T is for Talking.

A character’s dialogue says a lot about him.  It’s a great way to use exposition without wasting a lot of time talking about the character’s past, doing flashbacks, etc.  In just a few sentences, he can tell you where he’s from and what is most important to him.

I don’t need to hear you talk.  Even completely pissed, I can guess your entire past simply by smelling your coat sleeve.

Image:  BBC/beatrixblog.wordpress.com

In Tunerville, there’s a marked difference between the way Chris (the protagonist) and Callahan (spirit of the Realm) talk.  When Chris tries to tell people not to use the tuners, he uses very plain language—he just tells them to stop.  When Callahan appears, he says, “Cease use of this instrument or there will be dire consequences.”  When the two of them are talking without any tags, you can tell it’s two different people.

When I write a character’s dialogue, I think about who he is and where he’s from, and that influences my word choices.  An educated character who lives in an affluent suburb won’t talk the same as someone from the sticks.

Accents are a bit different.  You can’t really hear an accent when you read (not literally), so you’ll have to imply it so readers can hear it in their heads.  If I make him say he’s put his wellies in the boot of the car and dammit, where did he leave his biro, because he’s got to make a list for the grocer’s whilst Emma is having a bath, then you might surmise he’s from England.  You would be right.  Can you hear it?

I’m not even going to try and reproduce any other UK accent here; there are quite a few.  If you want to hear 14 accents in 84 seconds, watch this video.  It’s the coolest thing ever.

All this applies to dialect as well, which can be written phonetically to a degree, but you can’t go overboard with it.  Avoid what Margaret Mitchell does in Gone with the Wind:

             “…Now, did you hear us say anything that might have made Miss Scarlett mad– or hurt her feelings?”

Thus appealed to, Jeems gave up further pretense of not having overheard the conversation and furrowed his black brow.

“Nawsuh, Ah din’ notice y’all say anything ter mek her mad. Look ter me lak she sho glad ter see you an’ sho had missed you, an’ she cheep along happy as a bird, tell ’bout de time y’all got ter talkin’ ’bout Mist’ Ashley an’ Miss Melly Hamilton gittin’ mah’ied. Den she quiet down lak a bird w’en de hawk fly ober.”

You can’t argue that it’s Southern speak, either, because only the black characters talk like that.  Not only do many people think that’s pretty racist, it’s nearly impossible to read.  Dialect works best when you suggest it.

Be careful not to use what many writers call Hollywood dialogue, where the character tells another person stuff they both already know.  It’s clumsy.  Poor writers often use it for exposition.

“As you’re aware, Robin,” said Batman, “the Joker has been a nemesis of mine for many years now.”  

“Batman facepalm”  is apparently a thing.  A thing you can google.

Image: comicvine.com

Probably the best thing you can do for good dialogue and characterization is go sit somewhere and listen to people talk.  See if you can guess two things about them just by listening to their conversation.  Try it; you might even hear something that will inspire you.

S is for Sex. 

Sex is one of our strongest urges, and our most troublesome.  Who we love and who we want to boink is the driving force behind many a literary conflict.

Will you make your character heterosexual or homosexual?  This does make a difference because of the dynamics involved in having those relationships.  Many gay people hide their sexuality for various reasons.  If your character is gay and in the closet, what are those reasons?  If she is not, why does she choose to be out?

Is she bisexual or polyamorous?  That sets up a whole different dynamic right there.  Regardless of orientation, you will have to consider who her lovers are and why she chooses them.

A seething cauldron of desire.

Image:  bbc.co.uk

If she has more than one, the dynamics here will affect the other characters as well.  Otherwise reasonable people may change markedly when sexual jealousy (the absolute worst kind) rears its head.  There will be a whole set of logistical management issues, especially if they don’t know about each other.

You should also consider whether your character prefers intimate relationships or just has sex.  I already did a post about writing actual sex scenes, so I won’t repeat that here.  This is part of your larger character arc—and if she’s just having casual sex, you should give her a solid reason why.  Perhaps a relationship didn’t work out and she can’t seem to connect with anyone.  She could be seeking to reproduce that experience and no one quite fits, or she might be trying to distance herself from it.  Or maybe she just enjoys it and isn’t ready to settle down with one person.

Another consideration is whether an adult character has had sex at all.  A virgin could be interesting to write, especially a male character, and one who is a bit older than the average guy at the time he’s deflowered.  We tend to assume everyone over a certain age has done it at least once, but that isn’t always the case for everyone.

Probably never.

Image:  harrypotter.wikia.com

Your characters’ backgrounds affect how they will act because of their socialization and cultural conditioning.  You can certainly play with making someone act in ways that aren’t typical of their gender roles in whatever culture (or time period) they live in, but avoid lapsing into stereotypes.

