Building Character
Or rather, characters. This is one of a fiction writer’s biggest tasks. If your readers can’t feel or see what you are trying to emote through your characters, you’ve lost them. Fiction readers want nothing more than to climb inside the minds and live in the world of your characters while they’re with you.
But How?
Well, the first thing they teach us in author school (kidding, of course ) is Show Don’t Tell. Sounds easy enough, right? Try it. Take a few minutes, write oh, say, a five hundred word action scene. I’ll wait…
Done? Great. Now, let’s go back and see how many times we’ve used words (or variations of) like: Knew, saw, thought, wanted, feel, tried… you get the idea. Those are all fine for a first draft. However, when it comes time for edits, we need to vacuum, dust and rearrange the furniture.
“He saw her run down the hall toward him” will become, “She ran down the hall toward him.”
“I knew I had to get out of there” becomes, “I had to get out of there.”
See how the small changes put the reader directly in the action rather than just watching it unfold? (P.S., You may also realize there are better words than ran too. Maybe she charged down the hall or sprinted. It’ll depend on what kind of woman she is and the circumstances) When we tell what our characters are doing we deprive our readers the opportunity to feel it. If ‘she was finding it hard to breathe’ then try saying ‘Her eyes grew round. Her mouth gaped and one hand flew to her throat as the other pounded the table.’ Is your ‘she’ even the type to pound on a table? Maybe she’s the type of woman who’d throw something. Only you know how your character would handle any given situation. At least you should.
Know Your Characters
Sounds obvious, I know. But it’s so important to truly know your characters. What drives them? What motivates them? Why is your villain the way he or she is? Even if you don’t use their backstory, you need to know it. For example, I have a character in Mae’s Cafe – Miles Hannaford – who is quite narcissistic. If he was just a passing character, I could have left him flat. However, Miles is a significant part of the series. So, I needed to learn why and how someone becomes a narcissist. What kind of parents raise someone like that? I wanted Miles to grow and evolve from someone readers could barely stand to someone they liked despite his shortcomings, so it was important for me to know these things about him.
The same goes for the characters you love. If you want your readers to fall in love with your hero, just telling them he is tall, dark, and handsome, a great guy who rescues kittens from trees, and likes long walks on the beach ain’t gonna cut it. Show his qualities in gestures, actions, and his own words. Which brings me to the next point…
Let Them Speak
Seriously. Let your characters speak as often as reasonable. If Max can’t stand being in the same room as Jane for a minute longer, let him say so! Word of advice: Be sure to break up long dialogue sections into ‘bite-size’ servings. Otherwise, even great dialogue becomes tedious.
Easy Peasy
Okay, maybe not exactly easy. But doable. Definitely doable with practice, patience, and perseverance. Now get out of here and get back to writing!
