Characterization

Spend some quality time characterizing your antagonist.

Novelists, as you create your story, keep in mind that your antagonist is just as important as your hero.

Without Darth Vader – there is no Star Wars franchise.

Without Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes isn’t challenged to fully utilize his formidable detecting powers.

Without Voldemort, Harry Potter’s life becomes a walk in the Hogwart’s park.

Your antagonist must be a force to be reckoned with. And he should not appear to be a cardboard construct. Just as you take care to create a hero that pops off the pages in life-like detail for your readers, so too take care to create an antagonist as fascinating  as your hero. The stronger your characterization of your antagonist, the better your story.

Clearly, the shark in Jaws, Voldemort, and Darth Vader contribute mightily to the success of the stories in which they appear.

That, of course, is because the more formidable the antagonist, the greater your hero’s heroism in standing up to him or her – and the better your story.

Give your antagonist a compelling motivation for his actions.

Keep in mind also that strong antagonists have strong motivations. A villain’s usual motivations? Greed, revenge and/or a desire for power – often with a touch of madness thrown in for good measure.

But, in some stories, the antagonist may technically be on the side of the angels.

Remember Lieutenant Gerard in The Fugitive? Gerard is the FBI agent who is determined to recapture Richard Kimble, a doctor who has been wrongly accused of murder and who has escaped. In his dogged efforts to enforce “justice,” Gerard hampers Kimble’s efforts to find the real murderer. Gerard is ostensibly motivated to do what’s right, but ego is a large part of his motivation as well, and his behavior appears obsessive/compulsive – which makes him a formidable, complex and interesting antagonist.

Happy writing!

Creating the characters who will populate your novel is a fun exercise.

One way to do it is to create a “Residents File” for your novel.

Here’s how:

Reserve a sheet of paper for each character.

On that paper, you will give each character the following:

•  Name
• Age
• Occupation
• Standout ways of relating to others (two words that are the way most people would describe this character – friendly but phony, angry and sly, fretful and hardworking, worried and devout, calm and devious, thoughtful but officious, irritating but talented, etc.

Combine 3 and 4, and you have a four-word thumbnail sketch of your character: e.g., friendly but phony executive, arrogant but hardworking politician, worried but devout teacher, loud but talented chef, and so on.

Do this for each of the key characters that populate your novel. The end result will be your Residents File.

This will be helpful to you as you write your story because these character “sum ups” suggest plot lines and also help you make story choices more easily. A worried but devout teacher won’t make an unethical choice easily – but what if she were coerced into acting against her beliefs? What would be the consequences? For one thing, she would probably suffer pangs of guilt and might take action accordingly – action that might move the plot forward.

The above way of creating characters helps you create characters who are unique and distinct.

Another way to ensure your characters are distinct from one another, is to give each a few unique “bits of business.” “Bits of business” is a term actors use to describe small details they use to bring a stage or film character to life.

That can be: details of appearance or style (always wears a baseball cap, wears a favorite pair of sneakers everywhere, etc.); speech (accent, education, nasal, gruff, etc.); talents, skills and knowledge areas (wine connoisseur, golf, other sports, hobbies, special training, etc.); habits (good or bad), eccentricities, and/or nervous mannerisms. It also is useful to give a character something physical that makes him/her stand out: aviator glasses, toupee, whisky and cigarettes voice, and so on.

The one thing you need to do is avoid creating cliche characters like the brilliant but absent-minded professor, the strong but dumb jock, etc.

Unique and fresh characters make your plot come alive.

Can you create more complicated files on each of your characters? Certainly. You can write complicated biographies for each of them, if you wish. But the Residents File method of thinking through your characters is a useful exercise – whether or not you later opt for greater complexity. And you may find that this shorthand method of characterization is all you need.

Happy writing!

The cast of M*A*S*H

Alan Alda who played Hawkeye Pierce in the ueber-successful television series M*A*S*H, credits dog tags and a pair of army boots supplied to him by the show’s costume department with helping him clinch the character of Hawkeye.

Both the dog tags and the army boots had actually been worn by soldiers. (The tags bore the names of two different G.I.s.) Something about these items helped him bring Hawkeye to life. When he put on the uncomfortable army issue footwear, the challenges of being a surgeon in a Korean zone of war in the 50’s became real for him.

As authors faced with the challenge of bringing our characters to life, it’s not a bad idea for us to “start with the shoes” – that is, to start with a character’s shoes.

There’s a reason so many people are fascinated with shoes. They can reveal so much:

• Are they newish, clean, polished to a fare-thee-well? Or, ripped at the seams, down at the heel, and spattered with dubious substances?
• Are they the latest nosebleed-priced designer pumps/sneakers/lace-ups? Or Soles-for-Less specials guaranteed to last a month or two and to dissolve in a rainstorm?
• Are they sandals dyed to match a pale lavender outfit worn on a night on the town? Or are they sensible black shoes meant to last a lifetime? Well, you get the picture.

Shoes help an author get a foot in a character’s door.

Imagine the shoes your character collects, and you can imagine his or her socioeconomic status (or financial challenges), sense of taste, and attitude to fashion, to fitting in, to work, to play, to romance, and so on.

Do you need to tell the reader what’s helping your hero navigate the streets of your story? Sure – it might be one of the details you wish to share. In other words, you can if you want to – but you don’t need to. The point is: you should know.

Happy writing!

Watch Jessica Hatchigan’s video tutorial – “How Bestselling Authors Create Pageturner Novels: Plot & Structure ” instantly on your PC, Mac, compatible TV or device via Amazon.com’s instant video.

A hero needs to be imperfect.

Why?

