The Magic of Character
First in an Series of Eight
©by Patricia Lewin

When you think of your favorite books or movies, I'll bet it's the characters you remember. You know--the magical ones who stay with us, haunting us long after we've finished their story. Characters as real as the people in our lives. Characters we wished we'd created.

This series of articles is designed to help you develop those kinds of characters--the ones your readers will never forget. Starting with the basics, I'll walk you through a sequence of steps and tools which will get you thinking and asking the right questions. Then, all you need to add is the magic.

So, let's get on with it. . .

Part #1 - Making Your Readers Care

One of the first things you need to decide when building a character is what he or she cares about. The people who populate your stories must care about something, because if they don't, neither will your readers. Also, at least one of your characters must feel strongly enough about "something" to drive your plot. Otherwise you have no story. And if you have two characters who are passionate about opposing things, all the better. Now you have conflict.

Let's look at a couple of examples. I'll start with a movie, the first Star Wars, because most everyone has seen it, and because there's nothing subtle about it. Everything in Star Wars is right out in the open. Then I'm going to talk about Virginia Ellis's new book The Wedding Dress, which is a powerful example of a character who makes the reader care.

In Star Wars, two of the most interesting characters are Han Solo and Princess Leah.

Now, what do these characters care about?

Han? In the beginning of the first movie, Han wants one thing. Money.

What about Leah? She's working to free her people from the evil Empire, and because she cares deeply, she takes action that drives the entire plot of all three movies.

Han, on the other hand, is changed by the plot. What's important to him changes. By the end of the first movie, he's interested in more than money. He's come to care for the people involved in the fight against the Empire, even if he still doesn't care about the cause itself.

So what about Luke Skywalker?

Luke is the main protagonist of the story, and yet he neither drives the plot, nor at first glance is he the most interesting character. Is he changed by the story? Yes. But not as dramatically as Han.

So what makes Luke the protagonist?

He's Every Man. He's you and me. None of us want to think we're like Han and value only money, and fighting an empire like Leah is beyond of our experience. However, when the Empire's Storm Troopers kill Luke's aunt and uncle, we understand immediately what drives him. He's like us. He cares about his family, and so we care about him.

Now let's look at The Wedding Dress.

The book is set in the post-Civil War South. The heroine, Julia, and her two sisters are the last of their family. They have very little left, and each day is a struggle just to survive. Their future looks bleak, until Julia declares they will make a Wedding Dress for Claire--the youngest--though there is no groom. All three sisters, and eventually the entire war-torn community, join in the endeavor, and with the creation of the Wedding Dress, they rediscover hope. All because Julia loved her sister enough to throw all practicality and reason out the window and make the girl a Wedding Dress. Julia cares deeply, and so do we.

It's a beautiful, moving story, and the characters are indeed magical.

So, ask yourself what your characters care about? What pushes their buttons and drives them forward? Then, once you've answered that question, you've committed him or her to a way of acting and begun the journey toward creating a great story.

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Next I'm going to talk about how "Labeling" can kick- start your characters, whether you're just getting started or stuck somewhere in the middle of your book.

 

 

The Magic of Character
Part Two of Eight
©by Patricia Lewin

In the last installment, I wrote about one of the most basic and essential elements of creating story magic: characters who care. Now I want to discuss a simple technique that you as a writer can use to identify and focus on aspects of your characters that make them unique.

First, pick one of your characters and ask yourself about the dominant impressions he or she makes. Then come up with two labels, a Descriptive Noun and a Descriptive Adjective, that illustrate those impressions. Sound easy? Sometimes, and it can also be a lot of fun. Try it with your critique group, practicing on your favorite movies or television characters. More important, however, is that these two little words can help you create distinct characters of your own.

Let's look at the Descriptive Noun first.

Spend a few minutes and find a single, vivid noun that describes your character. This can be her occupation or role in society, say a doctor, lawyer, teacher. Or it can be more subtle, like a bum, invalid or bag lady. For your main characters, however, you should dig deeper for nouns that describe their innate natures.

For instance, avoid nouns like doctor or nurse. Instead, try using the word healer, remembering that not all medical people are healers, and certainly not all healers work in the medical field. There's a subtlety here that you need to think about.

Let's look at the first Star Wars movie again.

What noun would you put on Han Solo? Well, he's a smuggler, and in this case it's both his occupation and his identity—-at least in the beginning of the movie.

Now, the more difficult character. What noun would you use for Princess Leah? Yes, she's a princess, but is that her true nature? I don't think so. Princess Leah is a rebel.

