Friday, September 24, 2010

Writing Compelling Characters

In order to write a good story, you have to have good characters. No, I'm not talking about characters that are inherently good. In fact, I'm talking about the opposite.

Writing a compelling character means writing a character with flaws, someone that is human. No one is perfect, no one has all the right answers. And most importantly, we all have bad hair days.

When I'm first developing a character, I try to ask myself the following questions:

  • What is this character's quirks?
  • Do the have a best friend?
  • Do they have a hobby?

    And most importantly....
  • If I throw this character off a cliff in the middle of the book, would any of my readers care?
The last one always holds the most weight for me. If no one cares, then the character probably isn't written very well. Even if this character were the scum of the Earth, someone would care that I killed him off like that.

Of course, the questions above are just the tip of the iceberg. To write a character well, you need to know them inside and out. For that, I use a spreadsheet that outlines everything about each person that appears, no matter how minor of a character they are. After all, each character is the main character of their own story, even if that's not the story I'm telling. Things that happen "off camera" have an effect on how the character acts in my story.

When you wrap all these things together, I think you end up with a well thought out character that speaks to the audience. When you don't think about what makes your character tick, you end up falling flat.

How about you? What do you do that makes your characters 'pop'?

Check out my character study posts to get a better idea of what makes a compelling character.

This post is part of Elana Johnson's blogging experiment. Check out what everyone else had to say about compelling characters by clicking here.

23 comments:

  1. As you know, I agree with you about the flawed character! Unfortunately, a blog post is way too short to explain how to do this. So in a way, we're all just telling. But the rest we have to figure out by writing it out.

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  2. I love me some quirky flawed characters! :)

    Also, Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird is one of my favorite books on writing. I adore her. (this is regarding the post below)

    I think I'm your newest follower. *waves* Nice to meet you. :)

    Have a wonderful weekend,
    Lola

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  3. Laura, that's so true. It probably would have done me well to put an example at the end to show what I mean.

    In my current WIP the potential love interest is a babbling bundle of nerves when he's around my MC and I just love him. He's not the smooth talker I see so much in YA.

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  4. "If I throw this character off a cliff in the middle of the book, would any of my readers care?"

    That is a question I've never thought to ask myself, but one I'm going to add to the books, if I (as a writer) don't even care if they jump of a cliff I need to adjust some things!

    Great post! Thank you so much for participating!

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  5. Haha, I never thought about the throwing them off a cliff question, but it's so true! Thanks for the advice!

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  6. Throwing them off a cliff - now that's a good test!

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  7. I never really thought in terms of throwing them off a cliff, but it's true that it's a good test! Nice post!

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  8. I'm loving this Blog Experiment adventure, and glad I followed the link to you after reading what you wrote about Spike on See Heather Write.

    I love Spike and you are right about his amazing arc, leading up to his season on Angel which was too fabulous for words.

    And I love your "off the cliff" question. I'm adding that to my writing process immediately. :)

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  9. "If I throw this character off a cliff in the middle of the book, would any of my readers care?"

    I love that!! Great post. :-)

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  10. I like this, short and sweet and to the point! Thanks!

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  11. I love the question about throwing characters off a cliff. I pretty much do exactly that to one of my characters, and when I sent it out to readers, I was SO worried..."Will anyone care? Do they like this character as much as I do?" And I got back an angry email from one of my readers that was like, "I can't believe you did that and I'm never talking to you again." And every time we bring up that character, she gets mad. I love it, because I know she connected with the character and its great.

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  12. Just the word "spreadsheet" has me in the fetal position. For me, I just write. As I go, my character exposes everything I need to know to write the story. I expand from there. Inside my own head. No spreadsheets. But hey, every process is different for every person.

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  13. Love the last comment. I asked myself that about one of my characters and realized I needed to make him more interesting. Maybe I'll just kill him off. Mwahahaha.

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  14. love this question: "If I throw this character off a cliff in the middle of the book, would any of my readers care?" because it is so vital that the readers care. Thanks!!

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  15. "If I throw this character off a cliff in the middle of the book, would any of my readers care?"

    I am in awe.

    WHat a brilliant, brilliant question! I need to ask this to myself....and make sure the answer is YES

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  16. Yep, someone that is human, with quirks. Great post!

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  17. LOVE your idea about throwing your MC off a cliff as a benchmark for testing their compelling-ness!!! :) Never thought of that - will make sure I put that as one of my questions as I'm writing...

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  18. I'm really enjoying everyone's posts on characters. This one is great, too. Thanks!

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  19. Ha! Thats a great question - would I throw my MCs off the cliff? Mmm I've got to think about one. ;)

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  20. Great post...I love your question about would anyone care if I threw my mc off a cliff...Really good point. You've got to make your readers care about your characters...whether they love them or hate them...they've got to care if they are there. :)

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  21. That last question is brilliant. I had a writing teacher once ask me "why?" "why does any of this happen?", and that's sort of the same thing. You have to question why a reader would get involved in any of it - and that's going to lead you to a compelling plot and characters.

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  22. Awesome, just love that last question. That itself could create a compelling character.

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  23. Well, gee, I hope someone would care if I hurled my MC off of a cliff. ;) Good list of questions!

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