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Writing Workshop: Create Three-Dimensional Characters

Dancing Word Writers Workshop

with Anne McDonald

Dancing Word Publisher/Editor

 January 15, 2001

* This workshop has been edited for clarity

Anne McDonald: Father, thank You for keeping us safe this week. Thank You for Your blessings. Be with us tonight, and guide our conversation. In Jesus' Name, Amen

First I will do the lecture portion. You won't need to take notes because the info will be available by tomorrow on CWWC. The notebooks are for your hands on work tonight.

Good, solid characters are one of the major building blocks of fiction. Without characters, we have no stories to tell. I know that as a reader, I expect the author to hook me with characters that I'll care about. Otherwise, I'll toss the book aside, and refuse to waste my time on it.

As a writer, I place the same expectation on myself. I want to produce something with solid character development. I want my characters to seem so real to the reader that they almost expect to bump into them sometime on the street.

I won't try to fool you, creating characters that your readers seem to walk off the page is hard work. You can't just slap down a few choice words and make your character come alive. You have to KNOW your character: appearance, vocabulary, attitudes, and mannerisms, history and goals.

Fiction (and even non-fiction) is a reflection of real life. Characterization is a learning process…one that you never graduate from. When writers stop learning, their writing shows it. Each book you write needs to be better than your last one.

I'm going to briefly explain the various aspects of characterization that I just mentioned, just in case anyone is not familiar with them. They are normally called "tags" and they are used to identify the character to the reader.

Appearance is fairly obvious. Each person has his/her own characteristics. People can be blonde, brunette, redhead, bald; dark-skinned, light-skinned, tall, short, heavy-set, thin, medium build; have blue eyes, green eyes, brown eyes. Neat, or sloppy dresser. Gang bangers have a different style of dress than say a CEO for a major corporation. Appearance is anything physical that you see.

Speech: Our usage of language says a lot about us. A doctor speaks very differently than a drug dealer. Policemen have a unique vocabulary, as do taxi drivers and waitresses. A prostitute uses very different words than a socialite. Writers have a language all their own: WIP (work in progress), POV (point of view), galleys, cover blurb, cover graphics, synopsis, subtexting, timeline, plotting, protagonist, antagonist, impact character, conflict resolution, etc. The various words that we use paint a picture about us.

Dialects help us pin-point where someone has lived. People from northern New England sound vastly different from say, someone from the Bronx, or Atlanta, Georgia, or even the Kentucky Hills. Someone from France cannot be confused with a native Australian. They just have to open their mouths and you know.

Speech patterns also give identifying clues to a person's background. The shy person speaks hesitantly. The blustery person speaks loudly without tact. A confident person speaks precisely without stammering or faltering.

Mannerisms are physical movements you observe. How many of these people have you met? The fidgeter-he can't stay still to save his life. The doodler leaves her mark all over the paper. You expect the hand wringer to break into tears at any time. The hair twirler twists her hair around her fingers. The scowler has an effective wall to keep people from confronting him. The primper searches out his/her reflection in anything shiny. The shoe polisher has tell-tale marks on his pant legs where he has rubbed his shoes. The fish has the annoying habit of opening and closing his mouth when he's unable to think of a response. The skeptic sits with his arms crossed, and a closed look on his face.

What do you do when you are nervous? Do your clear your throat? Does your voice squeak? Do you play with your hair, stare at the floor, tug at your earlobe, fiddle with your ring, straighten your glasses? What do you do when you are excited? Sad? These are all mannerisms.
Any question regarding mannerisms? Ok, let's go on.

Personality trait -a person's attitude toward life and others. How many of you have met the perky person? No matter what is going on, this person is upbeat to a fault. You begin to wonder if she's swallowed the Energizer Bunny™ by mistake. There's the dominator, the people pleaser, the guy who walks around with a black cloud over his head; the fault-finder, the painfully shy person. Have you ever been confronted by the person who insists on standing three inches from your face when she talks?

In Tim LaHaye's classic book, The Spirit-Filled Temperament , he describes four different temperament types: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, and Phlegmatic. I actually used this book to understand what drove my character's behaviors. (Then I loaned the book out and haven't seen it since).

The Sanguine needs to be around people. They are extroverted, bright, cheerful people.

The Choleric need to dominate/control situations, self and others. This temperament type has leadership capabilities.

The Melancholy individual needs to be alone. They are independent, realistic, artistic, creative and analytical.

The Phlegmatic individual is slow paced, shows a lack of energy, and non-commitment to life.

Mind you these are merely short descriptions of these personality types. Most people are a combination of two or more temperament types. I recommend Dr. LaHaye's book to anyone wanting to create believable characters. He gives the strengths and weaknesses of each temperament. Another book I recommend is Nurture By Nature by Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger.

Remember, each one of your characters needs a fatal flaw to be realistic. So give them that flaw. What is it that will break them?

Any questions so far?

libbyc: I've read those books. They are excellent.

Anne McDonald:Have you been able to apply the techniques to your characters?

libbyc: Yes, I've learned much about temperments.

Anne McDonald: That's great. Let's move on.

History: Everyone has a history. If I walked up to any one of you and asked you where you lived as a child, how many siblings you had, where you went to high school…each of you would have an answer for me.

In the same way, you need to give your major characters a history. This is not unlike what actors do to make their characters believable. When I traveled with a repertoire theater company some years ago, we were required to fill out an extensive questionnaire regarding each character we played. Our national director had a habit of showing up, unannounced during rehearsals for any of the various traveling groups. If he came up on stage and asked us questions, we had to answer in character. Believe me, we made sure our homework was done.

Knowing our characters' backgrounds enabled us to understand what they would or would not do in various circumstances. The same applies to writing. Having the history for your characters helps you understand what motivates them. Someone who has grown up in an abusive family will react differently in given situations than someone who had a loving family background.

A police officer will respond differently to emergency situations than someone who has never faced danger. A mother intent on protecting her child will not behave in the same way as someone who is self-absorbed.

Goals: What are your characters' goals? What are they willing to do to see those goals come to fruition? One character I portrayed on the road would stop at nothing to reach her goal…even if it meant "fixing" her brother's brakes, or poisoning her sister.

In my current book, Love's Refining Fire , Jennifer has to face her own paralyzing fears in order to save her daughter.

I'm going to give you a couple of snippets from books written by some well-known authors. This is from Forsaking All Others by Emilie Loring:

Jennifer Haydon, the critics admitted, was not a great actress or a great beauty, but she was irresistible. The smile that crinkled around her eyes before it reached her lips, the voice with its warmth and its overtone of lurking laughter, the quality of vitality that crossed the footlights like a charge of electricity, all these were the qualities that drew standing-room-only audiences week after week, willing to brave the brutal cold and then stand for two hours to watch the play.

Anne McDonald: What picture does the author paint for you?

KiwiElle: someone the crowd loves to watch

Anne McDonald:ok, what else?

libbyc: Magnetic personality.

wordgrl43: older lady...

Joanney: personable

writeheart: friendly, warm, someone who would talk and connect with anyone

DellKK: warmth and cheerfulness

Anne McDonald: Do you think you'd want to know more about this person? Would you want to know here story?