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CharacteristicsCharacteristics are the features that describe a characters. But how do you know which characteristics that are essential, and which you can just as easily take away? In fact, there are lots of things you should look out for.
Why? Itīs a quick way of creating a character. Itīs instantly familiar. And itīs easy to get actors for that role - there must be hundreds of actresses who can play a good dumb blonde. So why not? The question is in fact the answer. Itīs because itīs too quick a way of creating a character, and itīs too familiar, and there are too many actresses who could play that role. Itīs simply not interesting. Furthermore, such roles are downright prejudiced. Even if a hip old person, for example, is less negative than a stupid blonde, thereīs still a prejudice behind the character. But how do you know that your character is not a steretype? One way is to go against stereotypes. In this case, make the blonde the smartest person in the story. Another way is to add on a second trait, that has nothing to do with the first. The stupid blonde could be a computer whiz, or agoraphobic, or a hippie. But thatīs not enough. It will still be a stereotype with a tacked-on trait. (Donīt confuse stereotypes with archetypes, a powerful type of character thatīs not rooted in external traits but in behaviour. The rebel, the hero and the phlegmatic are three such archetypes, which could be expressed (or characterised) in a million ways: as old women, bikers, aliens, children, or girl students, and still feel fresh and interesting.)
"Familiar" can mean everything from echoing a public figure, such as Malcolm X, to copying another successful character, such as Joey in "Friends", to using a family member as original. Whichever model you use, you should be careful not to copy it exactly. First off, itīs not very creative. Secondly, it will seriously cramp your creative style later, when you get stuck in the story. Thirdly, you will not make the original justice, and it will become a bad carbon copy. But even more importantly, it will lack unpredictability. Without some measure of unpredictability, the character will go stale after a while, and become boring. That does not mean, however, that characters should be totally surprising. Quite the opposite, in fact. After a character is introduced (after say, the first five pages it appears in), you will have to give a pretty good reason if you want to change the character, or divulge something thatīs not at least hinted at previously. For example, an elderly lady that turns out to be a master karate expert is unpredictable but impossible to include in a story, unless her skills are presented up front (as is Dorothy Gilmanīs Mrs Pollifax).
(see for example Seger: Making a Good Script Great) Another version of the three dimensions is:
(see William Martell, Script Secrets) A third way is to divide the character into:
And according to those theories, if you forget one dimension, your character will be flat, and thus uninteresting. On the other hand, when you do have all three dimensions, you cannot fail. Itīs not that I donīt believe that its wrong with three dimensions. Itīs just that I donīt think that itīs right. This is no different from writing those dull backstory sheets.
The slices in the circle should be read like this:
So why is that a problem? The character would be interesting to watch and listen to. And it would probably be fun to play. Who cares if itīs not a "character"? Well, I donīt care about your stories. But me, Iīll continue having characters in my stories, since they have larger impact on the audience. And they help shape the story. The quirky method may gain quick interest, but unless there is also substance, the longevity of the character is very, very limited. Especially if youīre writing a TV series, this is important to keep in mind.
Weīll get to that. First, letīs back up a bit. Last time we talked about creating characters by contrasting them against each other. What I didnīt mention was when you start building your characters, so letīs start there. Do the story come first, or the characters? I think that story and characters are interconnected. Plot is character, and character is plot. But that doesnīt change the fact that you can talk about them separately. And the order in which you create stories and characters will differ from my order. However, I will say this: you should develop your characters before you start to map out the story more carefully, scene by scene or sequence by sequence. If you donīt, the characters will take a back seat to the story, and youīll find it difficult to write your dialogue. A more direct way of saying this is: develop your characters before you write the story. One thing you should provide before we go further is to give them temp-names, that is, some designation to make it easier to handle them and tell them apart. You can name them X, Y and Z if you want, as long as you know who they are. But more likely, youīll want to give them simple but memorable names. Donīt dwell on this too long, you can change the temp-names later, after youīve developed your characters. I can hear you now. "Develop your characters" sound pretty easy, doesnīt it. But how do you do that? What does it mean "to develop a character"? And how do you know when your characters are fully developed? The most irritating fact about all this is that it seems so easy for some writers. They just dream up all these wonderful characters, that jump off the page, feels so real and yet manage to surprise us. How can you do that? I donīt know how. I might as well confess that up front. My characters donīt come into this world fully drawn, or even as silhouettes. They are painstakingly chiseled out, step by step, sometimes one step forward and two steps back, until I "get" them myself. But after that, theyīre there and I know them. Iīm not saying that you need to be from either of these two schools. You probably arenīt. But some things are common for every character, no matter what side of the tracks they come from. And the common features are the underlying elements...
