My Characters

A friend asked me: "How do you come up with your characters?"

I fear my answer will be quite unsatisfactory. They just come.

Usually, a story idea starts with a "What if x happened?"
Or, because I mostly write Fantasy: "What if a place existed where X had happened or Y was real?"

Then, usually, I world build. As a person is influenced by their environment, my character is in equal parts dependent on the social structure, ethnic identity (and it's relation to the existing powers and history)and the characters' own psychology, home life. So I start with the world.

The character is a "what if such a person existed in this world? and if they had to overcome this particular dilema, how would it play out?"

Then, I sit back and go for the ride, so to speak. On the page, enhanced by the character's perspective, convictions and so forth, the world and character come alive.

So it is partially conscious, but half of the character comes out in the process of writing. Sometimes the pieces fall together in a completely unexpected way. Then revision becomes imperative. Sometimes the characters take on more qualities and different personalities/complexities in the process of revising than reveal themselves in the first draft.

I know this sounds vague, but it's all that can be said. As Melissa and I discussed last week, the personality of characters is largely affected by the mental state of the writer. Things change day to day, or over time. Like dreams, writing seems to tap the subconscious. So while writing daily can make the "subconscious" easier to tap, the precise interaction between the two is hard to explain. Honestly, i wouldn't be surprised if it worked differently for every writer. Hope this answers the question!

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Posted in: characters,inspiration,writing

Characters in Pain

This is inspired by the most recent installment of David Farland's e-newsletter "A Daily Kick in the Pants."

So first, a minor recap:

Farland states that the best way to make readers sympathize with characters is to put them in pain and then force them to confront said pain.   He says that American readers don't like characters who suffer from self-inflicted pain.  Apparently, we like only characters that are hurt by others and find a way to deal.

I'm not going to argue with this.  Not really.   But I do think that characters suffering psychologically are more real than those who are merely react to those around them.  But the best way to convey psychological issues is to have characters undergo self-inflicted trials.  I love it when an author can take a character, shove said character through crap and have them suffer internally, only to reach the main goal despite their shortcomings. I don't want a character who can triumph and remain unscarred at the end.  I don't want to read a character who changes only for the better.

I love escapist literature. Still, I take the more realistic characters more seriously.  We can't overcome everything.  So give me a character, scarred and likely to never fully heal, but who will face all of his/her trials and come out on top. That will make me feel that I, lowly and struggling, can reach my goals as well.  These characters can provide therapy in escape.

--Drea

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Posted in: characters,David Farland,painting,writing

Distraction

Last night, as seems to happen every so often, I found myself wandering back to Arylle. This is always a bad idea as it inevitably makes me lose interest in whatever other characters I should be working on, but somehow knowing this never stops me. Worse yet, last night I chose the last three chapters of the book, not only renewing my infatuation with the story, but leaving me an emotional cripple as well.
What is it about this story? These people? Is it really just narcissism, since they are so much a part of me – sharing my neuroses and fears to such an extent that the book might be considered a roadmap to my soul? Is it because I grew up on them, learned to write through them, experienced so much of life while toiling to create those pages? Or is it like a high school romance that will always hold a place in your heart because it was your first?

Ultimately, it’s a story about wanting what you can’t have (or what reason says you can’t have). It’s about the fear of being alone. It’s about love. Almost everything that happens was ripped off from somewhere else or lifted from my life. Some of this is obvious (Riorac’s facial numbness), and some is more difficult to discern (the reason behind Arylle’s fear of blood). All of the characters have a little bit of me in them, plus a little bit of what I’d like to be. Perhaps that’s why they’re so dear to me?

I wrote this book because it was my favorite story in the world, but it hadn’t been written yet, so I decided that I’d take up the challenge (and if that’s not the most egotistic statement ever, I’d be surprised). I know that it will take time for Aya’s Wings to compare, even if I think that the overall quality of the story is already better. I don’t know the lines by heart yet. I don’t know the path of the story like the steps to my house. Right now, there’s a lot of fumbling and faith. But Arylle is complete (or almost complete, since everything could always use one more look through). I wonder if it would take publishing for me to finally be able to let go of her?

-Melissa

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Posted in: characters,finishing,starting over,writing

Progress Report

I’ve actually been on a writing kick lately, which is extraordinary (to say the least). The manuscript of Aya’s Wings has grown to fifty-two pages, which may not seem like much, but for me it’s quite a ways. I started this thing last September, seven months ago, and while I’m pleased with and proud of what I’ve written so far, it’s often been a paragraph at a time.

I’m not sure what inspired this latest binge. Last week was Spring Break, so I had more time to write, but if anything, having more free time usually brings my writing to a standstill. I want to write most during finals week, the night before a big paper is due, etc. So maybe it started a couple of weeks ago when I had a family therapy midterm? Or maybe now that I’m out of the first couple of chapters, where everything is new and I’m still feeling my way around a strange world where not all of the rules have been formed yet, things will be a little easier?

