Young Writers Society

I really want to make my characters believable, but I'm having problems. I want the readers to really get involved with my characters, and feel his or her pain and sadness, and happiness. Well you get the point. Anyways, I hope to get some good advice.

Raye

Ah, good question!

A lot of this has to do with character development, which YWS even has a user group for! You should go check that out, it will help you understand your character.

Your characters have to be rounded, 3-D and in depth to be "real". I can't give a whole lot on that, just work with the character development. But as for feeling with them, that can be done through how you write as well as how real your characters are. Their problems have to be something the reader can relate to, or a common feeling. and when you describe it don't say, "He was afraid" describe how it made him feel. Body language is an amazing tool. When you speak with someone a lot of it is body language, not what they actually say--the same can be applied to writing. Use metaphors to explain emotion.

It's kind of hard until you really understand how to go about it, but after lots of practice you will get the hang of it! For me, my characters are real when they seem like real people to me, you know? They aren't just someone on paper, they really exist, with real emotions and reactions.


Hope this helped!

Hello Flying Dream,

I've cobbled together tutorials and writing tips by me and other YWS-ers which go into detail on how to develop or make your characters more real.

Five Tips for Fantastic Characters by Snoink

Mysterious Characters by Snoink

Feminine Characters by Snoink

SLAM DOWN! (On Bratty Characters) by Snoink

Casting Sessions: On Character Development by DreamDeep

Character Skeletons and Conflict Charts by Writersdomain

Cal's Hyde Corner Soapbox, Soapbox Oration #3 (The Characters) by Caligula's Launderette


This is a list Writersdomain posted on someone's thread about characterization.

Writersdomain wrote:I thought I should give a few tips...

1. Dialogue. How does your character say the things they say? Are there pauses? What exact words do they use? Try to convey your character's personality through their dialogue. It's the difference between a character saying "I'm exhausted." and "I'm going to fall down dead if I take another freaking step!"

2. Description. Ah, the glorious word. Describe your characters's expressions, the way they say things. Distinguish their body language, the look in their eyes from the other characters.

3. Time. Take the time to characterize them. Don't sacrifice characterization for action. Don't rush through whatever you are writing; write it patiently, recording all the things you imagine happening. Then you can go back and cut it. Rushing can kill characters.

4. Other's reactions to them. How do the other characters regard your character? What do they say about him/her? Are they friends or worst enemies? If so, then why are they like that? These are some things to consider when characterizing.

Hope this helps,
Cal.

I want the readers to really get involved with my characters, and feel his or her pain and sadness,

I know you say happiness after this, but pain and sadness...these are good things to know, but let me put it this way- you've seen those re-runs of news footage from 9/11, right? Those never fail to make me cry and feel miserable for hours. It never fails to make my mom cry and feel miserable for hours with me, and I'm pretty sure my friends feel the same way. However, talking writing with YWS friends over IM about plots an characters with chewy Sprees in hand makes me euphoric, although most people would think it torture. That's the idea. What makes a person happy is much, much more individualized than what makes people in pain or sad, and so it makes for a lot more interesting characters.

Also, the pressure to 'feel their pain' also creates the pressure to be angsty. Never angst; frankly, it's not attractive in blogs and it's definitely not attractive in fiction [there are exceptions, I'll warrant, but for the most part it's whiny and annoying, unless you are twelve and think it's 'deep'].

But! Enough rambling about pain. ^_~ Here are [in my opinion] my most sage, Wise Woman of the Forest advice for characters, somewhat random:

- All characters- even your most liberal, left-wing rebels- are products of their culture and environment. The next unhappy arranged historical marriage that I see cause a fictional 'heroine' to bolt will end, happily, with the writer's head on a guillotine. Savvy?

So- that being said, make sure that your rebels with out a cause, er...actually have a cause. They need a reason to dissent, they need a reason to break norms. We've been studying Kohlberg's Moral Development in Civics- basically, people who are working to better a system are 'highly developed', more so than people who blithely follow tradition. Such an advanced development deserves believability, right?

- Don't make your characters contradictions (or trite ones, at that). "Whore with a heart of gold" has been done before, usually badly. Hit us with something we've not seen, if you're going for contradiction. Speaking of such topics...there are some amazingly tasteless people out there, but not everyone has the power to be amazingly confident and seductive. Actually, I'm pretty certain no one does. No completely "smooth talking"- or I get to bonk people over the head.

- Avoid "bad guys vs. good guys". This makes people favor one over the other- or intends to. This is bad, because usually people will like the bad guys better, and then all of your heroes trials are for naught. The hero ceases to be cool or amazing or whatever and simply becomes annoying.

- Don't tell us all about the character write away. I told someone else that it's like telling someone your full name, address, political affiliation, and birth weight when you first meet them. You make friends gradually, right? We should be making friends with your character. Peace, harmony...zen reading. ^_~

Ach, it's late...I shall edit more in tomorrow when I can think straight. ^_^

Thanks everyone for your great advice, I'll start writing right away (if I don't have too much homework to do)

Making your characters real is a magic you'll have to find in yourself. Just write. Just keep at it. If it's really what you love, it'll come.

Role play, role play, role play.

I like to think of myself as being reasonably skilled in regards to characterization, and I swear it's because I've spent so much time playing play-by-post role playing games. If that's not your thing, or you can't find someone to play with, try using LiveJournal or something similar (or just a Word document or plain ol' paper and pencil) to keep a diary for your characters. Interview them on paper; I know there are questionnaires all over the internet designed just for this sort of thing. (Here's one.)

If they're part of a larger work, such as a novel-in-progress, don't shy away from using them in short stories, even if the stories don't even take place in the same 'verse as they're originally from. I have a lot of fun role playing "out of context" games with my friend; we both take our characters and put them somewhere random together. (So far, they've been to a hotel for Christmas and an animé convention.) It's good practice for getting to know them. You can also pick a situation ("What if _____?") and write mini stories about each of them reacting to the situation. (The "writing activity" board has a lot of these sort of things, check it out!)

Finally, check out the character creation usergroup.

Ya, I'm with Meep on the role playing thing. It really helps. Also, there's a great book called "What would your character do?" by Ann and Eric Maisel, which really helps, as it does all these personality quizzes, and asks thought-provoking questions, and tells you what your answers say about your character.