The Importance of Character

One of the oddest stories I’d ever had to critique was about the unexpected death of an elderly woman. The characters walked around the corpse as if it was simply a tacky looking table- something to talk about in passing, but nothing so important that it need distract from their very important problems.

The writing was good. The story idea seemed interesting. But I couldn’t stop wondering how self-absorbed these characters were to allow a person to lie rotting as they pondered about their lives. In fact, not one seemed alarmed, disgusted, sad, or had any natural response at all. Not to mention the corpse didn’t give off any foul odors.

Credibility aside, the author didn’t have a grasp on basic human psychology.  If you’re going to write…going to create believable, interesting characters for your stories…you need to understand what makes people tick, and your characters in specific.

Let me demonstrate another example. Many times in the writing classes I teach, people have a “bad guy.” Someone they consider to be the main antagonist. Often times this “bad guy” does horrible, nasty things to other hapless souls in the story. Maybe he attacks someone with a knife. Or starts saying horrible things to someone while at work. At any rate, he’s a big meanie, and everyone around is horrified.

“Why does he kill her?” I might ask my student.

“Because he’s a bad guy. He doesn’t like blonds.”

“Why doesn’t he like blonds?” I ask.

(Eyes rolling as if I just don’t get it.) “Because he’s a bad guy.”

That’s not enough. Even the nastiest of jerks have a reason for doing what they do. People don’t wake up in the morning, have a great breakfast, kiss their wife or husband good-bye as they leave for work and then say to themselves, “Hm. Today I guess I’ll be cruel and kick small puppies.”

In fact, most “bad guys” don’t think they’re bad at all. Even Hitler felt he was doing good in the world. I doubt if you’d asked him why he committed genocide he’d say, “Because I’m a bad guy.”

Motivation is the key to character. What makes your “bad guy” do what he does? What brought him to this point? Who was he when he was young? What good things happened to him? What terrible things? What is he afraid of? What is he confident about? (I’m using he for simplification purposes, but there are plenty of wonderful “bad” female characters out there as well.)

Likewise, why does your antagonist do what he does? How does he respond when he walks into a room with a dead body? Why does he respond that way? What goes through his mind. And please don’t tell me he sets his drink on the stomach and walks to a mirror to check if there’s spinach between his teeth. Because I won’t buy it. Unless it’s a parody or farce and meant to be ridiculous. And even then I might not find it funny.

When you write about your character, think about his psychology. If he’s the squeamish type who avoids anything unpleasant, he might turn around and leave a room that holds a rotting corpse. If he’s an entomologist, he might check the body for bugs. If the body is a dear old aunt, he’ll probably go into shock and become inconsolable. Who is your character? How do you think he’d behave. Then ask yourself, “Why?”

If you don’t know why, then you don’t know who you’re dealing with, and neither will your reader.

This entry was posted on 21. May 2010 at 19:31 and is filed under Writing Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.