Nobody’s perfect – especially your characters

Nobody’s perfect – although I’m sure a few people will disagree. But at least when you’re writing fiction, you don’t want perfect characters. It’s often the flaws and the imperfections that make our characters unique and interesting. Also, perfect characters aren’t likely to get themselves into situations that are worth reading about. However, you’re trying to create characters who the reader will empathise with, and not find annoying or pathetic. It’s a fine balance.

There are so many personality flaws that our characters could suffer from, so spend time considering the complexities of their personalities. Obviously, there are some that certainly would never fit into your ‘hero’ category. For example: being cruel to animals, old folk and children; or being a bully. Save those traits for your villains.

By giving your character flaws and weaknesses – and you as the writer knowing how these have come about, you will create believable, interesting characters. It’s that knowing on your part that will make a difference. Spend time creating the back story of your characters, and make sure you don't just tell the reader that hard guy, Jim, is a real softy at heart; or Sarah is totally impatient. You need to write scenes where these traits are revealed.

While we need characters to ‘stay in character’, they can be contradictory in their behaviour if the right circumstances come about. Also, people behave differently depending on who they are with or talking to. If this is happening in your story you need to be consistent.

So, your protagonist has flaws and weaknesses. If you plan on bringing them to the fore at some major turning point in your story, it might just seem that they are acting out of character, which the reader won’t appreciate. It's odd, as people can behave out of character in real life and get away with it, but do this in a story, and it probably won't work. So, if you need a character to act 'out of character' at some point, then the solution would be to hint at any such flaws in their character before they appear. Be subtle in your handling of this as you don’t want to alienate the reader.

For example, showing your protagonist with a furious temper could turn some readers instantly off. Unless of course you show it when he or she is angry about someone being treated unjustly or unfairly. Jealousy isn’t an attractive trait, but your protagonist ‘beating themselves up’ about feeling ridiculously jealous, as they try not to be, reveals their flaw but could also be endearing to the reader.

Then, there’s the baddies and villains of your story, who you want the reader to feel strongly about.  Reveal their unpleasant traits in whatever way you find effective. No need to show them in a good light. Just be sure to show them in their true light. Let the reader see how they are behaving and make up their own mind.

When creating an unpleasant character, have them behaving in ways that will get some sort of emotional response from your reader.  The last thing you want is the reader shrugging their shoulders having no interest in them at all. Make the reader so irate that they must keep reading in the hope that the ‘baddie’ gets what’s coming to them. 

In my book Kill or Die, there are two ‘villains’ both are pretty repulsive, but my aim was to evoke two different emotional responses from readers. One character is utterly merciless, cold hearted and frightening. I didn't want the reader to have any sympathy with him. While the other does get the reader’s sympathy despite being pretty nasty. It was fun finding ways to do this.  

So, enjoy weaving flaws and weaknesses into your character's personalities. It all helps to ensure  your characters are complex and interesting enough to keep the reader right there – reading.

Today’s Exercise:

Spend some time creating a character who could potentially be in conflict with your first character. Give them different goals, ambitions and moral values. Make sure their background accounts for the flaws or negative values in their makeup. You might find it helps to write scenes from their past that made them the way they are today.

Tomorrow: Character motivation

Getting the reader to care about your characters

It's so important that the reader cares about your characters. If they don't care, they aren't likely to read on. So, for readers to care, you must care about the characters you create. You have to believe in them and be intensely involved with them.

To be honest, this rapport with your characters isn’t an immediate thing. Usually this bond develops as you write, as those characters start talking in the dialogue and reacting in the narrative – when they start thinking and acting for themselves. Often, it’s only as you get into the story that their true personalities emerge, and sometimes in ways that surprise you. Perhaps you’ll discover their changing moods, their fears, their humour – or lack of it, what spurs them on, what they love and what they can’t stand. Often you will discover skills that you never knew they had – yet turn out to be important later in the story.

