Norwescon 44 – Pat’s Notes – Part 5

The fifth panel I went to over the weekend was Saturday’s “Advanced Character Creation“

Character-creation templates, which new writers can download and use, are everywhere on the internet. But what actually goes into making you feel a character’s wounds and triumphs? How do working writers approach character creation? How do you develop a character hook and do you proceed from there?

Shweta Adhyam (M), Nancy Kress, Louise Marley, Sara A Mueller

Names

The first thing that came up was character names. Apparently, a lot of writers start there. (I don’t. I didn’t know Carl’s name until the second draft, and I didn’t know Veer’s last name until at least the third. Toni went through several different names before I finally settled on hers.)

• One of the panelists (forget which one, sorry) said that the name should mean something to the writer. What it means to the reader is secondary. That makes sense to me, as everyone’s going to have their own pre-conceived notions about what the name means.
• Also, beware of choosing a “cool” sounding name. For example, John Run. Sounds good, but “run” is also a verb, which can lead to “sentence issues.”
• And, also, always remember to google the name. (Trust me on this one. The panel knows what they are talking about. This includes fantasy names. Perhaps especially fantasy names. I recall one instance of one of my Twitter friends in Europe, writing his fantasy novel in English, came up with a name for a character that wasn’t a common term in Europe, but is a racial epithet in America. In general, you don’t want to do that.)

Template sheets? There are “character template sheets” online that you can find. Nobody recommended them.

Some things to keep in mind.

• Characters are tied to and influenced by their world.
  • How did their culture shape them?
  • Think of an item that’s special to the character. Where they did it? How?
• The “Stanislavski Method”
  • “Become” the character. Think of things from their point of view. Developed for actors, the method works well for writers, too.
  • More info on it at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislavski%27s_system

Within a Scene

• What does your character want?
  • They always want something. It may change from scene to scene, but it’s always something.
• What goes wrong?
  • Something prevents your character from getting what they want. What is it, and how do they react to it?
• External vs. Internal
  • The “character templates” mentioned above are purely external. The internal is more important, and more interesting.
  • What does your character think about? What are they worried about? How do they feel?

Genres

• Mystery
  • Starts out with “How did this person get dead?”
  • Continues to “Who is going to investigate that?”
  • Your character is the answer to that question.
• Romance
  • No genre is more about character development than romance novels.
  • What leads these two people specifically to fall in love specifically with each other?

Other Characters

How many really deep characters can one novel hold?

• The answer is probably less than 20. (One panelist mentioned a novel they’d read with 20 POV characters, none of whom made a lasting impression.)
• 2-3 maybe. Let’s the writer be very deep.
• 3-4, or even a couple more for an epic fantasy series.
  • Yellow Tape and Coffee has four POV characters (cut back from 6 in the early drafts). At 732 pages, I would consider it an epic fantasy. There are a couple more characters who are pretty deep, Toni and Victor, who aren’t POV characters.
• One writer said that her editor had asked her to add a new character, a sidekick for the main character. She replied that “I need an extra twenty thousand words for that.”
• Each character needs to sell the story again.
• In a short story, the maximum is usually ONE.

Speaking of Sidekicks…

How to sell supporting characters

• A physical habit? Brushes her hair out of her face, tugs his ear? I’ve never been a fan of that kind of “unique tick” but some people are. YMMV.
• How they dress. Just a few words about the clothes someone’s wearing may set them apart.
• If they’re described differently by different POV characters, it can not only tell the reader more about them, but about the POV character too.
  • In Yellow Tape and Coffee, Michael describes Carl as “A young man, probably mid 20s, of average build and a scar on his right shoulder.” While Gordon describes him as “A scrawny white kid.”
• Backstory. Just a sentence or so of a character’s backstory can make them seem more real.
• How does interaction with this character change the protagonist?
• Good to have someone to talk to. Can also be a foil to your main character.
  • In Yellow Tape and Coffee, Victor was demoted from POV character when I realized most of his scenes were with Veer, who was already a POV character herself, so all of his scenes had to be re-written in the next draft.
  • Of the four main POV characters, Gordon alone didn’t have a “supporting cast.” Until he started interacting with the other characters, most of his scenes are of him alone, and a lot of internal monologue. I was actually worried about how people would react to him, but he’s many readers’ favorite character, and in most readers’ top two.
• In Jack London’s To Build a Fire, there is only one character. London threw in the dog so he’d have someone to talk to. (According to the panelists. I haven’t read this one yet.)

Character Growth

What’s your character like at the beginning of the story vs. What are they like at the end?

Even in a short story, that’s an important question.

“Save the cat” scene. If this character is going to have a redemption arc, it’s best to show them doing something good early on to foreshadow the change, otherwise it may be too late.

Physical Description

• Don’t go overboard. Keep it to a minimum.
• And especially don’t throw it in at the end after the reader has already spent most of your novel building an image up in their own mind.