“Developing and Evolving Series Characters

Many writers work with series characters, characters who come on-stage and show up again and again in sequel after sequel, story after story.  We’re talking here about all kinds of characters, from James Bond to Tom Swift, Jr. to John Connor in the Terminator movies.  This is particularly common in television, even film.  Working with characters who continue from one story to another is both rewarding and challenging.  In my own work, I’ve done this enough (see Johnny Winger in my Tales of the Quantum Corps) to have come up with some do’s and don’ts about how to make it all work.

1. Know your character well.  I like to do extensive bios. In previous posts, I’ve shared some details about how to write character bios.  I do a physical description, then a chronological rundown of key events in their lives, then a few paragraphs on their personality and character.  Nothing special and I don’t do it for every character, just the main ones.  But in the end, I know this person pretty well and more importantly, I have something to refer back to and to help me stay consistent with this character across multiple stories.  And sometimes, the details will suggest plot twists and turns themselves.  Do this.
2. Keep your notes.  Refer back to them.  In any long series of stories, like Tales of the Quantum Corps or Nanotroopers, you can never remember all the details. Yet consistency and accuracy are critical.  Readers and reviewers love to point out inconsistencies. In one story, Tom has blond hair.  In the next story, he has brown hair.  What happened?  Hair transplant, Grecian formula or writer laziness?  You be the judge. 
3. Lay out the arc of your character’s development and change beforehand. Give him or her  increasingly difficult challenges.  The simple word for this is planning.  Try to sketch out and write down how you want your main character to change or evolve.  We all change.  Lionel started out an introvert but he managed to overcome this and became a great inspiring leader.  How did this happen?  List some details of scenes and challenges that caused this change, including how Lionel responded.  You don’t have to write a psychological treatise but a little prep goes a long way in keeping you on track.  I can’t emphasize this enough.  I seriously doubt you can maintain a consistent and consistently engaging character over a series without some forethought. 
4. Ask questions of your character.  ‘Interview’ him (or her).  I don’t actually do this but I heard of this technique from a fellow writer and I offer it as a possibility.  Pretend you’re a reporter and you’re interviewing your main character for an article.  Ask penetrating questions: “Why, Colonel Johnny Winger, did you actually decide to join the Quantum Corps in the first place.”  This might actually be a better approach than what I described in (1) above.
5. Add some idiosyncracies but don’t go overboard.  Idiosyncracies are defined as a structural or behavioral peculiarity, from the Greek word idios, meaning peculiar.  You want your main character to be memorable in some way, without giving him two heads or a club foot or the ability to speak a hundred languages, unless all that is germane to the story.  TV writers and shows are notorious for giving series characters ticks or odd quirks or mannerisms that become comfortable to long time viewers but are easy to ridicule and make fun of.  Think Columbo and his rain coat and his lisp.  Maybe this is ‘acting’ but I call it literary laziness.  Writers can do better.  In written entertainment, they’d better be more creative.  Idiosyncracies are fine but they shouldn’t take over the character, at the expense of behavior and character evolution. 
6. Are your primary characters different enough to be distinguishable?  Ask yourself this: what do we remember about Pinocchio?  His long nose.  Do we remember anything about his character or why he has a long nose?  Not so much.  A main series character should be memorable and distinguishable by what he does and what he says and how he reacts.  Often, I portray characters with only minimal physical description, letting the reader form their own opinion from dialogue and narrative.  In your planning, make sure you give your main characters different enough trajectories so that the reader doesn’t confuse one with another.  This means developing and describing different life experiences and different ways of reacting to those experiences.  Just like real life!
7. A word about names.  One of my favorite sources of names is a map or an atlas.  Cities and towns, in many countries, are often named for people.  Don’t bother with phone books.  Scan the newspapers or a map.  Most people have common names.  How many Smiths or Jones are there?  Give your main character a name that doesn’t cause eyes to. roll, that rolls off your tongue, that doesn’t have obvious symbolic or pornographic overtones and that wouldn’t make high schoolers snicker in English Lit class.  Okay, so maybe Johnny Winger isn’t the best choice, but it sounds (to my ear) local, approachable, all-American, and primed for action.  That’s what I wanted to convey.  Nothing more.
    
   That’s it for now.  Remember: series characters require some forethought and planning.  It’s easy to get bogged down in trying to be consistent but if you don’t try, your readers will lose faith in your ability to tell a good story and they may wind up even laughing at your hard work and using the book as a paper weight.
    
   The next post to The Word Shed comes on November 20.  In this post, I’ll lay out some early details for a prospective new series of novelette-length stories called Time Jumpers.  Look for it.
    
   See you then.
    
   Phil B.