How to create compelling fleshed out characters, Part 1 · 7:12am Feb 8th, 2014
So I got a private message from some guy:
So I read both your stories Biased and Incomplete and The Death of Daring Do, firstly I just want to say your a genius of a writer and I loved both of them.
I wanted your opinion on the best way to flesh out characters in writing.
Daring Do and most of the characters in the show in general are fascinating writing subjects because their personalities are generally very flat.
Yet, that same quality is what makes them so interesting because it leaves huge room to play around with.
I really loved how you fleshed out Daring and was curious if you could give any pointers towards characterization.
Also the twist with the **SPOILERS REMOVED TO PROTECT BABIES AND KITTENS** was brilliant.
Firstly... I'm very glad they enjoyed those stories. I love getting feedback of any sort, good and bad, but the best complement a writer can recieve is a request for advice: it means my opinion matters to somebody.
Secondly... characters. How to write 'em. How to flesh 'em out. This question kind of caught me by surprise... I've got a list of Things DuncanR Believes Are Vital To Writing, and good characters are the very first item in that list. I've won several of RogerDodger's writing contests (all of which involve a double threat: a writing prompt and a strict time limit) and I beat them all using the exact same strategy: I base a story around a character(s) that I find very compelling. In fact, look at Erase and Rewind: it's made up almost entirely of dialogue. Why? Because I decided to play up to my strengths. Not dialogue, nessecarily, but focusing on strong characters.
In short, it is my firm belief that characters aren't just the most important thing... they're the only thing. I knew I was going to have to write a blog post about it sooner or later. I'm going to split this up into two posts: this one will focus mostly on my own personal thoughts and experiences, while the next one will include more practical advice and suggestions. Let's get started!
How to create compelling, fleshed out characters:
So. Characters.
Yeah.
So...
...hm.
I'm gonna need a few minutes to sort myself out. In the meantime... have some long, self-absorbed pointless rambling!
How NOT to create compelling, fleshed out characters:
So after I read this question the first thing I did (child of the internet that I am) was do a google search for "how to flesh out characters". I clicked on the first link and came to a list of things to do from the POV of the character in question: fill out an online dating form, take a Jung / Myers-Briggs personality test, fill out a character questionnaire, and so on. It was basically a list of other lists, and I'm convinced it was all terrible advice (The article also starts out by insulting Nic Cage, so that should tell you everything you need to know right there). These are things you can only do if the character is ALREADY fleshed out. And in any case, why should I think of ten things my characters would have in their pockets? If the plot requires them to have a knife in act three, then they'll have a knife goddamnit! This isn't characterization. It's stuff. Even worse, it's all little stuff. In fact, one of the suggestions was exactly that: what sort of stuff do they have in their house? Why should I care? And if I don't care, how can I expect the reader to care?
I'll admit that the Little Stuff is very important. If you throw some Little Stuff at the reader now and then, you can convey what the character is like in a subtle manner. Let's say a character has a desk in their living room. What do they keep on it? A vase? A photo of a relative? A bottle of whiskey? A half-assembled revolver covered in twelve years worth of dust? Whatever you pick, it says something about the character. And more importantly it says it with subtlety. And here's the problem: You shouldn't start with the Little Stuff. If you do, you end up with a messy patchwork character that might not hold together. If you create a good solid character, one you have a firm grasp of, then the Little Stuff will flow effortlessly and easily. You should then be able to answer any question about them off the top of your head. It'll be obvious to you.
In short, characters (just like real people) are always surrounded by a ton of stuff. But it isn't the stuff that defines you: It's the other way around. You collected that stuff because of who you are and the decisions you made throughout your life. If you have a solid grasp of who your character is and what they're like, then everything else will come to you naturally. When your character sits down at a restauraunt, you'll know instantly what kind of food they'll order and how they'll react to the rude waiter.
Little Stuff is a symptom. Not a seed.
How to create compelling, fleshed out characters:
Just... seriously, just one more minute.
How NOT to create compelling, fleshed out fan-fiction:
So I don't know if you've noticed, but there's some bad fanfiction out there. I know, I know... hard to believe, huh?
I've thought about it often, and come to the (blatantly obvious) conclusion that fan-fiction stems from a desire to add to something that already exists. Nothing inherantly wrong with that. The problem is that the people who are fans of things aren't nessecarily good writers. It's a completely different skillset, after all. Think about all the bad fanfics about videogames: quite often, reading them doesn't evoke the same feelings you get from playing the videogame yourself. Instead, it feels like you're watching over someone else's shoulder while they play a videogame. Many of the least interesting stories center around a character that is nothing but a bundle of attributes with an inventory. And they do cool stuff. And that's all. The result is a story that exists to please the writer.
How does one avoid this? By realizing that the purpose of any story is to cultivate an experience in the reader. What kind of experience? Anything. Everything! The reader wants to be trapped on a desert island, caught up in a swashbuckling battle between airship pirates, or swept off their feet by a bold latin lover. But you can't just tell the reader how to feel. That's too blunt. You have to set up all the elements in such a fashion that the reader gets swept away. I mention this because characters are the most important tool we have for earning the reader's sympathy. Everything else in the story (scenes, props, events, dialogue, narration, imagery, conflict, flashbacks, backstory, cliffhangers, fourth-wall breakage, style, theme, genre, comedy, tradgedy, allegory, irony) exist only to show us what characters are like and how they change, or the consequences that arise when they refuse to change.
