In works of fiction, a character is a person (though not necessarily a human being) engaged in action, thought, dialogue, and drama. The word character also means "personality." Whether the character is fictitious such as Scarlett O'Hara, SpongeBob SquarePants or as real as your mother or Uncle Jack, they populate your story. Generally, the protagonist will be a rounded character, but all significant players in your tale should be dynamic as well. Full, fleshed-out characters keep the story interesting, believable and moving.
The character's arc is the path a character takes over the course of a story. It involves adversity, challenges, and some internal change to the character. The arc takes the reader from where the character was when the story began to who they become by the ending. Flat characters don't change their morals or ideals to match the evolving circumstances and tend to be stereotyped and one-dimensional. Not only does your main character need to be well-rounded throughout, but altered by the end of the tale or your story won't feel real. Characters who take action, yet avoid change are not enough. Readers will not take your story seriously, growing bored and losing interest before reaching the climax.
Thanks to NowNovel, I would like to share some vivid examples that build realistic memorable characters.
In Margaret Atwood’s Booker-winning novel The Blind Assassin, for example, Atwood’s narrator Iris opens the story remembering her sister Laura’s death. Atwood creates a clear sense of Laura’s troubled personality by describing her clothing:
“I could picture the smooth oval of Laura’s face, her neatly pinned chignon, the dress she would have been wearing: a shirtwaist with a small rounded collar, in a sober color – navy blue or steel grey or hospital-corridor green. Penitential colors – less like something she’d chosen to put on than like something she’d been locked up in.”
Character is revealed by how a character responds to conflict and through written description. A tattoo, a sneer, or a cocked eyebrow can speak volumes.
Charles Dickens, a master of characterization, introduces a character with multiple details, including physical appearance, tics and shortcomings, to make the character memorable. He describes the boastful, self-important Mr. Bounderby in Hard Times:
“He was a rich man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not. A big, loud man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh. A man made out of coarse material, which seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him… A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility.”
Another way to show a character’s nature and backstory is to use action. Toni Morrison does this on the opening page of her novel, Jazz.
“I know that woman. She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Avenue. Know her husband, too. He fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deepdown, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going. When the woman, her name is Violet, went to the funeral to see the girl and to cut her dead face they threw her to the floor and out of the church. She ran, then, through all that snow, and when she got back to her apartment she took the birds from their cages and set them out the windows to freeze or fly, including the parrot that said, “I love you.”
Famous authors make it look easy, but...
How does an author use dress, words, and deeds to show a character’s personality?
Here are some areas to consider when crafting yours.
APPEARANCE
A few stark details that stand out. Specifics that reveal the character’s personality.
CONNECTIONS
Work buddies, siblings, neighbors, drug dealer.
COMPLEXITY
Gasp! – like real people—a little bit naughty and a little bit nice
EMOTIONS
Sorrow, shame, bliss. Twitchy and thirsty and confused and so angry she could crumple a vending machine like a can of soda.
EXTERNAL CONFLICT
Plagued by an old war wound, hiding from an alien spaceship, or floored by a boyfriend with lousy timing.
FEARS
Everybody's afraid: death, taxes, spiders, tooth decay – some sound ol' phobias.
FLAWS
Good, but not too good. If they're the best at something, they should also be the worst at something.
INTERNAL CONFLICT
Sometimes they don’t know what they want, and other times they don’t know how to get it.
MOTIVATION
Characters yearn for things. They need things. It drives the story, even if the desire is irrational, absurd, or unfounded.
SECRETS
That she will never share with anyone—ever—pinkie promise!
STRENGTHS
"I'm the best darn werewolf zombie you ever did see." (Not to be limited by practical or real skills or talents.)
VOICE
A combination of how she speaks and what she says when she does open her mouth.
Your goal should be to make your characters vivid. With practice and imagination, you can craft memorable characters for your stories.
Spacially Jim
By Bessie Morgan
I wus mighty good-lookin' when I wus young,
Peert an' black-eyed an' slim,
With fellers a-courtin' me Sunday nights,
'Spacially Jim.
The likeliest one of 'em all wus he,
Chipper an' han'som' an' trim;
But I toss'd up my head, an' made fun o' the crowd,
'Spacially Jim.
I said I hadn't no 'pinion o' men
An' I wouldn't take stock in him!
But they kep' up a-comin' in spite o' my talk,
'Spacially Jim.
I got so tired o' havin' 'em roun'
('Spacially Jim!),
I made up my mind I'd settle down
An' take up with him;
So we was married one Sunday in church,
'Twas crowded full to the brim,
'Twas the only way to get rid of 'em all,
'Spacially Jim.
love this. very helpful too!