Certain types of fiction likely won’t discuss characters’ sexuality—children’s and middle grade won’t go there, although young adult fiction often does.  Thrillers tend not to have much sex in them at all, or it’s not relevant to the plot so it gets left out (boo!).  Horror fiction characters do it all over the place and with all kinds of creatures.

Just ask Rosemary.

Image: © Paramount Pictures / starpulse.com

Despite what some people would have you believe, we are sexual beings.  We’re one of the few animals that can (and does) mate at any time, not just during certain biologically proscribed periods.  Our carnality doesn’t have to rule us, but it definitely influences us.  When you build the scaffold of your well-rounded character, keep it in mind.

You and I breathe the same air,
Though we have not walked beneath the same boughs.
In the vast spread of molecules throughout the cosmos,
Our paths move inexorably toward one another
And we mingle,
Though we have not met.
We are made from the stuff of stars, of the twinkling points of light on which we gaze,
Pondering the possibility of each other, perhaps at the same moment.
One day the fabric of space and time will bend.
I will fall toward you,
And you will catch me,
And we will become one.
Until then, you will think that there is no one for you;
I will think the same,
And we will both be wrong. — © Elizabeth West

———-

R is for Romance.

I was watching Cosmos and feeling wistful, okay?

When you give your character a relationship in your story, you’ll have to consider how he deals with romance.  What elements would influence how he does this?

Socialization

In Western society, men are expected to pursue the women they’re interested in.  While women in today’s world feel more comfortable making the first move, quite a few would rather be pursued.  And many men still feel that the role of the pursuer belongs to them.

If your protagonist lives in another time, the rules could be very different.  Someone whose behavior doesn’t align with accepted norms will clash with other characters, making for some interesting conflicts.  Even modern eccentrics can throw a spanner into the works.

This waiter has extremely bad timing.

Image:  bbcamerica.com/anglophenia

A big part of romantic socialization is the expectation we get from books, movies, and love songs with which we grow up.  Grand gestures are seen as the ultimate in true romance.  But what if your protagonist can’t afford more than a simple bouquet of carnations?  You might want to show the value of small, loving acts of thoughtful expression in your story by having your broke lover at least get them in her favorite color.  Bonus points if he has to leverage some effort to find out what that is.

Personality

Put an assertive person and a retiring person in a story where they both want the same lover and see what happens.

The assertive person is far more likely to go home with someone’s number that night.  He’s also more likely to strike out, for the same reason people who fly frequently are more likely to lose their luggage:  the more chances you take, the more chance you have of both success and failure.

How would your character, if he were the shy one, handle this?  You could use it to push him into pursuing his true love, if you liked, or you could let his social anxiety strangle him.  In Kazuo Ishiguro’sThe Remains of the Day, the butler Stevens and the former housekeeper of Darlington Hall lose their chance at happiness together because they simply cannot admit their feelings for each other.

Talk about the British keeping a stiff upper lip…

Image:  dailymail.co.uk

Even if he does manage to speak the truth to his lady love and she reciprocates, remember that no one is perfect.  The road to true love is a bumpy one.

Experience

To handle his epic romance successfully, your character will need more than just a winning personality and proper socialization.  He should have some experience dealing with the emotional needs of another person and the practicalities of such a liason.

One reason I can’t stand Romeo and Juliet is that they’re both so incredibly stupid.  Romeo spends the entire play complaining and mooning over first Rosalyn and then Juliet and waiting for everything to work out. Even when he gets her, he’s a complete idiot who thinks only of himself.

Juliet is no better.  She knows that her family will never accept her marriage, and the plans she lays for her future are ill conceived and childish.  One wonders:  if they were clever enough to sneak out long enough to get married, why could not they have left after that and sent word later on, when it was too late to do anything about it?  Perhaps they were too young to think past the wedding night.

It’s all about the nooky.

Image:  pinterest.com

I guess the only way it works is because they’re both really inexperienced teenagers.  To accept the tragedy, we have to accept their love.  But they’re both such idiots, it’s rather difficult.  I’ve often wondered if Shakespeare (who lifted this story from an older one) wrote it this way on purpose, to divide the audience.

Consider these aspects of socialization, personality, and experience in planning your characters’ romantic interactions.  Whether your big romance is the main focus of the narrative or simply a side plot, it will have more impact if your characters behave authentically.

Q is for Question.

There is one question you must ask yourself when you create a character.  Every decision he makes in the course of the narrative will hinge on the answer.

What does this person want?

Goals and wants are not necessarily the same thing.  Your character can have goals, be they professional or personal, and they could be miles away from what he truly desires.  Different people want different things, and the goals they set will help them achieve them (or possibly not).

