\nI recently met an intellectual property attorney (patents and copyright) at a fund raiser for a book festival. We started talking – she\u2019s writing for kids, too – and I told her about the blog and the questions that sometimes arise about copyright, and she offered to write a guest post, so that\u2019s coming up in the next few weeks.<\/p>\n
Now for today\u2019s post. On January 26, 2013, Anna Marie wrote, I let a very close friend of mine read a story I wrote and she has recently gotten back to me. One of the things she mentioned was character development, she says I could go a little deeper. I totally agree, but I’m not sure how to effectively and smoothly go about adding deeper details about my characters. The story is in first person present tense, and it switches between two different characters. I’ve tried to tell the story in easier ways (3rd person, 1st person past only one character, etc.) but I keep coming back to the way I’ve got it. Very much like your story EVER which I hadn’t read when I first started but have read since (I must say, it’s pretty awesome). Can you give me any help? It’d be much appreciated.<\/i>
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\nThe problem is with my other characters, my friend said that my MCs came to life very well, but that the others were still just words on a page. My story is a flip off Robin Hood, my MCs a female Robin and a boy who joins the band. The story jumps between their points of view. My trouble is in working character descriptions into the story through them. If that makes any sense whatsoever…<\/i><\/p>\n
One of my favorite moments in Ella Enchanted<\/i>, which is told in first-person, past tense, comes when Ella, Hattie, and Olive are in a carriage chased by ogres, and Hattie shrieks, \u201cEat me last!\u201d If she were in the book for only that moment (she\u2019s not), the reader would still know her: selfish, self-centered, self-involved, self-important, self, self, self.<\/p>\n
One trick is to give your minor characters the opportunity to express themselves. Ella could be so frozen with terror in the carriage that she\u2019s oblivious to what\u2019s around her. Instead, she\u2019s scared but she\u2019s thinking about a way to save herself, and the one she comes up with requires the help of her stepsisters. Thus she gives both Hattie and Olive the chance to be their horrible selves.<\/p>\n
Another trick, which I think is critical, is to make your MCs observant. If you\u2019ve got an MC who isn\u2019t (that\u2019s fine), you may need to write in the third person – or your reader is going to miss a lot.<\/p>\n
Elodie in A Tale of Two Castles<\/i> and Stolen Magic<\/i> has to be observant for her job as assistant to a detective dragon. Plus, she\u2019s an actor, and acting calls for observational skills. Addie in The Two Princesses of Bamarre<\/i> is fearful, and fear calls for heightened alertness. When she goes off to save her sister, her survival depends on her observations.<\/p>\n
Power relationships affect the observations of people, and this works for characters, too. We watch those who have power over us the most closely. Teachers and bosses are the victims of this hyper-vigilance. If a teacher, for example, habitually adjusts her bra strap, or if he rubs his nose, or she pulls her ear, pupils notice. They notice everything. If they don\u2019t like the teacher, oy!, these mannerisms become the butt of jokes.<\/p>\n
In the Robin Hood story, the boy who joins the band, let\u2019s call him Thomas, may be low in the hierarchy. Say he wants to be accepted, so he pays sharp attention to everybody. If a chapter is told from his POV, he\u2019s going to think about who says what, how it\u2019s said, how the others behave, how they relate to Robin, and his thoughts are going to show up on the page.<\/p>\n
The first three out of these five tools of character development – dialogue, action, appearance, feelings, and thoughts – are available for non-POV characters. Suppose the band is walking through Sherwood Forest and we\u2019re in Robin\u2019s POV. She notices that Simon is stepping carelessly as usual and Jack is falling behind. She wonders if Jack’s fever is back. She sees that Melanie\u2019s lips are pursed, which means she\u2019s whistling in her head. These are actions that reveal character, filtered through Robin\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n
Dialogue next. Let\u2019s take careless Simon. The band reaches the safety of their hideout. Robin says, \u201cSimon, if the sheriff had been within a mile of us, he’d have heard us and we\u2019d be trussed up and on our way to the dungeons.\u201d<\/p>\n
What Simon says is an opportunity to reveal him. Here are some possibilities, but there are a million more:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re dreaming. I was as quiet as a clam.\u201d
\n\u201cYour whipping boy at your service. Who would you pick on if you didn\u2019t have me?\u201d
\n\u201cSorry, chief! I didn\u2019t mean to.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019ll get it. You\u2019ll be proud of me next time.\u201d
\n\u201cI can\u2019t keep my mind on my feet. I try. You know I try, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n
If I were Robin, I\u2019d probably find the last one the most annoying.<\/p>\n
More action: Is Simon meeting Robin\u2019s eyes? Is he blushing? Folding his arms across his chest? Tapping one foot? Each is an opening into his character.<\/p>\n
Onto appearance. Let\u2019s move into Thomas\u2019s POV, because a character who\u2019s new will have the freshest perspective on everybody else. He\u2019s in the hide-out for the first time and seeing the band at their leisure. Maybe he\u2019s thinking, What am I getting into? This is the legendary band that gives the sheriff apoplexy if even its name is mentioned? Simon is so knock-kneed it\u2019s a wonder he can walk at all. Jack looks like the first strong breeze will blow him away. And I don\u2019t like how caved-in his cheeks are. The band may be short one merry man by next week. I don\u2019t see what the sheriff doesn\u2019t like about Melanie. A smile permanently glimmers in the corner of her mouth. Nothing menacing about such a round, jolly face.<\/p>\n
The POV characters can speculate about the thoughts and feelings of the secondary characters, too. If Robin knows that Simon is sensitive, she can think about his easily hurt feelings and couch her criticism in a way that doesn\u2019t distress him – or that does. And characters can say how they feel and what they think. Not as direct a source as actually being in the head and heart of a POV character, but useful.<\/p>\n
If you think about these tools, you\u2019ll find yourself building them in, and your secondary characters will put on depth and weight.<\/p>\n
Three prompts:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Maid Marian is being held in the sheriff\u2019s jail. The band that I\u2019ve described needs to get a message to her without being discovered. Write the scene from Thomas\u2019s POV. You can make them succeed or fail.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Write the christening scene in \u201cSleeping Beauty\u201d from the POV of one of the fairies. Use her narration to reveal the characters of the king and queen and at least two other fairies. Everyone is trying to keep the evil fairy from doing her worst.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The next time you go to the supermarket or any big store, watch everyone you see. Notice how they reveal themselves and think what you would do with them if you put them in a story. When you get home, imagine some crisis in the store, whatever you like. Maybe there\u2019s a large rat or a thief, or the power suddenly goes out. It\u2019s night, and it\u2019s suddenly dark outside and in and the power doors won\u2019t open. Or somebody has a heart attack. You pick. Write a story.<\/p>\n
Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I recently met an intellectual property attorney (patents and copyright) at a fund raiser for a book festival. We started talking – she\u2019s writing for kids, too – and I told her about the blog and the questions that sometimes arise about copyright, and she offered to write a guest post, so that\u2019s coming up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69"}],"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=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":347,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions\/347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}