Think about this.

Leah's rebellious temperament colors her actions throughout the movie. In fact, it drives everything she does. As a princess, she could have accepted the Empire, or at least felt there was nothing she could do about it. Leah, however, is not at heart a princess. She's a rebel, and so she fights back.

As a book example, I'm going to use my first, Keeping Katie. My heroine, Maura, is running from a legal system that is trying to take away her three-year-old daughter. My hero, Alan, is the sheriff of the small town where Maura is hiding.

Now, let's look at their Descriptive Nouns.

Maura is a nurse, so you might think of her as a healer, but this isn't the noun that best describes her. She is, in essence, a nurturer. Again, there's a subtle difference between the two words, but it's important to the book and Maura's character. Everything she does is because of her internal need to nurture-- not heal.

On the other hand, Alan, is more than a sheriff. He's an enforcer. As a sheriff, he might be able to overlook that the woman he grows to love is wanted for kidnaping. As an enforcer, he's faced with a very difficult question. Can he go against his own nature because of love?

So, think about your own characters and the nouns that describe them, and don't get discouraged if the first words you come up with don't quite fit or seem too broad. It will get easier with practice and well worth the effort.

Now let's move on to the Descriptive Adjective.

This is your character's individual bearing, manner, or way of behaving. It is the first impression she makes when she walks into a room. Is she confidant or shy? Arrogant or timid? Friendly or standoffish? Remember, this is how other's see your character. Also, this adjective can create intriguing conflicts within your story when paired with the character's Descriptive Noun.

For example, in Keeping Katie, the adjective describing Maura is wary. It's the first thing other characters notice about her. Can you see the potential here? Maura is a "wary nurturer," two attributes that constantly clash.

Alan, on the other hand, is suspicious, making him a "suspicious enforcer," traits that fit together easily. Also, in Star Wars, Han Solo is cocky, which makes him a "cocky smuggler," another pair of compatible words.

However, Princess Leah is royal--a ‘royal rebel.' This begs a fascinating question. How can she be both royal and a rebel? Yet she is, and that makes her a great character.

As you can see, when you put these adjectives and nouns together, you'll often create an engaging dichotomy for your characters and your story. They will generate interest, aid your conflict and add depth to your characters.

So, how can you use this technique? First, just the act of boiling down your story people to two words will help you know them better. But take this a little further. As you're writing your book, keep these two descriptive words in mind--I tape them on my computer monitor—and you'll be amazed at how this will help you. Everything your characters do and say will be influenced by these two words, making them consistent and unique, and soon readers will be talking about the magical characters you create.

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In the next installment I'm going to discuss developing the whole character by using goals, environment, attachments, secrets, and belief systems.

 

The Magic of Character
Part Three of Eight
©by Patricia Lewin

In my previous two articles, I discussed making your readers care and using labels to identify your characters. This month I'm going to discuss four techniques to round out your characters and make them whole: foreign environment, important attachments, secrets, and belief systems.

This technique can be a great way to show the hidden strengths and/or weaknesses of your character. The idea is to get her out of either her physical or emotional element and watch what happens. People reveal a lot about themselves by the way they react under pressure. Your characters will as well. So make them deal with a crisis while caught in a strange and unfamiliar world.

Time travels are the ultimate use of this tactic. You take a character from one time and throw him into another. How he handles the situation, and the emotions he experiences in the process, will make your readers either love or hate him. A less extreme example would be to take a city girl and make her survive on a Wyoming ranch. All you have to do is look at the number of stories that use some form of this scenario to get an idea of its strength.

Also, there are dozens of movie examples, again, simply because taking a character to unfamiliar territory is so effective. In Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts is a prostitute (a street walker) who gets thrown into the realm of high finance and upper class standards. As we watch her navigate the unfamiliar terrain, we begin to see an innocence in her that no one would expect from a woman in her profession. In Titanic, Jack is certainly out of his element in Rose's circle of acquaintances, but she is also a stranger to his. His actions aren't particularly surprising, but we learn a lot about Rose when Jack shows her his world and she thrives. We get a glimpse of the person she is capable of becoming.

In Star Wars, almost everyone, with the possible exception of Princess Leah, is in a foreign environment. Luke, the farmer, is fighting a galactic battle. And Han, the smuggler, is drawn into a world of high ideals and morals. In each case we see a different, unexpected side of the character. We see a great inner strength in a farm boy and integrity in a smuggler.

The point is, that by throwing your story people out of their element, you gain the opportunity to reveal character traits. Ask yourself how this person will react to suddenly having their world turned upside down, then share that with your readers.

