Currently viewing the tag: "character"
What’s up guys, I’m freaking out about college essays and was wondering about the topic. I was thinking I could do my essay on Walden/thoreau’s philosophy and how that affected me. Would this even fit the topic and if it did does that even sound good? It’s not as boring on paper as it sounds here.
It’s for the schools that I’m majoring in english for so I thought I could do something in literature.
help…i can’t find any decent web sites!!
Tagged with: character • convincing • criteria • Developing • fiction • Literary • necissary • Three
It is when a story talks about a character–it may be an inanimate object too — and it comes alive as though it is a real character. (like those animals in the movie Jhumanji). Can someone tell me what this literary term is? Thanks!
Part Three: Let Your Characters Live
Character development for fiction is an essential step in the writing process and can mean the difference between a work that is welcomed by a publisher and one that is stuffed in the rejection pile. The time you invest in developing three-dimensional characters before you begin writing will reward you with more productive writing time and a stronger story. Just as you would frame up your story with an outline, you need to properly build the characters that bring life to your work.
In the third installment of this four-part series on story character development, we’re taking the fundamental traits, behaviors, and backstories you’ve developed to this point and helping you to push the limits of your characters.
In the previous two articles, we looked at the first four steps in this seven-step process:
1. Label their desire essences
2. Label their fear essences
3. Get specific with your backstory and
4. Describe their current behavior.
Now, we’re ready to step out of the structural mode of novel character development and let these creations stretch their limits and contribute to an exciting story.
5. Raise the stakes: Emotions are extreme
Play in the realm of this extreme when dealing with the fears and ambitions of your characters. These essences are all encompassing; meaning that we spend our lifetimes with them. Don’t cheat your characters by being afraid to raise the stakes as high as you can. Needing to find a precious stone to sell to an art dealer by midnight to raise the financing to save your character’s mother’s house before the bank takes it away from her tomorrow is exciting!
Look back at your own life and think of how seriously you take your essences. When your essences are threatened, will you fight to extremes to defend them? Just as when they are fulfilled, do you enjoy some of your greatest moments in life? Play in the realm of the extreme. Raise the stakes. Your essences are life and death to you
Corey Blake is President of Writers of the Round Table, Inc., a unique literary development and author management company that assists best-selling authors, directors, executives, magazines, publishers and producers to generate writing content of substantial quality and bring it to market. Visit Writers of the Round Table, Inc., to receive a free quote on how we can help you bring YOUR characters to life!
Tagged with: Bring • character • Developing • Development • fiction • Life • People • Real • Secrets • Steps
Part Four: Getting Down to Work
If you’ve read the first three articles in this series, you know that the time investment in fiction character development pays a hefty dividend into the writing process, the quality of your story, and the likelihood of getting accepted. Let’s continue!
So far, we’ve worked through the seven-step process to create convincing, intriguing, and believable characters:
1. Label the Desire Essences of each of your main characters.
2. Label the Fear Essences of each of your main characters.
3. Get specific with your backstory.
4. Describe their current behavior.
5. Raise the stakes.
6. Don’t meddle.
7. Let your characters play.
Now that you’ve got the framework for effective story character development, let’s put this knowledge to work!
Problem
Let’s begin with an underdeveloped couple of characters – a man and a woman in the romantic drama genre. We’ll put these two in a used book shop for their initial meeting and write without developing them:
Rachel entered the bookshop looking around. She needed a book for a dear friend and though she had passed this book shop a million times, she had never been inside. She browsed around for awhile, and then pulled a few books off the shelf trying to find a suitable gift. “Is there anything I can help you with?” said a voice from behind her. She turned to see an attractive young man in his twenties. “Are you looking for anything specific?” he asked. “No,” was her reply. “You’re very pretty,” said the man. “Thank you,” she said blushing.
Solution
Now, after putting these two characters through the story development process of labeling their essences, getting specific and raising the stakes, this is where we stop meddling and we let them truly play:
Rachel entered the bookshop, making a quick visual sweep of the interior. She browsed awhile, scanning the shelves and trying to avoid the other patrons (her desire to hide). Coming around a corner, she caught her reflection in a mirror and surveyed herself for just a moment. She was noting how her baggy jeans and sweatshirt hid her features well, when the classic literature section lured her like a magical door (her desire to live in a different reality). Gently, Rachel pulled a copy of “Leaves of Grass,” from the shelf (her desire to be appreciated for her intellect) and held it gingerly in her hands.
“A woman who enjoys Whitman is hard to find,” said a deep voice from behind her (his desire for connection). Startled, Rachel stumbled back into the shelf (her fear of the opposite sex) before she felt a hand on her arm trying to steady her. She looked up and saw a tall man with a thick crop of curly brown hair and rich, dark eyes looking at her with a mix of concern and amusement.
“I’m sorry if I scared you,” said the stranger, whose warmth only slightly melted her discomfort. “My mother and I used to read Whitman together,” he continued. Rachel stood there, still silent and feeling awkward. “I think that’s where I got my love of reading. How about you?” he asked her. His powerful gaze was penetrating (his high stakes).
