Character Consistency Question
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shellyssfw ...@aol.comShellyS (Shelly)
One thing I have problems with is keeping my characters consistent. When I wrote fan fic, it was easy to keep them all individual and consistent--I could hear the actors doing the lines in my head. And I only wrote fan fic for shows where I could hear the characters. Guest characters just had to sound and act differently.
In writing my own stories in my own universes, I sometimes find my characters either starting to sound alike or having a similar feel. I try to give them different personalities and they do act consistently with their personalities, but sometimes, their individuality gets lost in the story and the differing personality quirks get lost, which necessitates me going back and revising and sometimes, the results end up changing the story/plot cuz it turns out that to serve the story, they gave in too easily or some such.
So, my question is, can anyone suggest a technique to keep characters on their paths? Do you use checklists? Do you do it in revision? I'm not an outline type person, so that won't work. Actually, trying to do an outline is for me like trying to write the book on a small scale with the same problems as just writing the story. Only when I write the story, I get to know the characters better. I just don't feel I'm always getting what I want re: them onto the page. So I'm interested in how other people approach developing/writing characters.
Thanks.
Shelly
Victory Crayne vict...@crayne.com
I used to have a similar problem. After a break of a few weeks, when I reread stuff I'd written before, I realized many characters were only slightly different. They were not truly unique individuals.
Now I follow a different route to writing scenes. First, I review what I want to write next. Let's say it is a scene from the viewpoint of character "A". I review the prior scenes before the one I want to write, in whatever viewpoint they were written, to refresh my memory of what is happening in the tale.
I have an idea what I want to have happen in this next scene.
Then I reread ONLY the past scenes from the viewpoint of character A.
I try to pick up his personality, his attitude about his life and his problems, his current dilemma, what he wants, what problems he faces, etc. I try to get into his mind and write as if I were him. For the length of this scene, I AM him and nobody else. I view everything through his eyeballs and thinking.
Then I often sip a gl*** of wine, become this person, and fire away at the keyboard. I adopt his attitude about life. I give him an emotion for this scene, which may change during the scene.
When I am done, I leave it for at least a week before revisiting it for review. And when I revise it, I try to retain the 'charm' of his personality and attitude.
That works for me. Your mileage may vary.
- Victory Crayne
"Brenda W. Clough" clo...@erols.com
If you enjoy fanfic, then you can probably handle the 'casting call' method of characterization. The way to do this is to cast your story, with actors. To keep your palette broad, do not limit yourself to the cast of one movie or TV series! Remember you have all of time and space (well, all of the 20th Century) to shop in. Harrison Ford a little too old now for the role of your hero? De-age him by viewing AMERICAN GRAFFITI. Observe him walking to his deuce coupe; listen to him talk; get the extended directors cut in which he sings 'Some Enchanted Evening.' I know of writers who have been happily and successfully doing this for years, shopping for their characters on TV.
Brenda
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Brenda W. Clough Read my novella "May Be Some Time" Complete at http://www.fictionwise.com My web page is at http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
shellyssfw ...@aol.comShellyS (Shelly)
I always reread and revise as needed previously written scenes before writing new ones. I need to remind myself what already happened, since I write as I go and have the worst memory these days, and especially since I don't write every day which works against memory.
So far, the current WIP is almost all in one pov. There have been two of 12 scenes that are in a different pov.
I'm usually fine with the protagonist--except in the aforementioned previous WIP when he was just wrong for the story. It's the supporting characters who are giving me problems re: consistency and they either don't get pov scenes or very few.
Hmmmm..... I think I'll have to substitute chocolate. :) become this person, and fire away at Interesting method, tho. Have you ever had trouble "adopting" a character's attitude?
Shelly
shellyssfw ...@aol.comShellyS (Shelly)
My collaborator does it, too, and she's even had us cast all the minor characters, even the ones that might not even appear in the novel. :) Shelly
Victory Crayne vict...@crayne.com
Not really. I started the novel with a set of characters for whom I had developed separate personalities. Each character has a separate computer file in which I keep notes on his life, problems, goals, constraints, and the minor characters around him.
By rereading the recent scenes that were written in his POV and sometimes his own computer file, I find it easier to remember what life looks like from his viewpoint. This is critical to adopting his attitude.
Most people go through life thinking in terms of their problems and develop a viewpoint/attitude that is centric. It is important to recapture that centric viewpoint when writing that character's scene.
By trying to "become" that character, I can more easily select the attitude and words that match that character. It does take discipline to stay within that character's life during that scene and avoid thinking of the bigger picture of the novel. I think this focus on attitude and detail is what makes the scenes charming for readers.
- Victory Crayne
s ...@softluck.plus.com (Jonathan L Cunningham)
Lucky! Only one thing. ;-).
This is my biggest problem - or part of it.