A second technique for expanding your character(s) is the use of important attachments.

Give your character someone or something that he cares deeply about. This can be directly related to his story goal(s) or just another way to show something about a character. Maybe your hard edged hero has a weakness for children or animals. Does he have a dog that follows him around? Does he rescue a stray kitten from a dumpster, or is he raising his brother's child? Including an attachment is a means to reveal sides of him that may not be seen otherwise. Then, if you can find a way to threaten that attachment, all the better. And even if your hero's attachment isn't the point of your story, it adds layers that make him a more interesting character.

Attachments abound in all forms of fiction for just this reason. For example, in Star Wars Han Solo has Chewbacca. It's a minor part of the plot, but it says a lot about our cocky smuggler that he has this big, hairy, creature, who doesn't even speak the language, as his sidekick and friend. On the other hand, Princess Leah's attachment is to her people, which is the driving force of the story.

One thing to note, Princess Leah never says, "I love my people." Nor does Han say, "Chewbacca and I are the best of buddies." They don't have to. They "show" you how they feel.

A third technique to help make your character's whole is to use secrets.

Readers love secrets. I'll actually keep reading a book I don't like if there's a secret, either to find out about it or to see how one character reveals it to another. So give your character a painful secret or memory, either as the backbone of your story or just for something a little extra to add depth.

Once again, Star Wars is a great example. First and foremost is the secret of Luke and Leah's relationship to each other and Darth Vadar, which pulls the viewers through the entire trilogy. Also, Han doesn't tell anyone that Jabba the Hut is after him. Although it plays a major part in the second and third movie, it's a subplot, and in the first movie, the viewers are unaware of it. However, this secret colors Han's actions from the beginning, because he needs money.

Other movies whose characters hang on a secret are: While You Were Sleeping, Mrs. Doubtfire, Tootsie, and What Women Want. Watch one of these--or all—-and pay attention to what keeping a secret does to each of the main characters, and to those around him or her. Then think about whether adding a secret or two would help your story.

Another way to help create characters that come alive is to give him or her a belief system.

We all believe in something, and those beliefs influence and direct our actions. Your characters are no different. So for them to seem real, they also must have a belief system of morals, ideals, misconceptions and prejudices. Then, once you've determined what these are, they must act accordingly.

A great example of a fictional character whose belief system strongly effects her storyline is Rose in Titanic. She was raised in a affluent environment that few of us are privy too. Yet, she's unhappy and believes there must be something more. It says a lot about her that she is able to conceive of a different way of life, and even more that she eventually acted on that belief. And although Titanic is a love story, it all hangs on Rose's ability to see past the only world she's ever known, her belief that there must be more to life than wealth and privilege. Without that, she never would have allowed herself to fall in love with Jack.

So delve deep into your character's psyche. Find out what she believes in and what she doesn't. Then ask her what she's willing to do for those beliefs.

All of these techniques are tools, ways to add depth and dimension to your characters and thus your story. Use one of them or all. The mix is up to you. That's part of the fun and the magic of creating characters.

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In Part 4, I'm going to discuss using tags to make each of your characters unique.

 

The Magic of Character
Part Four of Eight
©by Patricia Lewin

In this article I'm going to discuss fleshing out your characters to make them identifiable and unique. As with other character development techniques, use these sparingly to set each character apart. Too much of even a good thing is, well, too much.

The first thing to consider is your character's name.

It sounds simple, but the right name can tell readers a lot about your character. For example, in Star Wars we have Han Solo, Princess Leah, Darth Vadar, and Luke Skywalker. Even if you've never seen the movie, you can probably guess each character's role in the story.

Of course, as a writer, you probably want to be a little more subtle than Star Wars.

A more interesting example is the heroine's name in the movie Terminator. It's Sarah Conner: a simple name for a simple woman. Then Sarah's world is torn apart, and she becomes the opposite of what her name implies. It's a nice twist.

So pay attention and think about the ‘feel' of a name. Don't call your burnt-out, ex-cop something soft, like Josh or Stephan. Unless, of course, you have a good reason.

The second thing you can use to make your character unique, is his or her appearance.

Now, I don't mean just her height, weight, and hair color. These things are important, because how we look influences who we are. For instance, if your heroine is a research physicist and also a raving beauty, and part of her problem is that people don't take her seriously because of her looks, then this is an important part of her characterization.

However, your character's appearance refers to more than just how he looks. It can be the clothing he chooses or some other distinctive attribute. Think of Captain Ahab's wooden leg in Moby Dick. It does more than characterize him, it is one of the driving forces behind his life.

