02 Feb

Where Do Characters Come From?

Posted in Character, Craft, DIY MFA, Writing

Some people collect stamps or seashells.  Some collect bottle caps or baseball cards.  Some even collect parking tickets.  I collect characters.  I squash them between the pages of my notebook, the way you might press flowers (or faeries).  I’ll let you in on some of the secret sources I turn to when I need to boost my stash.

In Real Life:  Basing characters on real people has some major advantages.  For starters, you’ll be able to observe an actual person (or if the real life person is dead, you’ll most likely be able to rely on primary source material).  Not only that, if you’re ever wondering what your character would think or do about something, you can just ask.  That said, there are two drawbacks you’ll need to consider if you decide to base a character on someone from real life:

  1. You could get sued.  You can avoid this problem by doing one of three things.  A) Avoid saying anything that could get you into trouble, which could lead to a very boring story.  B) Change enough of the details so that it’s no longer obvious that you’ve based the character on a specific person.  C) Base the character on someone who can’t sue you… like, say, your cat.
  2. You might get so caught up on being true-to-life that you’ll kill your story.  Remember, fiction is by definition fictional.  It’s not about getting the facts exactly right; it’s about crafting a story that reveals a greater Truth about life, humanity, all that good stuff.  Of course you can base certain elements of a character on a real person but in the end, you may have to discard some details that echo reality in favor of ones that will serve the story.

Situations:  The place where I discover most of my characters are in the situations themselves.  I often start with a vague idea like: “What if when you die, your job becomes to convince other newly-dead people about the benefits of being dead?”  Then I work on developing a character who would be the worst possible candidate to cope with that situation.  I know this sounds counter-intuitive.  After all, we’re usually taught to develop our character first then throw obstacles at him or her.  But if you think about it, this method accomplishes the same thing.  The only difference is that instead of starting with a character and developing obstacles that will throw him or her for a loop, you think of the situation first and then develop a character who’s most likely to freak out in that scenario.

Pictures:  I love looking at a picture and trying to figure out the story behind it.  Some of my favorite artists for this exercise are Edward Hopper, John Singer Sargent, and Edgar Degas.  Photography is also a great resource–especially antique portraits or work that’s photojournalistic in style.  Every time I go to a museum, I’ll get a handful of postcards that I think might spark interesting characters.  These days with the interwebs at our fingertips, we can find inspiration without even leaving the comfort of our office chair.  Here’s one of my favorites:

Quotes:  One of the great things about living in a big city is that people will say the craziest things in public.  Seriously, it boggles my mind what some people will say while riding the subway or talking on their cell phones.  I used to feel bad about eavesdropping but now I figure, if these people are talking that loud, it’s because they want me to hear and use it in my book.  Whenever I hear a good line, I jot it down right away.  Here’s one I recently rediscovered in an old notebook:  “What do you mean she’s pregnant?  I thought she was just getting fat.”  Even though I just wrote down the quote and made no notes about the speaker, I get a clear mental picture of this character right away.

What about you: where do you go to find characters?  I showed you my sources, so now you show me yours, k?  Awesome.

7 Comments »

08 Sep

A Question of Character

Posted in Character, Craft, DIY MFA, Writing Exercises

Today is our first day of the Craft component of DIY MFA and I’ll begin with a caveat.  Craft is a HUGE topic and there’s no way I’d be able to cover every detail in just four posts.  Think of these Craftivity posts each as an “amuse bouche” to whet your palette, teasers to spark further study.

Today’s topic is character.  One of the things I often have trouble with when developing characters is keeping track of all of their traits and details.  Here are two tricks I’ve come up with to help keep tabs on my characters.

Character Compass

I’m sure most of you have heard the adage: Show, Don’t Tell.  Well according to Writing Fiction (Gotham Writers’ Workshop), there’s not one, not two, but four ways you can show your character’s traits.  These are: Thought, Appearance, Dialogue, Action (or as I like to call it, TADA!).  I don’t know about you, but I have enough trouble juggling one aspect of my character at a time, much less four of them simultaneously.  This is why I devised a tool called the Character Compass.

Here’s how it works.  You draw a circle with two perpendicular axes (see example above).  Label each axis with the TADA techniques.  Now draw a dot on that line to indicate how much of each you used for that character in a given scene (the closer the dot is to the circle’s edge, the more of that technique you used.)  Connect the dots and you get a visual representation of how you showed that character.

Now I can guess what you’ll say next.  Do you really have to use the same amount of all four TADA techniques?  No.  The point of the Character Compass is to highlight what your tendencies are.  For example, using the Character Compass on a WIP, I learned that I rely a lot on dialogue and actions to show characters’ traits but I rarely use appearance and I’m terrified of using thought.  This exercise was a wake-up call for me because it showed me areas of my characters that I had been neglecting.  I realized that in order to be a versatile writer it’s important that I be comfortable in using all of the TADA techniques, not just one or two.

Acrostic “At-A-Glance” Bio

Another trick I picked up is what I call the Acrostic “At-A-Glance” Bio for my characters.  I’m sure many of you can relate when I tell you that I write these long, extensive bios for my characters.  Trouble is, I forget half of the information when I actually sit down to write.  I got frustrated paging through long documents to look up details about my characters so I devised this method of creating “At-A-Glance” Bios.  These character bios are so small, I can write them each on one index card and tuck them in my notebook.  Here’s how it works.  (This technique was inspired by the poetry of one of my favorite authors, Lewis Carroll.)

Step 1: Write the character’s name vertically on the page so that each letter gets one line.
Step 2: For each letter of the character’s name write a trait or important detail about the character.

Example: Cheshire Cat from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Cat
His grin stays behind
Eccentric
Says “we’re all mad here…”
Hides out in Wonderland
Invisible at times
Reappears gradually, sometimes not completely
Exceedingly mad

Croquet with the Queen
Appears and disappears
Talks in riddles

These acrostic bios are tricky but they force you to think of your character in terms of specific, concrete details.  In the end, I haven’t abandoned regular character bios completely, I just use these acrostic bios as a way to keep the most essential traits of my characters on the tip of my mind.

Today’s Task: try your hand at one of today’s techniques.  Or, if you prefer, share another tip or trick you’ve used that relates to developing characters.

20 Comments »

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