Falling in love with your characters
Are you an author who’d rather spend time with your fictional creations than with a real significant somebody who’s waiting in the next room?
Are you in love with your characters?
An intimate relationship
As an editor, I like to see writers emotionally involved with the people in their books. A story is always more successful when the writer inhabits and holds these alter egos close to the heart.
Fictional characters may take on a life of their own, surprising their creators with the twists and turns the story may take. But the source of the character’s identity and the ultimate guide to where they came from and where they are going remains only the author.
That’s why authors often enter into an intimate relationship, a kind of lopsided romance with their characters, no matter how virtuous or flawed they may turn out to be. No part of writing a novel is more important than this visceral, under the skin, psychological connection.
The reality of your character’s existence
Whether the story is told as a first person narrative or omniscient third person focused on a character’s exclusive point of view, the author must live with their protagonist and become committed to the reality of their existence.
This means creating a back-story life, whether all of it is eventually used in the book or not. A place of birth, family of origin, biological parents, siblings, family and friends. Plus the teachers, mentors, childhood development, teen years and coming of age to the point where the book’s story begins.
Like any good and committed lover, the author must be honest and accepting of all the character’s weaknesses and strengths, including the less then admirable, vulnerable, as well as the heroic.
It’s important, therefore, that authors research and do their homework in creating the characters they care about the most.
Creating a back-story life
1. Know how your character speaks. In fact speak the lines out loud to be sure the words capture an idiosyncratic style, background, accent — different from anyone else in the book.
2. Have a portrait in your mind of how the character looks, including height, weight, skin color, hair, posture. How they smell. Their favorite foods.
3. Know how they dress from coat to underwear, even if it never appears in the light of day.
4. Inhabit the character’s deepest feelings – both admirable and not, so long as they are authentic and true to the person’s role and experience.
5. Understand their habits and skills, including special talents, obsessions, fears and aversions, traits found far beneath what the other characters in the book may perceive or understand.
Notable alter egos
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about Nick Carroway with a far deeper self-identification than he felt with the enigmatic Gatsby.
Virginia Woolf knew exactly what Mrs. Dalloway was thinking in her most private thoughts, as she created a heroine who was not so honest to either her husband Richard or former romantic interest Peter Walsh.
A friend, the mystery writer Rosemary Harris is so fond of the sidekick character “Babe” in her Dirty Business mystery series that she wrote a short story prequel that was all about Babe and published separately. Rosemary says she dearly loves Babe as a part of her own personality; someone who couldn’t be the main character but is essential to the writer’s enjoying and animating the story’s level of humor and balance with the more heinous deeds.
“My characters force me to adopt their hobbies”
Best-selling author Patricia Cornwell inhabits and writes from the inside of “Kay Scarpetta,” the fictional forensic pathologist who is the lead sleuth in a number of her books.
To research the Scarpetta books, Cornwell hung out in a coroner’s morgue to get acquainted with forensic corpse dissection, learned to fly a helicopter, and overcame her aversion to scuba diving so she could experience the necessary verisimilitude for a scene about a deep sea body search.
Take a look at this Cornwell book trailer, not only to hear the author describe her own intense process of bringing her characters to life, but also to watch an expertly produced work of author promotion.
Is it love?
Is that devotion? Commitment? Affection?
You bet, and more. It’s what makes writing fun and rewarding. If you achieve that level of love for at least one character in every one of your books, your readers will benefit in the end.
How about you?
How about you? Have you fallen in love with your characters? Anything you’d like to share?
March 2nd, 2009 at 2:25 am
I recently finished a draft of my first novel, which is waiting to be edited, and I’m finding that my characters haunt me while they’re away. There came a point as I was writing when the characters were separate from me and began to tell me their story, surprising me with choices they made or with revelations about their pasts, or with lovers or crimes they were hiding. Of course, as I learned these things about them, they made me write them down. The characters I listened to the most carefully ring the truest for me. I know some of my characters are still growing into themselves, and will change and flesh out more before it’s all done.