“There is little else that I believe in,” she mumbled (her desire to connect). Her eyes never left the floor (her desire to hide is strong).
He nodded. “I love getting so lost in a story that the rest of the world fades away.”
Rachel drew her eyes slowly up from the floor, catching his only briefly before flicking back to the book in her hand. The jitters in her stomach were dancing so wildly that she was amazed her body wasn’t jerking. Although she would normally have shuffled away and avoided any interchange, she found her feet were somehow cemented in this spot, unable to pull away from his presence.
“Would you like to take a walk over to the pub (his need of a drink)?” he asked.
She raised her head (her strong desire for connection vs. fear of the opposite sex and desire to avoid alcohol). “I have to go now (her fear wins).” She darted from the store, the book still in her hand. She peeked back as she ran and saw the young man pull some cash out of his wallet, hand it to the cashier and then begin chasing after her (his need to connect outweighs his fear of rejection).
In this example, you have emotions, behavior, and history driving each subtle action and reaction. Every person is a complex network that should continue to unravel before the eyes of the reader in such a way that each page is compelling them to read on. In depth character development is the key to unlocking this kind of writing! Try to experiment with this novel character development process yourself and see if you too can bring your characters to life on the page!
In the meantime writers, keep your rear in the chair, your fingers on the keys, and your writing reaching for the stars.
Corey Blake the co-author of EDGE! A Leadership Story (Morgan James, 2008), is President of Writers of the Round Table, Inc., a strategic literary development company that assists best-selling authors, award nominated directors, executives, and publishers to generate writing content of substantial quality and bring it to market. Visit Writers of the Round Table, Inc. to receive a free quote on how we can help YOU bring your characters to life!
Tagged with: Bring • character • Developing • Development • fiction • Life • People • Real • Secrets • Steps
The main or lead character in any story is a lynchpin and has very definite qualities. Miss one of these and your story may well grind to a halt! This article takes a look at three crucial aspects of the main character.
The main character in any work of fiction is the one around which the entire story revolves. He or she must possess certain values or abilities if your story is to work, yet many aspiring writers miss one or more of these vital points and become frustrated when their story fails to work as it should. Let’s look at these three key ingredients to our main character:
1. The main character is the one who suffers most as a result of your story’s events.
2. The main character is the one who has the power to change things within the story.
3. The main character is the one with the freedom to change things if they so wish.
In more detail:
1. Let’s say that your main character, Jake, suffers most in your story. He has the freedom of choice to change this suffering but not the power to make it happen. Pretty soon your readers are going to realise that Jake is inept and weak, can’t change a thing and that he must, in the end, surely fail.
2. If on the other hand Jake is the one who suffers most and possesses the power to make it stop but lacks the freedom to do this, the story will fall flat on its face because Jake cannot act and the plot can go nowhere.
3. Finally, if Jake has both power to change things within the story and the freedom to do so but isn’t in jeopardy or doesn’t suffer, the story will lack any form of tension. Jake will also lack any real motive to make any changes you have him perform as he isn’t under any threat or duress. In this scenario the reader is left wondering why Jake has to do anything at all and usually gets bored pretty quickly!
What does this tell us as writers? Answer: that the main character must have a truly proactive role within your story – or he simply cannot be the main character! However, does this make the main character the protagonist? Usually the answer is yes, provided that the main character also acts in a proactive manner.
The protagonist must make things happen. If in your story you merely let the main character react to what his adversary, ‘the opposition’ (the bad guy) is doing, you risk the bad guy becoming the protagonist and your main character slipping into what is essentially a secondary role. This is a danger if the bad guy is particularly charismatic or has very powerful dominating character traits.
The danger here is that the bad guy becomes the lead character, an ‘anti-hero’. This is a very, very difficult line to follow and I would not advise beginners to go down this route. The anti-hero can work if handled expertly – think of Paul Kersey in ‘Death Wish’ or Lestat in ‘The Vampire Chronicles’. Both are anti-heroes but both work due to the expertise of the author. If you have any doubt as to your abilities to pull this off, stick to a good guy hero!
Therefore the main character must seek his story goal, overcoming the bad guy who seeks to thwart this. He must call the shots as to what happens in the story, driving it by being proactive. Incidentally, the bad guy isn’t there just to cause your hero trouble – he has to have his own goal that, to him, is just as valid as the one your lead character has or he risks becoming a ‘cardboard cut-out’ villain whose only role within the story is to give your hero trouble.
This set-up, with main character as the good guy and also acting as the protagonist, is the most popular in fiction simply because it works so well. All other types of main character require a much greater effort to make them work well (if at all) and so seldom work effectively unless handled by a very skilled writer.
In conclusion: for beginners, choose the easiest set-up for your main character as descried above. Learn to do the simple things well – after all, a straightforward plot with good, strong and conventional characters will for a beginner ultimately produce a better finished work than trying to manipulate character types and work with a difficult, laborious storyline. Keep it simple and write it well!
Steve Dempster writes fiction and informative articles for the web. Learn more about how to kickstart your writing career here!
