Character Week: Creating Compelling Characters

As you may have grasped from last weeks extra credit, creating compelling, believable characters is tough.  To do so, you must walk a tight rope, giving the character you design the traits you want while striving to make sure he or she does not come across as one dimensional.

First, what makes a one dimensional character?  Let's put it this way, Paragons and Villains often come across as one dimensional because they only have one note, they are either the perfect hero or always evil.  While this can sometimes hold up in genre fiction, it gets real old real quick.  After reading two or three books with the same stale hero/villain dynamic, I've grown bored, and thus will not read a fantasy novel unless it comes highly recommended by someone with tastes I trust.

To get around this conundrum is actually fairly simple and not as transparent as it might sound.  Give your characters faults!  What faults tend to do is open up another dimension to you characters, gives them internal struggles, and even if these struggles are not exactly written on the page, your readers will pick up on them.  This is a stimulating experience for the reader, especially when combined with other tactics, such as giving your character wants, goals, dreams, desires, etc.

Creative Writing Prompt:  Write a scene where you create a character who wants to get something done.  This can be as simple or complex as you want to make it, a trip to the store, or a trip to Mordor, trying to get the girl or trying to find a spot on the bus.

Now, be sure to give the character a flaw, something he or she must fight against in order to do what they want.  This can be an internal struggle, a physical limitation, problems interacting with others, a temper, or an overly kind streak causing them to get walked over by others.

You will find, with each fault or flaw within your characters comes more humanity.  None of us are perfect, none of us are all good or all bad either, and neither should you characters be.

Recomended Reading:

• Flannery O'Connor - Collected Works - I suggest her collected works because Flannery O'Connor is an excellent writer who only managed to write 4 novels before she died.  A shame really.  In any case, for this exercise I suggest reading The Violent Bare it Away, a book full of flawed characters.  In fact, many of the characters as so flawed it's almost cringe worthy, yet it is an extremely compelling read.  I highly recommend it.