Being a Better Writer: Making Characters “Pop” · 9:15pm Sep 20th, 2021
Hello readers! How are you all this Monday morning? Or I suppose afternoon, as it’s about to be? Spry? Alert?
Hopefully that last one, because you’re about to read another Being a Better Writer post! Furthermore, it’s not a scheduled one!
That’s right baby, I’m back! Back from a fantastic Alaska experience, which I have chronicled with pictures and video here. Yes, you should be clicking that link if you have even the faintest interest in seeing whales, fish, Alaskan scenery, or videos of rain.
But I’m back now, and after a day “off” last week ( somehow I still managed to write about 17,000 words in a week I was supposed to be relaxing for) I’ve returned to tackle the topic list once more and bring you readers writing topics.
So, what are we talking about this week as I return to my regular duties? Well, I took a look at the list and spotted this little topic that I had jotted down as one I wanted to hit, and well, it popped out to me as much then as it does now. So today, we’re going to talk about making characters “pop.”
Of course, before we get into the how we’re going to have to define exactly what it means to have a character that “pops.” So hit the jump, and let’s get started. What is a character that “pops?”
A favorite example of this in my own usage is a character I created long ago for a story. He was a middle-aged man, large and quiet. Which was nothing substantial by itself. He had two things that I used to give him a distinction from those around him. The first was how he always had a couple bags of dark chocolates on his person, which he ate periodically and more frequently when he was anxious – this being his answer to having quit smoking. The second was his golden retriever, who he often spoke to as if the dog could understand every word he said, even if others were around to hear it (the dog was intended to serve as a secondary protagonist). There was a lot more to him than that, but those were the standout elements for me. I never got far in the story and have little expectation of ever going back to it, but that character has always come back to me, even twenty years later. It was memories of this character that influenced at least one of Chrysalis's quirks in Change, Inc., namely her affection for dark chocolates (drinking hot chocolate out of a wine glass was all her, though).
Another great (if more obvious) example I could point out is the core cast of My Little Pony. The girls all pop, but they do so in a plethora of ways. Sure, we can all identify them visually, but forget that. If you see any story by an author who knows the girls well, you can always, always distinguish which of the girls is talking at any given moment. They each have a unique manner to their dialogue, a series of idiosyncrasies and speech patterns. When you see Rainbow Dash's dialogue, you know it's Rainbow Dash. Her language is unique to her. It pops. You'd never confuse her dialogue for Fluttershy's or Twilight's or heaven forbid, Rarity's.
There's another trick I like to use, albeit only rarely because I don't want it to be obvious: every once in a while, I'll write a character who won't use contractions in their speech. This is usually done to indicate a more elite, stiff, or 'proper' character. A good example is Moonlight Raven in Bulletproof Heart.