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Writing Workshop: Create Three-Dimensional Characters
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Dancing Word Writers Workshopwith Anne McDonaldDancing 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. 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? Marcia: definitely yes. KiwiElle: for sure writeheart: yes Anne McDonald: ok, here's another example. Very different tone. This is from Daughter Of The Stars by Phyllis A. Whitney: The two men in Union blue stood back to back in pale, early-dawn light. A thin mist floated about them, mingling with smoke rising from rifles recently fired. The old man was tall and thin, almost the point of emaciation. His face wore an inner glow of what he had just accomplished. The younger man, his son, seemed undistinguishing in appearance, with the blank, uncomprehending expression of an ordinary man who had committed an extraordinary deed. True, he had killed before in battle. Even in hand-to-hand fighting. But this had been an execution. What images does this evoke? libbyc: harsh wordgrl43: bravery DellKK: horror writeheart: old man seems evil, son doesn't seem to grasp it yet Anne McDonald: Would you want to know about these characters? DellKK: yes Anne McDonald: In his book Techniques Of The Selling Writer , Dwight V. Swain makes some poignant comments about characterization. He says, "Give an impression of the person first--"a cute little chick with red hair... AnnieM: "a shambling, slab-like man," "a shadowy little woman in a big feathered hat that would always be remembered long after she herself was forgotten." He says that people tend to get impressions first, then they zero in on the details. Can you see the characters he described? Mary: I can see them as vividly as my imagination will allow me to Anne McDonald: good. Now the types of phrases he uses, above, I tend to use for minor characters. Major characters need fleshing out, so the reader can identify with them on some level. How do we flesh out characters? Well, for starters, we get to know them, using the fore-mentioned techniques, but there is a more in-depth method...and that is interviewing your characters. How many of you have conversations with your characters? DellKK: I once wrote in a journal as a teenager; it helped me get into that character Anne McDonald: good idea! Joanney: When I first started on my WIP, I interviewed my heroine. I found out that her supervisor was actually her jealous step-sister that she never knew she had. This told me who was writing hate notes to her. Anne McDonald: That's great! Don't feel strange if your characters start talking to you. Many excellent writers experience this. Donna Fletcher Crow, my mentor, taught me how to interview my characters, and since I started using the technique, my characterizations got better and better In Love's Refining Fire , I ran into a block. I could not figure out what happened in a particular scene. So, I sat down with my character, and she gave me a blow-by-blow account of the day. From that I was able to write the scene, finish the chapter and get on with the story. Ok, I'm going to have you do some hands on work. I would like you to do
a quick interview of your current main character (or a character you are
working on) Joanney: I'm having a hard time with this for two reasons. 1) I already knew the answers to these specific questions. 2) For some reason, my creative interviewing only seems to work while I am laying in bed. Anne McDonald: Ah ha, Joanney. Are there any questions your character would be willing to answer? DellKK: My character, Hope, wants success more than anything. When I asked her about humiliating experience, she talked about her childhood...taking care of kids, failing, being unable to keep them out of foster care. Whoa, I didn't know that. Worked for me. Anne McDonald: Great start, Dell. She wants success at what price? DellKK: Any price. She'll do anything. Muser: But aren't characters actually an extension of yourself? Mary: yes Anne McDonald: They should be their own entities, Bruce. They may have parts of you in them, but they need to be able to stand alone, apart from who you are. Muser: Understood Anne McDonald: Anyone else get answers from their characters? writeheart: I guess because I am new at all this, my character is still too much a part of me. I need to find how best to separate her from who I am and create a total separate id Anne McDonald: Were you able to get any answers, at all? writeheart: yes, my answers though were just that, mine not a sep character Marcia: but maybe with more questioning your character would develop more apart from you Anne McDonald: Writeheart, on my community site, you will find a character analysis form... (now in the Dancing Word Writers Network file cabinet) writeheart: thanks...now I have lots of homework to do :-) Anne McDonald:writeheart, do you have a physical description of your character? Does she look like you, or like someone else? writeheart: like someone else, actually who I would like to look like, different hair eye color etc Anne McDonald: That's a good start. Now you have to find out who she is. Do you have a photograph or magazine clip of her? writeheart: no, I never thought of that. I will do that. Anne McDonald:Above my computer, I have my storyboard. It's a cork bulletin board. On it I have several pics of my main characters, scenery and a lay out of the ranch I'm working on. I've found that actually having a picture to look at helps me realize that the character is separate from me...and the pics also help keep me in line when it comes to describing the characters. Anyone else clip pictures? Deby: I can always just describe them, and let my artistic daughter draw them :-) DellKK: I'm a picture clipper. I have a whole file of