On the other hand, as you get well into the story, you might realise that certain aspects are missing. Then it’s a case of going back to the beginning and blending in the important details you need for later. But that’s the great thing about writing, you aren’t writing in stone. You can go back over those early parts of the story and re-write, once you know your characters better.

As well as knowing your characters, you also need to understand them. It is not enough to have characters simply disliking one another, there has to be a reason behind this. Similarly, don’t expect the reader to believe two characters are in love, or falling in love just because you say so. This must come across through their interaction, thoughts, dialogue and emotions.

A fun way of really getting to know your characters, is to make a list of random questions to ask your character. For example, what do they keep hidden in the box at the bottom of their wardrobe? When did they last cry? When did they last laugh? What secret do they hope never comes out? Their answers will surprise you.

Probably only a fraction of your character sketches and traits will come to light in your story, but if you know all this and more, your character will be real to you, true to themselves and believable to the reader.

Spending time on creating well rounded characters with personality all add up to making the reader care about them. And if they care, they will read on, wanting to know what’s going to happen. The last thing you want is for your readers not to care what happens to your characters. You want some emotional response from the reader. They don’t necessarily have to love your characters – you might actually want them to hate your character. That’s great. But what you don’t want is some mediocre emotion where the reader couldn’t care less one way or the other.

 

Visualise your characters

Before you can write anything, you need to see your character in your mind’s eye, even if it is just a vague image to begin with. Once you start to write about him or her, they will become much clearer to you. Gradually, as you get to know their background, their skills, their personalities, their fears, their dreams and so on, they will start to become real.

As you start to colour in your sketchy outline and fill in the blanks, your character will become a living, breathing person with a mind and opinions of their own and with a background and a life that involves others. It’s worthwhile to spend time writing a character sketch for each of your characters. This would be just for your own reference, don’t even try to include all these points in your story.

                                                                                                                               

Appearance: Gender, age, height, shape, colouring, hair style, nationality, clothing; mannerisms, gait, habits. The way they speak and move. What’s their own opinion on how they look? Do they see themselves as others see them?

Normal life: Where they live; marital status, their work; education; birth date, star sign, intelligence; financial situation; hobbies and interests; family circle; friends; relationships; enemies; skills; fears and phobias; favourite things; likes and dislikes; aim in life.

Personality: Here’s a few traits to consider:  Shy, outgoing, talkative, quiet, moody, cheerful, optimistic, pessimistic, depressive, revengeful, timid, thoughtful, thoughtless, kind, unkind; forgiving, unforgiving, sense of humour; calm, easily angered. What’s their opinion on political issues, religion and topical issues?

Background: Past experiences shape a personality, just as their current situation affects their moods and behaviour. Make sure your characters have solid backgrounds.

Today’s Exercise

Working from the character you started to develop yesterday, now do a full character sketch covering everything mentioned here.  And if you find yourself going off at a tangent as certain traits take on a life of their own, then go with it, and see where your imagination leads you. You might surprise yourself by writing entire scenes that you might use in a later story.

Tomorrow:  Don't make those characters too perfect.

Thank you Rob Tysall, Tysall's Photography for the photos.

Bring in your characters

Where do all those amazing characters that we’ve met in stories come from? Do writers use people they know in real life, or simply conjure characters up from thin air? Ask any author how they created their characters and you’ll get a multitude of answers. Often, the author can’t say exactly where they came from. Some just seem to jump into the author’s mind and demand to be written about. Other characters emerge more slowly, as the author begins to write, discovering their personalities and foibles gradually.

Some characters appear speaking words, acting out scenes and behaving in a way that the author has no control over. If that happens to you, be grateful and get everything written down as quickly as possible.  Or maybe you’ll find that you create characters by writing a character description about them, covering their appearance, personality, background and so on.

When creating characters we automatically draw on our own experiences and people we know or are acquainted with; even strangers and passers-by in the street can often spark an idea for a character.