Now, most of our characters won't have anything as obvious as a wooden leg.

Of course in Star Wars, we know the moment Darth Vadar steps on stage, in his dark hood and cape, that he's the bad guy. The same is true for Princess Leah in her long white dress. There's no doubt she's one of the good guys.

In Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts is a hooker, and in the beginning of the movie that's how she dresses. With her transformation into a lady, comes a different style of dressing. In fact, her attire (i.e. appearance) is one of the early obstacles to her transformation. Since she looks like a prostitute, the sales women in the high-end shops won't wait on her or sell her clothing. And in my book, Keeping Katie, my main character, Maura, tends to wear clothes that are too big for her. She's in hiding and her clothes reflect that.

With these examples in mind, try to find something for your character that sets her apart, some small thing that tells us more about her.

Another method to identify your characters is their speech patterns. Repetitions, accents, drawls, even vocabulary should fit the character you've created. Don't have your Harvard educated heroine talking like she grew up on the streets of New York. On the other hand, if she did grow up on the streets and she's now a NYC detective, get rid of those formal, educated phrases and expressions.

If you're not sure how your character should speak, listen to movies, talk shows, radio interview, or wherever people are speaking. But make sure your character has a voice all his own.

One word of caution, don't overdue this. If you use too much dialect, slang, or foreign phrases, it will make your work hard to read and slow the pace of your book.

Let's move on to your character's abilities.

A large part of what we are is what we can do. Ask yourself what skills your heroine needs for you to write her story.

In Star Wars, Han and Luke are exceptional pilots, and their skill is essential. Only good pilots could have saved the day: Han knocking out the Empire's fighters, and Luke firing the shot that destroys the Death Star.

In Keeping Katie, Maura is a trauma nurse in hiding. But when a child's life is in danger, she risks everything, including losing her own daughter, to save him. This in turns leads to the story's Big Black Moment. If Maura hadn't possessed the ability to tend a serious injury, the book would have been left in limbo.

For your story, you need to know what your character can do. What she's really good at, and what skills she needs to carry out your plot. Then, once you answer those questions, make sure you use them.

Okay, now I'm going to delve a little deeper and talk about your character's behavioral patterns.

As the creator of your characters, you need to know their habitual modes of response to any given situation. Ask how your hero will react to danger, a woman's tears, or a ten-car pileup on the freeway. Is he a brooder, a worrier, or a soft touch? Is he honest or a bully? Then, once you think you know the answers, put him in a situation that tests his reactions and let the reader see it.

In Star Wars, Han never chooses to face danger. He will if he has to, but his first impulse is to avoid conflict at all cost. Even in the opening scene, where he kills the alien bounty hunter, he does it with a gun ‘hidden' under the table. This is a great piece of characterization because it's a behavioral pattern which Han maintains throughout the star wars trilogy. He's not a coward, but he doesn't fight if he can help it.

Princess Leah, on the other hand, always chooses to face danger head on. During their escape from the Death Star, she grabs the gun from Luke and starts firing at the guards. We know that whatever danger they face, Han will look for a way around it, while Leah will rush in with guns blazing.

In Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts won't kiss her customers on the mouth. It's an unusual behavioral pattern for a prostitute, and we know that when she finally does kiss Richard Gere, something elemental within her has changed.

So look to your characters and make sure they have their own individual responses to situations. Then again, show these to your readers.

Lastly, I want to talk about flaws.

Perfect characters are boring. No one wants to read about the heroine who is beautiful, wealthy, brilliant, and has a wonderfully sunny disposition. Give her a flaw, something we all can relate to. Readers want to see a bit of themselves in the characters they read about.

Think about Han Solo. He has flaws up the kazoo. He's brash and egotistical, overconfident and watching out for number one. But don't we love him! And we love him not despite his flaws, but because of them.

What about Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman? She's a prostitute. That's a great big flaw. Would we have liked her nearly as much if she'd been the girl-next-door, working at a respectable job? No way! She's too perfect, too nice, too pretty. We like her despite her looks, because she's a prostitute.

So when putting your characters together, make sure they too have a flaw or two.

Remember, all these techniques are ways to set your characters apart from each other and every other fictional character out there. Do you have to answer all these questions before you start writing? No. In fact, some of this will come spontaneously. But after you get that first draft down, or maybe as you're putting it together, knowing these techniques and applying them with a deft hand will help you create characters who'll leap off the page. You'll have created magic.

