Developing characters recap

I have written numerous posts giving information and hopefully some insight into the realm of novel writing. As it is Spring Break here in Texas, I thought I would take a break from writing something new and recap my posts on developing characters for your novel. If you missed these or just want to re-read them, click on the “read more” link to see the rest of original post.

What’s in a Name? Picking the right name for your characters

If you are a parent, you know how much you labored over the perfect name for your child. Now imagine you need to do the same thing for over a dozen or more characters. Yikes! Read more….

Developing a realistic antagonist

As I mentioned in last week’s post, I have begun working on a new novel. Luckily for me, I began developing the premises for this novel a few years ago. But one area that I didn’t really work on is the antagonist.

The antagonist, the person that will try to thwart your hero and provide conflict for your story, is one of the most important characters to develop. Most authors spend a majority of their time developing the main character. The same amount of time and effort should be devoted to creating a realistic antagonist. Read more…

Reasons your protagonist needs a sidekick

Batman has Robin. Harry Potter has Ronald Weasley. Fred has Barney, while Frodo Baggins has Samwise Gamgee. And who could forget, Han Solo and Chewbacca. Yep, we are talking about sidekicks. Read more…

How much do you need to develop minor characters? 

So you know that you need to fully develop a background and motivation for both your antagonist and protagonist and of course, their supporting cast (sidekicks, best friends, and close confidants). But how much do you need to develop minor characters?

Well, that all depends on how minor they are. Read more…

The importance of character flaws 

No one wants to read about perfect characters that always smile, act polite and eat their vegetables. No one is perfect and readers don’t expect your characters to be perfect. In other words, everyone has flaws and so should your characters. Read more…

Cats as characters in your novel 

Recently, I wrote about dragons in my fantasy writing series. Today, I would like to address using cats as characters. Now, I chose cats because I am a cat-lover. But these same ideas could work just as well if you wanted to use dogs, horses or some other animal. And much of this can be used for other genres besides fantasy. Read more…

The Character Interview: Getting to know your characters

It is important to get to know your characters BEFORE you begin writing your novel. The more familiar you are with them, the better you will be able to bring them to life.

One method of developing your character is to do a character interview. You ask your character questions and answer back as if you are that character. This gives you a chance to explore some of their background from their point of view. Read more…

Now you may notice that I have not written a post about main characters. Well, that one is coming. Next month I am particpating in the A to Z Challenge (where bloggers post daily following the letters of the alphabet). For the letter M, I will be discussing main characters. Until then, I hope you enjoy this recap.

Staying away from the typical plot or character clichés

As you write, you want your work to be original, but it sometimes is hard not to fall into the old cliches. You have an elderly man as your sorcerer. The witch is an old hag with a wart on her nose. The hero is dashing. The damsel is in distress. You know the routine.

A cliché is anything that is overdone and overused. These pop up all the time in movies and books. Your best option is to try to avoid these cliches or at least put a new twist on them.

Plot Clichés

Plot clichés are the hardest to avoid as there are only so many things that can happen during a story. The mark of a good writer is to turn that same old plot device into something special.

Some plot clichés: a man/woman loses their memory; tycoon’s son must prove himself; a young girl grows up among horrible family members; the ugly duckling story-line and of course, the love story between two people from the opposite sides of the track.  In romance novels, you have the tough rancher who meets the sophisticated woman from the city, the guy with a past meets the innocent virgin and so many more I don’t want to take the time to list them here.

One of the oldest clichés in fantasy writing is having a prophecy that must be fulfilled. Often this is the driving force that sets the story in motion, and your main character is the “chosen one” who is the only person who can save the world. Legend and prophecy that always come true are not realistic even in the real world (or the world would have ended by now.)

The key to avoiding a plot cliche is to fill your story with fresh, compelling characters and make the story your own.

Character Clichés

Of course you have to be wary of falling into the typical character clichés. The villain has piercing dark eyes, and the hero is a dashing and likeable. The young stable boy is mentored by a wizard or wise old man, the police detective has a broken marriage, and the private investigator has a drinking problem are just a few examples.

Knowing that these things are overdone, doesn’t mean you can’t use them. It just means you need to be more creative. Turn them into something new. Take something people are expecting and change it around. The orphan isn’t the savior but perhaps the love interest. Instead of having your villain either be handsome and charming or dark and menacing, aim for a plain person who no one would even offer a second glance.  No longer do you need to make the heroine a modern-day Barbie doll. Instead instill her with average looks and a truer to life personality.

Remember that your characters should be complex. They need a history, problems, dreams and more. They need to feel real. If your character acts normal and dresses normal, they become just another stock, cardboard character and turn into nothing more than a plot device. Surprise readers by giving them something they don’t expect. The key is to make your characters believable.

Create characters with unique, disarming, funny, or strange traits. Remember they are not made from a cookie cutter. They need real traits and attributes. Go against the norm and make these characters and plots your own.

How much do you need to develop minor characters?

So you know that you need to fully develop a background and motivation for both your antagonist and protagonist and of course, their supporting cast (sidekicks, best friends, and close confidants). But how much do you need to develop minor characters?

Well, that all depends on how minor they are. If they are just part of the setting – say the surly teenager at the coffee shop who tosses the sticky bun on the tray and nearly spills the coffee, then I would say pretty much no development is needed. This character almost doesn’t even warrant a name – unless that name is going to play some role in the story such as reminding your character of their first boyfriend which could lead to some back story.

