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THE
HUMAN CONDITION People enjoy reading about people. The first and foremost question you must answer is not what but who is this story about? If people want to read about apocalyptic events and cataclysmic catastrophes they'll read the news. But unless the news is about people, more specifically about a person with whom they can identify, the event or catastrophe isn't going to hold their attention for very long. No one will care a fig for all your beautifully crafted pages of pageantry and splendor, your scenes of daring, action-packed escapades, if you don't first give them people to care about. It is the human drama that is at the very heart of every story, and the very heart of this human drama is achieved through characterization. The key to creating successful characters is by making them come alive. You must breathe life into them so that they have a will, a force of their own. Make your characters embrace the human condition. You want your reader to suspend their disbelief for the duration of the story and believe that these people are real. Notice I said people, not characters. It's when your readers think of them as people, care for them, worry about them, cheer for them, that you'll know you've achieved your goal. Begin by making your characters larger than life. You do this by making your story a high-stakes story and by giving it a deeply felt theme. Then enhance this package with a vivid setting and action-packed plotting. Most ordinary people would walk away from stakes that threaten their comfort zone and would turn their backs on a controversial moral issue (not all, of course—just most), but a hero, the true hero can't or won't. This is what makes him larger than life. Give your hero a goal. Any goal will do, but it must matter to him. He can't walk away from the goal. If he did, something inside of him would be diminished. He can try to walk away from the goal; you can show the indecision warring within him, you can show how he stumbles, falls, how he is thwarted at every turn, but then he must pick himself up. He must go on. Against incredible odds. Maybe at the end of the story he never achieves his goal, but then something must happen to him along the way that allows him to achieve something even greater. Here's a little caveat – don't just make your hero suffer needlessly, give him genuine troubles that will make him strive. You don't want to end up with a therapeutic character! Give your hero a motive. Why does he want what he wants? Motive, the reason for doing, for choosing, for acting, is what gives your hero moral value. Perhaps what he wants is wrong, but maybe he wants it for the right reasons, or vice versa. It's these very clues that will develop your character's character. It's more than just the actions of what your character is doing that develops him, it's what he means to do that sets his character. What do you intend for him to portray? In what areas will you make him grow, change, overcome? Give your hero principles. Create for your hero a value system where such things as priorities and moral issues are clearly defined. He should not only cherish such qualities in himself, but also admire these qualities in others. He should believe these qualities lead one to living a worthy life. Conflict will arise when these things that matter most to him collide; here you can show your character's mettle by forcing him to decide which higher principle he values more. Give your hero barriers. In a story, a good story, nothing is ever easy. In real life people would just walk away, but this isn't real life. Your hero is stuck here until the bitter end. Ask what can go wrong? Don't choose the easy way out. There's no story if nothing ever goes wrong. Make it hard on your hero, then make it harder. But always have your hero make the choice, he must choose his actions that will push the plot forward. This is his story. What happens is a direct result from what he does. And what he does is a direct result from who he is. You might behave differently when confronted with that same conflict, but you are not the hero of this tale. He is. Give your hero a theme. Your story question will pose your theme. Will your character learn the answer to this question on his journey? Set up scenarios where he must choose and act, sometimes against his better interest, to do the things that will lead him ultimately to uncovering the secret to something he might never even have known he was seeking. He may have to sacrifice his original goal, or maybe his goal has morphed into something else entirely, but he must be able to recognize this change and deal with it in his new, improved state. Give your hero a past. This shows not only who he was, but who he may become. Added depth would be to give him a reputation. More than that, who others perceive him to be may cause him conflict whereby he must overcome problems or live up to standards in order to become the true hero of the tale. A past would also implicitly imply that the hero will have a future. Give your hero self-awareness. Of course he can't really come alive, but make it appear as if he has. Make him not only aware of his emotions but make them matter to him. The hero, throughout the course of the story, will be going through a lot of incredibly tough and dark times, don't let him casually dismiss his experiences as if they were nothing. Have him agonize over his choices and wonder at the impact these choices will have on others, even on himself. Self-doubt and analytical thinking are all part and parcel of the human condition. Give your hero multiple hats. In real life people behave differently with their family than they do with their co-workers or their boss. Show your hero behaving differently in different settings. He can't be the same with everyone. Let him be himself once in a while. Give your hero habits. Don't overdo a particular pattern, but allow the character to repeat something a few times to set the pattern. It will be most affective if this habit can be used at a later date to signal a change to the reader, by either the use again of the habit or the significant non-use of it when the reader would be expecting the familiar motion. The use or non-use of this particular habit could indicate that another is masquerading as the hero, or perhaps the motion was a covert signal to some other character waiting in the wings, or it can simply show his inner tension mounting. And finally, give your hero a physical description. But don't go overboard with the tall, dark, handsome, dark-haired, blue-eyed, physical attributes. Less is better. Unless the colour of the eyes becomes pertinent later when the hero meets with the arch villain who just happens to have the exact same colour eyes, therefore justifying the constant need to describe them, then don't keep reminding the reader of these non-essential details. The reader will form her own opinion of what your character looks like by his thoughts and actions, and no amount of physical description will change how she feels about him. And remember, it's all about how the reader feels. And remember, too, that you had better like the characters you create, or you can be darn sure the reader won't. Great fictional characters, sympathetically portrayed, reveal to the reader the heart of that which is the human drama. They say things we wished we'd said. They do things we can only dream of doing. They grow and change in ways we wish that we could. They become us, even if only for a short time, and share with us the human condition. That's why we identity with them. Bibliography & Recommended Reading List: |
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