Of my four main characters, Roland is 36, his daughter is a shy 16 year old (she grew up in a small village), Jack is 28. And they all sound like me at my most pompous. (I can pomp with the best of them if I'm not careful.) I did say four characters: Pearl is a youthful 171, and she says things I'm far too polite to say. She isn't human either (what?
171 and you still thought she's human?) but has taken human form.
Part of my problem, I think, is that I'm non-visual, so I've started looking for pictures (mainly on the Internet) of people: when I see the right one, I can say "Oh, *that's* what Jack/Bess/Roland looks like!". Then it's easier to imagine their voices, and *then* I know how they speak. (I always know *what* they want to say: it's how they say it that tends to come out like me.) Funnily enough, again I already knew what Pearl's human form looks like.
It makes me wonder if only Pearl is a Real Character and the others are Made Up.
Jonathan
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Use jlc at address, not spam.
shellyssfw ...@aol.comShellyS (Shelly)
So, if I'm understanding correctly, this works for your pov character. What about maintaining consistency in the non-pov characters in those scenes, which is more the problem I've been trying to address?
Shelly
shellyssfw ...@aol.comShellyS (Shelly)
Or futuristic when lifespans are much longer. The fastest growing demographic right now is centenarians, so it doesn't stretch the imagination too much.
I'm very visually oriented. I enjoy art--viewing and making (mostly crafts and drawing these days)--and photography (when I have time). But I don't visualize when I read, or when I write, so I need visual cues like maps, floorplans of the places in my stories, photo refs of the characters, etc. I've found a lot of people who cast their characters, tho not necessarily for the same reason.
Some just like picking fav actors to help them form an emotional attachment/feeling for the characters, which is also part of the appeal of it for me, too.
Now that's an intriguing thought. Maybe Mike is my only real character and I have to make the others real, too.
Shelly
Dan Goodman dsg...@visi.com
One thing Damon Knight suggested in _Creating Short Fiction_: look at a scene from the point of view of each character in it.
He didn't suggest it for this particular problem, but I think it's likely to be useful.
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Dan Goodman Journal http://dsgood.blogspot.com or http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/ Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
shellyssfw ...@aol.comShellyS (Shelly)
Oh, I like that. Thanks.
Shelly
Elizabeth Shack eashackNOS...@earthlink.ENT
On 28 Oct 2003 01:38:03 GMT, Shelly wrote: I am attempting to do it in revision; we'll see if I succeed (in the first draft, the characters are all very similar). I also get to know the characters by writing them (non-POV characters too). I think I did make checklists of personality traits once, or lists of what the different characters do when they're angry or sad, but all that's so variable that I don't think I ever looked at it again.
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Elizabeth Shack eashack at earthlink dot ent http://home.earthlink.net/~eashack boringblog at http://www.livejournal.com/users/eashack/
greenkni ...@cix.co.uk.invalid (Catja Pafort)
What you are saying isn't 'that you don't visualize'; it is, in effect, that you need visual clues rather than verbal ones. Maps and plans aren't virtual reality - you still need to construct a three-dimentional place with all the landscape/walls and furnishings from it.
I agree that they are vastly superior cues, but then, a geographer _would_ say that...
Catja
shellyssfw ...@aol.comShellyS (Shelly)
I used to write more detailed bios. Then I'd forget the details and pretty much contradict them when I wrote the story, so I gave up on that and started writing brief character sketches, then jotting down details as they occur in the writing, mostly for editing/revising to make sure I don't contradict myself within the story.
I've been playing with bits from a book called The Writer's Guide to Character Traits by Linda Edelstein, PhD. It has mostly the usual stuff about building characters, but she also groups character traits by personality types, which is useful. I'm just not sure yet how much I'll use it. In a way, it's more useful as confirmation of things I already figured out. Has anyone else looked at this book?
Sometimes, it feels as if some of the characters are doing what they think I want them to do, as if they're trying to please me--now this is getting psychologically weird--to serve the story instead of the story coming from them, their desires, their actions, etc.
Shelly
shellyssfw ...@aol.comShellyS (Shelly)
heh Shelly
"David J. Starr" dst...@theworld.com
I find it useful to write down a description of each character, set down his/her personality traits, weaknesses, looks and hair color, tag, quirks, motivation and objectives, preferred clothing styles, anything that makes the character different. Just thinking these things up and writing them down helps firm up the character in my mind, which makes it easier to keep them straight as I write. David J. Starr
shellyssfw ...@aol.comShellyS (Shelly)
Do you always remember what you put in the bios or do you have to keep looking things up? When I did that in any detail, I'd get so involved in the writing, that I'd forget the details and not think to doublecheck, and then I'd sometimes write them enough differently than their bios that trying to fix that would mean rewriting entire scenes cuz their personalities and actions were wrong.
Shelly
Brandon Ray publ...@avalon.net
There's not necessarily anything wrong with that. The world is full of wonderful novels that are told from a single POV.
