Comments Elisa Beatty says: Wish I knew, Shea! For me, it’s a know-it-when-I-see-it thing… when the character feels real, and I think of them even when I’m not reading the book. Jamie and Claire from Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series come immediately to mind. I feel like they’re actually people I know. Is it internal dialogue that does it? “Visceral response” in Margie Lawson’s terms? Just the right level of almost-contradictory complexity?? Dang…. dunno. I need to feel like there’s a MIND AT WORK in there. Hmmm…. then I think of J.K. Rowling’s Snape, who feels very substantial, but we don’t get any internal or visceral on him, except what can be inferred from physical description, dialogue, and action. Oh, well….DIALOGUE. That’s huge. A voice.  Shea Berkley says: Ooooo. Good observations, Elisa. I wrote a reply and had to erase it cause I’m wanting to dive in. Holding back my opinion is very good for working on my patience. I have none. Dang it! Your only the second person to post. I might not last until the end of the day. Elisa Beatty says: Spill the beans anytime, Shea!! I’ve been thinking more about the question, and thinking how much SUFFERING (genuine suffering, not “boo hoo, you hurt my feelings a teensy bit”) makes characters feel real. Jane Eyre comes to mind (great voice as well…and mucho internal monologue). Even Satan from Paradise Lost–his despair makes him a more compelling figure than, ahem, the Big Guy Upstairs.  Darynda Jones says: Oh, yes, Jane Eyre! I love the wounded pasts of characters. It adds such depth and makes us care. Shea Berkley says: It’s not like I have the official answer. It’s just my opinion, so don’t think I’m keeping the silver bullet to great characters to myself. I just don’t want to prejudice anyone. I’m loving all the different answers. I had a feeling everyone would have their own angle on what makes a compelling character.  Rita says: Oh! Oh! What Elisa said. You think about the character even when you aren’t reading the book. I love it when that happens. Shea Berkley says: Do you think a book can be good even without good characters? I’ve read books where the characters were so-so, but the premise was awesome. Usually I get frustrated because if the author had spent a little more time building their characters, the book would’ve been amazing. Building characters is time consuming, and I’m sad when an author didn’t feel as if it was necessary to go that extra inch (because it typically doesn’t take more than a line here and a line there) to show character when you’re writing. Hands down, I feel cheated. sometimes they might not know how. ? Shea Berkley says: Oh, yeah. I think you might have hit on something there. Rita says: Diane saying “they might not know how” leads to that burning question. How do they get published? When a book is so bad you wonder what happened to the editor and you want to email the author and ask for your money back. Shea Berkley says: It might lead back to the premise being so amazing. I know there are some books that are mostly plot and premise and little character. It’s almost as if the people are beside the point. Anyone would’ve done. Sort of like the movie The Island. I don’t want to knock it because I did enjoy the premise, but to be honest, almost any kind of character could have been plugged into that plot and it would’ve been fine (with a little tweaking), because the idea is what drove the movie, not the characters. In romance, character is the story. So when a book gets pubbed that has weak characters, I try to see what the editor saw. Sometimes I can’t, and I’m faced with the possibility that I have no chance at ever understand this business.  Liz Talley says: To me on a plot driven story, something like the Da Vinci Code, characterization is not so important. That story is really not so much about the growth of a character as it is the solving of the mystery. To me, (can’t even remember his name) the guy in that book could have been almost any other academic. Nothing really connected with me other than he was smart. But I think there are very few books like this and most are written by men. I like good characterization. And I like characters to surprise me with their complexity. So…how? Is there a formula? I’m a pantser, or I saw someone call it organic writing, which I liked very well. I find a place to start and just start writing, getting to know my characters as I go along. One of my chapter-mates brought in a storyboard to a meeting with collages, graphes, multi-colored post-it notes. It looked like a school project one of my kids might have done. Am I not trying hard enough? Is storyboard girl trying too hard? I don’t interview my H/H. I don’t have a picture of Clive Owen as my inspiration. I don’t take classes on craft. I just write. So I’m wondering, if I put in the hard work, could I be a great writer? Am I