The characters
THE CHARACTERS
When you read fiction, the first and most important thing you are doing is getting to know people. Characters are at the heart of any story. Those that interact with and influence all the other elements of fiction. The characters are the narrative engine, who transport the reader from the first to the last page, making him or her care about what happens to them. Good writers are able to create the feeling that their characters are real, flesh and blood people who live, breathe, think and have emotions.
The desire
Every character should want something. Spending time defining a strong desire in the main character will make the storyline grow organically based on that need. Desire is the driving force of human nature, and when applied to the characters it creates the push that moves the story forward.
Characters can have huge and passionate desires such as climbing Everest. Or lesser and simpler ones such as drinking a beer to escape a heated argument or trying to grow melons in pots. The size or importance of what is wanted is not as significant as whether the character wants it intensely.
Example: In the story The Robber by Katherine Anne Porter, the main character just wants her empty purse back. Her desire is very important to her and therefore becomes important to the reader.
The fact that the character strongly desires something allows the reader to identify and sympathise with him or her.
ACTIVITY:
- You are going to come up with a character. As this can be difficult, for inspiration think of someone real around you: a friend, family member, or use a parent or child who is having problems with their own parent or child.
- Think of a goal or desire that the character wants to achieve. Make it something specific – money, improvement at work, contact with a certain person – rather than something abstract like love or personal growth.
Show and describe
The key question remains: how do we put on paper apparently real people and endow them with humanity using only words? There are two basic ways of creating a fictional character: show and describe.
Sometimes it is most efficient for the narrator to simply describe the character for the reader. However, showing information is much more interesting than describing it, and doing so gives the reader the possibility to be more actively involved in the reading.
Example:
Greta is a 23-year-old artist and interior designer who doesn’t like having flatmates. The basic information about Greta is on the table and we can move on. In this example of a description of Greta, the reader discovers her name, her age, her occupations and that she does not like to have flatmates. However, in most cases it will be more powerful to show Greta’s personality rather than simply describe her.
The trick of showing rather than describing is to reveal the specific details that convey the necessary information while the reader’s attention remains focused on the character’s emotions and actions. For example:
After a stressful week in Mr Feinmen’s establishment, experimenting with materials that could turn his front hall into a low-ceilinged cave, Greta sat in a separate corner of the café drinking her tea. If her flatmate was going to be away for the night, she could have some time to experiment with wire mesh modelling and create skeleton puppets.
The basic facts are still present in this version; you get an idea of Greta’s age, she tells us that her job is as an interior designer and that she doesn’t like having a flatmate.
But there is even more information in this version. We sense Greta’s eccentric and even macabre artistic style. The nature of the difficulties with her flatmate also begin to emerge: Greta does not feel that she has her own space for her art at home.
Moreover, we see how he handles stress: he decides to hide in a coffee shop rather than face the problem. Interestingly, she seems to prefer cave-like environments in both her artistic and personal life.
She drinks tea, which tells the reader something different from what she would say if she drank beer. If she drank a glass of cava, it would also be different.
Best of all, the second version is much more interesting to read because it gives the reader the opportunity to interact more with the story. The reader’s attention is kept focused on the action and Greta’s desire, which creates momentum and tension as well as conveying aspects of her characterisation.
In general, there are four ways to show the traits of a character:
- Action: A character’s personality can be known simply by the way he treats the next-door neighbour who always leaves the rubbish outside his flat, by the way he has fun on Tuesday nights, by how he confronts the man shouting on the train. Action is often the most powerful method of portraying a character.
- Example: In The Forsyte Saga, Irene has parted from Soames Forsyte, whom she hates. Soames had turned away from the window to stop near Irene, who had sought refuge in the curve of the grand piano. -It is very unlikely that we shall meet again- said Soames slowly. Shall we shake hands -his lips trembled and the words came out in halting gasps- and bury the past?. He held out his hand to her. Irene paled even more, her black eyes fixed on his, and she stood with her hands clasped.
- Speech: Characters also reveal themselves through what they say. What people say, how they say it and what they don’t say is very illustrative. If you want to meet someone, what do you do?. You talk to that person.
- Example: from the play Hard Times From Mario Vargas Llosa -I’ve come to warn you, Martita- he said, looking at her with a certain alarm in his clear eyes. As you are well aware, you have many enemies because of your situation, I mean, your relations with the president. And you could find yourself in a difficult moment, exceptionally so. What does all mean ? -Marta interrupted him. She didn’t want to sound scared, but she was.
- Appearance: One look at someone can give you a lot of information about their personality. We can draw conclusions from their image, their style of dress, the way they walk and their facial expression. A character’s appearance conveys information to the reader about how he or she presents him or herself and what space that person occupies in the world.
- Example: Galsworthy introduces Irene in The Landlord as follows: A tall woman, with a beautiful figure, whom someone in the family had compared to a pagan goddess, gazed at the two with an indefinable smile, her hands, sheathed in stone-grey gloves, crossed one over the other, and her face, serious and charming, slightly tilted to one side, attracted the gaze of all the men near her. Her figure swayed with such poise that a breath of air seemed to be enough to set her in motion. There was warmth in her cheeks, though little colour; the eyes were large, dark, and velvety; but it was the lips -when she asked a question or gave an answer, with that slight, enigmatic smile- that attracted the eyes of men; they were delicate, sensuous, sweet, and seemed to exhale the warmth and fragrance of a flower.
- Thought: Fiction is flexible enough to allow us to enter into the minds of characters with more grace and depth than any other form of storytelling. In fiction we can lay bare directly for the reader the thoughts of a character.
- Example: From Elvira Lindo Una palabra tuya (A word from you).”I don’t like my face or my name. Well the two things have ended up being the same. It is as if I find myself happy within this name but I suspect that life has thrown me into it, made me into it and there is no other that can define me as I am. And there is no escape. I say Rosario and I’m looking at the image that every night is reflected in the mirror, the big nose, the eyes also big but sad, the mouth well drawn but too thin. I say Rosario and there’s my whole story contained, because my face hasn’t changed since I was a little girl, since I was a child with an adult name and a grave gesture”.
(Activities with texts taken from books to determine which of the above forms is involved).
ACTIVITY:
Imagine a person entering the dentist’s waiting room to have a tooth extraction for the first time.We will assume it is quite likely that this person is feeling a bit stressed. Keeping the character in the waiting room, write a passage where the character is shown through the four methods: action, speech, appearance and thought.
Once the character’s traits have been shown with the four techniques above, his or her name should fit his or her personality and play a role in his or her characterisation.
ACTIVITY:
Open a magazine and write down a name, any name. That person will be your character. Think about who this person might really be. Or which character would fit well with that particular name. Let an image form in your mind. If you like it, write down the details about that character.