Characters
Let’s Talk About Characters!
Good writings have these characters we feel for (whether love or hate), their motives have reason, and they are realistic. Throughout school, college, and my time online, I’ve seen many writings (my own included) that often leave me with many questions. These five points are sure-fire ways to quickly improve any character in your writing and make them more believable.
Asking WHY
A good way to look for holes or improvements in your character is for you to see if any questions go unanswered. Let’s say someone reads a part in your book and has to wonder—
Why did your character do that? Their motivation is unclear.
Where did this person come from?
Who are they? I don’t understand.
When did this character start thinking or doing that?
How did they do that?
If your reader wonders these questions for any moment, that question needs to be fixed ASAP and answered somewhere in the book. For example, let’s say your character is a normal happy- go-lucky girl and in the face of adversity she pulls out a magical sword that no one knows about and the author has given no thought to, and she kills someone without flinching…. We have a drastic shift of characterization/personality that is unrealistic or needs to be foreshadowed, and we have this skill and weapon that truly comes out of nowhere. Do not do anything like this!
This will make you an unreliable narrator, and your readers will trust/believe in your story less.
Plot devices such as sudden characters or keeping a reason for something happening a secret is okay! But, if the source of these questions are not intentional, you need to work on the scene and character a little bit more because if something stumps or confuses your reader, it throws them off the reading, and they become distracted and less likely to listen.
If something happens and I don’t know why your character did it, or you do something that is against the character’s nature, that is not going to work. “Why” is the most important question to be clear, every time.
Don’t do too much at once!
Example: “Alaska runs to the door, balancing a book on her hip as it slips, and grabs the handle, swinging it open and going outside.”
What is wrong with this sentence?
First off, the description is out of order—opening the door should be paired with running to the door. Second, way too much is happening in this sentence. Do not cram multiple actions into one sentence. Why? Being in one sentence, running to and opening the door, and balancing a book, and grabbing the handle then reads as if it all happens at one exact moment. In reality, it is not. You need to break these up into different sentences, leading to your actions. Third, so many different actions and objects, it is unclear what “it” is throughout the sentence.
I know this seems a little silly, but I see something like this in almost every story draft I read. It can be as simple as two actions clashing—your character does not do them in the same moment so it should be one after the other, in order, and separated.
Descriptions
I feel like I’m going to get some hate for this one but this is so important!!
This rule requires objectification of your story and characters. Here you might feel defensive and attachment for the characters involved, but if you are going to write, edit, and work on a story, you need to recognize those attachments and let them go, or they will hold you back from improving your writing.
Everyone has these beautiful or cool characters they want to showcase. I get it. But you need to tone it down. What does your reader need to know and how does it apply to the story? If something does not directly impact the story or plot in any way, it should be removed from the story completely.
Do we need to know everyone’s hair color, eye color, skin color, exact detail of their clothes, if they are tall, muscular, overweight, etc. etc. etc.???? If it does not affect the story directly—not at all. There is a really weird obsession with eye colors. I know I personally look everyone in the eye, but I only use this for characters who have big meaning to each other, for others, I look at the character as a whole. Think of it this way, does having green or brown eyes affect a character’s personality? No.
If this girl is shy, you can say how the hair hides her face and she picks at her sweater, but I don’t need to know her shoes are limited edition converse from Disney World that you personally love if her personality is not bubbly or childish.
Never list all these details at once. Do not pause the story and say here is my character and what it looks like.
Make it organic (but avoid the cliches such as looking in the mirror or in the water, unless it is subtle and, in a moment). If they pause and look and describe themselves, that’s not good.
Chill out!
EMOTIONS
Keep it real. If your character is experiencing a different emotion every sentence or paragraph, you need to sit back and rework this.
I always go through and highlight each mentioned emotion or change in emotion in my personal drafts. If you tell us ten times, someone is sad, we will get annoyed. This is a moment when you should trust your readers, and tell us once they are sad, and we will know that they are sad until you tell us otherwise, or it gets worse.
Bad*ss characters
The worst cliché to me, is having a character that swears in every single sentence. A lot of younger writers do this, but I have seen it in early drafts in college too.
Swearing in a story sticks out like a sore thumb. So, use it once when it is most impactful, but do not use it again because that will be such a noticeable repetition to your reader, it will lose all its impact and power.
Trying to make your character bad*ss with lots of swearing… this just reminds me of those uncool kids in elementary school who would swear on the bus. It’s not bad*ass—it negatively makes a character seem younger and immature in this aspect and it also breaks up and distracts from the regular dialogue.
Round Versus Flat
This needs to be mentioned every single time characters are talked about. It’s the basic thing many of us learned in school but I’ll say a reminder.
Round characters: Literally in depth and realistic. Have motives, reasons for being in the story, and can change overtime and grow.
Flat characters: Are background/ no real reason in the story except for being a prop. These characters have no motives—maybe it’s the hot chic at the other side of the bar who keeps appearing to entertain your readers (so you think) but she has no wants or reason in the world to be in the story. It’s the second main character who has no want except for following the main character around with no questions asked and has no personal motives or growth.
You want your characters to all have a reason, and to not be a plot device. Growth, action, and reaction is a good way to make your character round and effective.
I once wrote a story where I wanted this street corner to be creepy. I added an old lady who was creepy and hassled my character. Yeah, that happens sometimes, but then I was asked, “Did you put the old lady there to be just creepy?” And I answered yes, my professor said, “She has no purpose here, she is only a plot device, so take her out.” I did. And then I increased my descriptions’ moods of creepy and successfully made a creepy place without a random old lady telling you it was.
Conclusion
In conclusion, make sure the details you pick are important to the story. A good way to whittle down what details are important is to pick only one adjective to describe something. One is powerful.
Don’t do this: Her hair was blonde, long, and silky.
Do #1: Her(blonde) hair was long.
Do #2: Her (blonde) hair was silky.
Once again, are these details important to your story? If not, delete them.
Another last-minute tip are descriptions that are ambiguous. For example, if you say so and so is “good looking” and don’t describe what they look like… I have no idea what your character looks like. Also, the reader might have a very different idea of what good looking is to them in comparison to your idea of good-looking. Also! Does the character need to be good looking? No!