But a word of warning about basing a fictional character too closely on a real person, as this might hold you back when it comes to creating conflict for this character. You might not be able to take things to the extreme if you’ve got for example, your grannie or best friend at the back of your mind.

Also, no matter how well you think you know someone, you can’t know their every thought, every action, every hope and dream. And you need to know all of these things and more if your characters are to appear real. It’s a similar situation when writing in the first person, the ‘I’ character, really does need to be a character in their own right and not actually yourself.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that writing in the first person is the simplest option because it’s you. If you’re thinking of the character in your story as yourself, you aren’t likely to push the boundaries beyond your own experiences, and that might not make for a great story. After all, would you really want to put yourself through danger, disaster and heartache as your protagonist will probably endure? Obviously, draw on your own experiences, beliefs, emotions and so on, but let that character have an independent existence and not be a reflection of you.

Get inside your character’s head

Stories are all about characters. We create them, give them lives and backgrounds, then place them in situations where they find themselves in some sort of difficulty – emotional, physical or both. The story then is how they react to the problems facing them.

As writers, it’s our job to keep the reader engaged as the character works through their problems. Somehow, we must make that character interesting enough for the reader to care what becomes of them. If your character is one-dimensional, wooden, or nothing but a caricature, then the reader probably won’t be bothered one way or the other.  Or if you as the writer haven’t allowed the reader to really get to know the character, that won’t hit the mark either.

So firstly, your characters need to be real three-dimensional people who the reader – and you as the writer, really believe in.  Secondly, and most importantly, you need to write through your main character’s (your protagonist) viewpoint. That is, writing as if you are that person. The world is perceived through their eyes and emotions – not yours.

As the writer, think of yourself as a puppeteer. You’re sitting back in your chair pulling the strings at arms’ length. You create the characters and then set them free in this fictional world which you’ve also created and see what happens.

As the writer, you remain operating those strings. If you let go, the characters and the story will collapse. It’s just that you must stay well out of sight, so you’ve giving the illusion that the characters are standing up for themselves. And when it comes to the narrative, that is, where you’re setting the scene, describe it in a way that’s in tune with the atmosphere of the story, and the mood and emotions of the character at that moment.

Today’s Exercise

Take a look back at the story ideas you’ve already come up with. If you haven’t done this, read my blogs of 29^th and 30th March for inspiration. See if you can come up with a story idea, even if it's just vague at the moment. Next, give some thought as to who the main character would be in that story. Free write about this character and see where your imagination takes you.

Tomorrow:  Getting the reader to care about your characters.

Thank you Rob Tysall, Tysall's Photography for the photos.

Improving on your own unique style of writing

It’s one thing to sit and silently read your work to yourself, and another to read it out loud. Reading aloud highlights awkward phrasing, superfluous words, boring or long-winded passages, incorrect punctuation, mistakes with grammar, head hopping – and many other errors and imperfections.

Always read your work aloud and listen to the poetry or euphony of each sentence. Pause only where your punctuation indicates it. If your sentences sound awkward or ugly, then re-write them, it might only be a matter of a slight re-arrangement, or the addition or deletion of a word or comma, but it may make all the difference to how your work sounds.

In any piece of writing it’s important to cut away any superfluous words and reading aloud will quickly let you know if something is becoming tedious and needs to be made more succinct – snappier in other words! Getting into the habit of reading your work aloud will certainly improve your style.

Drawing on your own unique experiences

What helps to make our style unique is that we all have different experiences in life and different opinions. As we write, we draw on our experiences, weaving those memories and emotions into the thoughts and actions of our characters – sometimes deliberately, sometimes subconsciously.

Our knowledge of the world and its inhabitants reveals every possible human trait: anger, jealousy, love, hate, friendships, betrayal and so on. What we haven’t experienced personally, we will have seen on TV, read about in newspapers and witnessed through other people’s actions. Our take on all these things can be portrayed through the way we write our stories.