How to create compelling, fleshed out characters:
Okay, no seriously. For real this time.
Someone once told me that every writer's first novel is a story about the author themselves as either Jesus or Satan.
I can believe it. I won't tell you which way I went with my first original work. This echos back to the whole "Bad Fanfiction" topic with remarkable clarity and vision. Many bad fanfictions are written because the writers
1) ...Want to insert themselves into the original work (usually as Jesus or Satan)
2) ...Want to have something happen that isn't normally possible in the original work
3) ...Want to retcon something in the original work that they aren't happy about
Those are terrible reasons to write a story... but the first one isn't nessecarily bad just because of the self-insert. Writers can dream too, can't we? The real problem is the lack of originality. Only one of the above scenarios actually adds something original to the setting. It might not be something good, but at least it's something.
As I said before: The real problem is that these stories exist only to please the writer instead of the reader. The idea of the author as Jesus or Satan fails because those options are simply too extreme. They aren't real, they aren't relatable, and they aren't interesting. And that leads us to our main paradox.
All of your characters are you
Ernest Hemmingway once said "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." Excellent advice for starting a story. If we apply this to characters, specifically, we get something similar: All of your characters are really just you, because you are the person you have the most intimate understanding of. [EDIT: I'm not saying that you have the most objective and reliable understanding of yourself... oh my no. People are almost always wrong about themselves in one way or another. I'm just saying you know yourself intimately, and that's what matters here.]
This isn't advice. It's not a reccomendation or a warning. It's just a fact. "Other people" will always be alien to a certain degree. When you write, you draw upon your life experiences and pour them out onto the page. All authors do it. There's no way to avoid it. Every character you ever write will, in some way, no matter how small, be based on a part of yourself. It stands to reason that the most powerful stories are told from the point of view of a survivor: they know what it's like to have survived a divorce/a death in the family/being fired/having a baby. There's a reason police officers often can't read crime dramas: they know how the legal system really works, so when they read a story they know "this isn't the real deal."
This is partly the reason that self insert stories are so blatantly bad: the protagonist is ALREADY THE AUTHOR YOU DON'T NEED TO POINT IT OUT PLZ K THNX And yes, this also explains the cliche of the black-and-red alicorn who does awesome stuff and is awesome. It's obviously just the author acting out a personal power-trip fantasy. How do we deal with this? By being aware of it. Once you realize that all your characters are you, you can learn to treat them with a bit of humility and sympathy. Decide what part of you they represent: pick an experience you've had, a part of your personality, a topic you know about (or would like to know more about), or a goal or regret that you've thought about. Decide which of your strengths and weaknesses they'll have, and what sort of mistakes they'll make. Pick one thing--just one--that you can be passionate about.
That's the secret. Give a character a splinter of yourself, but no more. Fabricate the rest of the character around that splinter, like a seed sprouting into a tree, and cultivate it's characteristics in a way that best serves the type of story you want to tell.
Some of your characters are the reader
This one is simpler to explain, but harder to pull off. People read stories to transport themselves into a different reality, and characters are their primary vehicles. They like to imagine that they are the characters, are related to them in some way, or that they have something in common. The more sympathetic a character is, the easier it is to imagine this. Every character should be sympathetic in some way. Even the bad guys. Some of the characters, most likely the protagonist, will be written in such a way that the reader can easily imagine themselves in their shoes. They should at least be able to imagine sitting down with them at a cafe and hanging out for a while.
At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is whether or not the reader is emotionally invested in your characters. If they care about your characters, then they'll care about what they do... and at that point, they'll care about your story.
So how do I actually do all that stuff you talked about?
So... yeah. I'll be the first to admit that this was a lot of rambling on my part. It's all good stuff to know, but not terribly useful from a planning perspective. I'll be compiling some advice and suggestions in a more organized form for part two of this post, but that will take some time. I'll try not to let you down.
This is excellent.
This is fantastically helpful, actually, and I look forward to part 2.
Love this bit. It's something I've been doing subconsciously for a while, but it never occurred to me to consciously do/monitor this.
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I'm very glad you like it! There'll actually be two (or possibly three) more parts, much more organized and orderly than this one. I hope you continue to find it useful... I always worry that the stuff I'm saying is blatantly obvious.
Please please please let me know if there's anything you disagree with, or anything you feel I missed.
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You know, I secretly supect all writers do this subconsciously. When we write, we draw upon our life's experience. I know it took me forever to figure it out.
I am so tired of being told that character design is about filling in questionnaires! Thank you!
I have traditionally disagreed with the notion that "All characters are you," because I have no idea how to write myself. I'm simultaneously too complex and too background. I can't wrap my head around myself. In fact, my favourite characters to write tend to be radically different from myself in one way or another. I'm not an immortal elf, but I love getting into the immortal elf mindset. I have little loyalty or self-confidence, but I have a lot of confidence in my ability to write a loyal and confident Rainbow Dash. And so forth.
But I think with your explanation, I might finally be coming round. My characters aren't all of me: they're splinters. If I can't write myself, I can't even imagine writing someone else. But I can write a character, because a character isn't as alien as someone else, or even as alien as me. A character's just a branch of me – a trait or an aspiration or a flaw or just a liked concept – cut off and identified and planted in new soil to grow.
Yeah, I think I can get behind that.