Maybe I’m finally falling in love with the characters. I have an unfortunate tendency to get attached to them, and when Arylle was finished it felt almost like betrayal to write about other people. But with every page I’m adoring Amarinne and crushing on Narun more and more. I don’t think anyone will ever replace the first cast of characters I ever wrote about, but I’m starting to have fun with these guys.

I also needed to let go of Arylle and realize that, imperfections though the story may have, I’m satisfied with it and think that it’s about as good as it is going to get. Strange timing, when my mother just asked me yesterday, as she listened to the furious clicking of my keyboard, “What are you doing?”

“Writing,” I said, my usual one-word response.

“Again? You’ve been doing a lot of that.”

“Yeah, I’m finally getting into it again.”

“Aren’t you finished with it yet?”

“No, this is my second book. The first one is finished.”

“Well rather than starting on something else, aren’t you going to try to publish that one?”

“Not right now.” I don’t understand why it’s so hard to fathom that I might have other interests than slogging through query letters and summaries. Why can’t I be happy with my completed project? Is publishing the only way to make it matter? What matters to me is that here is something I started when I was thirteen years old; I’ve written it and rewritten it, and now I’m finally happy with it and feel like I’ve accomplished something. Doing research on the market and sucking up to various heads of industry would spoil the experience for me. That’s the grunt work, for me, and maybe someday I’ll be willing to put my head down and do it, but that day isn’t now. Right now, Arylle is done. Aya’s Wings is just beginning. And I’m looking forward to seeing it through.

-Melissa

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Posted in: characters,inspiration,writing

Character Ingredients

I only have time for a quick post this evening, but I'd like to use it to share a quote from Isabel Allende that I've had written on a scrap of paper and shoved in a desk drawer for many years now. When asked what she believes every character needs, she said, "A complete biography, a defined personality, and an individual voice."

I'm not the best at any of these things; I tend to let the story draw it out by force (e.g. if I dropped Amarinne in a pool of sharks, what memories would she draw upon, what aspects of self would be revealed, and what choice words would she utter? Rather than meditate on these things without a specific situation as background).

Allende, of course, seems to have no difficulty in following her own suggestions, as her characters are some of the most vivid I've ever encountered in books. For me, though, it's advice to fall back on when I'm stuck.

-Melissa

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Posted in: Allende,characters,inspiration

Faces

I’m pretty bad at visualizing things. When it comes to writing, this means that although I don’t have difficulty with superficial physical characteristics (long black hair, deep blue eyes, etc), I’m hopeless at putting it all together in my mind and knowing what my characters actually look like.

Years ago, I tried to draw them, but unless my stories were populated with misshapen lumps, it didn’t do me much good. When I write, I see the scene happening in my mind. If I can’t see the characters clearly, I can’t accurately transcribe what they’re doing.

This weekend, I realized that I had lost several hours to scouring google images for the cast of Aya’s Wings. I had already found a few of them months ago, but I wanted to round out the rest. The above, for example, is an actress by the name of Maude Adams. She was very famous around the turn of the twentieth century and, by all accounts that I’ve found, she was a decent person as well. And she bears a resemblance to Amarinne Thelorian. Not an exact replica, mind you. Amarinne is blonder, younger, sadder. There are many photos of the lovely Miss Adams, but she only really looks like Am here. But it’s enough for me to work with.

I wondered, as I was searching for them all, if this were not just an elaborate way to avoid actually writing. Procrastination in the name of inspiration. Uh huh, sure. But then I pulled out my old binder of Arylle things and there, tucked in the very back, were pictures I had clipped from magazines of the gowns that she wore, the way her hair hung, and even people who resembled Cor and her (without naming names, let’s just say that they were actors from a now-defunct soap opera). So I guess that this is just part of my process, and it happens to be fun as well.

-Melissa

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Posted in: characters,drawing,inspiration,writing

A building is a symbol, as is the act of destroying it.

All this talk of death and different types of love stories is a result, I think, of me recently seeing the movie V for Vendetta. This is my new favorite movie – seriously, why had I never seen it before? It’s got everything I love in a story: drama, romance, disfigurement, death, and revolution. V’s death, however, got me thinking.

I guess that was a spoiler. But the actions that V takes in the first few scenes of the movie cannot realistically end in anything other than his death. Once the first bomb explodes, we know he’s a goner. Likewise, it was a pretty good bet that Evey, V’s at first unwilling accomplice, will make it to the end suffering only the death of her illusion. Thus, while the ending of the movie is tragic, anything else would have been a betrayal of the story.

I consider this type of death to be a good one. It’s not as though we, as readers, want the character to die, but we understand that there is no other way. Es muss sein, as Kundera says. It must be. Or at least, this is how I justify it to myself when I kill off my characters like this.

