Tag: how do I make my characters believable?

How to write like someone you’re not – and still sound authentic

  By ,

This might be a little too obvious. [Photo by Emil]

 As a copywriter, I might be selling waterproof work boots to truckers one day, and giving makeup tips to fashionistas another. Maybe both in the same day. But if I’m not familiar with my audience, I have to get familiar before I write anything. You may have the same problem.

Say you’re writing about a character who is wildly unlike yourself. Maybe they’re an extreme version of some part of yourself (as all characters tend to be), but their background and lifestyle demands a manner of speaking completely different from anything you know. How do you master a voice that’s not your own?

Start by writing down everything you know about the character whose voice you need to create. Personality traits, occupation, hobbies. Then, prepare to research. You must immerse yourself in the voice you seek to emulate, much like living in a different country to learn the language. Here’s how:

 

Online communities

My number one resource for getting into the heads of my audience is the Internet. You can find a blog or forum for just about any group of people – I have stumbled across communities for everything from anorexics to Satanists, to Jews who love bacon (those all purely by accident). Look up social websites centered around your narrator’s profession, hobbies, even medical or psychological conditions. Do this by Googling your subject with words like blog, forum, community, online support group, tips, terminology, handbook, dictionary (i.e. “spoon-collector’s forum” etc.). Take it a step further by asking yourself what products your character would buy, then find the Facebook page of a company that sells said product, and read the fan comments. Google the definitions of terms you don’t know. Bookmark the sites you find and reference them frequently.

Books

Probably the most obvious way to familiarize yourself with a voice is to find a book narrated by a character who is like yours, or at least one that has a lot of dialogue by a character like yours. Type out a few pages of the narrative/dialogue to help give your fingers and your brain a feel for the flow of the language. Reach outside fiction, too – read the memoir of a real person who is similar to your character. If you’re writing period fiction, read something that was actually written during the time period in question.

 

Movies & TV

Can’t think of a book that has your character type? Try thinking of a movie or TV show that does. Find some quotes from that character on IMDB – and again, type them out to get a feel for the voice.

 

People watching / eavesdropping

Find a public place where you’re likely to find the type of people you’re writing about. If you’re writing about a college student, hang out in a coffee shop by the closest college campus. If you’re writing about a factory worker, eat lunch at a diner close to a factory, or check out a nearby bar at happy hour. If you’re writing about children, offer to baby-sit your sister’s kids, or hang out at the playground of your local park (just bring a friend with you so people don’t think you’re a creeper). Shop at stores your character is likely to shop at. Visit a church or synagogue they might frequent. Listen to snippets of conversation around you, and surreptitiously write them in a notebook.

 

–

Where do you find the voices of your characters? Tell me in the comments!

–

Dates for Voice Week 2012!

  By

Yes folks, Voice Week is back—and we’ve got less than two months to get ready for it.

 

What is Voice Week?

Voice Week is the time the InMonsters (and anyone else who wants to join in) all step outside the voices we are used to and try writing something new. We’ll each write five different 100-word pieces—each piece told in a different voice. We’ll post a piece a day, Monday through Friday, in the first week of October. Then we’ll hop around to each other’s blogs, reading, commenting, learning, and offering constructive criticism. There’ll also be a prize or two awarded to randomly-selected voice writers (exact prize(s) to be announced soon).

 

What is voice?

Voice is the personality infused into your writing—from the words you choose, to the structure and rhythm of your sentences, and other little details, like whether you add accents or grammatical errors on purpose. Different narrators have different voices. An old man will choose different words and arrange them differently than a teenage girl will.

 

Why do I need a unique voice?

Your voice sets you apart from every other writer. Voice is the quickest way to help your readers get to know your narrator—and it’s more effective than exposition. Voice is one of the biggest ways you show (don’t tell) your narrator’s personality. An intriguing or amusing voice can keep readers reading even when not much is happening with the plot. 

 

Why do I need to practice different voices?

Your voice may change depending on the story you are writing. Maybe your novel is a brooding literary piece, but you’re also writing a short adventure story that requires a whimsical wit. Even if you don’t cross genres, your protagonists may be different. A boy or a girl, an adult or a child. An angel or an alien. A person from the seventeenth century or the twenty-seventh. They all require different voices. The more unique and authentic, the better.

 

But what if I write in third person?

All narrators have voice, whether they are characters in the story or not. Think of your favorite third-person writers and how different they sound from one another. Is the tone dark, or light? Clean and sharp, or thick and introspective?

 

How do I become a part of Voice Week?

  1. Leave a comment telling me you’re in! Be sure to include a link to your blog so I can add you to the Voice Week blogroll.
  2. Write something about 100 words long. You can use an InMon prompt, a Voice Week prompt, or even a piece you wrote a long time ago. HINT: It might be easier if it’s in first person, but it’s up to you.
  3. Rewrite that piece four times. Change the personality of the narrator each time. The goal is to write with five different voices. The benefit of using the same story/scene/situation is that we can focus on the difference in the voices. Whether you simply change the personality of the same character five times, or write the same scene from five different characters’ points of view, or only write similar situations happening to people in five different centuries—it’s all up to you.
  4. Come October 1, start posting, and link back to the Voice Week homepage with each post.

