Establishing Character Moments · 10:23pm Dec 11th, 2017
Hello everyone.
For those of you who are friends with Cherry-Lei, you'll know she gives excellent tips and critiques for writing styles which I think all budding fanfic writers could learn from.
Taking a letter from her book, I've felt the wish to try my own hand at this.
How to establish a character in one short but meaningful scene.
When creating your story and its characters, there will inevitably need to be a moment, usually during their first scene, when their roles, motives and personalities are established.
One must always, as far as possible, follow the rule of 'Show Don't Tell'. The narrator should have a minimal impact on their establishment. Its all down to building them through their behaviour, their dialogue and their relationships with others.
And I found the perfect example.
You remember a while ago, I mentioned I was sadly deprived of Disney in my youth and only recently watched many of the most famous films?
That's because me and my brother mainly grew up on something we had easy access to on the TV. Back when Digital was not abundant and Freeview had yet to be contemplated.
A British Stop-Motion Animation Series of The Wind in the Willows.
I adored this show when I was little and I think it still holds up today. While the models look a bit uncanny in comparison to nowadays, the story-building and dialogue is tremendous. It doesn't dumb down to the child audience and has a downright charming atmosphere to it with its anthropomorphic cast working perfectly as a group, chiefly featuring the four-man band of Mole, Rat, Badger and Toad.
You might recognise a couple of the voices. Toad is voiced by David Jason, who was Derek Trotter in 'Only Fools and Horses', Grandville in Open All Hours, Inspector Jack Frost and...wait for it...Dangermouse!
And Rat? Sound familiar? Yeah, that's Peter Sallis, Wallace from Wallace in Gromit.
...I still miss him...
But anyway. Watch to about 4:20 and you will see a very good way to properly establish a setting and its characters. Sorry about the quality.
The narrator (Sir Ian Carmichael) describes the scene in a manner which genuinely makes you believe he's there, witnessing and relating it all. Swept away in the detail, one can really feel immersed in how refreshing it all sounds and how time has passed.
Ah, the British countryside, the one place you can gush about flowers and rabbits and butterflies and not sound like a pansy.
The narrator doesn't actually describe what the characters are like or even what they were really doing apart from a few words before his end. Its all setting the scene. One can subtly tell things about the characters before they're even introduced from where and how they live and how it would affect them.
We're first introduced to Mole (Voiced by Richard Pearson). Everything about him says 'quiet, secluded, socially-awkward but ever so lovable'. While his strange alarm at simply receiving a letter can, at first, be seen as ridiculous, you realise that, this is indeed something that rarely happens to him. He's kind of like Bilbo Baggins at the start of the Hobbit. Talking to himself (Showing his awkward side) he shows himself to quite easily excited yet having a rather low opinion of himself.
The atmosphere, with its only background sound being the grandfather clock, builds the atmosphere that perfectly suits the character.
Stark contrast is Toad (David Jason). Awakening from his lie-in in a not-so-gracious manner, his mail delivered on a platter by an unseen attendant, he is clearly a member of the idle rich, born with more money than he knows what to do with and content to wile away the day however he pleases. Before even glancing at the letter, he imagines it being something to stroke his ego or boost his reputation, clearly taking pleasure in his impossible fantasies of fame and glory. 'And about time too' cements his character as a creature with a ridiculously inflated opinion of himself and ludicrously overconfident. And we love him for it. Toad makes the Wind in the Willows come alive.
Old Badger (Sir Michael Hordern) interacts with another, an original character Billy Rabbit (David Jason with a squeaky voice. Yes, really, that's him) Billy, for one reason or another, finds himself with Badger's letter. Caught in the act, the two engage in a small battle of wits, Billy trying to veer his old warden's attention elsewhere and Badger not one to be put off. Badger doesn't show any anger or raise his voice, only demonstrates that the youngster's games aren't working. His answers ('It is morning' 'I have been for a stroll, yes') are very matter-of-fact and subtly demand Billy stop changing the subject and explain himself. Once Billy concedes and surrenders the letter, Badger is content to let him be without any chastisement but clearly wouldn't approve of the nuisance Billy could have run into (Its later subtly established that Toad, being the youngest and most reckless of the group, was quite the nuisance in his young age which both his father and Badger fiercely disapproved of and Badger wants to make sure Toad does not become a bad influence on Billy and the other young creatures, steering them off the path of recklessness and oblivious self-damage that Toad is always set on) Once alone, Badger doesn't say much, only reacts with some amount of disinterest. So his character is established, old, world-weary, quite cynical but not sour and definitely not senile, being very wise and, while not particularly social, a stickler for manners and conduct.
Billy also comes off as wildly curious, precarious and maybe a bit cheeky but not, by any means, a bad kid and rather clever in his own way. You can tell he and Badger have played this game this before.
And Rat (Peter Sallis) is the most laid-back and rational of the group, sitting comfortably in his house by the river. His character is rather plain in contrast but it almost seems necessary. He's the one who keeps a level-head, mending the rifts between Mole's bashfulness, Badger's dourness and Toad's recklessness. It is from him we actually find out what the letters are about, a village festival competition and reacts with a very measured but cheerful enthusiasm and points to the others being involved. Therefore, he's pretty much established to be the most relatable character, never getting overexcited about things but nonetheless happy to chip in to whatever event happens upon the story.
If you're taken after these scenes and want to watch to the end, good on you. And the characters show themselves with each others interactions. Its quite minimal with Mole, Rat and Badger, all of them competing to be the most mild and sensible animals in the land, but its there. Their virtues shine through but they seem aware of each others faults. Mole can be overmodest, Badger can be pompous and Rat can be unaware, but they always pull through together and learn from their mistakes.
Toad, meanwhile, makes up for all three of them, wild, exuberant, vain and bombastic at every turn, his exploits always ending in disaster yet never seem to put him down for long enough, certainly not enough to learn from them.
Its not for everyone's taste. It is rather slow-moving most of the time and there are times the models can throw you off a bit (Particularly when the humans show up!) but I'm just happy I could draw some attention to something I loved and admired as a child.
Hope this helps in some way and thank you for reading.
Good Tips
Hey Purple this is good, I'm glad your learning with me :)
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You're welcome, Cherry. Your knowledge of narrative is astounding. I happened to have an essay project on Narrative over the holidays and your blogs could well come in handy.
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Thanks. Hope they help.
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They do help.
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I'm glad to have helped, I do have to inform you about one correction. The Inciting Incident belongs to the "change" category in the story elements. I didn't notice this sooner because my notes were all jumbled.
Right now I'm researching about the three act structure, the first I should have studied, it gives framework to any story.