Fiction Writing 101: Characters

You've got to care about your characters.  If you don't, your readers won't.  In fact, you've got to love your characters.  Even the ones who do bad things. And it's the details--significant and particular details-- that make characters feel real.  The details add to the credibility of the character. How characters behave also adds to credibility.  For example, a nun usually acts differently than a stockbroker.  But it's the writer's job to let the reader know what behavior is appropriate for a character.  Maybe there is a nun who behaves like a stockbroker, and maybe there is a stockbroker who behaves like a nun.  I doubt the latter especially, but the writer would have to reveal the appropriateness of the character's behavior through appearance, tone, action, or details in order to convince me that a stockbroker behaves like a nun. Of course, this information isn't imparted like a list to be checked off (this is discussed in my post about telling v. showing).  It's best for this information to be implied through appearance, tone, action, or detail.

Details and the appropriateness of behavior add to a character's credibility.  The character also needs a purpose.  The reader wants to identify with the character, and what the character wants will determine how much the reader identifies and sympathizes with the character.  We can relate to characters who are criminals because we can identify with their desires:  revenge, money, love, hate, greed and so on.  Yes, characters are complex, and that's necessary because characters need to show contradictions.  They must possess a range of possibilities. They can and must conflict with other characters and situations, but convincing characters must also conflict with themselves.  And they need to be capable of change.

When a character is given a chance to do something or is faced with a choice, this moment triggers a movement, and the character acts. This act is revealing a change that's occurring in the character.  Hooray!  Yes, this isn't like real life. In real life when many people are confronted by chances or choices, they are simply paralyzed by fear. But, my dear readers, you aren't writing real life. You're writing fiction.

To end this post, here's something Anne Lamott said about characters: You are probably going to have to let bad things happen to some of the characters you love or you won't have much of a story.  Bad things happen to good characters because our actions have consequences, and we do not all behave perfectly all the time.