Watchful Writing - Mind Your Characters

Manuscripts seem to come in two forms; those that contain characters so real you can smell their aftershave and those whose characters are as flat as my last attempt at baking a cake. Since we publish personal journeys, it only makes sense that the characters of our books are vibrant and rich.

Most of the authors I’ve talked to regarding character development have a single common thread; they invariably extrapolate bits and pieces from real people. They have a ready-made palette in which to draw upon. How many times have we heard “the truth is stranger than fiction.”? Same goes for characters. Some of the colorful people I’ve written about in my own writing actually exist in some form or another.

Great character development shouldn’t be overlooked because they are the conduit through which your story is told.

• Do they have a quirk? – I have a gorgeous character who has the mouth of a truck driver. She can’t say anything without adding a colorful metaphor. What makes her likeable is that she’s a closet softie for pregnant mothers (she’s an OB/GYN) and is fiercely loyal to the few she considers good friends. This isn't what defines her, per se, but it does make her memorable. In reality, she’s a composite of about four people I know. And none of them know this.

• Personality traits – Personality traits add depth. Are they shy, outspoken, demanding, argumentative, loving, inquisitive, smart? Think of the people you know in your life and see if you can’t assign your characters some added depth. A lack of depth is one of my biggest problems with manuscripts because so many of them are lacking. The writer simply has them delivering dialog, and I have no way of getting a bead on that character's personality, what makes them tick.
  

• Physical description – There are a couple of schools of thought on description. Some writers go way overboard in writing a physical description, right down to the whiteness of teeth and whether they shave their armpits (ew). Some readers like to have description left up to their own imagination and others like a full rundown. Wherever the writer's personal tastes regarding this matter, the trick to this not to give a description all at once like a shopping list. Dole it out in tidbits. Things like this drive me nutso:

She had a mane of thick, golden hair and startling blue eyes. Her long fingers sported equally long nails that were painted a deep green. Her feet were huge, and she could barely squeeze into the size 12 Ferragamos. She was tall, had a tiny waist and slender hips…blah, blah, blah.

The idea is that these sentences aren’t that bad if they are offered piecemeal. Try putting a sentence here on one page, a sentence there a few pages or chapters later – just enough to give the reader a general layout of the character. Shoving them into one paragraph slows down the narrative because you’ve stepped outside the story much like a commercial - "scuse me while I do the obligatory description here before I bring you back to your regularly scheduled book." A useful way of adding a physical description without the reader being aware of it is to apply it with an action.

This sentence:

Her long fingers sported equally long nails that were painted a deep green.

Now becomes:

Her long fingers wrapped around his neck in one easy movement. Blood stained her painted fingernails, creating a holiday pattern of crimson red and deep green.

Okay, it ain’t Hemingway, but you get the idea.

· Plausibility – If you have a character who is shy, retiring, and is very short, they have to behave in the manner of a shy, retiring, short person. This character isn’t going to stand up in the front of a classroom of eighth graders, leap onto a desk and belt out a rousing rendition of “I’m A Little Teapot.” Yet I see this type of writing all the time and it’s because the writer hasn’t completely fleshed out their characters. They aren’t living, breathing entities to them, and this breeds mistakes and sloppy writing. If you’re going to write with characters (and who isn’t?), then you have to make them your best friends. I talk out scenes with my fellow writers, and someone would suggest my character react in a certain manner. Because my characters are almost as real as my fleshy buds, I know instantly how my character will react.

In short, much of what we write about in the fictional world comes from our imaginations. But we need to draw upon the real world in order to put our stories into perspective so that our characters leap off the page and hold us, the reader, hostage.