Much of good to great fiction is characterized by character transformation. Usually this occurs in the protagonist, although it may involve more than one person. One might add that much of creative living is similarly played out as the individual is transformed from one type of person to another.
In either narrative, fiction or real life, the protagonist is effected by personal epiphanies, the influence of another, an openness to new experiences, the consequences of having committed an evil act, a religious conversion, acts of volition, participation in military combat, a terrible illness, altruistic behavior, and sometimes even by mere chance.
I would like to illustrate this through two of the three novels by Ayn Rand. She is an author who has never been accepted into the ranks of the literary elite, although her novels have been best sellers for decades, often on college campuses and off, as well. She has authored stage plays, written screenplays, along with three novels and dozens of ideologically oriented essays. Rand is best known for her two last novels: “The Fountainhead,” which was subsequently made into a film, and “Atlas Shrugged.” The second of these would have been made into a screenplay, but for the fact that Rand felt the envisioned screenplay compromised the integrity of her novel. Both of these works have garnered an enormous readership over the years and new editions continue to become published periodically long after her death.
Yet despite this, Rand’s characters are all one-dimensional. They are crafted as good or evil. The good characters have no flaws and represent ideal human beings who never change over time. The evil characters are thoroughly so and have no redeeming factors in the author’s eyes.
In “The Fountainhead,” Howard Roark, the protagonist rapes the heroine to whom he is attracted and they go on to have a passionate affair. For this he is regarded as heroic because of his display of masculinity. Roark is an architect, who regards himself as superior and is depicted as very much an individualist whose values transcend those of the community.
He designs a uniquely creative building that is constructed by those officials responsible for implementing his design, but they approve major changes without his knowledge or approval. When he learns of this he destroys the building by blowing it up. During the trial, the reader is subject to what amounts to a strong “sermon” about individualism and capitalism through the process of his defense. As an ideally crafted character there is never any change in his personality, behavior, or views. Howard Roark is a single dimensional character, yet he has won many admirers since his initial creation by Rand. I might add that many who adulated this fictional character when they were young, became less enchanted with him as they matured.
As for John Galt, the protagonist of “Atlas Shrugged,” he is portrayed by Rand as flawlessly heroic and superior to any human being that anyone is ever likely to encounter in real life. To illustrate, in the latter part of the novel, he is bound by his pursuers who plan to torture him by wiring him so that they can electrify him repeatedly. They seem to be unable to succeed in making the electricity work. Galt, with his outstanding intellect and moral courage cannot resist explaining to his captors why the device is not working and proceeds to explain to them how to fix it so that they can get on with torturing him.
Rand, a committed atheist who looked upon faith with disdain and who places reason as supreme over all other human capacities, creates an almost supernatural character. Galt comes across as omniscient and omnipotent. A large portion of this lengthy novel ends with a non-stop treatise on Rand’s ideology.
Ironically, Ayn Rand, although a one-dimensional thinker, not taken seriously by professional philosophers, was anything but a one- dimensional character in her actual life. She gathered around her a group of people from whom she demanded obedience. Dissension was not tolerated and she ruled the group tyrannically. She was opinionated to the point of being rude, sharp-tongued, and vitriolic when in public debate. It was as though she saw herself as a flawless John Galt. Yet she was subject to depression, seduced a young member of her cultish group, who went on to become a famous psychologist.
He later wrote an autobiography covering this episode. She had a long-term affair with him, way beyond the point that the man wanted to continue, but he was too intimidated by her to sever the relationship with Rand, who was capable of going into rages. By having this affair, she also betrayed the friendship of the man’s young wife. In addition she violated her own marriage vows to a man who drank excessively.
Rand smoked endlessly and eventually died of lung cancer. She presented herself as though she was of heroic proportions, but she was far from flawless and was enigmatic when comparing her fictional heroes to her own life. Their existed a significant discrepancy between her self-image and the real narrative of her life’s story.
I feel obliged to acknowledge that while never a disciple of Rand, I enjoyed reading both “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged,” when in my youth. With the shaping of my own values over time, the development of my literary creed, and the disclosure of Rand’s personal life in separate autobiographies by Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden, who became divorced from one another, I have become disillusioned with her.
These are separate conclusions, as I do not believe that an author’s work should be judged by her personal life, even though one’s private story may provide insight into her fiction, as is the case with Ayn Rand. I view her as a towering, but very flawed figure in both life and literature. But where does one ever find perfection in this life?
Hugh Rosen is the author of Silent Battlefields. Visit his Web site http://www.hughrosen.com to learn more about his novel of second generation Holocaust survivors.
For a lengthy honors-literary project, I need to find a good fiction book wherein the main character has a negative/pessimistic outlook on the problems he’s faced with. I’m comparing to the book ‘The Last Lecture’ by Randy Pausch, so a similar scenario to that would be very nice. Other good quick fiction reads are great for me-I just need to find the right book. Anyone have any ideas?
About
The Writers' Corner is dedicated to providing the tips and resources required for developing a career as a professional writer.Stuff We Like