What Matters Most: Characters

Your senses are the vehicles for experience

So you want to write a novel. You think of all your favorite in factors your most beloved books: secret passages, magic powers, stormy weather,  plot twists, and even undiscovered worlds. Sure, these things might be interesting, but are these the fiction factors you really remember, or do you remember something else? You can have the best setting, the neatest idea for a story, but if your characters are flat, your book will be too.

We read to experience life without actually having to go through the motions ourselves. To some degree I know what divorce is like, even though I have never been divorced. To another degree, I know what its like to have killed, even though I haven’t taken a life. How can I possibly have experienced these things if I have never gone through them? I’ve experienced these life scenarios through the eyes of a well written character. I’ve experienced these things through the work of a skilled author who made me think and feel the way those same characters would in those very circumstances. That’s what reading is, and that is what writing is.

Character is what matters most in fiction. Make no mistake about it. We read to experience things. The only way we can lose ourselves in your writing is if you create characters that we can relate to, and get inside of. Your characters need to resonate with your readers. Think back to your favorite book. What was the most memorable thing about the book? If it was well written, it is likely to be one of the characters. Perhaps it was a choice the character made against his better judgement. A sacrifice he had to make of himself. Characters are put in situations, sure, and those situations can be well designed, but its the response to the stimuli that we care about. If you are making the reader ask himself, geez, what would I do in that scenario, then you are on the right track.

As you study fiction writing, you will likely come across the term Character Arc. The character arc outlines the growth of the character (read: the change in the character) as the story progresses. This is an important concept. Not everyone agrees on this point, but the majority of folks out there will tell you that if we are going to read 300 + pages of your novel, we want to take a journey with someone we are going to grow to like, and someone that gets better  as he goes along. Between your “once upon a time,” and “the end,” the reader wants to see your character tried, tested, and changed – for the better. It is this metamorphasis that makes stories memorable. This is what will stand the test of time, not the latest and greatest plot device.

I need to drive this point home one last time. Think about it. How many times have writers used the same story structure, only to place different characters in it, and they still come out with a success. If it wasn’t about the character, we would be saying “(yawn…) I’ve seen this one before” at the first sight of the familiar plot structure.  However, because the characters in your story are different, and the way they respond to their circumstances is different (even though the circumstances might be the same) we can love the stories because they truely are different, and because they are a safe vehicle by which we can explore humanity.

Take Harry Potter and Star Wars for example. No one can argue that these two franchises (movies/books/figurines/cartoons/board games/cult like followings etc.) have been a massive success on all fronts. On the surface, you would consider these two stories to be quite different. One is about wizards, and the other is about space travel and the future. However, upon further examination, you would find that the similarities between the two stories are quite shocking. Consider this for example:

Create great characters - the stories have been done before.

This screen shot on the left should speak for itself. You can see that the structure to these stories is similar, but the characters are unique and engaging.

Characters need conflict to drive them toward change. This conflict can be internal, external, or even both. It is conflict that gives us motivation to change. Its this change that we want to experience. Its this change that represents the ride we want to go on.

If you are struggling to make your characters have depth, try creating some conflict. How do I create conflict? Well, that will very from story to story, but here are some common themes you can use in your own writing to generate conflict, and drive a more developed character.

Man vs. Man

Man vs. Himself

Man vs. Nature

Man vs. Machine

Man vs. Society

Man vs. Supernatural

In short, consider your characters again. Most stories, from a structural perspective, have been written before. Your characters will make your story fresh, and interesting. Whether you are writing about glittering vampires, wand wielding teens, or lightsaber swinging orphans, your characters will define your book, not the devices you use to tell the story.

Happy writing.
Justin