their motivation/methodology/evaluation/purpose.
X. Then character plunges back into action toward the goal step I. Again!
* MAKE EVERY CHARACTER'S FIRST NAME START WITH A NEW ALPHABET
Beginning writers often start character first name with the same alphabet.
Mary, Miranda, Melinda, Maxine. Let's assume everything else is perfect. Great novel. Now imagine dialogue between these characters. Even if the writer can keep each character straight in her own mind, it's absolutely locking in reader confusion. When the reader get confused with the story, they stop reading. Even if they make up some other excuse for not reading on, you can bet character confusion was the culprit.
Take the same story. Change the character names to Mary, Allieen, Zenna and Patty readers would say: "I'm going to read finish this."
Same thing with names like Eileen and Alieen or Susan and Sarah, or Bill and Will. Reader confusion is bound to occur. Give the characters, not only different sounding names, but different spelling names, especially the first alphabet of the names.
* ONLY SURE WAY TO WRITE YOUR STORY
The novel/story won't be written unless you finally sit down and type it OR write it OR
speak it out into a tape recorder or computer and transcribe it.
WAYS TO CREATE FASCINATING CHARACTERS
Characterization, done well, means getting to know a character more and more, better and better throughout the novel or story. The more you get to know your characters the better you will work with your characters. Readers like to know more about the characters through action and dialogue; then readers care more about the characters. We may not share the character’s urgency, but we should be able to see why she cares so much about what she’s doing. A character who acts without real motivation is by definition melodramatic, doing outrageous things for the sake of the thrill it gives readers. Any important character, locations, or objects should be foreshadowed early in the story. Plot Dramatizes Character. Every event, every response, should reveal to us some aspect of the characters’ quest for identity. A plot element used for its own sake – a fistfight, a sexual encounters an ominous prophecy – is a needless burden to the story if it does not illuminate the characters involved. We see their habits—Motivation, Methodology, Evaluation and Purpose;
2) BECOME IMMERSED IN YOUR CHARACTER'S LIVES; make your characters unique; be genuinely curious about the people populating your fiction. If you are neutral to your characters, your reader will be neutral to them. Turn your characters into real live people.
3) CREATE EACH CHARACTER IN A STORY TO BE DIFFERENT FROM OTHER CHARACTERS so they will be distinctive to the reader. Contrasting names, physical descriptions, and character traits will make it easier for the reader to follow the actions.
3a) GIVE CHARACTER ONE DOMINATE TRAIT (IMPORTANT TO THE STORY ACTION) AND TWO MINOR TRAITS (NOT SO RELEVANT TO THE STORY ACTION). Show these character traits by degrees, don’t settle for one way of showing the traits. Character traits contribute to the story action.
4) WRITE CHARACTER ACTIONS THAT CLEARLY IMPLY THEIR MEANINGS. Or write Character actions with no obvious implying of character's feelings--leaving it to subtext.
5) CONCRETNESS. Giving characters concreteness means that they have specific homes, possessions, medical histories, tastes in furniture, political opinions. These concrete aspects of the characters should convey information about the story too!
6) GOOD CHARACTERS ARE ICEBERGS—seven-eighths submerged in the story creator’s imagination. Only a fraction of the character appears above the surface of the action.
7) Positive traits can be presented as faults as seen by another character.Your readers will forgive your main character faults that they recognize and accept.
8) CREATE CHARACTER IDENTIFICATION
1. Becoming immersed in the lives of characters
2. Supporting her goals
3. Feel what character's feeling
4. Open up to her inner conflicts, guilt, pangs, remorse, musings, doubts.
5. Make descriptions of character reduced and concise with
Specific imagerySpecific descriptionSpecific dialogue9) REPEATED ACTION OR HABIT: Show how a person will behave in a given situation, based on past observations of her habits.
10) SUMMARY OF CHARACTER: Show the most important character traits and how these conflict and show background information we need to know about them. ATTITUDE IS KEY. A) What is the attitude of your character to themselves. B) What is the attitude of your character to others? C) What is the attitude of your character towards nonlive objects or nonhuman objects?