Well, one thing to remember is that supporting characters are just that: supporting characters. They don't get as much face time, you don't have to delve as deeply into their background and motivations -- in fact, if you *too* much of that, you can distract people from the *main* character(s), who they are, and what they're supposed to be doing. It's nice to have enough of a hook on a supporting character so that you have a sense that s/he exists outside of the story that's being told, but it is, in my vastly-inexperienced opinion, a mistake to go too far with it.
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Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice. -- seen on Usenet, 10/22/03 (with apologies to Arthur C. Clarke)
Brandon Ray publ...@avalon.net
That sounds sensible. I'd also point out that sometimes a non-POV character may *seem* inconsistent, because now s/he is being seen through someone else's eyes. Behavior that would be perfectly explicable if you were inside the actor's head may be less understandable when you are not.
shellyssfw ...@aol.comShellyS (Shelly)
Not the way I see it. First off, in my other WIPs (the ones I'm writing with my collaborator, there are 6 and 4 pov characters respectively, and we consider the first as having one protagonist and the second as having one protagonist) and they all get face time.
I usually write secondary characters who are important and IMO they all need to be individuals. They're the characters the protagonist is interacting with.
They help move the story forward. And I usually give them pov scenes when I need them to advance the plot when the protag isn't around. Since I write as I go, these characters become especially important plot-wise to me.
It's not motives and background so much as personality, tho given my love for subplots, motives and backgrounds of the secondary characters do matter a great deal to me. The secondary characters, as opposed to all the other supporting characters, each get their own agendas in the story and the conflict with the protag usually comes out of those conflicting agendas.
I also enjoy reading books where there are a lot of characters and often I end up liking the "best friend" more than the main character. I just tend to love sidekicks. :) I'm not sure what too far would be, but I sure think each character should look and behave as an individual so a reader doesn't need to look for name tags to tell them all apart.
That's what I have a problem with sometimes, having the characters act or sound like individuals, doing what they would do, not what I need them to do for a story, ie always going along with the plan instead of arguing or refusing which would be more in their nature. I think sometimes, my scenes get flattened a bit cuz conflict or tension is lost by having the characters exist to serve the story and not the other way around.
Shelly
David Friedman d...@daviddfriedmanNOSPAM.com.invalid
There is one character in my WIS who I refer to as the stealth heroine.
She started out as the King's mistress who the King was trying to use to influence the protagonist and the protagonist instead used to influence the King.
By the time the first draft was finished, she was the noblewoman the King was courting and the result of the protagonist showing her that the King was in the wrong was her putting pressure on the King, up to and including refusing him to marry him, that played a major role in his eventually coming around. By the time the revision was finished, she also had a daring escape from captivity near the end which demonstrated the same sort of tactical genius in the small that the protagonist had been demonstrating in the large.
If I revise the book again I may have to rename it. But I won't.
Off hand I can't think of cases where that happened with other people's books I was reading, but there must be ones.
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shellyssfw ...@aol.comShellyS (Shelly)
I remember feeling that way about supporting characters in Sword of Shannar, LoTR, to name a couple. And especially in comic books.
Shelly
David Friedman d...@daviddfriedmanNOSPAM.com.invalid
I thought about LoTR, but decided it doesn't have a protagonist. You can make a case for Frodo, or for Sam, or perhaps for Aragorn or Gandalf, or ... .
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b.sc ...@csuohio.edu (Brian M. Scott)
On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 00:35:54 GMT, David Friedman I don't think that much of a case can be made for Aragorn. You can make a case for Gandalf if you focus on planning and string-pulling, and you can make a case for Sam if you want to be consciously different. But the character whose fate seems to me to encapsulate the tale as a whole is Frodo.
Brian
"David J. Starr" dst...@theworld.com
No, I never always remember anything. Memory is tricky. Mine will drop essential facts into the bit bucket with out a trace. I find the mental effort of thinking up my character's characteristics well enough to write them down makes the character clearer in my mind. I don't go back to my written character sketches very often (say like once every couple of months?) It's not that I'm writing things down as a guard against forgetting, it is more that the effort of doing the written character sketch brings the character more fully to life in my mind. As I write scenes with my characters, the characters do change, and I let them. The written bio isn't there to freeze the character into a single mold that never changes, it's there as a starting point, something to get going with. You have to start somewhere, but I have no problem letting my characters change as the story goes on. My challenge is to keep my character's different from one another.
If I don't take care, all my characters become nice, decent, caring human beings, which makes them likable, but difficult to tell one from another. Also, to avoid the Superman effect, a real character needs to have some weaknesses, he cannot be flawless. This is hard for me to do convincingly, 'cause when I get into it, I grow fond of my characters, I want them to succeed, be handsome, strong, courageous, successful, popular, all those things you and I always wished to be when we were 17 years old. So the scene progresses, the characters show their strong points, acquire new strong points, and if I am not careful I have a story with nothing but flawless Superman type characters in it.
David J. Starr
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