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The following framework gives an idea for why the audience may like characters.
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One of the best ways to make characters feel real is to not write them to a role. They should not just be set dressing.
- The less time you give to the character, the more likely you will write them to a role.
- Remark: Aim to make it satisfying to observe the character’s behavior and especially changes in their behavior.
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Every character sees themselves as the main character of their own stories.
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Character background defines how they speak, think, act and see the world.
- A good way to do is is through Dialogue
- A good character is one the audience believes would actually make the decisions they make in the story. Thus, remember: characters drive plot, through their believable decisions.
- Backstory means the important events that shape the character’s life. Landscape character biographies such that they will give background to interesting events in their life.
- With a character’s background in mind, the writer can create a quest that is tailored for the character to reveal their humanity absolutely.
Writing Characters
Establish Empathy
- For the reader to care about the characters, and by extension the story, the author should establish empathy for the characters.
- One way is through making the characters more likable , as in sympathetic
- Another way is making them more relatable, as in the characters are like us.
- Another way is to show other characters liking another character.
Establish Rooting Interest
- Show that the character is interesting to us. Give the characters motivations.
- Often it is interesting to point out that what a character wants is not necessarily what a character needs.
- Establish what the characters want and why they can’t have it, possibly tying into the plot.
- Establish how the character’s motivation ties into the plot.
- Characters can feel off if they act against their motivations because the writer wants them to advance the plot.
- It is dangerous to give the characters only one motivation. In reality, people have many motivations. Giving characters only one makes them feel one-note.
- We find characters more likeable if they have a clear motivation in mind. They must want something.
- Motivations let the audience understand why characters do the things they do.
- Caution: Do not reduce characters to case studies. There are no definitive explanations for anyone’s behavior. Leave some mystery for motivation.
- Once the deed is done, his reasons why begin to dissolve.
Establish the Character’s Progress
- Show the flaws of the character. The flaws are things that characters can and should overcome about themselves.
- Show handicaps. The handicaps are things characters can overcome but the handicap itself was not due to themselves.
- Show limitations. These are things the characters cannot overcome. They are constant for the character.
- Flaws, handicaps, and limitations can help establish character motivations.
- Show the character arc they will go through. Often this comes with a question of can the character change and how.
- Character arcs are stories unto themselves.
- They must eventually overlap with the overall conflict in the plot or themes of the story.
Sanderson’s Three Scales for Characters
- Likability relates to how we empathize with characters.
- Proactivity relates to how the characters work towards their goals.
- Competence relates to how the characters progress in their arcs.
- These attributes of a character can change over the course of the story.
- That said, Iconic Heroes are those that do not progress in any of these categories. They can work for a story, but these characters tend to not grow or change significantly.
- This framework allows us to think about the characters and their role in the story and how its told.
- An alternative framing is seen in here.
Character Arcs
- Character Arcs should change the inner nature of the character.
- Generally they go as such:
- Characterization of the character — what do they seem to be.
- Character Revelation — what is the true nature of the character.
- Conflict — a contrast between the revelation and the characterization.
- Pressure — the story now involves the character make progressively difficult choices.
- Change — the character has changed for better or worse.
Protagonists
- The protagonist drives the story’s substance. They are the focused lens through which the audience experiences the story and its metaphorical telling of life.
- All protagonists 1:
- Are willful characters. Their will is powerful enough to sustain desire through conflict.
- Have conscious desires. They know what they want.
- May have a self-contradictory, unconscious desire. This makes for interesting characters.
- Have the capacity to pursue the object of desire convincingly.
- Are empathetic. The audience must relate to them in some way, even if the character in itself is not a likable person.
- Empathy with the protagonist gives the audience emotional investment even in a despicable character.
- Audiences disassociate with hypocrites.
- Takes the audience to the limits of human experience—their final actions leave no question unanswered.
Antagonism
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The first steps of the protagonist are usually conservative — things within their comfort zone they know will get them what they want. However, a story should show the conservative approach failing—it should show antagonism.
- Antagonism is simply a gap between what the protagonist subjectively expected, and the objective reality of the story.
- This gap marks the difference between character action and character activity. Action is in reaction or creates gaps. Activity is based on what was expected to happen. Action generates change. Activity does not
- The next step of the protagonist towards the object of desire should show risks. These steps show risk-taking.
- The measure of the value of a character’s desire is in direct proportion to the risk he’s willing to take to achieve it; greater value, greater risk.
- Antagonism is simply a gap between what the protagonist subjectively expected, and the objective reality of the story.
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The Principle of Antagonism: A protagonist and his story can only be as intellectually fascinating and emotionally compelling as the forces of antagonism make them. In this way, we take characters to the end of the line.
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Consider this method for identifying the story values relating to antagonism: Let
be a story value embodied by the protagonist - The Contrary is a situation that is somewhat the opposite of
but not fully the opposite. - The Contradictory is the direct opposite of
. - The Negation of the Negation - the direct opposite of
, but qualitatively worse that the contradictory. - Conflict progress through a pattern that includes the Contrary, Contradictory, and Negation of Negation.
- The Contrary is a situation that is somewhat the opposite of
Other Tips
- Fall in love with all your characters. If the writer cannot love the character, how will the audience?
- The root of all fine character is self-knowledge. The more you empathize, the better characters you write.
Topics
Links
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- Ch. 5 - discusses Story and Characters
- Ch. 7 - discusses the role of the Protagonist.
- Ch. 14 - includes discussions on Contrary, Contradictory, and Negation of Negation
- Ch. 17 - discusses Characters.
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Psychology - studying psychological principles lets us make more complex life-like characters.
Footnotes
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Remark: This is an alternate way of framing the techniques outlined by Sanderson. ↩