11) BIOGRAPHICAL FUSSION: Start with bits and pieces of several people and shape a character.
12) MIXED METHOD: Use some biographical aspects but combine them with ideal methods astrology charts, numerology, emotional types, archetypes, whos who, mythology and so forth.
13) BIOGRAPHICAL METHOD: Use people you have observed or researched as starting points for your charracters.
14) AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FUSSION: Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identiies, personalities, and have them relate to other characters living with him.
15) IDEAL METHOD: Fiction is a carnival. Give us real passions with good masks. Make up character masks, release dramatic conflicts beneath them and you will create startling people; people you’ve not met, observed and who are not you. Use psychology text, books, astrology charts, who's who, mythology, your imagination.
16) SELF-PORTRAIT: Let the character introduce himself to the reader.
APPEARANCE: Start with some appearance say hands, legs, shoulders, ears, hair or face. From there draw one specific aspects and show how it will be important to the story; make sure your reader can see, hear, taste, feel, touch the appearance trait.
17) SCENE: Set your character in motion before the reader.
18) ORDER 20+Characters for Fiction
From this natal or birth report you will find rich data on the person's conflicts, strengths and weaknesses.
19) COMBINATION: Combine character description of habit, summary and appearance in three short paragraphs.
20) ANSWER THE QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER/S:
WHAT DO YOUR CHARACTERS WANT?
WHO IS STANDING IN YOUR WAY?
WHAT'S YOUR GREATEST STRENGTH?
WHAT GETS YOU INTO THE MOST TROUBLE?
WHAT DO YOU LOOK LIKE?
WHAT DO YOU WEAR?
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO GET OUT OF YOUR DELIMMA? (POPULAR)
WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO YOU? (LITERARY)
WHO CONNECTS?
WHO DISCONNECTS?
WHOSE RELATIONSHIPS GO BACK AND FORTH, CONNECTING AND DISCONNECTING?
WORD NOT POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE, IT JUST IS?
What roles does she play in her life? (daughter, outsider, butch, teenager, friend, lover)
How does she talk?
21) The way people talk to themselves and other people defines their own interpretations of reality. Shakespeare has a distinct voice for each character. You should be able to go through your script at the end, strip all the characters' names from the dialogue, and still be able to tell who is talking. To develop a good ear for writing realistic dialogue, listen to the various ways people talk to each other in your own life.
22) Vocabulary. Each character should have a different set of words he or she uses, which are unique and distinct from all other characters in all other movies. Gangsters in Oakland talk differently than the ones in New York or Vegas. If you don't know how a gangster in your hometown talks, make it up. When slang makes it hard to understand what is going on, you need to cut back on it or use subtitles. "You lie like a Persian rug" sounds more interesting in a script than "That's a lie." Let the full glory of your character's own individual color come through in his or her vocabulary and word choices.
23) Grammar. How does the character put words together in a unique way? Yoda talks backward. Some characters may like to use tags at the end of their sentences ("Isn't it?" "Oh wow!" "What do you think?" "Okay?" "You hear what I'm saying?") Make up words or use old ones in new ways relevant to your character history or backstory for tags. Try writing the dialogue straight first, and then go back over it and experiment with different grammar structures. Experiment with dropping words, reversing words, and creating new ones. Have your character run off at the mouth, not finish sentences, or add signature tags at the end. Avoid using cliche tags. Ending a sentence with "oh phooey" is much different from "by the stars!"
24) Mindset. No two characters view the world in the same way. A mathematician sees everything as equations. Stockbrokers relate everything to the market. Football players talk like they are always in a huddle. Priests speak as if they are the voice of God. The Queen refers to herself as "we." Use spoken metaphors that relate to your character's history for his or her dialogue. No two people have the exact past, future, physical attributes, socialization, experiences, or money. What people say to themselves and others defines their reality and shows us who they are in a sense.