So, whatever your style, make sure you produce smoothly written work, which is easy to read, without spelling and grammatical errors. You can have metaphors and similes, if you wish – but as mentioned earlier, make them your unique metaphors and similes, not old clichéd ones.

Your plotting has a lot to do with style too, taking the reader on a journey with your characters, adjusting the pace so that there is only enough let up for the reader to catch their breath before moving on.

Your style should feel natural to you, rather than trying to emulate your favourite author. Your style shouldn’t come across as trying to impress with the vocabulary you use. I’m not saying a thesaurus doesn’t come in handy at times, but words searched for from a thesaurus rather than taken from your own stock of words in your head, will probably stick out a mile.

You style is in the dialogue and how you blend dialogue with thoughts and narrative. And your descriptions – the length or brevity you go to in the way you describe characters, places and mood.

Remember, no one can create that style for you. It’s individual – unique to you. And the more you write, the more your style develops. 

Today’s Exercises:

• If you did yesterday’s exercise, take another look at it and read it aloud, or select any piece of your writing. Check your punctuation and see if you have created an easy to read passage. Read it aloud to yourself, pausing only where you have put a punctuation mark – not when you need to take a breath. Listen to the poetry or euphony of each sentence and adjust so that each sentence flows.
• Here’s an opening line, see where it takes you: I’ll never forget that smile… Write for 10 minutes, and then read it aloud as suggested above. Are you pleased with the way your writing flows or could you improve upon it?

Tomorrow:  Bring in your characters.

Developing your own unique style

If you look at the great writers of the past, names which spring to mind might be William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, J.R.R.Tolkien, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, George Eliot or any of the other classic writers from long ago. There is no doubt that these writers were great, their work has withstood the test of time. But as they picked up their pens – or quills in some cases, they probably never imagined their stories would still be being read centuries on. I imagine, as they sat down to write they were feeling just as apprehensive and uncertain about getting their thoughts and ideas down on paper, as any novice or experienced writer of today.

Of course, these days, with more opportunity to know what’s going on in a writer’s head through social media, blogs, articles etc., we learn that even the most famous, experienced writers have their off days and writing hang-ups. Nevertheless, writers whose work we know and admire have all persevered and eventually completed their work, surmounted their difficulties and got it published.

Think about your favourite authors. If you analysed why you enjoy their books so much, what would you say?

• They write a cracking good tale. 
• The plot is always believable yet full of unexpected twists and turns. 
• The characters seem like real people who you become involved with.
• Stories are full of suspense, impossible to put down.
• Their writing is beautiful – simply a joy to read. 
• Their descriptions paint vivid scenes in your mind.
• The stories are full of emotion, making you laugh and cry.
• The stories are thought provoking.

Whatever it is about the way an author has captured your interest, it is unlikely that you would say: “I liked this book because it reminded me of a book by so-and-so.”

Stories you enjoy have all been written in that author’s own style, their own voice. They have written it in the way that was natural to them.

Reading is important to writers. Analysing the way certain authors write their stories can be a useful lesson in creativity, but to try and imitate their style is pointless. However, the public could be waiting for your book or story, written as only you can – in your own inimitable style.

So, when considering your style don’t fret because you’ll never be able to write like Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie, Stephen King, J K Rowling or any other famous name – because no one expects you to, and no one wants you to.  Your style will come from you, and only you. It will be your unique style.

Publishers say they are looking for originality – therefore you have what they need. We are all unique in our own way. There is no one else quite like you. No one thinks or acts or writes like you. So, if you write in your own style, being true to yourself, that originality will shine through.

Improving your style

You won’t find your own style by thinking about it too much – you find it by writing. The more you write, the more your style will develop. You may not even notice that you have a particular style, but others will. However, your style must constantly be worked at and improved upon by learning the craft, writing and re-writing.