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Next, I'm going to discuss raising the readers emotional stake in your characters.

 

The Magic of Character
Part Five of Eight
©by Patricia Lewin

In the first article of this series, I explained how to make readers care about your characters. In this article, I'm going to delve a little deeper and talk about ways to keep your readers riveted by raising the emotional stakes.

What do I mean by this?

Well, every reader and movie-goer understands on some level that the success of a story depends on how strongly it engages her. As writers, we need to understand this on a conscious level and use the tools available to capture and hold our audience's interest. We do this by making our characters experience things that we can all identify with

The first of these is pain.

Pain, either emotional or physical, is a great way to increase reader involvement in your story. Of the two, emotional pain is more powerful, while physical pain is more immediate and easier to use.

For example, if on page one of your story, your heroine is run over by a drunk driver, we instantly identify and feel sorry for her. However, how invested are we at this point? Yes, we'll probably read on because we want to know the outcome. Does she live or die? Is the driver caught and charged? But do we really care? Not really. We know nothing about this woman, so although her physical pain catches our attention, it only engages us to a limited degree and may not hold us for long.

On the other hand, if we spend time getting to know her and find out she's a dancer who's just gotten her first role on Broadway, then when she's hit by a drunk driver, the emotional stakes have been raised and we're hooked. We become concerned with more than her physical pain; we're tied into her emotional pain as well, and we have to know if she'll dance again.

Let's take this a bit further. If your heroine is fine after the accident and only misses a single day of rehearsal, you've lost your readers. But what if her legs are broken, and the doctors say she'll never walk again, much less dance? Now you've really caught us, and we have to keep reading to find out how she deals with the loss of her legs and dreams.

Another thing to keep is mind is that the way your heroine deals with her pain will effect the way we respond to her. Let's say she ends up becoming extremely bitter about her legs, or worse yet, she becomes a whiner. Nobody likes a whiner. We as readers will quickly tune her out. But if your story is about her tragic and courageous fight to overcome her pain--whether it's to walk and thus dance again or never doing either, we won't stop reading.

This doesn't mean your heroine has to be perfect, that she can't have bitter and angry thoughts. Obviously, we as readers wouldn't believe it if she didn't. Just make sure she progresses, make her deal with her emotional and physical pain in a way we would hope to deal with it ourselves.

A word of warning, the use of pain can be overdone and become ineffective. For instance, if you were to go on and on, describing in detail the physical torment your heroine underwent as she was caught and dragged under the car, you could very well lose your readers. Think about the slasher movies. We gasp at the first gory murder, but by the end we're laughing. Or what about a particular graphic war movie or documentary? We may not laugh, but we may turn away.

This is particularly true for emotional pain.

Remember the movie Sophie's Choice? She's in a Nazi Concentration Camp where she must choose between her two children. One will live and one will die. If she doesn't choose, they both die. I hated the movie and remember nothing else about the story. . . simply because I couldn't deal with Sophie's pain. I refused to become involved.

So, don't overdue your pain. It has to have some weight and merit, but don't make it excessive.

Another way to increase the audience's participation in a character's fate is through the use of sacrifice. When your hero or heroine makes the choice to suffer for someone else's sake, then the pain and suffering becomes more intense and the story more compelling.

Going back to our dancer.

Let's say we spent the time to provide her background information, and she's walking down the street on her way to her rehearsal. She spots a small boy heading for a ball in the street at the same time she sees a car coming toward him. She knows what's about to happen and makes the CHOICE to risk herself by rushing out and pushing him out of the car's path. Now when her legs are destroyed, our buy-in, our involvement with her is even greater. We know this didn't have to happen. It was not inevitable. She could have called out and risked the boy not hearing. Instead, she chose to sacrifice herself to save him, and your readers will love it.

A third way to raise the stakes for your audience is by putting your characters in jeopardy.

Actually, you could say that all stories put their characters in some form of jeopardy. Action stories always involve some form or physical threat, while even the sweetest romance puts your characters in emotional peril. Let's consider, however, only those stories that deal with some form of physical menace and discuss how they capture your audience's attention.

First off, all you have to do is look at the large number of stories that use the woman or child in jeopardy scenario to see its effectiveness. Is there anything more involving, more heart wrenching than a child in danger? These stories are involving primarily because of the apparent helplessness of the characters, and it pulls us in, binding us to the victims and their fate.

Again, think about our dancer, remembering everything that has gone before. She's walking down the street and sees the car speeding toward the boy and leaps into the street to push him out of the way. Both are safe. Until she sees the car make a u-turn and come back toward them, and she realizes the driver intended to hit the boy and is trying again.