being lazy? Or is this just my process? Kelly, I think that there are as many paths to publication as there are published writers. And as many paths to unpublished writing as there are unpublished writers. No, storyboard girl isn’t trying too hard. She’s doing what SHE needs to do to make her story come alive. She may be the sort of person who, for whatever reason, needs to understand a project from start to finish before she begins it. Or maybe she’s been burned on other projects, and thinks that this time, she’s going to get her head on straight at the outset and not waste so much time fixing her book after it’s drafted. That’s me, today. I’m going to do a storyboard for my 27,000-word WIP because I sense that I’m drifting away from the story and am now just rambling. I, too, tend to write from the hip. I start with a single idea and let it flow from there. But I’m tired of letting my fingers do my thinking. I’m tired of following my characters wherever they lead, because so far, they haven’t led me to heartfelt climaxes and resolutions. I want to write with more intention, and with an eye on impactful resolutions. For me, today, that means better planning. You aren’t doing anything wrong, either. I think process methods are like criticism: take what you can use, discard the rest. Make sure you aren’t discarding because it’s too hard, though. Hard might be what you need. Or not. Rita says: Story boarding I can’t get into. I like to know my characters. Knowing my characters allows me to know what they will do when I put them in a situation. So, I kinda plot by knowing the characters. I’m also a pantser because I find myself writing things as I go. Say you are with your sister at the mall. A woman, a complete stranger, is standing next to your sister. A man has been paid to push crème pies in you and your sisters face. The man mistakes the strange woman for you and smacks them. You know what your sister is going to do, you’ve known her all your life. The stranger? You don’t have a clue how she will react. If you were writing this scene you would know instantly your sister would pull out her 38 and shoot the guy, or lick the crème and laugh. It would be to her character. Do you have the stranger slap the guy, huff and walk away? Or, because you, as the writer, know at age four this stranger was freaked out by a clown throwing crème pies you have her dissolve hysterically to the floor screaming ‘why me’ so you can add more depth. And the story goes from there. Shea Berkley says: My creative process is very similar to yours with the exception that I read tons of books on the craft of writing and love to learn about other ways to write. My problem has always been if I know too much about the story, I won’t want to write it. Therefore, I dive in and let the story happen. It creates problems that plotters don’t have, such as I do massive rewrites, dump chapters and constantly go back and tweak, but it’s how I write. For us, to nail character is the process of backtracking and tweaking. But once we figure out the basics, we don’t have to go back quite as often. I love the term “organic writing”. It makes what we do sound so cool. Liz Talley says: I don’t do any of that stuff either. I have recently started doing a GMC for each character. But that’s because I got dinged on it several times and thought maybe there’s something to this. Mostly, I think about my characters. A lot. I just figure what some people put in spreadsheets, I keep in my head. Elisa Beatty says: For me, poor characters = not liking the book. Hands down. Shea Berkley says: I agree. I can watch a movie where the characters are a little weaker, mostly because I give them a break. The director only has a limited time alloted to him to tell the story. But solid characterization in a movie can be done. So if a director can do it in that short span, surely a writer can do it in pages and pages of a story. I struggle with characters, so I’m not sure how to answer this post. I seem to miss things (according to some judges) that I think should be obvious. OTOH, I tend to knock readers upside the head (according to other judges) with things I think are important. I am often frustrated making my characters as real on paper as they are to me. Shea Berkley says: I don’t think getting frustrated is unusual. I’m pretty confident you’re not alone. Heck, I’m right there with ya. (grin) Creating good characters is hard. We see them so clearly in our heads, so it’s frustrating when they don’t come out exactly how we want them on paper. You knock people aside the head and I’m accused of being too subtle. We need to find a happy medium, Diana.  