The Three Strands of Storytelling
Last week, we began a three-part series on storytelling. You can find the first part here. This is the second part, in which we’ll take a look at building characters readers will love.
If there’s anything that causes a story to succeed or fail most readily, it’s the extent to which the author writes enjoyable but complex characters with well-rounded character arcs. We all know that flat characters are a death-sentence for an author. And yet, that’s what I see in most genre fiction. And I’m talking about traditionally published works.
Building a character who’s a responsible young woman, but who’s also a tomboy is a good start, but it’s not enough. Our characters have to have many more layers than that. The kind of complexity that only shows its face under pressure. We’ll talk about what that looks like, because if we want our work to really stand out and to endure the test of time, our characters have to be unforgettable.
In more recent years, I’ve given considerable thought to some of the TV shows that appeal to me the most. (Television characters are a little easier to analyze simply because of the duration of their character arc.) Of course, it’s the characters that make those shows so successful. In specific, it’s the complexity of those characters. Let’s look at a couple of examples.
Complexity
First, consider The Walking Dead. I remember when I first heard about the show, prior to the first season. My initial reaction was, A show about zombies? How on earth are they going to make that one work? Because zombies are by far the most boring undead creature. Vampires, werewolves and ghosts have complex characters. They can act in so many different ways and can symbolize so many different things. Zombies growl and stumble around. They have no personality, no motive other than to feed. And yet, TWD has come to be one of my favorite shows of all-time. Why?
Because it’s not about zombies. It’s about the people who are left to survive in this post-apocalyptic landscape. And those characters are so interesting, so complex and full, that the show has endured for ten seasons already with no break in its interest-factor.
If we look at two fan favorites: Daryl and Carol, that’s exactly what we see. On the surface, Daryl is a rugged, rural bad boy. He says what he thinks, does what he wants, and never apologizes for it. He’s independent and self-sufficient. Carol is a battered, submissive victim of domestic abuse. She wears her hair as short as possible to give her husband no way to pull it or use it against her. She’s quiet and careful.
But over time, we see so much more to these characters. Daryl is also very loyal and has one of the strongest drives to protect those he cares about. He’ll go through the worst zombie hoard and risk his life over and over to save his adopted family, especially Carol. And over time, we see a strength in Carol that most women would only dream of possessing. She’s fearless. And she’s wise.
Or consider The Vampire Diaries. Normally I wouldn’t go for a young adult show, but the characters of Damon and Stefan and their interactions with Elena, are extremely fascinating. Both of the young men seem to be one thing on the surface and yet are something else (if not several things) beneath that façade.
At first, Damon seems to be the ruthless killer. But it’s Damon who forms the tightest bonds with others and who, like Daryl, will risk everything to save those he loves. And the screenwriter presents Stefan as the sweet, lovable good boy. But in reality, Stefan stiffly adheres to this façade in an attempt to hold his darkest inclinations and the consequences that follow him at bay. Not just from the notice of others, but also from himself.
Notice that all of these characters seem to be one thing at first and yet have another side to them. I think that’s what appeals to me the most, because doesn’t that reflect reality most accurately? Even if we’re not trying to be duplicitous, there’s a part of ourselves that we hold back at first. Some of us more than others. And it’s that side that makes our characters so relatable. And interesting.
And the writers don’t tell us these things. They build the action so that viewers (or readers in our case) can see the characters’ multi-faceted natures.
Exposure
That’s what all of our plot and its inherent conflict should do. It should show your character’s true colors. When you build your plot, consider what the conflict will do to your characters. If you remember the story I talked about in part one, you remember that my character has two primary goals:
- He wants the Vienna Conservatory to recognize and appoint him as the lead violinist (this story is set in the mid-1800s), and
- He wants his father to respect him
Recall that I said that these two goals are naturally in conflict (though my character doesn’t realize that). He doesn’t know that his father, who makes a great show of appreciating the arts, doesn’t actually respect performers. That means that my character can’t accomplish both of his goals. He can achieve one or neither of them.
I talked about how these refined and conflicting goals gave my plot direction and naturally build conflict from start to finish. But what I didn’t get into in that post was the extent to which this conflict will force my character up against the wall.
That’s what we want in our writing. We want our characters to be in situations in which they don’t get what they want, their dreams are frustrated or even destroyed. Because that’s when we (and readers) see what they’re made of.
One of the fastest ways out of a flat character arc, is to put your character under constant and increasing pressure. Does she become angry, manipulative, sullen, withdrawn? Does she cheat and cut corners to attempt to get what she thinks she’s about to lose? Does she play other characters off of one another? Does she resort to smooth-talking or people-pleasing in an attempt to win over everyone around her? (Hopefully not too successfully. This is a novel, after all. Make it hard.)
The point is, back your character(s) into a wall as often as you can and make the consequences significant for them so that they have to show who they truly are. What are they willing to do to get what they want?
At the same time, your characters should be growing and changing in some way throughout your story. Even if that’s a downward spiral.
Change
Of course, there are a million different ways to go about this. If you’re writing a traditional, positive character arc, your character is improving as the book goes on. The terrible, or self-defeating, or just generally not-helpful things the character was willing to do at the beginning don’t work out so well.
And she learns. She makes changes. She tries better tactics over time. Her initial tendencies are still a temptation and, in the direst moment (at the climax), she almost resorts to them again. But then she rises above her prior self and shows readers that she’s really changed. She knows how to make the best choice, no matter what it costs her.
But the opposite can also be true. I’m a sucker for a really well-written negative character arc. I often find them to be more interesting. And of course, they’re also true. Lots of people become a worse version of themselves as their lives progress. We don’t want them to. We do what we can to persuade them to take the high road. Still, they run themselves down to the bottom of the barrel.
[Note: a while ago, I wrote an article about how to write a negative character arc and still give your readers hope that they can take away from your novel. Check it out if this is a direction you’d like to go.]
Whichever you choose, make sure that your character is changing.
And don’t tell readers about it. Show us how your character is responding differently. Readers may not overtly notice this happening until after the fact. That’s ok. In fact, it’s more powerful writing for the change to be subtle. If the character’s changes seem natural, if they flow from the accumulation of their hard-won lessons, gains and especially the extent of their failures, the readers won’t step out of the story long enough to think about the change.
That’s good. Keep them in the story. Build your conflict and the character’s responses so that, in the end, the character’s great win (or loss) will make perfect sense.
If you’re looking for a great resource on building characters, I recommend Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets A Novelist Can Learn From Actors by Brandilyn Collins. In the book, she talks about how to understand your character’s motivations by getting to the heart of who they are – by understanding their deepest core values. Out of these all of the character’s actions and even their smallest mannerisms, fall out naturally.
Of course, throughout all of this, we’re trying to say something. We’re exploring some larger meaning. That’s what I mean by theme, which we’ll talk about in the next part.