Suddenly we have a woman/child in jeopardy story—or at least the beginning of one--and the potential for both physical and emotional pain. The dancer could be physically harmed, maimed, or killed and she may lose her chance to dance on Broadway, but she chose to sacrifice herself to save another, and now she must choose again.

You can see how we're pulling emotional strings to make the readers care about our dancer and her plight.

One final way to raise the emotional stakes and get your readers more involved is to make the issues bigger than the characters.

In our dancer's story, there's already a lot at stake. But suppose we learn that this boy is more than some kid playing ball in the park. What if he's a mafia don's grandson and his death would start a gang war? Or make it bigger. He has some rare antibody in his blood that contains the cure for aids. Or bigger still . . . he's the future, the savior of mankind. Or the anti-Christ and the driver knows it and is trying to eliminate him?

What does this do to our dancer?

Can you see the intriguing possibilities and emotional involvement you're going to wrench from your audience? Each time you make the issue larger, you raise the stakes, binding the reader closer and closer to your story.

So ask yourself what you can inflict on your characters to insure reader involvement? Because that's what it's all about, making your readers lose themselves in your characters and their story. And when you do that, then you've truly created magic.

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Next I'm going to discuss character types we love and hate.

 

The Magic of Character
Part Six of Eight
©by Patricia Lewin

This month I'm going to talk about attributes and traits that will make your readers either love your characters -- or hate them. Most of these you'll recognize right away, but if you can use them on a conscious level, it will help you create great characters. But remember, use these techniques sparingly and with a deft hand to maximize their effect.

First, the character traits and types we love.

* Physically Attractive

In general, readers love physically attractive characters. Be careful though, because this is tricky and can backfire if overdone. It works best in the visual medium or in genres other than romance. Why? Because if your heroine is too physically perfect, and you're writing for a female audience, you risk alienating your readers, very few of whom will be able to identify with your gorgeous heroine. On the other hand, most female readers don't want to read about a totally unattractive woman either. We want to identify (and yes, fantasize a bit) with your heroine. And I don't know about you, but when I fantasize, I want to be a little better than reality.

An author who handles this particularly well is Jayne Ann Krentz. Her heroines are never raving beauties, but by the end of the book, you see them as beautiful. She does it through character, by giving her heroines other attributes that make them very attractive to the both the hero and the reader.

Now on to the less ambiguous traits.

* Dependable

Consider how you feel toward a person who is dependable. Or the opposite, someone who is undependable. Both reactions are double strong in fiction. We root for the character who can be counted on. The character who keeps his promise. . . even when that promise is not to our liking.

Remember the movie Sommersby? The romance reader and writer in me hated that movie, but I couldn't help admiring and respecting Richard Gere's character. He kept his promise to the town and his wife by refusing to give up his true identity. In the process, he paid a heavy price; he forfeited his life. How could we not feel for this man?

* Clever

This doesn't mean brilliant or intellectual. Remember, you want your readers to identify with your characters, and it's hard to identify with an Einstein. On the other hand, we'd all like to believe we could solve our problems with clever solutions.

Movies and television often use this trait. The character in McGyver for instance. At some level we all knew he was really smart, but on the surface, he was just another guy. Yet the whole show was built around the clever ways he solved problems. Also that old show the A-Team. Those guys were soldiers, who came off as intellectual morons, but every week, they were clever. They helped people in clever ways. Columbo was the same way.

However, even as I type this, I can hear your objections. What about two more recent shows, The Pretender and John Doe? Both feature main characters whose intellectual capacity is in the stratosphere. Well, it would be easy to say there are exceptions to every rule, or that if something works, it works, but in this case the answer doesn't need to be that illusive. If you look closely at the two main characters of these shows, you can see why they work. First, both characters have vulnerabilities that make their brilliance acceptable. They are, in fact, in a worse position that you or I, despite their intellect. Also, both, are striving against something bigger than themselves (even as they help others), something evil which is more than a match for their superior intellect. It makes them human, and so we accept and even admire them.

* The Volunteer and the Draftee

If a job or mission in a story is something no one wants, either because it's thankless or extremely dangerous, then we sympathize with the volunteer. On the other hand, if a job is high focus and may garner a great deal of acclaim, the character we sympathize with is the draftee.

Think about Kyle in Terminator. He volunteered to come back through time to save Sarah Conner. Yes, he did it because he loved her, but that aside, we sympathize with him because he volunteered for a very dangerous mission that promised little chance of success. Someone had to do it, and fail or succeed, Kyle would gain nothing from his peers for taking on this mission. In fact, he left everything and everyone he knew behind. How much less sympathetic would he have been if he'd been drafted to come back and save Sarah?