If your style is to simply write the first thing that comes into your head and leave it that way, then it will be your own style, but it probably won’t be anything special. Re-writing and editing your work is as important as getting it down in the first place. If you don’t work at getting the very best from your writing, then you aren’t being true to yourself, and success will be a long time coming.

To write good fiction, it is essential to understand basic grammar and punctuation. Reading your work aloud will help you to identify any incorrect grammar so that you can rectify it.

Punctuation

Incorrect punctuation is annoying to readers and editors alike. Although a story should get a thorough line-edit before being published, the writer should ensure their writing is up to an acceptable standard in the first place. Don’t take it for granted that someone else will correct your mistakes. Writing is a professional business, so give yourself the very best chance by presenting your work as professionally as possible. And that means getting your punctuation correct.

Also, remember that how you punctuate your writing will either make it flow beautifully or not. It will either become a joy to read or a jerky, uncomfortable experience for the reader. The correct punctuation will also ensure you achieve the desired pace and mood that you want. Incorrect punctuation can also change the meaning. These examples will make you smile:

A woman without her man is nothing.

A woman: without her, man is nothing.

“Let’s eat Grandpa!”

“Let’s eat, Grandpa!”

Be particularly careful with punctuation around dialogue. Remember ALL punctuation goes inside the speech marks.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked.

“Yes, absolutely!”

“Hey, shouldn’t that be a capital h on the word he? It does follow a question mark.”

“Nope! If you’re adding a speech tag it’s lower case if following any punctuation mark except a full stop. If you end the dialogue with a full stop, you wouldn’t add a speech tag. Your next piece of narrative would start a new sentence with a capital letter.” With a sigh, she read what she’d written and moved on.

Paragraphs

There are no hard and fast rules as to the length of a paragraph. Basically, just as a sentence centres around one statement, then a paragraph elaborates on that idea. Once that has been dealt with a new paragraph begins. Of course, when writing fiction and you have characters talking to one another, start a new paragraph every time you write a new piece of dialogue from a different character. (More on dialogue later).

Also, vary those paragraphs. If your page is a continuation of short paragraphs, it could become irritating to the reader. Or if it is one big chunk of words without a break, it could become boring and unappealing to the eye.

Be aware that fiction is usually set out differently to non-fiction. Study published fictional stories to see how new paragraphs are usually indented.

Clichés

Be careful that familiar expressions and clichés don’t creep into your narrative. Things like: It was as black as night; it was as old as the hills; she was no spring chicken. If you find yourself using expressions that you’re heard many times before, delete them and come up with a new way of describing something. Your style will not benefit from churning out old clichés. If you want to use similes and metaphors, create your own unique ones.

Adjectives

Be careful with adjectives. Too many, too frequently, can be irritating and seem amateurish – select them with care. Look for ways of narrating your story without littering it with adjectives. The result will be far more alive and colourful than you would ever have imagined.

Adverbs

While you might think adding adverbs to enhance your dialogue will improve your work, the opposite is often the truth. Use adverbs sparingly. It’s too easy to add an adverb to a speech tag, thinking you’re adding to the effect. But this could be making your work appear amateurish. E.g. John said happily; Mary answered angrily. Let the dialogue speak for itself without having to tell the reader how it was said.

Vocabulary

When looking for the correct word to use, choose the most natural sounding word that comes instantly to mind. Avoid searching for pompous or obscure alternatives – they won’t impress anyone. But on the other hand, if a long or obscure word is the correct word to use in the circumstances, then use it with confidence.

Today’s Exercise

• Free write for the next five minutes, without any pre-thought, on one of these topics: your pet; your job, your hobby; your house or your garden.                                                                                  
• Read what you have just written and save for future reference. Now re-write, looking to re-phrase or bring in more colour, life and emotion. Having made a start, could you write more on the subject? Keep writing and see where it leads you.

Tomorrow: More tips on improving your own unique style of writing.

 Thank you Rob Tysall, Tysall's Photography for the photos.