So now I’m hoping that you have some idea of what a character is, how it functions, the round/flat static/dynamic spectrum, and (here’s what really matters) at least a modicum of knowledge about how to make a character do what you want it to do. This week I’m giving you some tips on how to keep your character from getting away from you, and how to make sure that they’re projecting the personality that you want them to project.
A fictional character can get the better of its author in a number of ways, but the most common way that characters have of escaping your control is by turning into somebody you know, or worse yet by turning into you.
Hemingway could get away with writing characters who were basically Hemingway because, in spite of his tremendous unpopularity with feminist audiences (and probably the root cause of that dislike), Hemingway was a stupendous badass with giant brass balls who killed large animals and fascists, and who slept with lots and lots of beautiful women. The same is true of Ian Fleming, who wrote the James Bond books based on exploits he had when he was actually working as a secret agent. These men were not your average author and stories about characters who were thinly-veiled versions of the author were still interesting to read because the authors were interesting characters themselves.
John Irving, though, is not very interesting. He’s a writer who has been a writer for a long time; the narrators of his stories tend to be writers and many of them are named John – they also mostly live in New England, encounter bears, have strange experiences at hotels and are fixated with wrestling in one way or another. John Irving’s Johns are boring, so he does the smart thing and makes the book about the interesting characters (Owen Meany, Fran, State of Maine, Freud, Jenny Fields, Roberta Muldoon) who surround the various faceless, clever-but-boring Johns who tell the stories in his books. You, however, are probably not as smart as John Irving and if you are you still probably haven’t written as many books as he has, so you’re not at a point where you can write yourself into your novel.
The problem with writing yourself as a fictional protagonist is that you’ll find the character slowly becoming the coolest, most awesome, smartest, prettiest, most fashionable version of you, which I’m sure will be wonderfully masturbatory for you to read, but which will bore the tits off of anyone who is looking at your book going “why the hell is the main character here supposed to be so awesome – he hasn’t even done anything.” If anyone who reads your fiction says this to you, congratulations, you have written a Mary Sue, and if you’re not outright insulted just by reading that please make note that the term was spawned by Star Trek FanFic and see why what you’ve done is terrible by clicking that link and realizing that you’re an asshole.
Mary Sues are the worst mistakes that inexperienced (and some experienced) authors make, and they almost uniformly piss off audiences. A Mary Sue is a character that is good at everything without working for it, amuses or fascinates other characters even though the Mary Sue is dull, they’re given tremendous license by the author and the other characters to throw hissy fits and participate in damaging behaviors, they have few flaws and the flaws that they have are minor and endearing, they break all the rules of the universe the author has written them into, and they usually end up getting everything that they want. There are actually a lot of things that contribute to the Mary Sue-ness of a character and the reason a lot of writers accidentally create Mary Sues is because they want an everyman character, someone the audience can relate to who isn’t an outstanding person but manages to do outstanding things – it’s a fantasy that many readers will be drawn to at a superficial level.
If all of that sounds appealing for your character, consider that the most famous Mary Sue character in the fiction world right now is Bella Swan of the Twilight Series: she’s clumsy, suicidal and self destructive, boring as sin, comes from a broken home, and for all of that manages to fascinate the like omygod totally hottest immortal male lead, be the center of a love triangle, have the first human-vampire hybrid child that anyone knows of, and live happily ever after as a bloodsucker who doesn’t take human life. Mary. Fucking. Sue.
But enough ranting. So why shouldn’t you make a character based on other people you know? After all, just last week I was telling you to observe the people in your life and write their traits into characters, so wouldn’t a whole character based on a real person be awesome? No.
Let’s pretend that you’re writing an abusive boyfriend into a story. You’ve decided that he’s a younger version of the German professor you had sophomore year, the one who made a girl cry in class and gave you a D and called students morons on a regular basis. Mr. Deutschmeister sounds like a real asshole, so he’s the perfect basis for an asshole character – except for one thing: you already hate Mr. Deutschmeister. Because you already hate this prick you’re less likely to spend any time convincing your audience to hate this prick. Every time you read what you’ve written you can hear his snarky voice boring into your skull and belittling you, but your audience can’t. Every time your character smacks his girlfriend you’re seeing Mr. Deutschmeister’s hands and frame and snarling face with the perfect clarity of rage-fueled memory – a memory your audience doesn’t share and can’t relate to. But Mr. Deutschmeister is a good start – you know what kinds of behaviors he had that pissed you off, you know the kinds of things he would say to hurt students, so all you have to do is have your character do and say those kinds of things in the character’s body and voice, not Mr. Deutschmeister’s.
Alternately, let's say you're writing a female lead or love interest, and let's say that you think your girlfriend is the perfect platform for a heroine. That's great, you adore your girlfriend and I'm sure you're very happy. We don't know your girlfriend and we probably won't see her strengths the way that you do because you know her as a whole person with flaws and secrets and passion and humanity while we only know those traits that you chose to share with us - which will probably not include the most interesting or damaging things about your girlfriend (because if you put those in a book she has every right to kick you in the nuts) that would make us sympathetic to or admiring of a character. But you know that your girlfriend has a great sense of humor, tremendous integrity and a gentleness that you would like to build into your character, so start with a fresh character and allow those qualities to infuse her without overwhelming her: if your character has a unique voice that is separate from the people you know it will be stronger and more independent as a character than it would be as an homage to a person.
This gets us to the problem of voice – how the hell do you get a character to sound like someone who isn’t you and who isn’t someone you know? That’s both very hard and very easy – you get to know them as an independent entity, in exactly the same way your audience will eventually get to know them. This works well if you have a plot planned – you meet your character as you drop them into this plot and watch them jump through the hoops that you’ve set up, you let them solve problems the way that THEY want to solve them, not the way that you do, and you let them evolve to meet challenges. A good character can become powerful enough to completely derail your plot, which can be good or bad – if they take the plot in a direction that undermines what you’re trying to write then you’ll probably want to revise the character a little, but if they hijack the plot into a new and better direction than the one you had planned you’ll probably see the value of changing a plot to better serve your character.
Characters are hard to write, and the best ones are like siblings – they can irritate the living shit out of you, but they’re there when you need them and they’ll do what they can to help you out. Try as hard as you can to keep your characters independent and not products of narcissism, blind admiration, or revenge and they’ll serve you well.
So to review:
Don’t make a character out of you.
Don’t make a character (entirely) out of someone you know.
Keep your characters relatable but realistic – they have to have our sympathy but they can’t be perfect.
Let your character become its own entity.
Don’t let your character overwhelm your plot.
Keep your characters as round or flat, or as static or dynamic as you intend them to be.
Characterize with what you’ve learned from the world around you.
Practice characters all the time by building up a stable of bit characters.
Have fun getting to know these little strangers.
Thanks for reading and I’ll be back next week with a new topic – voice as stain, the indelibility of a good literary voice.
If you get bored between now and then, check out these cool Mary Sue character tests and see how your characters stack up (please remember that the Mary Sue concept started in FanFic so some of the questions will seem strange) – though feel free to disregard the results; a personality test isn’t necessarily any more valid for your character than another one would be for you.
OnlyFiction Mary Sue Test
KatFeete Mary Sue Test
Ponylandpress Mary Sue Test
Anyway, cheers until next week,
-Alli
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