One of my characters is a criminal, although I don’t think she thinks of herself as a criminal. She is based on a few real criminals, one of whom I knew personally but who had many secrets, and I researched and found horrific things I didn’t know she and these other people had done. I spent hours, weeks, reading depositions, poring over letters, inspecting legal documents, and reading memoirs of those who have had to live with their many sins. As this background unfolded to me, I had to marry it with the public face of the unassuming girl I had known personally. Then the character came to life in me, and she is still emerging. I find myself thinking about her as I go about my business, revisiting things she’s done and grieving her actions, and seeing depths of her that I hadn’t understood before I wrote her down. I found YouTubes of the girl I knew after she was really walking on the dark side. Her eyes, her mannerisms, made cold chills run down my spine. As I write this, I know I haven’t mined that for all it has to offer.
Thank you for a great post.
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:20 am
Reading your post I realize (as I already suspected) that the reason I’m having trouble writing one of my stories is that I don’t know my MC well enough. I’ll have to work on creating her backstory to understand her better and find her voice. The same for the villain in one of my other stories. I’ve always felt he was too one-dimensional and bit of a cliche, which is easy to do with villains.
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:42 am
Mr. Rinzler,
Having been a long time fan of Hunter S. Thompson (and anyone who worked with him as well), I believe all writers must face and endure a daily love/hate relationship with their characters. You will learn to love everything you write about them one day and hate each sentence the next. You edit and revise passionately and then question the motivation for doing so. I have matured enough to understand that it is not so much what I love to write, but writing the words my audience will love the read.
Thank you for such a wonderful web site and the advice you so unselfishly offer.
M. D. Fields
March 2nd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Great post. I love my three MCs, but I suspect I haven’t displayed my interest in one of the three as well as I should. Thanks for getting me think about it.
March 2nd, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Larry McMurtry talks a lot about his relationships with his fictional characters, and certainly he’s always praised for how much he understands women (I think the cliche of the male-writer-who-writes women-well started with him, didn’t it?).
I base almost all of my characters on co-workers, family and friends, as I imagine most people do. The thing is, that’s just the base. Something great happens when you start writing fiction with real personalities as a mental framework: the characters start acting and talking on their own. I’ve been caught off guard a few times, actually laughed out loud or cringed at things my characters do. It’s what keeps me writing.
March 2nd, 2009 at 2:27 pm
I’ve dreamed my characters’ dreams which is spooky as heck. I’ve had conversations with them in my dreams.
I know I’m not the only author who was “haunted” by characters who wouldn’t leave me alone until I wrote their story.
Sure, this is nuts to people who don’t write, but if a character isn’t real to an author, how can the character be real to the reader?
March 3rd, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I read once that you should be able to picture your characters doing things outside of their actions in the book.
During fits of insanity, okay always, I find myself asking, “How would *** react to this? What would she say?”
And then I laugh, and occasionally answer her.
March 4th, 2009 at 6:26 am
I knew I was getting to know my characters pretty well when I was shopping one day and thought, “She would like this,” or “He would buy this brand.” After giving myself a figurative shake, I had to laugh, in that this was a tremedously valuable experience and one I hadn’t had before that point.
I always get to know characters by tossing them into first-draft (or even pre-draft) situations and seeing and hearing how they act, what they do, the choices they make, etc. I find if I try to discern all the character stuff before the story is written, though, it stops me cold. I often don’t know my characters completely until after their story is told in first draft. Then, as they have revealed more of themselves in the telling, I can go back in revisions and put in important details accordingly. Anything else, for me, is backwards.
JB
March 8th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I’ve had a few epiphanies when it came to writing my strong lead characters - but I usually feel very grounded in and control of my stories and where they go…I think this may be due to the fact that I mix my own life experiences in with fiction - so I only write when I’m inspired by something that happened.