Now if this minor character gets a speaking part (beyond “excuse me” or “How can I help you?”) then it might be helpful to have a few facts about him or her. In Destiny, I introduced a character that only appears in two scenes, though she is mentioned a few other times. She is a young thief who has great drawing ability. Well of course she needed a name (Mira) and a description (a shy, thin girl of sixteen with long brown hair) as well as a few facts such as she is a better artist then a thief. But I didn’t create a complete back story as to why she is living on the streets or working for the thieves network when she isn’t a good thief. I know nothing about her family or her life before she enters my story. And it works as she is a such a minor character. There is no need to waste your time developing a character profile on such a character but you might consider giving your minor character a distinctive trait. In Mira’s case it is her shyness that stands out.

Now in Quietus and Destiny I have a lot of characters that are minor. There are High Council members (basically government officials) and other Elementals (people who can control the elements) that train with my main character Lina. In this case, since they appear numerous times and directly impact the story, I did develop brief character sketches so that they would come to life in the story. Especially with the Elementals, I needed to know what element they could control and where they came from (not just country but employment and family) as well as what they looked like and how they behaved. Of course for most of these characters I only devote a few lines to each. But knowing these facts I think makes it easier to write about them as if they are real people rather than just people to advance your story.

So how much time you spend on these minor characters depends on their role in your story.  In some cases knowing their motivations (why they are helping or hindering your protagonist) can prove to be very beneficial. In other cases, you need nothing more than a description.

The Character Interview: Getting to know your characters

It is important to get to know your characters BEFORE you begin writing your novel. The more familiar you are with them, the better you will be able to bring them to life.

One method of developing your character is to do a character interview. You ask your character questions and answer back as if you are that character. This gives you a chance to explore some of their background from their point of view.

It is really a fun exercise. You can pretend to be the police interviewing your bad guy, a therapist interviewing a patient, interview them for a magazine – as if they are a celebrity or maybe about one of their hobbies.  It is a technique with lots of room to play and adapt to your specific needs.

Using this type of free flowing encounter can help you generate a lot of information about the character in a short period of time.

I have always done this exercise being both the interviewer and interviewee. But you can always have someone else ask you questions, and you respond as if you are that character. This means your word choice, manner, and attitude must be as if you really were that character. You should think like they do, speak like they do, be that character.

One of the benefits of having someone else involved is you are not stymied by playing both roles. Plus different minds think differently, and you are likely to get totally different material that you wouldn’t come up with on your own.

That said, I still have done this exercise most often by myself. Since I wrote a trilogy, I actually only did it for the first book, Summoned. The key is to ask open-ended questions so your character has to elaborate beyond a simple “yes” or “no.”  So instead of asking, “Were you scared when you were kidnapped?” ask “What was going through your head at the moment you were grabbed?”

And I would certainly stay away from the mundane questions about how tall someone is or what their favorite food is. The first one you should already know and the second most likely will not help you in developing your plot or improving the scenes in your novel.

Try to concentrate on questions that will benefit you and help you write the story. There are countless websites that give you list of questions to ask, but I say aim for 10 to 12 quality questions. Stick with questions that ask the what, why, how and who f your character. You are looking for your character’s goals and motivations. (For some good questions to get you started, check out this website.)

Sample questions might include: What is your goal? Why is that your goal? Why can’t you reach your goal? What’s stopping you? What is it that you have never told anyone else?

The character interview can help you get to know your characters on a new level. With it, you can create original, fresh, new characters. And by knowing them better, you can more completely write about them. But the important thing is to have fun with it.

Cats as characters in your novel

Recently, I wrote about dragons in my fantasy writing series. Today, I would like to address using cats as characters. Now, I chose cats because I am a cat-lover. But these same ideas could work just as well if you wanted to use dogs, horses or some other animal. And much of this can be used for other genres besides fantasy.

When developing cats as a character in your novel, one of the first things you must decide is will they be able to communicate or “speak” to other animals as the animals do in Rita Mae Brown’s Mrs. Murphy mysteries or are they going to be restricted to just cat-like behavior such as the cats Koko and Yum Yum from Lillian Jackson Braun’s Cat Who series.

In my novel, Summoned, one of my main characters, Tosh, is a small grey cat. Since this is a fantasy novel, I had the liberty to have the cats actually communicate telepathically with each other and the human characters. Cats with this ability are actually called STACS.  (Yes, that is just CATS spelled backwards. J)

However, telepathy is not the only method of communication used. A lot of what a cat says is through non-verbal behavior, which provides another outlet for telling the story.  I took many of the behaviors of my own cats and incorporated them into Tosh so that I had a good mix of cat-like behavior and intelligence that I would expect a cat to possess.  Here is an excerpt from Summoned:

A veil of clouds passed in front of the moon casting darkness over the street. Tosh paused a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dim light. The air smelled of smoke and cooked meat mixed with the woodsy scent of the nearby forest. The STAC silently crept to the edge of the porch roof and gazed into the night. His eyes passed over the closed shops, their windows dark. No one was about at this late hour except Tosh and the boy.

He had heard the boy sneak out the door a few minutes earlier. Curiosity caused him to leave his warm spot by Lina to see where he was going. Now Tosh spotted the youth as he wandered down the cobblestone street making no effort to conceal his movements. Tosh leapt from the patio roof, his paws hitting the ground soundlessly. Following the boy, he crept down the street sticking to the shadows. Coy confidently strolled down the street, never looking back, never glancing at the buildings surrounding him. As he neared the corner, he suddenly vanished. Tosh blinked. His eyes searched the street, seeking him in the shadows but the boy was gone.

Of course working with animals you are restricted with what they are able to do physically. You have to work around the fact that they can’t open doors or pick up larger items. And if you are going to have them in a major role such as Tosh, you need to develop them just like you would any other character. This goes beyond their physical description. They need a history, their own quirks and problems. But by taking something I know well such as cats and incorporating a little fantasy in there, I was able to produce a very unique character.