 Drama: June 26, 2019 Issue [#9600] |
This week: Are Your Characters Genuine? Edited by: Joy  
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“In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations!"
Anton Chekhov --Letter to Alexander Chekhov, May 10, 1886
“It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.”
William Faulkner
“You don't really understand an antagonist until you understand why he's a protagonist in his own version of the world.”
John Rogers
“I care more about the people in books than the people I see every day.”
Jo Walton, Among Others
“I will go to my grave in a state of abject endless fascination that we all have the capacity to become emotionally involved with a personality that doesn't exist.”
Berkeley Breathed
Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. This issue is about knowing your characters deeply so they shine as genuine human beings in your stories.
Thank you for reading our newsletters and for supplying the editors with feedback and encouragement.
Please, note that there are no rules in writing, but there are methods that work for most of us most of the time.
The ideas and suggestions in my articles and editorials have to do with those methods. You are always free to find your own way and alter the methods to your liking.
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
Characterization is thorny and complicated. Yet, the success of a story rests more on its characters than its other elements. To expose the full dramatic function of our characters, we need to do a little more than creating character sheets. I am sure, you are already doing some or most of the things I’m going to mention, but it doesn’t hurt to list them as a possible aid.
What you have on the character sheets are types, not characters. I have nothing against character sheets. I make those sheets, too, but they are only the beginning and not the end.
To turn the players in your story into characters--in other words, real people—, you need to take your time and work with them on paper, writing down what you can think and intuit, unless you have this terrific memory and you can recall and process everything you think of. Most of us usually get into the heads of our characters and talk from there, which I do a lot of that, too. The following exercises, however, give a writer the bird’s eye view of looking in from the outside. Thus, what are some of those ways you can enhance the presentation of the people on your character sheets?
 Watch your characters in their private everyday moments. Do they have any rituals for any time of the day such as making their beds first or washing up first in the morning or do they adapt to the ways that life pushes on them? What do they do in secret or try to get away with, for example snacking or eating when they say they are dieting? What kinds of things lure them away from their work like the internet, electronic games, daydreaming, spying on their neighbors?
Watch them for a full day as if tailing them like a detective and note the smallest things that get their attention or those things that pass them by or those they evade looking at. Search for things they do subconsciously like checking their watch, playing with their hair, clothing, jewelry, or other accessories.
Check what’s in their pockets, purses, drawers, safes etc. Note what they mean to your character even those most common things like their birth certificate, diplomas, coins, crumpled papers, and the like.
Get into their work space, cubicle or their homes, concentrating in one room at a time, closets, shelves, their hidden nooks and crannies, and their cars if they have one. Note all the details no matter how minimal because you never know how they may pop up and gain importance during the story.
Watch them deal with money. How are they with spending it? What kinds of products do they use? Generics or fancy name labels? Or do they buy things impulsively? Do they give to charities?
Get the other people in the character’s life gossip about her or him? It doesn't matter whether the gossipers are in your story or not. What does the cashier at the check-our in the market thought of her/him for a moment, for example?
Listen in while they unload their dreams, hidden pain, joy, and secret plans to another person like a priest, a psychologist, or a best friend. What is it that they are not telling to others or even to themselves? Have their suspicions turned to paranoia? What frightens them or causes pain and embarrassment? What may be their secret remorse, wish, or goal? How have they changed over time? What are they lying about? What are their mannerisms during the conversation?
Most of us usually get into the heads of our characters and talk from there, which I do a lot, too. These exercises, however, give a writer the bird’s eye view of looking in from the outside in addition to what's inside the character, presenting the character as an authentic person.
Some of the things you’ll notice and write in the exercises may seem futile and the practice unnecessary, but this workout is productive especially if you are writing a novel needing more fully developed characters and also, a big help with the characters of books in series. Then, once you collect a few characters that take a human shape in your repertoire, you can always use them with a name change and a few more tweaks in your other stories.
Until next time!  |
 Enjoy!
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This Issue's Tip: If you have too many player-characters crowding out the important characters, cut out a few of those players, so the important ones can take over more of the plot action, dialogue, witticisms, and the like.
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Feedback for "Taste and Smell and the Five Senses"
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Quick-Quill 
Using all the senses gives the reader a full immersion into your story. It changes from Telling to actually being in the character's mind and body. We all touch things when we enter a new place or even a familiar one. The smell of dinner, even after it's eaten can evoke memories. You can be writing horror or a memoir and the smell of dinner can have different effects on the character. Think Hannibal Lector or Laura Ingalls, their memories of a room are vastly different even they were put in the same room.
Thanks for the input.
Hannibal Lector vs Laura Ingalls is a good example, and it is true, some of what a character derives from any of his senses usually depends on who he is.
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Paul 
Hi,
There’s a show on Netflix called “The Sniffer” which is a Russian TV series about a An wit a super Ouse. He can smell things so well he’s used by the police and solves crimes no one else can. I worked and lived in Russia for 2 years and never thought them capable of producing anything of this quality. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Another series, Sense8, is about an 8 member gestalt that’s hiding from the bad guys and is very well done. Filmed all over the world they are able to share their abilities. If one gets in trouble another can take over with specific talents best able to fix the problem. If ones in physical danger a karate expert can kick ass, a chemist can concoct something, an actor can weasel out of the jam, etc. I love this concept and would give most anything to be part of a group like that.
Paul🐸
That is interesting. I haven't heard of Sniffer or the Sense8, but I bet they are really different and exciting series. Thanks for mentioning them.
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