* Sacrifice

We discussed this in depth last month in reference to raising the emotional stakes for your readers. This particular character trait is one of the strongest in fiction. A character who is willing to sacrifice himself for others wins our hearts, and the bigger the sacrifice the bigger the emotional charge.

Remember the two asteroid movies out a couple of years ago: Deep Impact and Armageddon. Both movies involved a huge sacrifice on the part of major characters to save the Earth. We can't help but become involved with these characters and their willingness to die for the rest of humanity. Also, in Deep Impact, there's another sacrifice that is very moving–just in case you can't identify with saving the planet. A teenage boy gives up his place in the underground shelter, the only place where survival might be possible, to try to save the girl he loves. The odds are against him. Chances are, they'll both die, but he must try. This is a sacrifice guaranteed to dampen every eye in the house.

* Purpose

We also have sympathy for characters who possess a purpose to their life, characters with their own hopes and dreams. In other words, the reader needs to have a sense that your character(s) has a life outside of the context of the story. That whatever events happen in the story, or whatever events the character initiates will have some effect on that character's life. This has to do with taking the ordinary person and throwing them into extraordinary circumstances. Consider how many stories use the technique of the regular person torn out of their lives to face some danger. It's almost like the story teller is saying to his audience, this could happen to you too. And by doing so, he pulls us in.

* Courage

This does not necessarily mean physical courage, because even stronger, is the courage to act on your beliefs. Rose in Titanic possessed this kind of courage. She wanted a different type of life than the privileged one she'd been raised to, and we respected the strength it her took to act on that belief.

* Endearing Imperfections

This comes back to giving you characters flaws. No one likes the perfect character, because none of us perfect. And in my mind there is no better example then Han Solo.

Now, just as there are character traits that almost guarantee to gain your reader's sympathy, there are traits that will make your reader despise a character. The strongest of these is. . .

* The Sadist or the Bully

This sounds obvious, but it bears thinking about and exploring. There is no more deplorable character than the one who deliberately causes another pain, either physical or mental, and if he enjoys inflicting pain, that's even worse. We don't need to know much about this character to hate him. Or if we do--this particular trait when uncovered--can easily wipe out any positive feelings we may have had toward him.

The robot in Terminator is a bully, who doesn't experience regret or mercy, but wants only one thing: to kill Sarah and anyone who gets in his way. Also, Darth Vadar is a ruthless bully, but these two are obvious.

What about Rose's fiancé in The Titanic? Why do we dislike him so much? He's handsome, wealthy, self confidant, and despite the fact Rose doesn't want to marry him, you get the feeling he truly cares for her. These are all traits that otherwise might win our sympathy for him and make Rose easily seem a spoiled brat. But he has one unforgivable flaw. He's a bully, wielding his wealth like a weapon, and we can't forgive him for that.

* Self-Serving

The opposite of the character willing to sacrifice, this character puts his desires/needs/wants above the good of others. As with the sadist or bully, discovering a character is self- serving will change your readers opinions of him in an instant.

A perfect example of this is the character Carter Burke in Aliens. For a good portion of the movie, we viewed this character as one of the good guys. He's the only one who believes Ripley about the Aliens, and he puts together a military force to investigate. He seems smart and rational, until we discover that his only motive is to bring back an Alien as a weapon. No matter how many people die—or he has to kill--in the process. Suddenly he becomes the worst kind of character: a subtle, greedy, self-serving villain. And when the other characters go to murder him, we scream, "Yes!"

In the same movie, Cameron does the exact opposite with one of the other character: the lieutenant. Remember him? We consider him a jerk throughout the entire movie. He doesn't have any experience and doesn't have the guts to admit it. He makes stupid decisions that get people killed. But in the end, he sacrifices his life, and we mourn him. That split second of sacrifice wipes out everything else we felt for him.

* The Oathbreaker

We expect characters to keep their word, and when they don't, we instantly dislike them.

* The Self-appointed

The opposite of the volunteer or draftee, this character puts himself forward to take a position of power when it promises award.

Okay, these are the major character type/traits used to either gain instant sympathy or dislike for your characters. As in all things about characterization, you shouldn't overuse any of these. And of course, it's hard to know what is enough and what's too much. IMO, it's all a matter of trial and error, practice, and in the end, trusting your instincts in order to capture and bring to life your own magical characters.