How does she move?
How does she listen?
How does she feel about the world?
What would she die for?
What topics is she likely to talk about?
What topics are taboo or uncomfortable for her to talk about?
What analogies would she draw?
How verbal is she?
Is she likely to express emotion verbally with ease or to hold it in?
25) For something to be perceived as real by the reader, you must include at least three of the five senses in your description of it. Description involves constructing information about the five senses seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching in an interesting and meaningful way so that the reader is being shown, and not told, and will believe what you are describing is real.
26) An excellent book on creating characters out of archetypes is Heroes and Heroines by Tami D. Cowden, Caro LaFever, Sue Viders. We all know what archtypes: Charmer, Boss, Best Friend, Seductress, Free Spirit. Well these ladies have done an excellent job classifying and providing background information on the qualities, virtues, occupations and childhood of such archetypes.
27) REDUCE THE CHARACTERS TO THEIR BASIC TRAITS; then mix and match; then dramatize in some way in setting, scene, group of characters and dialogue.
Character A. Hesitant Frank Adventurous Playful
Frank Adventurous PlayfulCharacter B. Pure TrustingImpressionablePassive
TrustingImpressionablePassiveASK YOURSELF FOUR QUESTIONS?
1. Select a visual image of the two character's relationship. Is it a friendship, old shipmates? Is it a friendship, old Sorority pals? Is it a marriage holding on to tradition? Is it two arch rivals competing for a man or woman?
These are two old Sorority Pals.
2. Factor in that visual relationship between the two characters.
Your second question is to Ask yourself now, How does A's HESITANT trait affect their Sorority Pal relationship?
Character A: Geranne always did hesitate to tell people the truth at the worse times when they needed to hear the truth. But she always found out the things that needed to be told. She felt like she was the bad girl all the time.
3. Your third question is to Ask yourself now, How does B's PURE trait affect their Soroity Pal relationship?
Character B: Cassie-Kay projected this PURE image of herself, high collar blouses, long dresses. She was the good girl of the pair.
4. Fourth questions brings the two characters A and B together. Asks yourself how does Character A's HESITANT trait and Character B's PURE trait INTERACT OR CONTRIBUIT TO THEIR RELATIONSHIP TROUBLES/HAPPINESS/SOLIDARITY?
Geranne hesitates to tell pure Cassie-Kay the truth about things.
5. Fifth thing you do is put all this information into a SETTING, USING CHARACTERS, SCENE USING DIALOGUE, ACTION, SHOWING THE CHARACTERS PERSONAL DRAMA SITUATION AND ALL THE SKILLS OF WRITING YOU KNOW TO SHOW US THEIR RELATIONSHIP!
Well, when Geranne's feet first entered the Fast Track Lounge, a 30-Yuppie Bar for those in the economic and financial fields, she saw Cassie-Kay's Husband holding hands, smiling, whispering and flirting while leaving the bar with some unknown woman in a tight blue business suit and waist long shiny black hair. Geranne started to go over and give him a piece of her mind, but she hesitated. That's not my role she thought.
Naturally, Geranne wanted to tell Cassie-Kay when they met at the Fast Track Lounge that evening, during the popular Happy Hour, but she kept hsitating. Cassie-Kay smiled broadly and her pearly white teeth matched her high white collar blouse, a fashionable one but still very conservative for a July summer night. Cassie-Kay talked glib and happily while fronting her diamond marriage ring to the still single Geranne. After the night is over, Geranne never told Cassie-Kay about this other woman. Two weeks later Cassie-Kay is crying on Geranne shoulders. Cassie-Kay chides herself for being so naive and wondering how she missed all the signals.
This situation ends their friendship when Geranne, now confident, tells Cassie-Kay who is not so pure now--who and when and where her husband Dale dated on the sly. Cassie-Kay is furious at Geranne for holding back this truth.
