What do you do with the characters you create? A Post by R. Clint Peters

What do you do with the characters you create? A Post by R. Clint Peters

Several months ago, I was challenged to do some character development.  One of my novels was being evaluated, and I was challenged to flesh out the characters, give them substance, both in my mind, and in the mind of the reader.

My first task was to research character development, which resulted in the post called “Building a Believable, Fully-formed Character is Essential to Writing a Great Novel.”  This post is an early post on The Book Reviewers Club blog, from 6-21-2012.

Recently, I went back through my character evaluations, the ones written in response to the challenge, and studied what I have been doing with my characters.  I have concluded I have, in most instances, been true to the character evaluation I did six months ago.  However, I have not been successful in bringing all of the attributes into my novels.

For example, one of my main characters is John Pendergast.  For him, I wrote the following:

Physical Characteristics: Born April 20, 1949 quick to smile 6’ 2” moustache and goatee 250 lbs thinning medium length brown hair brown eyes wears glasses, usually hanging from a cord around his neck

Personality: computer geek likes a good joke tends to wear blue jeans and sports shirts enjoys fishing creative witty has a gift for gab when hurt, withdraws into a cloud of silence

OK, let’s look at what I have incorporated into my novels about John.  I have included the following:  fishing, computers, jokes, witty, gift of gab.  I have written nothing to indicate any other attribute.  He has never gone looking for his glasses, and discovered them hanging on a cord.  He has never gone into the shower and trimmed his mustache.  He has never rubbed his head, and checked to see if he pulled any hair out.  And, he has never asked his wife to sew a button on a sport shirt, or replace the large, metal button that keeps his jeans from falling down.

What I read in the article I researched has even more importance now that I understand what needs to be done with the characters.  I would like to add it to this post:

Shaping a character can be time consuming and involves a lot of thought. What do they look like? What is their complexion? What is their eye shape? What are their personality traits? Do they have any disorders? What is their education? How do they deal with their emotions? What does their voice sound like? What is their main weakness? Are they an introvert or an extrovert? There are many questions that need to be answered before you can start writing. Knowing your characters fully helps you to see them clearly, and this will reflect in your writing.

The first step to develop a character is to write a summary of everything you know about your character so far. Some characters you may know thoroughly before you start writing, others may be strangers. Novelist Sue Harrison states that “if a character is foggy to me as a writer, he or she will be foggy to the reader as well.”

Villains are especially important to create well. If you find yourself absolutely loathing a bad guy, you know the writer has done a good job in creating them. Also villains or corrupt characters should have some reason for their behavior. Avoid making them bad for no reason, try showing a genetic or social influence. And remember, secondary characters, or characters that only appear once or twice have to be just as well- built as your main characters, otherwise they won’t seem like real, believable people, more so just props.

I have worked hard to incorporate the things I have learned about writing.  Some have become automatic.  I put a lot of dialog into my novel to help with “show, don’t tell”.  Now, I have to put more character traits into my work.  I want characters that would make a reader think, ‘Hey, that character sure sounds a lot like John Travolta or maybe Tom Selleck.’.  That would really make my characters come to life.

#BestPracticesforWriting #RClintPeters