When someone tells a story and introduces the characters,
the characters need a flair or some kind of depth. The story teller wants the characters to become more than a one-dimensional idea, but to be someone relatable, personable, and even if the character is an alien, there should be some hint of a human quality.
Characters are not just the people or animals (or whatever brings the story to life) but the character can also be the setting, if it is important to the plot, and important to the story, and has an impact on other characters.
Getting to know characters is important for the storyteller, especially when writing a story. The story should be “shown” and not really “told” even if being narrated. Ever listen to a narrator of a movie or television show? The narrator paints a picture with words, even though the audience can see. The difference in a book is that the words have to be transformed into more than words.
Creating a character is an art form.
Characters should seem real, even in the most dystopian or “improbable” genre, and they should invoke some kind of emotion. Characters don’t have to be likable, and can be irredeemable, but they would invoke some emotions. Some of my favorite characters that I’ve created are real jerks or even evil. Characters are fun when they have some quirk or something that is just all them. A character should be able to be recognized by tone, dialogue, appearance, even if their name isn’t explicitly stated.
Characters with accents or some unique dialect shouldn’t have something that is illegible for someone to read. If a character speaks incoherently, say that, don’t always try to spell out the mutters or mumbles, unless there is one or two that is specific to the character.
When creating a character, sometimes the author uses a real-life muse to base the character on. That’s all well and good, but a writer shouldn’t make it too much like the real-life person, and what seems to work better is when a writer uses pieces of a few persons.
Character Profiles:
Character profiles are useful when creating a character, especially a main character, but sometimes they also work for minor characters. There are times (and it’s happened to me) when a minor character becomes a major character and remains that way.
(In my book “Unwritten Life”, Jim O’Roark was just supposed to be a techie with a crush on his boss, and then he started to date her. He and Alex eventually got married, had kids, divorced, died and remarried a few times, all within a large saga, that I still write. It would be a totally different story if he remained just a techie.) Soon, I'll be writing a post specifically on character profiles
Character Interviews:
It is also fun and interesting to do character interviews. Once you have your character created, and even if you have completed your story, doing an interview can give great insight into something even the author doesn’t realize. Put yourself in your character’s shoes, and it doesn’t just have to be the MC of the story. See if it leads you where you want to go.
In the next few months, I will be posting some character interviews of my own on my blog. It not only will give me insight, but show my audience and future audience the depths of the characters, and maybe the inkling to want to read more about their story.