That's it. You could mix HESITATE vs PURE; OR HESITATE vs TRUSTING; HESITATE vs IMPRESSIONABLE; HESITATE vs PASSIVE
PLAYFUL VS PURE and so on. You could make Hesitate the positive trait and Pure the negative or Hesitate the negative trait and Pure the positive trait. All up to you to mix and match and slant how you please.
The above is an example of their basic traits clashing.
This page was last updated: September 17, 2009
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28) ANOTHER WAY WOULD BE TO CHANNEL THE BASIC TRAITS MESHING:
You could show their basic traits meshing, agreeing, naturally bringing them together in harmony/friendship/love.
You could mix HESITATE meshing with PURE; OR HESITATE meshing with TRUSTING; HESITATE meshing with IMPRESSIONABLE; HESITATE meshing with PASSIVE
29) ONE MORE WAY WOULD CHANNEL BASIC TRAITS CHANGING:
You could show their basic traits changing, helping each other in a way they both accept in the end.
You could mix HESITATE changing each other PURE; OR HESITATE changing each other TRUSTING; HESITATE changing each other IMPRESSIONABLE; HESITATE changing each other PASSIVE
30) CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS INVOLVE DETAILS, SHOWING AT LEAST THREE TIMES, AND MOVEMENT, FOR EXAMPLE A'S ACTION AND B'S RESPONSE.
A. Character details should be mixed in with other details, clothes, setting, dialogue, time, space, direction, whatever If you can put movement in at the same time great! Movement makes even a still character come alive.
She stopped dead in her tracks to consider what her boyfriend casually mentioned a second ago. Her flirty skirt hem touched the back of her tone tan legs. She turned slowly. She began to laugh. Her laugh started first from her smile. Was he joking?
B. Readers don't believe your character has a beard, big boobs, long legs, smokes a pipe, or wears their h.s. graduation robe to parties -- unless it is mentioned at least THREE times!
C. If you broke down good description it goes something like this:
Where action, what action, action, how person felt emotinally, another's action to first person, how second person felt, responding action, where action.
I couldn't wait to explore him more, but I didn't tell him.
Person A felt (I couldn't wait) action (to explore) Person B (him) Person's A's emotion/desire (more), Person's A thought (but I didn't tell) about Person B (him).
Generally some mix and match combination of Person A's emotions/desire, actions and thoughts combined or joined to Person B's emotions/desire, actions and thoughts.
She was a gorgeous blonde, about 5'2 inches and 110 ilbs, short-hair and dar, dark tan a Lotri Morgan type.
Person A (She was a gorgeous blonde), action how gorgeous (about 5'2 inches and 110 ilbs), action how gorgeoous again (short-hair and dark, dark tan) action how gorgeous again (a Lotri Morgan type.)
He was blond and tanned too, about 5'9" and obviously fit, hard muscles and an even harder...
Person A (He was blond and tanned too), action how again? (about 5'9") and Person B's feeling/desire (obviously fit, hard muscles and an even harder...)
Passionate Descriptions:
A's Action, B's Response or feeling, B's Action to A, A undresses action. A's Response or feelings, B's Action to A.
For example, her heart throbbed [A's Action], my tongue felt wicked [B's Response or feeling]. I licked slow on her pouted lips [B's Action to A]. She pulled off her hair scruncy letting her hair fall loose [A undresses]. She leaned her face back and moaned [A's Response or feelings]. I pulled her body closer to my puckered pouty lips [B's Action to A].
31) SETTING, SITUATION, CHARACTERS, POINT OF VIEW, THEME, PLOT. You've heard this before. But just what is Situation?
Situation is the event where the character first recognizes there is a problem in their world. Think of people. You may say, that guy is full of drama; or she is a drama queen. What you're saying is that guy or woman's personal problem is noticeable to everyone or they are making it noticeable to everyone. So Situation is when a character's personal drama becomes noticeable in the story or to the story characters, including themselves. The initial drama-problem, drama-situation of the main characters sweeps up all the other novel characters into their personal drama!
GO START MAKING FASCINATING CHARACTERS!
