Characters

Hello again, to all of my nonexistent readers! Since I'm imagining you, I've decided that you're all very happy, interested, and polite. Ah, such dreams.

Now, I'm sure it seems obvious to some of you that characters are very important in fiction. In my imaginary-land where all of you live, you're all slapping your hands to your foreheads and waiting for me to get on with it. But just in case there are some non-imaginary people out there, I'll elaborate.

To summarize why characters are so important: characters sell the story. If your characters suck (to be very frank), the plot won't really matter that much. You can have the best plot in the world, but if the characters are merely floating around there with nothing to do with it, it won't work. You might as well just write down a random sequence of events. Or, if you're like certain specific authors who shall remain nameless but automatically just to my mind, you nix the plot completely so that it matches your lack of characters.

Some of you are probably thinking that it's really hard to have a good plot without characters in the first place, since characters are the ones doing all the actions. You have done well, young grasshoppers. This is quite true for character-driven plots, but that term does not apply to all stories. Some plots can be very exciting without requiring a decent character.

So what do I mean by a decent character? I'm glad you asked. Of course, since I'm imagining you, I knew you would.

Not every character has to be completely developed. Stock characters do actually have their uses. It's mainly the protagonist(s), antagonist(s), and other supporting characters. Do you have to know the entire history of the servant who appears in Chapter Two to tell the main character and his friend that dinner's ready? Of course not. Should you know the main character's history? Absolutely.

But the character's history is only one part of it. Generally, another large portion of it is their motivation. Why does this character act this way? The two may sound unrelated, but people's histories influence their actions. People learn from experience. Ideally, at least. Maybe the main character's mother died when he was young, and so he has spent his whole life trying to prove himself to his grieving father. A classic example of history influencing motivation is the old revenge story. Family is murdered, son goes off to avenge their deaths and "right the wrong", introduce love interest/further complications, etc. Now we're getting back into plot. I'll talk more about plot tomorrow or Wednesday or whenever I get around to it. You don't care. You're imaginary.

We, as writers, must try to make our characters as realistic as possible. As I said when discussing the God Complex, writers can be surprised when their characters do something unexpected. That's because they're like real people. Sort of like you, only they're actually believable. While history and motivation are two large parts of a character, they're not the only parts. There are so many different facets of the human psyche that I can't list them all here. There are aspects of human thought that not even the experts understand. As if having the patience to write 200 pages isn't enough, now we have to create something that scientists don't even understand. Feeling lucky? I hear McDonald's is hiring.

I can't really teach you how to create believable characters via blog. There's no magic formula. The best way is simply to observe people and how they behave. Look at the way they dress, the way they speak, the way they move. Then try to figure out why. There are thousands of explanations for why people do what they do and even if you don't find the right one, it's valuable practice. Just make sure that when you're watching people that you're not doing it in a way that could possibly result in a lawsuit, jail time, or a fine.