So far it would appear that I have three strong lead female characters and a few secondary ones here and there. To be perfectly honest, I don’t often think about the writing process - I think of something in my head, edit it, and then put it down on paper. What I write in the first draft is usually strong enough to stick it through a few revision for grammar and clarification.
Going back to being in control of my story - I don’t usually write out something unless I know where it’s going and where it will end up. There are moments where I might surprise myself - but I think that is from seeing everything in front of me and making a new connection that I couldn’t see in my mind.
(I have yet to read about Gatsby - but I have a deep love for Moriarty).
March 16th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Absolutely Alan - if you’re not in love with your characters how can you hope your readers to be? The antagonists are as much fun as the protagonists - and as the writer you know the whole picture, (why they turned out the way they did, their good as well as their prevailing bad).
March 16th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
I agree. I believe in falling in love with my characters. I have a favorite female character who, in one form or another, always turns out to be a needed side kick for my male or female protagonists. She is bright, edgy, quirky, witty, and fun. And she reveals insights into the hearts and minds of my protagonists that I would never otherwise come to experience. Despite her name changes her value remains the same - priceless.
March 16th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
I’m so in love with my characters that I’m afraid that if I met some of them in real life I’d be tempted to run away with them and abandon my family. Isn’t that terrible? They’re just so perfect for ME because I created them… ALTHOUGH they definitely take on a life of their own when I’ve breathed some life into them. That’s always a scary moment when they start making their own decisions!
March 18th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
What a great author trailer. I loved hearing her talk about all the things she did that she wouldn’t normally do all for her character’s sake. Very inspiring.
I’m currently polishing my novel and loving being back with the characters. I don’t have a lot of time to write, but I make time every morning, and I miss not being with the characters throughout the day. They’re constantly talking to me and telling me new things about themselves, most of which won’t be in the novel but it’s what makes the characters so real to me.
Between finishing my first draft and starting my first revision, and then again between that revision and my polish, I didn’t look at the novel for about three weeks to a month each time and it was hard. The characters still talked to me, and it was very difficult to ignore them — necessary, I think, but difficult.
Thanks for the post and for showing that great trailer.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:22 am
This is fabulous advice. I have biographies of every character in my manuscript, including the kids so I know their favorite color, favorite book, worst fear, etc. And yes, I have fallen in love with my characters. So much so that I feel terrible when I watch them make such bad (but utterly human) mistakes.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:28 am
I’m haunted by my characters, so much so they’ll keep me awake with their teen chattering long after it’s time for me (and them!) to be asleep. I usually threaten them with “Barney” or “Dora the Explorer” reruns if they don’t pipe down. Got to love On-Demand.
My two teen MCs (and my other two secondary teen MCs) I love for very different reasons. My girl MC/supporting protag is my girly, Julie Andrewsesque alter-ego to my tomboyish style. My teen MCs, if they were guys I’d date, I’d be very attracted to and hard to choose from. One holds a very confident voice/air about him in the manner of the late Frank Sinatra’s, he’s an a**hole with a heart–but a deep sadness penetrates and threatens to drown him in it if he lets it. My other teen MC is an aloof version of the late Jimmy Stewart but is too scared to let his emo side up for air, as he’s unclear exactly how to handle it. More than hating vulnerability, it’s more to understand its complexities than to fight them–and he’s scared to see these possibilities. The former could pass for a kid version of John Oates; the latter, an older (maybe? version of the kid who was the kid William Wallace in “Braveheart.” One has brass cojones, the other has intelligence and logic that runs circles around most guys, and neither are jerks about their strengths.
Ah, like McNamara/Troy, which to choose, which to choose? I don’t: I love them both!
~Missye
May 29th, 2009 at 8:29 am
Thanks for the great advice and trailer, Alan. This site is so helpful!
June 28th, 2009 at 12:43 am
I just finished writing a short novel, and there was a love interest to the narrator (it was a first person narrative). Being that the narrator is pretty much ‘you,’ everything the narrator felt about her was how I felt too, so I can definitely relate to authors who fall in love with their own characters.