the goal is WHAT the character want, Admittedly, the lines can become a little blurred sometimes. The goal is not always a noun, such as a MacGuffin. And the motivation may very well be a noun. For example, in "A Beautiful Mind", the goal for the protagonist is to get well (verb), and the motivation is his love for his wife (noun). Unless the protagonist wants something, there can be no conflict, because there can be no antagonist, which in turn comes from the fact that we donīt even have a protagonist. Do you think that is tricky? Well, here comes the really tricky part: every character is the protagonist of his or her own story. The geniusīs wife in "A Beautiful Mind" would probably consider herself the protagonist of the story of her life, not a modifying character to her husband, as you will consider yourself the main character, and not a bit player in your life. So, in order to even have a story, every character needs a goal, something to strive for, even your minor parts. To create understanding in them - to let us inside their minds for a second - you also need a motivation. Motivation is usually more difficult to achieve, because you can easily create a character that wants to commit suicide. But to make us understand why the character wants to commit suicide, and actually agree that itīs the right thing to do under the circumstances. A tall order considering how little time we have to do it. In reality we have to show why our character would do something we wouldnīt likely do in the same situation, in less than two minutes. What makes good motivations? Of course, that depends on your story, on your characters, and most importantly, on you. In my column about antagonists, I show the most oft-used motives, and some of the most powerful ones. Try them out. Oh, one more thing: the goal need to be visible, something that we can see, or we wonīt feel the success when the goal is accomplished, or experience the agony when itīs not.
Since there are thousands of ways to reach the same goal, we need to specify which one our character will use. If the goal is to flee from hell, the motivation may seem pretty obvious, but the strategy can be pretty much anything, from trying to make a deal with the devil, to creating a diversion (a world war, perhaps...), to seducing the devil, to... well, you get the picture. This strategy-bit is the reason why you should develop the characters before you write the story scene for scene. What method a person uses is highly indicative of the personīs persona, or character. A shy character would perhaps not try to seduce the devil, but may create a diversion and sneak out. A lawyer may try to find some legal loophole. And a romantic figure could give the old wooing the devil-plot a try. Thereīs one constant for strategies that you need to keep in mind: every character must try to find the best possible way to reach his goal. Anything else is selling the character short. This is where you actually can ask yourself: "What would I do in the same situation?" You would hardly choose a lousy strategy, would you? Donīt stick your character with a lousy one, either.
There are an infinite number of specific arcs, from the popular "falling in love"-arc, to the not equally popular (or at any rate usual) arc of overthrowing the lowest of the low and taking his place in the trash. Arcs are about growth and change, and any character worth the paper itīs written on has an arc. It may be subtle, as in many action films. That does not mean that James Bond does not have an arc or that he doesnīt change at all, it just means that his arcs are less visible than most other characters. Bondīs arcs often lie in the plots, as is comme-il-faut in detective stories, theyīre about learning the plot, or going from relative ignorance to specific knowledge.
