If you love
to write fiction—be it short stories, novellas, or novels—you need to people
your tales with characters. And, if you want readers to flock to your stories,
these paper people need to be believable and interesting. So how does a new
writer learn to develop characters that rise above flat Dick & Jane figures?
Here are
five techniques to get you started. If you use all of these in your storytelling
you’ll move your fiction above and beyond the realm of tired clichés.
Make them talk. In real life, people interact by
speaking to one another. Characters who live in their own world, rarely
interacting with others—you may call them loners—can come across as
uninteresting, one-dimensional navel-gazers. Try putting them into situations
where they’re forced into conversation with others. Introspection is fine, but
when you let characters voice their desires, goals, intent, fears or even
threaten each other…they seem so much more real.
Make them move. Today’s fiction is all about
creating scenes that readers can visualize. We’ve been trained by the media. We
go to the movies, watch TV, spend hours viewing videos on our computers or
phones. We expect visual entertainment. If you don’t make your characters run,
walk, gesture, eat, throw things, make love and do hundreds of other things to
create visual images in the reader’s mind, you’ll have a very small audience
for your stories. We need to “see” a story to become engaged in it.
Give them a friend (or
enemy). When we
observe a person who is acting as if they are in love, worried about another
person, being kind to a stranger, or fearful of someone—we know what that feels
like. Emotions are universal. We identify with a character through the feelings
this person experiences towards others. And when we identify with a fictional
character, we become curious and want to find out what happens to them in their
story, so we keep turning pages.
Give them a history. Real people don’t just appear out
of nowhere on a street, in a house, or at a place of work. They have a past,
and their past determines their personality and how they react to situations.
Try “interviewing” each of your main characters. Ask them where they grew up.
Did they come from a warm, close family…or a troubled childhood? Was religion a
part of their upbringing? What did they want to be when they grew up…and what
did they actually become? Ask them anything you like. If you write the questions
and answers as an exercise, similar to the format of a magazine interview, you’ll
gather valuable information that will bring your people to life. Then use what
you’ve learned about them to write your story.
Give them a challenge. A hard one. Don’t leave your
characters to idly muse over their lives, their troubles. Force them to act. In
real life, we are fascinated with people who tackle their problems with gusto.
We love stories about the immigrant who came to this country with nothing and
built a successful life. We love stories about the “little guy” who, against
all odds, beat out the powerful corporate or government figure. Because they
act when faced with a challenge, we believe they exist.
Above all,
have fun with your characters. If they entertain you, you can be sure they’ll
also entertain your readers.
Want more tips to bump up your
fiction? You might enjoy the book inspired by courses Kathryn teaches for The
Writer’s Center & Smithsonian Associates in Washington, DC.
You can
find it here: https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Novelist-No-Time---Write-Drafting/dp/0692420835/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1471356664&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Extreme+Novelist
No comments:
Post a Comment