 

I’m confused.

Check out the rules

See answers to frequently asked questions

 

I need examples. How did Voice Week go last year?

Read last year’s voices

Read my summary post

 

I can’t wait to get started!

Comment below, and…

Get your Voice Week badge!!!

—

Stay tuned: in the weeks leading up to Voice Week, we’ll be digging deeper into voice, what it is, and how to find yours.

—

8 cool ways to get close to your characters

  By ,

Image by Okko Pyykko.

People who aren’t writers don’t know the extent of background work that goes into writing a novel—how much plot, setting and character development we write that never appears on the published page.

This is a list of a few of those things.

If you find you have a flat, boring, predictable character—or possibly an unpredictable one, whom you can’t force to do anything he is supposed to do—you probably just don’t know him well enough. Here are some icebreaker exercises to get you two acquainted.

  1. Outline a short history of his (or her) life. Born in this type of neighborhood, went to this type of school, had these types of friends, had this first job, was obsessed with this brand of beef jerky, etc. Include all the major emotional events—moving to another town, death in the family, spelling bee won, heart broken, etc. Check every scene in your novel against this history. Does the character’s emotional reaction match his background? (I recently realized that, in my novel, I had recreated the most traumatic event of one character’s childhood, but he endured it with no signs of inner turmoil: not even a flashback. Don’t let this happen to you! Don’t waste a good chance to add drama!)
  1. Write a traumatic scene from his childhood. Pick one part of that history and actually write it out. It can be as traumatic as his parents’ violent deaths or just losing his mom in the grocery store for five minutes, or seeing a scary movie. This’ll help you figure out his deepest fears and how he reacts to them as an adult.
  1. Describe his “emotional acre.” This tip from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. She says we are each born with a sort of imaginary acre of land we can do whatever we want with. Plant vegetables or hold an eternal garage sale, that sort of thing. Based on what you now know about your character’s life, figure out what’s in his emotional acre. What does he nurture, hoard, or leave to ruin? With that in mind, ask what he carries in his pockets (or her purse), or keeps in his sock drawer.
  1. Write a stream of consciousness piece from his point of view. Even if you’re not writing in first person (or if you are, but this character isn’t the narrator), step into his head for half an hour and look through his eyes and read his thoughts. Write down what you discover.
  1. Write what people say about him behind his back. How others see him will reveal a lot about him—even is it isn’t all true. How does he stand? How does he sit? How does his posture change when he is bored or nervous? Do people misinterpret his body language? What are the worst rumors about him? How much of it is true?
  1. Write his eulogy—as written by some of your other characters. What people say about him after his death can be even more revealing. Are they afraid to speak ill of him, or was he such a jerk that no one cares? Do they remember nice things about him they had long forgotten? Do they wonder how they’ll go on without him?
  1. Take the Meyers-Briggs personality test for him. Now that you’ve got a feel for him, answer this series of yes or no questions on his behalf. At the end, they’ll tell you his personality type, give you some essays about that type, and a list of fictional and real characters who have/had the same personality. Read it all!
  1. Give him breathing space. You may go through several drafts of your novel, the character shifting with each draft. His actions and speech will change as you learn more about him, and you may discover things about him that force you to alter your plot. Go with it. Don’t try to force him into a box. In a strange twist that parallels Judeo/Christian theology, if you don’t give your characters free will, they will be boring, soulless robots.

 —

What Meyers-Briggs personality type is your character? Tell me in the comments! (I’ve got an INTJ and an INSJ.)

—

6 ways first person narrators can describe themselves

  By ,
Photo by Sodanie Chea

Photo by Sodanie Chea

If your main character is narrating the story, how do they describe themselves? You could just start in “I have long blonde hair and blue eyes,” but somehow it feels like the next part should be “and I like long walks on the beach.”

It’s awkward for a reason: normal people don’t walk around reminding themselves of their own hair color, eye color and height.

That’s why the mirror is such a bad cliché. I don’t know about you, but when I look in the mirror, I’m not thinking “I have brown hair and brown eyes,” I’m thinking “Man, my teeth are really starting to look coffee stained. I need to do a serious peroxide rinse.”

So unless your protagonist is surveying the results of his face transplant, try one of these alternatives.

1. Don’t describe him at all

Do your readers have to know what the protagonist looks like to understand the plot? If not, consider leaving it out altogether. After all, you want your reader to look through the hero’s eyes, not at them.

Especially if your character is only “average-looking.” Average-ness implies itself and need not be explained. That’s like saying water is wet.

2. Give it to your reader straight

This one is dependant on the style of narration. If you are actually telling the story to someone (with frequent quirky asides to your “dear reader”), rather than telling a story that someone else just happens to read, your hero can simply describe himself during introductions. But be warned: don’t try to force it if this isn’t your style.