For one thing, how many absolutely perfect people do you know? (No, you can’t count people you have just fallen in love with. Get back to me in a year.)

We all know that there are precious few saints walking among us. So a character who is perfect just isn’t going to seem real. Nor is he a character with whom the reader can identify.

That’s why movie hero Indiana Jones is afraid of snakes and has issues with his father, it’s why Superman can’t deal with Kryptonite, and it’s why Bridget Jones in Bridget Jones’s Diary is – well, Bridget is a mass of imperfections – and that’s exactly why we love her (and what drives her story).

And Story is the other reason a hero needs imperfections.

Here’s why:

• If a hero is perfect, there is no suspense. We know he is going to win.
• A hero’s weaknesses can spark decisions and actions that keep the story moving in an interesting direction.

So an author needs to create heroes with weaknesses and flaws.

In some stories – a hero can be Flawed Lite, as with Indiana Jones’s fear of snakes. In other stories the flaws are a large part of who the hero is, as with Bridget Jones – or with Adrian Monk in the detective series Monk. While Monk is a brilliant detective, he also suffers from OCD, and seems to be afraid of everything.

And remember: we need to show versus tell a reader about our hero’s flaws – or positive traits.

So, we won’t say hero is daring or thoughtful. We’ll show him leading a charge in combat, or buying flowers for his administrative assistant.

Same with flaws: we won’t just say a hero can be insensitive or that he’s rash. We’ll show him forgetting his girlfriend’s birthday, or drunkenly signing up for a skydive or a bungee jump.

One caveat: don’t saddle your hero with unforgiveable flaws. A “hero” who steals candy from babies or money from the church till is crossing the hero line. He isn’t “flawed” in a human, understandable way. He is demonstrating a mean, amoral streak that takes him out of hero territory. (You will need to use your authorial judgment in deciding on your hero’s shortcomings.)

So, with the above caveat in mind, add an imperfection or two to the heroic paragon who leads the action of your novel, and he becomes more real, likable – and compelling.

Happy writing!

Creating a hero? Here are the ‘Dont’s’

You need to make your hero engaging (likable and/or interesting) from the start of your narrative.

After all, he needs to capture our interest from his first appearance – and then be someone who can hold our attention for 200+ pages.

You can do this by making your hero funny in an endearing or fascinating way. In the television series Monk, for example, the title character is cheap, socially inept, and suffers from OCD. But his quirks give rise to various comical situations and the actor who plays him makes him very watchable.

A common way to make the hero engaging is to show what a great guy he is. Good writers do this in  interesting and creative ways.

But your hero doesn’t always need to be an admirably good person.

It’s more of a challenge to create an antihero – but Scarlett O’Hara is one example of how it’s done. Scarlett does not fulfill the typical requirements for a halo – but she fascinates readers. Impetuous, passionate, daring, and driven, it’s mesmerizing to follow her various exploits.

Beyond being engaging, your hero also needs to fulfill certain requirements, if he aims to keep a reader’s attention for the span of a novel. Specifically, most heroes need to be:

• goal oriented – actively pursues a goal, makes things happen, is not afraid to engage in conflict in pursuit of what he deems is right
• passionate – if he doesn’t care deeply about achieving his goal, why should the reader?
• real – he should have some flaws and shortcomings
• unique – use your creativity and make him memorable in his own right
• decent – does the right thing, stands up for what’s right
• admirable – courageous, someone we can respect, someone who acts boldly and takes risks

Remember: a bold hero is a vulnerable hero (one willing to take risks). And vulnerability equates to story tension and suspense. A hero can still be admirable, even if he’s an underdog or down on his luck, so long as he isn’t dumb or a loser or a jerk. The reason for this is the reader would lose respect for the hero. When that happens, the reader closes the book and walks away.

Happy writing!

Characters are important because they make a story memorable. They’re important for another reason too.

Plots can get recycled over and over again. Someone even wrote a book called The 20 Master Plots. Others gurus talk about novelists being limited to seven master plots, or to 36, and so on.

Characters, however, offer endless possibilities for creativity – for something new.  And that’s what readers are looking for:

• the new
• the unique
• the fresh

So how does an author create great characters?

Think about some of the great colorful pagturener characters:

• Rhett and Scarlett (and their foils: Ashley and Melanie) – Gone with the Wind
• Frodo and Sauron – The Lord of the Rings
• Edward and Bella – Twilight
• Harry Potter and Voldemort – the Harry Potter books
• Katniss – The Hunger Games

What do they all have in common?

1. They’re unique and interesting!
2. They each desperately care about something.

Sometimes the hero’s focus is love or money. For Scarlett O’Hara, it was both. Sometimes it’s living up to a personal set of values. Rocky didn’t want to win the fight in that first movie. He just wanted to stay in the fight.

Often, especially for the villain, it’s about power, and the hero’s struggle is to prevent the villain from achieving that power.

Sometimes the goal is to win. Sometimes it’s tp survive. For Katniss, in the Hunger Games, it was both.

Sometimes a character is trying desperately to avoid something. (Richard Kimble in The Fugitive tries very hard not to get caught by the law; he needs to be free to clear his name and to find his wife’s murderer.

In mystery stories, the hero cares deeply about solving murders.

Well, you get the picture; to create a character your readers will care about: give your character something he/she cares intensely about and//or desperately wants to achieve – or prevent! Readers are riveted by fascinating characters who have strong goals.

Happy writing!

Watch Jessica Hatchigan’s video tutorial – “How Bestselling Authors Create Pageturner Novels: Plot & Structure ” instantly on your PC, Mac, compatible TV or device via Amazon.com’s instant video.