Circumstances may tear a character away from what she wants most.  In Eric Knight’s classic novel Lassie Come Home (1940), our heroine is sold to the Duke of Rudling and taken far away from Joe, the boy she loves.  She misses him so much that when she escapes, she sets off on a dangerous and harrowing journey from Scotland all the way to Yorkshire, and home.  I absolutely adored this book as a child and freaked when I managed to find a copy.

Image:  Wikipedia

A character’s wants can also blind him to his moral path.  Twisted desires are the focus of many a tale.  Consider Boromir from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.  He’s the jock hero of Gondor, its most decorated warrior, and the favorite of his father Denethor.

Boromir’s desire to save the struggling kingdom of Gondor colors all his thoughts.  He wants to save his people.  The Ring senses this and tries to exploit it, knowing how close Gondor is to Mordor and from there, to the hand of Sauron.

You can almost hear the Ring whisper to him, can’t you? It’s saying, “Bésame…bésame muuucho…”

Image: buffsisters.wordpress.com

The closer the company comes to actually carrying out the purpose of the Quest, the deeper becomes Boromir’s torment as he tries to justify to himself actually taking the Ring from Frodo. At Amon Hen, he finally gives way to his desire, breaking the Fellowship.

The Ring used Boromir’s wants against him.  But in a way, Sauron’s desire to possess the Ring of Power (and his failure to realize that a tiny hobbit held the key to his doom, not the mighty armies of his enemies) blinded him to the other characters’ purpose in destroying it.

While some characters want things to change, others want them to stay the same.  Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock Holmes’s landlady, would probably like a quiet house and a tidy tenant.  Instead, she gets someone who plays the violin (screech?), does smelly, messy experiments, and has all manner of people traipsing in and out at all hours of the day and night.

Yes, dear, I know it’s important, but you’ve got to stop blowing up the coffeemaker.

Image: endodo4ever.wordpress.com

Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit also wants a nice quiet life, but Gandalf drags him into the Quest of Erebor and he ends up quite a different person from who he was when he started.  You might start out with your character pushing toward his desires at the beginning of your narrative, but as in life, the paths of the best stories wind and twist and rarely go anywhere in a straight line.

Ask your character this question.  Listen to what he has to say.  You might be surprised by the answer.

P is for Potency.

I was going to write about perception, but I realized that I’d already touched on that in a couple of other posts in this series.  And I was exhausted yesterday, so I trashed my P post and went to bed.  Now that I’m awake and infused with British culinary delights from the city’s best food truck, I shall tackle yesterday’s and today’s posts.

Potency is a noun meaning efficacy, effectiveness, or strength.  We spoke about kryptonite, or weakness.  Every character has to have something he is better at than anyone else.  And you can use this ability or talent in the story in unexpected ways.

Think about your favorite characters.  What’s the one thing they can do that no one else can, or the thing other characters always seek from them?  What about them makes them able to achieve their goals despite incredible odds?

My potency is quite obvious, isn’t it?  Now bring on the next client.  I’ve got through five already before breakfast.

 Image:  thewallmachine.com

Thought not a magical genius like Hermione Granger, Harry Potter is quite an excellent wizard, practically speaking.  He managed to cast a Patronus charm well before any of his classmates could (in fact, he taught them to do it in Order of the Phoenix).  He isn’t the best student; but since someone is always trying to do him in, that’s understandable.  He still got decent grades despite all the craziness.  His flying and dueling skills are top-notch.

But the thing he is most potent in, his most important quality, is his strength of character.  Harry will protect anyone he cares about to the death if necessary.  He’s absolutely without guile, and he always seems to know the right thing to do.

I’m hardly perfect; I passed out during my History of Magic exam and failed!

Image:  fanpop.com

No wonder Voldemort couldn’t defeat him.  In order to vanquish one’s enemy, one has to understand that enemy.  Harry was a mystery to the dark wizard, who couldn’t understand friendship or love or loyalty.  People gave their lives to protect Harry because they loved him.  Voldemort’s followers mostly feared him.

Combine potency with kryptonite and your protagonist might find himself in the throes of a conflict from which it will take him most of a book to disentangle himself.  A person who always sees the good in others might lean too far toward giving them the benefit of the doubt.  Before she knows it, she could be:

•  Ensnared in her evil boss’s evil shenanigans
• Married to an evil man who cheats on her and cleans out her bank account
• Married to an evil woman who does the same thing
• Doing all her evil coworkers’ tasks because she can’t see that they’re taking advantage

When I said I’d help with your TPS reports, this isn’t exactly what I meant.

 Image: Michal Marcol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When you assign your character potency, be careful you don’t give him too much power.  It could get out of control and become a weakness.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and even a good person can become overconfident in his own abilities to the point of disaster.  Of course, this could make a really good story even better.