characters—kids through aged. If I like the way a person looks in the magazine, I cut it out. Muser: I wonder sometimes as I read others works, I get bogged down in their characters as they get to deep to quick. The story almost stops. Anne McDonald: Yes, it is important to layer information in the story. Let me give you an example. This is from my WIP Rainbows Ride On Thunder: "Some homecoming," Amber Coleson fumed. She urged her black mount up the steep narrow trail, carefully scanning the underside of rock ledges for rattlesnakes. "I can't believe that idiot foreman let our prize cutting horses run wild. Where did Grandpa find that greenhorn anyway?" Amber's long-sleeved cotton shirt clung to her back in the oppressive humid heat. This would be a good day to take a swim in the ranch pond, but she had work to do. If anything happened to those horses... Perspiration trickled down her face and neck and dampened her long, honey-blonde braid. Amber took a drink of lukewarm water from her canteen and urged Stormcloud on. A scorching southerly wind swept off her battered straw cowboy hat, exposing her head to the blazing sun. "Ohh! I knew I should've tied that thing down," she grumbled, dismounting her mare and chasing after the hat as it tumbled down the mountainside. Amber's boots slipped on the loose dirt, causing rocks to rain down the slope. Branches scraped against her faded blue jeans. The chase continued. Finally, the offending object landed on a large cholla cactus several yards away. "What else can go wrong today?" Amber exclaimed. Her left foot slipped and she pricked her hand on sharp thorns in an attempt to keep her balance. She finally retrieved the hat and climbed back up to the trail where her horse stood waiting for her. Mary: very good.... Muser: An excellent mix of story and character! Anne McDonald: What have you learned about the character in these few paragraphs? libbyc: she is impatient and judgmental. Anne McDonald: good KiwiElle: her grandfather either owns or manages the ranch AnnieM: good libbyc: snob, spoiled, pouty Anne McDonald: could be Muser: Good descripive action words. writeheart: i picture her as being young Anne McDonald: ok KiwiElle: lets circumstances affect her emotions Marcia: frustrated, because she's trying to accomplish something for grandfather maybe, and feels like everything is going wrong. Anne McDonald:good You NEVER want to allow anything to slow down the story. Have any of your picked up a book, only to skim over pages and pages until you came to action? libbyc: most definitely writeheart: I don't skim, I just put the book down. I stop reading more books that way. Anne McDonald:I encourage you to look at those books again, to find out what NOT to do. You can weave information in through dialogue, the way the person carries him/herself...the way they dress, how they react to situations. You want to SHOW the character, not talk about them Joanney: Is having another character describing them, as in dialogue showing or talking about them? Anne McDonald:It depends on how it is handled. If it is a blow-by-blow description, you are telling. If the character describes the person and the effect that person has on them, then you are showing. Does that make sense? Joanney: Yeah, my hero is first introduced by the heroine asking who he was and describing him so the mutual friend knew who she meant. Anne McDonald: That could work. Just keep the description to the minimum necessary for the friend to recognize him. Remember, you can also use facial expressions and physical movement to flesh out your characters. i.e., She arched an eyebrow. He slammed the door. Lock yourself in the bathroom and see how many different types of expressions you can make with your own face, then describe them on paper. It's a great exercise. Just don't let anyone watch you. hehe libbyc: lol Anne McDonald: Also, I recommend that you take time to go to your local mall or hang out place and just watch people. Take your notebook with you and try to capture as many physical attributes as possible. I remember being in a restaurant in California some years ago. A middle-aged woman walked in the door and immediately caught my attention. It looked as if she had been dressed by a three-year-old. Her hair stuck out in all directions, and her make up looked as if it had been put on upside down. She definitely made it into my notebook. I watched the expression of the restaurant owner....apparently he knew her, because he called the woman's family and they came to pick her up. There's a story there, I know it. Mary: she had just had some very disturbing news Anne McDonald: could be Joanney: reminds me of the former housekeeper in the Galway Series Anne McDonald:Any questions about characterizations? libbyc: Should you have someone else take a gander at your characterizations to see if they are too much alike? Anne McDonald: That would be a good idea. Remember, even if you have three brunettes standing next to each other...each one has their own personality quirks. Each person has something that makes them individuals. That can be said for even identical twins... Any other questions? Have fun getting to know your characters. Afterall, you are writing their stories. You owe it to your readers to understand your characters motivations, etc. Mary: Excellent job, Annie. Thank You Anne McDonald: Thank you. I hope it helps. If there are no more questions, let's close in prayer. Marcia, would you do the honors, please? Marcia: Father, we just thank you for this time to be together and share. We pray that you will help each of us and we question and develop our characters. Bless each one here, and guide us thru this coming week. Amen. Anne McDonald: Thank you all for coming. Happy writing! Dancing Word Workshops Is A Production Of Dancing Word Writers Network |