To make it move around and speak eloquently, weīll need a whole lotta more. But donīt worry, Iīll give a whole lotta more. Hereīs my character tools:
Just to clarify, attitude is not mood. Mood is e.g. anger, sadness and joy. Examples of attitudes are optimism, fundamentalism, and scepticism. Attitudes are more long-term, while moods change. You will want to let all your character be able to be in all sorts of moods, but give them only one attitude. With the attitude in place, the work of establishing the voice becomes much easier. But attitude isnīt enough. If you rely too much on attitude, the result is an entire group, or even an entire race talk the same way, as the cliché version of Native Americans, or Asians.
Still using the same example, the characterīs greatest weakness is his or her intelligence. The conflict will force the character to confront his intelligence - by letting the character be too smart for his own good, or by putting her in a situation where the intelligence is useless. The solution isnīt to give up something bad, which is relatively easy, but to get real with yourself - and really change, which is hard. This way the character doesnīt need ten different features, that would have put the character all over the place, but a few, carefully selected features, fully examined. Go back to the features youīve already given your character, and put another spin on them, question them, and make them both strengths and weaknesses.
But the real reason for characters to have life outside the story, is that how else would they get into the story?, and how else would the story move along? This means that the lives you create for your characters must be abundant with catalysts, ie things that set stories in motion. An example: in "Frasier", Niles create certain stories ("Want to go to the Ball?"), Martin create other types of stories ("I found a place where they sell my old beer"), Daphne create another type of stories ("My brother is coming to stay here"), etc. Frasierīs life simply cannot be boring with so many sources for stories and conflicts that walk through his door. On the other hand, you as writer must still pick and choose, to make sure that only the best and relevant ideas make it through the door.
Itīs all part of the inner conflict question. Inner conflict is about a character torn between two equally bad or two equally good alternatives. Rock - hard place, or sex - saving the Earth, that kind of choices. And the character canīt know what to choose until the absolutely last moment, or the plot will be too visible, and the character will seem superhumanly clever. (If you want to know more about this, read here.)
I really shouldnīt. But it seems I do have to. So here goes... Characters need to connect to other characters. That means that they need to influence each other. If one person says something, another needs to take it personally, and a third needs to deny it because it rhymes poorly with her upbringing. Thatīs the way it works. Cause and effect. Thatīs what should drive dialogue. Iīm not talking about what topics the characters cover in their little meetings, although thatīs also driven by cause and effect. Iīm talking about personal issues, reactions. For example, "teasing" brings on "anger" which results in "regret" and that causes "making up". Emotional states needs to be plotted as tightly as can be, because this gives the characters dynamic moods, instead of staying "mad" during an entire story, or "shy", or "bitter". Naturally, every character changes every other character (that he or she meets). Every character affects every other character. This means that characters talk about each other, not about topics. They wonder about this character. They are in love with that character. They suspect that character. They mention their names when theyīre not present, write letters to them, think about what they should tell them, and try to predict how they are going to react. They may be right, they may be wrong, but for Godīs sake, let them try. The higher up in the dramatic function ladder, the more the other characters should talk about them. The greatest example of how this is done is actually the 18th century play "Tartuffe", where the playīs villain, the con man Tartuffe, has nestled his way into a rich family. The first act everybodyīs talking about what effects Tartuffe has had on the father of the family, duping him. But Tartuffe himself is nowhere to be seen. He doesnīt appear until later. By then we already have a very good idea of who this character is.
But more importantly, and, as Hercule Poirot said: - It doesnīt matter if a person tells me a lie. If a person lies, I will find the truth from which lie the person tells. Thatīs because lies reveal what the character is thinking about, what topics are present in his or her brain, and where he or she wants to direct the audienceīs attention. This is a subtle way to show true character and other facets of a person at the same time. Itīs great! You should try it.
You still need to show the characterīs characteristics. How do you do that? Through characterisation, of course. And youīre right, there will be a column on that too...
By Lennart Guldbrandsson
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Chapters Part I - Things to look out for Stereotypes and archetypes Familiarity vs predictability The three dimensions The Character Circle Dialogue, quirks and scars
Part II - Character basics
Part III - Living characters
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