Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Defining Character

Defining Character

I do fairly well explaining things as long as the subject deals with the science of writing. However, when it comes to explaining the art I am in deep kimchee. This is not only my problem but one for anyone who tries to explain the art of anything. I have a pile of references and when I get in trouble I use these to help me focus… but you know what? Writing about the science of defining characters is like sticking Jelly to the wall. I use the example of my watercolor teacher showing me how to paint a leaf. It was a process for which there was no real explanation…. She could do it and demonstrated it before my eyes and I couldn’t approach her skill… even though I tried over and over again. However, my leaf painting did improve somewhat so I guess that hope springs eternal.

Now the point I’m trying to make is that all writers know something about character development and I could sit here and try and intellectualize the process and all I would accomplish is some head scratching. Like these references I read on character development. I have concluded that it is beyond the scope of the human mind to intellectually give birth to a character any more than it’s possible to think a baby into existence. When the time comes they will emerge and the best you can hope for is to be ready to catch them, and offer a little nurture. They are the unborn children of your spirit filled with darkness and light destined to never actually walk the pathways of this dimension. They are sometimes mean spirited and sometimes sublime and without the chains you bind them with, they soon return to the nether world, from whence they came.

So brothers and sisters, fellow writers, let their vapor rise up from your soul and walk the corridors of your imagination. Give echo to their footsteps, authenticity to their amorphous form and make them stand taller than life. Let their darkness fill your story or their purity glisten like the dew. Let them stretch and yawn briefly taking note of your presence as they stare with awe about the bewildering world of your persona. Catch them while you can in the in the key strokes of your fingers and give them immortality in words.

Don’t make them an intellectual exercise. Start with something generic from your past and coax them from the dark world of fancy into the bright light of day. Take note of who they represent and what they stand for. As their faces begin to emerge from past experiences use their plastic visage as the batter in your cupcake pan. Give them the flesh of believability and embellish them in robes of grandeur. Let them behave plausibly but fill the mold to overflowing. They need to germinate as a transient seed and slowly grow bigger than life. Begin with a memory or a stereotype and push them to the limits of awe.

Don’t get caught up in trying to figure out what comes first, the chicken or the egg. Trying to decide if the story line begets the character or if the character is the genesis of the story. It happens both ways. You get an idea for a story and like a casting director you go out in search of the actors. Or you can have this interesting character that you get to talking and they tell you the story. Or you can get both working concurrently and let them feed off each other as they mature before your very eyes.

In my class I tell the student to write a vignette between 1K and 3K words. Then in the prompt I throw in half a dozen things I want them to include. Then I turn them loose. The catch is that they have to come up with something by the following week and the subsequent vignettes share the same characters and story line. In this process they must settle on who the Central Character will be. Now I won’t tell you how often students identify a central character who is anything but central, or how often a supporting character upstages the central character.

What is important is to show who they are and what they stand for and the changes that take place at this important phase in developing a story. It begins by showing them doing something and ends as they mature into something different.