Next I'll discuss the Alpha and Beta Character.

 

The Magic of Character
Part Seven of Eight
©by Patricia Lewin

This month I get to talk about one of my favorite characterization topics, the Alpha and Beta Character. Every few years, the discussions start within the writing community about which of these character types works best--particularly in reference to our heros. I don't believe there's a right answer to this debate, but I do believe that understanding the differences between the alpha and beta character and how to effectively use each is helpful. So, let's start with the basics.

Characters fall into one or two categories, or a combination of what the industry calls alpha and beta characters. They can be either heroes or heroines.

First, the alpha character, who is strong, determined and aggressive. Whether male or female, there's an edge to this character. Think about Clint Eastwood in almost any of his movies, but particularly the Dirty Harry movies or the old spaghetti westerns. He does the alpha male really well.
As for female alpha characters, Sigourney Weaver in Aliens is an alpha woman. And what about Nikita? Again, there's an edge to both women that tells us they're not to be messed with.

In romance, the alpha male is the one we fantasize about. He goes after the woman he wants, leaving no doubt about his intentions. He's the strong, silent type, and although he's very popular with readers, editors often shy away from him. This is because it's hard to pull off a good alpha character, to create that edgy, dangerous male without making him cruel, mean or just plain unlikable.

So why create an alpha character?

Because when they're done well, they're impossible to forget. They make great antagonists, and the list of these are endless. Darth Vadar in Star Wars and Rose's fiancé in Titanic are good examples. But the alpha can work for your protagonists as well. Both Rhett Butler and Scarlet O'Hara are fantastic alpha characters, and who can forget either of them?

So, if the alpha character comes naturally to you, go for it. Both Sandra Brown and Linda Howard create wonderful alpha males, and their careers have soared because of it.

The Beta character, on the other hand, is softer. He or she is more sensitive, avoiding conflict whenever possible. Which doesn't mean the character is weak or incompetent. They just lack the edge-–the aura of danger--of the alpha character.

In romance, a beta male is suave and sophisticated or laid back and easy-going. There's never a question about his motives or actions, the readers always know he's one of the good guys. If the alpha male is the one we fantasize about, the beta male is the one we marry.

Hawkeye in Mash is a beta male, as is Mel Gibson's Maverick. On the female side, Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone is a beta character.

So why choose a beta character? Well, you avoid the possibility of making your character unlikeable–which is the kiss of death in a romance. Betas also make great foils for your alpha antagonist. Plus, although the pure alpha male can be very sexy, it would be hard to fall in love with him. And romance readers want to fall in love with our heros.

So, does that mean avoiding the alpha character except for your bad guys? Not exactly. In my opinion, the most intriguing characters are those who possess a combination of both alpha and beta traits. In particular, there's nothing sexier than the beta male who turns alpha when the need arises.

Harrison Ford often plays this type of character. Think Han Solo, who does his best to avoid fight, but knows how to handle him self when shoved against a wall. Or Indiana Jones, an archeology professor, who becomes very aggressive when needed.

Mel Gibson also does these roles often, and very well. Remember the William Wallace's character in Brave Heart? All he wanted was to raise a family, but when his wife is murdered, he turned pure alpha. Or what about his character in the Lethal Weapon series? He's an alpha male because that's what he's good at, but it's not what he wants. He envies his partner, the family man. And the combination makes him a great character.
Women can pull off this switch, too. In Alias, Sydney Bristow would like nothing better than to lead a normal life, but it's denied her. Instead, she takes on the role of the alpha female for the CIA. And she kicks butt!

There are endless variations on this, and you can mix them up in all sorts of interesting ways. Val Kilmer's role as Doc Holiday in Tombstone. He was an alpha male through and through, hiding behind the veneer of genteel beta characteristics. An absolutely wonderful character, he made a so-so movie worth watching
Also Val Kilmer's role in The Ghost and The Darkness. He plays a beta male, who becomes something else: a true alpha male. The character arc in this film is tremendous. It makes you wonder if what he becomes at the end isn't what the true man was all along.

So, next time you watch a movie or discuss your favorite book with a friend, see if you can figure out what parts the characters take on: alpha or beta. It's guaranteed to generate a heated discussion and give you all a better understanding of what makes different type of characters work. Then you'll have one more tool to help you create magic with your characters.

Next month I'm going to discuss how to use POV (Point of View) to create great characters.

Author of eight novels of romance and romantic suspense, Pat's debut Hardcover, Blind Run by Patricia Lewin is an April 2003 release from Ballantine Books. Don't miss it!