3. Embarrass them

Make them self-conscious about a physical flaw. She only smiles close-mouthed because she’s embarrassed by the gap in her teeth. He wishes he had biceps like the head jock.

If you want to get all the important details in at once, have someone super good looking stare at them, to make them extra aware of all their flaws, like John Green does when The Fault in Our Stars protagonist Hazel notices hot boy Augustus is staring at her in their cancer support group, and she thinks about her jeans that sag in weird places, unbrushed pageboy haircut, and ridiculously fat chipmunked cheeks – a side effect of chemo. A laundry list, but the thought flow is logical and natural.

4. Compare and contrast with another character

“My daughter has my crooked smile, but her father’s blue eyes.” or, “We were the strangest pair you’ve ever seen. I was tall and stringy, he was short and pudgy. Standing next to each other, we looked like a lowercase ‘b.’ Or ‘d,’ depending on who was on which side.” These can even create a poetic effect, as you can simultaneously compare and contrast personality traits as well.

5. Use dialogue

Her best friend gently explains dark roots are out of fashion. His father remarks he really ought to cut his hair (he looks like a hippie). Her enemy asks if she’s a natural redhead. Use compliments (“I with I had your thighs!”) and nicknames (Shorty, Stringbean, Pineapple Head).

6. Show, don’t tell

Don’t try to describe the character all at once, but little by little, showing, not telling. If they are short, have them struggle to reach something most others could get. If tall, have them duck through doorways. If they are unattractive, make them self-conscious around people of the opposite sex. If attractive, have others flirt with them. This is a figurative mirror – your hero’s appearance is reflected in the way other characters react to it.

—

How do you describe your narrator? Tell us in the comments!

—

girl looking in mirror

Describe your main character without the tired old “looking in the mirror” cliche.

To curse, or not to curse: profanity in fiction

  By

Image by Ian Soper

As literary influencers, as preservers of words, as Guardians of the Language, are writers forbidden—or on the other hand, required—to use profanity?

I could explain my own religious reasons for not swearing (I opt instead for terms like “baloney sandwiches”), but half of you don’t care about that. Because no matter what I believe, it can’t answer the question:

What if one of my characters doesn’t give a flip?

So I’m not going to tell you to never use profanity in your work. And I’m not going to preach at you. But I will advise you to use profanity sparingly—and include purely artistic reasons why.

But before that, we need to understand what swear words are.

“Just words”?

You might think swear words are simply synonyms for other words; synonyms society only considers different.

Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers begs to differ:

Once a word becomes a curse, it loses its original meaning pretty fast. Like I’m not talking about any particular sphincter when I call someone an [bleep]**. It’s almost as if my brain has a different place for storing curse words than it does for storing normal words. Holy [bleep]; it does. Language and linguistics happen in a recently-developed and very complex part of the brain in the left hemisphere. Swearing, on the other hand, happens in the emotional bit, in the limbic system. Swear words are stored and accessed in a completely different way. So next time you think ‘there’s nothing different about swearwords’ – there is. They’re physiologically different for us…You can think of swear words as being stored in our brains as units of emotional expression. Almost like a laugh or a scream or crying. It blurs the line between linguistics and emotion.

Units of emotional expression. Remember that.

 

Here are the reasons you might swear in fiction:

(and, consequently, the reasons to avoid it)

1. That’s the way people really talk

The thing about fictional dialogue is, it’s just an illusion of the real thing. Even when we replace Gs with apostrophes, use double negatives, and add in “um”s and “uh”s, we’re just creating the illusion of accent and bad grammar and stammering. If we actually wrote the way people talk, readers would have a hard time deciphering it. If you’ve ever had to transcribe real human speech, you know what I’m talking about.

So even though you might swear with every other word in real life, it isn’t practical to write dialogue that way. It’s harsher in print, and the repetition clouds the meaning. It’s hard to sift through all the f-bombs to get to the point.

So for clarity’s sake, what you want is to create the illusion of swearing.*

2. There’s no other way to express XYZ

Maybe your character is extremely surprised, distressed, or broken-hearted. If you’re writing about a father watching his daughter slowly decay from cancer, somehow “stupid cancer” just doesn’t cut it when she dies. This is just the kind of situation in which one of those units of emotional expression seems necessary.

It’s also the reason you should minimize—or even eliminate—swear words from the rest of the book.

If your character drops f-bombs in every chapter, when you finally get to the climax, the word is meaningless. You have sucked all the oomph out of it. When you use swear words that often, they cease to be units of emotional expression and instead become filler words—in much the same way some people use the word “literally.”

 

In short, profanity is powerful. But only when used sparingly. If you use it all the time, you’re wasting it.

*Next week, I’ll give some real examples of authors who found clever ways to create the illusion of swearing.

 

—

** For the record, Hank actually bleeped himself. I recommend watching the entire video (only 4 minutes).

–