Post #220 July 13 2020

“What Makes a Believable Character?

Think of your favorite stories, the most memorable stories.  Chances are that one reason they’re so memorable is the characters.  They speak to you.  You can put yourself in their place.  You can live what they live, endure what they endure.  Literature has many stories with memorable characters: Captain Ahab, Huck Finn, Holden Caulfield, Luke Skywalker (well, maybe not that one), Portnoy, etc.  These fictional creations are memorable and believable for a reason.  Let’s look at some of those reasons, as a way of peeking behind the curtains of the storyteller’s craft.

As a current American storyteller, I find at least three reasons why literary characters endure in our imaginations.

1. Details matter.  Literary characters, imaginary people all of them, are conveyed to us largely through the details of their lives.  They have specific traits, specific physical descriptions.  “He had the long head of a horse, complete with a mane of hair and flaring nostrils.”  Paints a picture, doesn’t it? Maybe not a pretty one, but one vivid and easily seen in your mind’s eye.  Writers should imbue their characters with the same vivid details.  “He was a twitchy little rat of a man.”  I used that one to describe a character in a recent short story.  Do enough background development so you can describe your character in some kind of memorable way.  Often this doesn’t require a lot of words or text, just well-chosen words.  When you look into your imagination and see this person, what do you see?  One way to practice this is to mentally describe people you see on the street, converting what your eyes sees into words.
2. Readers can identify with the character.  Put your character into situations that people can identify with…a divorce, a trip to the dentist, selling a house, confronting a car thief.  Then, once you know your fictional creations well enough, describe what they do and how they react.  One key aspect of memorable characters is contriving to make them seem real, putting them into places and times similar to what your readers have experienced.  Similarity and familiarity go a long way toward helping your readers feel disposed to follow your character as they encounter whatever you throw their way.  In my recently published sf novel Monument, I deal with two architects with outsized egos.  In this story, I show both of them involved in conferences with sponsors and patrons and all the compromises they have to make with these sponsors to see their architectural vision realized.   How often have you been involved in meetings and conferences and briefings where your brilliant idea is watered down, kicked around like a football, and sliced to pieces?  By involving these characters in such a seemingly familiar setting, even though it’s hundreds of years in the future and involves building new worlds, the reader finds something ‘normal’ and familiar to hang on to.
3. Believable and consistent response.  Nothing turns off a reader faster than a character who responds to a problem one way in Chapter 3 and a completely differently way in Chapter 8, without some intervening reason to explain the difference.  Readers like to be able to predict how a character will respond to a challenge.  It’s okay to have your character respond in a way that isn’t so usual, as long as you’ve laid the groundwork for that earlier.  One of the great pleasures of reading stories is to be able to put yourself vicariously into the mind and body of a character who’s undergoing something that would never happen to us…in other words, to live something new and different and exciting through that character.  But to be able to do that, the character has to be believable and consistent.  I might not react the way Joe Shmoh reacts but, if sketched properly, I can sort of understand why Joe reacted the way he did.  It makes sense.  I understand it, even if I don’t agree.  One way to achieve this consistency is to give your character a bio before you even start the story.  I’m a big believer in doing extensive bios for my main characters.  As a storyteller, it gives me something to hang a character on, and a way to enforce consistency throughout the story.  In fact, with a bio done beforehand, it’s easy to have Joe Shmoh wind up in a predicament and tell the reader that the situation reminds him of….and that’s where you paste in a few sentences from the bio you did weeks before.  It’s very satisfying to be able to do this.
    
   Below is a brief description of one of the main characters in my novel The Farpool.  His name is Chase Meyer.

Age: 18

Height: 6’0”

Weight: 165lbs

Hair: Blond brown, wave on top, short on the sides, has a lock that he combs down over his right eye.  Sort of a surfer look, circa 22^nd century Florida.

Face: faint blond beard and moustache, blue eyes, scar above right eye due to fishing accident, chin dimple (not easily seen), big ears

Other Distinguishing Features:  broad shoulders and thin waist of a competition swimmer; big feet; girls at AHS sometimes call him “Flip”, short for Flipper, since he’s a natural and powerful swimmer; friends sometimes make a play on his name by saying “Chase is the place”; long, pianist fingers. Has an artistic bent, is good with the guitar and a hybrid musical instrument called a go-tone (sort of a cross between a guitar and a violin).  Tall and lanky (think Michael Phelps).

 

Memorable characters should have detail, something a reader can identify with, and consistency. In other words, they should be like you and me.  Time spent describing and developing these imaginary people will pay big dividends when the day comes to start writing your story.

The next post to The Word Shed comes on July 20.

See you then.

Phil B.