{"id":1095,"date":"2019-10-09T17:21:15","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T21:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/?p=1095"},"modified":"2019-10-09T17:21:15","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T21:21:15","slug":"actions-speak-louder-than-anything-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/09\/actions-speak-louder-than-anything-else\/","title":{"rendered":"Actions Speak Louder Than Anything Else"},"content":{"rendered":"

On June 8, 2019, Hazel B. wrote, How do you make a character feel believable? Once you know how to make a person likable or unlikable, how do you make her real? When I\u2019m writing, I usually pick an outward trait to start out with, such as shy or bossy. But not everyone is always bossy, and not everyone is always shy. I\u2019m actually a combination of both. How do you make the character consistent, relatable, and believable?<\/em><\/p>\n

Writing Ballerina and Christie V Powell responded.<\/p>\n

Writing Ballerina: I usually don\u2019t worry about that too much until I\u2019m done the first draft. Then I take one character, comb through, and make everything consistent. I also like to run my characters through personality tests so I can get a better feel for them.<\/em>
\nhttps:\/\/www.16personalities.com\/free-personality-test\u00a0<\/em><\/a>is my favourite \u2014 free and very in-depth.<\/em><\/p>\n

Keep in mind that the characters your MC (I’m assuming you\u2019re talking about the MC, but this will work for any character) is around will affect how they act. When I\u2019m with my closest friends I can be super hyper and silly but when I\u2019m with other people I\u2019m usually more reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n

Christie V Powell: Enneagram is my favorite system, similar to 16 personalities. The free test is here: https:\/\/www.eclecticenergies.com\/enneagram\/test<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

One thing I\u2019ve been doing lately with a couple of writing friends is role-play. We take turns asking a question each week, and choose which characters will answer. Then we answer as if we were the characters. It can be a lot of fun, as well as good practice to get inside the characters\u2019 heads. Recent questions we\u2019ve done include: What do you do to relax? Are you a night owl or early bird? What\u2019s a skill you don\u2019t have but would like to learn? Some of the questions also are addressed to certain characters. We might say: To the main character\u2019s best friend, or To the character last in alphabetical order, or To the youngest main character.<\/em><\/p>\n

I agree with Writing Ballerina that consistency is paramount. I hate it when a character who, say, is edgy and irritable inexplicably turns calm and jovial. Character growth has to be earned, and the reader needs to understand it.<\/p>\n

Having said that, I also agree that characters, like people, are different in different environments. Our edgy dude can be relaxed in the company of his great-aunt Susie, as long as the reader understands that she has this effect on him.<\/p>\n

I love the role-play idea! What fun! I love it both for the writing assist and for the comradeship. Writing is lonely and hard. Writer friends understand like nobody else. And what a great way to bring in the unexpected, and the unexpected and surprising are a terrific way to create layered characters who feel real.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thinking a lot about this right now, as I write the beginning of my next book, based on Greek mythology, specifically Cassandra and the fall of Troy. Cassandra, daughter of King Priam, is given the gift of prophecy by Apollo, but he curses it soon after by making no one believe her. After the curse, people, especially her father, consider her prophecies rants and believe she\u2019s mad. I\u2019m thinking about what it would be like both to see the future and to be considered crazy. What\u2019s the thought process of someone who can look ahead? Who can see her own death? Does she look ahead constantly, compulsively, or does she avoid it? Does she keep trying to convince people, or does she give up? Turn inward?<\/p>\n

I ask these questions because I find my characters in their actions. She\u2019s a different character if she keeps returning to what brings her pain than if she distracts herself. I don\u2019t think she\u2019s going to be my major MC, but she\u2019s going to be second in importance.<\/p>\n

Characters\u2019 characters affect our plot. An extrovert named Margie, for example, may make different decisions from a shy person, named Violet, nicknamed Shrinking. For example, Shrinking may stay home instead of going to the castle ball and may therefore be present when an intruder comes through a window. Margie goes to the party and witnesses the prime minister tip a vial of liquid into the king\u2019s cream of mushroom soup. Each spins the plot in a different direction.<\/p>\n

Our characters become increasingly real and layered as they make more and more decisions. Does Shrinking hide in the cellar, or run to the gallery where armor and swords are kept, or run to the head housekeeper for assistance, or appeal to her fairy godmother? Depending on her choice, other decisions have to follow, decisions that use other of her qualities, which we discover as we go along.<\/p>\n

For example, suppose Shrinking is, to take another of Hazel B.\u2019s examples, also bossy, so she runs to the head housekeeper and, in a trembling voice, orders her to deal with the intruder. But the head housekeeper says police actions aren\u2019t in her job description and refuses. Well, what does Shrinking do next? We can make a list!<\/p>\n

\u2219 Fires the housekeeper.<\/p>\n

\u2219 Grabs the housekeeper\u2019s hand and says, \u201cThen we have to get to safety. Come!\u201d (She\u2019s still bossy.)<\/p>\n

\u2219 Shrinking is shy, but she\u2019s brave. It dawns on her that the intruder doesn\u2019t expect terrifying small talk, and introversion doesn’t come into this. She takes a poker from the fireplace and a carving knife from the kitchen and starts searching.<\/p>\n

\u2219 Sits on a stool and weeps uncontrollably. Her birthday is in a week, and her beloved father always gives the best presents, and now the intruder is going to kill her and she\u2019ll never find out what the gifts are.<\/p>\n

And so on. With each decision and action, we learn more about Shrinking and she becomes more real. We haven\u2019t made her less believable\u2013though not everything on our list has to be believable. In lists we\u2019re encouraged to get wild.<\/p>\n

Option two and three will contribute to her likability and relatability, because both combine two factors: Shrinking is behaving admirably, and she\u2019s flawed, being both shy and bossy. Most readers want a flawed MC, because we\u2019re all flawed ourselves.<\/p>\n

Options one and four will make her harder to relate to without other factors. In them, on the face of it, she\u2019s flawed and not admirable. We can deal with this, of course, in lots of ways. Here\u2019s one: We may have set up the story so that the housekeeper is the real villain, and she\u2019s drawn Shrinking into her orbit for just this moment, because she\u2019s in cahoots with the intruder. Readers who already feel connected to Shrinking will be on her side and scared for her. Or we can make her behave well with other characters, but the housekeeper just pushes all her buttons, and they\u2019re alone together in the mansion.<\/p>\n

I generally don\u2019t know my characters well when I start writing. They reveal themselves as I cook up actions for them. When I start a book I don\u2019t generally use a character questionnaire, but I may fill one out as I keep going, to generate ideas for my list about what one of them should do next.<\/p>\n

Here are four prompts:<\/p>\n

\u2219 Add six more possibilities to my list above for a grand total of ten.<\/p>\n

\u2219 Pick one of mine or one of yours and write the story.<\/p>\n

\u2219 List what extrovert Margie might do when she sees the prime minister mess with the king\u2019s soup.<\/p>\n

\u2219 Pick one option and write Margie\u2019s story.<\/p>\n

Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On June 8, 2019, Hazel B. wrote, How do you make a character feel believable? Once you know how to make a person likable or unlikable, how do you make her real? When I\u2019m writing, I usually pick an outward trait to start out with, such as shy or bossy. But not everyone is always […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1095"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1097,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095\/revisions\/1097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}