The inevitable type of death is distinct from the deaths that make me want to throw the book against the wall. The noble sacrifices (generally made for characters who don’t deserve it, a la Sydney in Tale of Two Cities), the freak accidents (damn Sirius), the ones that, in my opinion, just didn’t need to happen. Whether the author does, in fact, feel that these deaths were necessary or just wants to torment his audience is usually unknown.

Another category of death befalls characters who suffer from what my sister and I call Terminal Beth Syndrome. Named after the second youngest little woman, these are characters who are simply too painfully nice to remain living. Their deaths are accompanied, at least from me, with a sigh of relief.

Anyone else want to chime in with an example of a fictional death done well (or badly)?

-Melissa

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Posted in: characters,death,dickens,kundera

Out of My Head

Here’s a kind of stupid confession: I used to write out conversations between myself and my characters. For some reason I thought that this was the best way to get to know them, so I would write a literal encounter, like the character suddenly sat down beside me and said hello.

These usually occurred when I was stuck on some aspect of motivation and needed to know why someone did what they did. “I need help on this,” I would write, and the character would inevitably be more than happy to explain it to me. (Side note: If my characters were real, I don’t think that any of them would be quite so pleasant as they managed to be in these instances.)

I think I stopped using this technique around the time I read somewhere that Anne Rice claims she wrote the Lestat novels with the title character whispering the story to her over her shoulder.

But for my purposes, these character conversations often revealed unexpected things. People would spill their deepest secrets. Stoic, unemotional characters would suddenly burst into tears. Weak characters would draw on hidden strengths. Like good therapy, everyone came out feeling better.

As I said, I don’t use this method anymore. My cast of characters in Novel #2 feels more separate from me. I don’t draw on my own neuroses so much in their creation, nor do I understand their every thought or action. Interestingly, I reread a few chapters of Novel #1 last week (after about four months of refusing to let myself open the files) and found that distance has positive effects. I was able to read more objectively, no longer anticipating every word. I caught the stupid typos or redundancies that I had always glossed over before. And, strangest of all, I no longer recognized the characters as pieces of me, but as pieces of who I used to be. My protagonist, who I used to think was myself on paper, actually annoyed me in places.

Becoming enmeshed in a novel is like having your nose to a large painting. You can only work on a few inches at a time and you lose sight of what the entire canvas really looks like. For all you know, you might be working on the Mona Lisa or one of its parodies. Taking a step back, giving yourself time to detach, is both a difficult thing to accomplish and a necessary one. Every time I have imposed breaks on myself, I come out with something positive or learn about some integral piece of the canvas that I had been overlooking.

To return to my original topic, I think that my teenage-self might have had the right idea when trying to get into the characters’ heads, but it’s important to also know when to stop and let them work out their own problems, with the author merely holding onto the reigns. Distance is often crucial to see your creation.

-Melissa

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Posted in: characters,inspiration,lestat,painting,writing

Libel

Quite often, authors “borrow” friends, family, or even passing strangers to make characters out of them. Despite the disclaimer that adorns the inside cover of many books, assuring the reader (and lawyers) that all of the people and places within these pages sprang from no where other than the author’s imagination, we are all guilty of fictionalizing reality from time to time.

With me, I find that sometimes I meet people so over-the-top that they seem a caricature already. A boy I once had a history class with, for example, who wore a different pair of designer sunglasses everyday all through class. A young goth man with his made-up face buried in a book of antique French poetry on the Paris metro. A girl with dark eyes and a strong laugh with a tattoo of cascading stars down her backbone that she would show to anyone who asked. All three made me pause and want to write them.

Many times, I do. The character starts out as a clone of their inspiration. In the case of Designer Sunglasses, this is how Karied Travan, a main character of my current novel, was born. I pasted D. S. directly into my world, coiffed blond hair, chiseled jaw and all. I wrote Karied as I imagined D. S. would react in the fictional world of Lirana. He would have to be rich, almost certainly spoiled, and possess an ego the size of the city. As I wrote more and more about him, though, I began to learn about Karied. I discovered his weaknesses, his all-consuming secret, both his artificial and true charm. He grew a family, a history, a future. And now he is almost unrecognizable from his roots as D. S., though he still resembles him physically.

Likewise, oftentimes characters spring from elements of ourselves. In the movie 9, a scientist uses a device to put pieces of his personality into nine homunculi, who then go on living after the apocalypse has killed all human life. Each of the nine creatures has a full character based on some of the scientist’s traits: the curious one, the power hungry one, the slightly neurotic one, etc. Although I would like to think that I don’t translate myself so blatantly onto the page, I know that my personality, interests, and beliefs seep through. Reading my novel, Erica said, was like reading a dictionary to my soul.

In the end, perhaps the most effective characters are a blend of both the known and the new. As we hone our craft and continue to write, we learn how to nurture characters into their full form, making them as real as if we just caught a glance of them on a crowded metro train.

-Melissa

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Posted in: characters,inspiration,writing