Elise Hayes says: This may sound strange, but I love when I’m working on a final draft of a book and I run across one of my characters doing or saying something that I (from the vantage point of the almost finished book) just know is WRONG. I shake my said and say, “oh, no, he would never say/do/think THAT.” And then I change it to what fits the character. That’s when I know that I finally made it into that character’s skin…I really know who they are–and who they are not. Shea Berkley says: Being able to “hear” your character speak and know what they will and will not do is like a gift from God. I love it when that happens. Gives me goosebumps. Like Darynda, I love the surprises, but I also love the little details. That she always wears her grandmother’s wedding ring on a chain around her neck or that he always has to sit in the same chair in the living/drawing room. Sometimes the “why” is important, but sometimes it isn’t–either way it’s another little piece to that character. Shea Berkley says: Isn’t it amazing how those little details bring out the believability of a character and story? Sometimes one little thing will create the picture, like in Harry Potter when JK Rowling writes in the Sorcerer’s Stone: “Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences …” I can totally see an image of a woman doing that. It fleshed her out so beautifully and on the beginning page no less before we even hear her. Just blows my mind sometimes.  Addison Fox says: Pamela: I SO agree with you on this! One of my most favorite things in the JD Robb “In Death” series is how Roarke keeps the button from Eve’s suit in his pocket. I absolutely LOVE that!!! Addison Elisa Beatty says: Can I chime in with a new question? I know RWA put out a “hot sheet” a couple weeks ago addressing the whole Harlequin / vanity press issue… but either the language was so diplomatic I couldn’t figure it out, or nothing was actually resolved about what relationship RWA has with Harlequin now. Anybody know whether anything really got resolved???? Shea Berkley says: It’s my understanding that instead of accepting a whole publishing house, they will accept publishing lines on a case-by-case basis. What it solves is beyond me. If Harl/Sil is still pointing people toward their vanity press in their rejections, I can’t see it solved much. I’ve not seen these imfamous rejections, so I’d love to know the exact wording or if they’re backing off the tacky practice. I can only hope. The tactic makes them look opportunistic and greedy. (shiver) It just feels so icky. Hi Shea–as one of said ‘harpies’ , I had to chime in To me, a good character is a character I care about (i.e. have an emotional response to). Be it hero, heroine, villain or secondary character, the writer has done something that has made me care and get emotionally involved with the story. It could be fear, disgust, rooting for or against…plot-driven or character driven, but I know it’s a good character and a good story when I care what happens. It happens first where the writer grabs the reader by the throat in the beginning, but it can’t stop there. The writer has to drag them along for the ride, which is where surprise (good one, Darynda), etc. comes in, I think. The little details build (another great comment) so we know more and more and continue to care more and more. It’s hard. Character runs through every small bit of writing, IMHO. Going to a workshop on plot or conflict or dialogue or anything else always touches on character. It’s integral to the story, even if there is a lot of plot, I think. We have to have someone to care about. For me, I have to research my characters just like I research my plot elements. Anyway, that’s my take. Now back to my story…researching my h/h. Great topic, Shea! Take care. Can’t wait to harp next week Hugs, Shea Berkley says: I meant harpie in the most loving manner. Dulcet tones. Merciful demeanor. (cough, cough) I’m choking on your sweet nature. Okay, back to reality. Good points. I didn’t see any mention of emotion. Chicka, you survive on that stuff. Every line you write, you drag the reader on an emotional ride. Pretty cool. Ah…blushing here on the emotion comment. How can you be nice even though I’m realy mean to you most every week And I do LOVE emotion, of course. What I hope is that the reader feels the emotion I seem to soak my writing in as opposed to just gagging with the melodrama of it all If I evoke emotion in the reader without telling them what to feel (show vs. tell), then I hope I’m successful. Love the topic! Robin Shea Berkley says: Didn’t I tell you? I’m a saint, Robin. Angels sing at the mere mention of my name. (giggle, snort) Just so long as you think I’m amazing, I’m happy. Sorry. I’m being a brat … again. So tongue-in-cheekiness. Now, don’t get me started on the horribly maligned art of telling, Robin. We can’t show everything. It would weary the reader to the bone. And never fear. When it comes to writing, I’ve got your back, girlfriend. Great question, Shea. What makes a great character? A believeable one. One whose emotions reflect my own, if put in similar circumstances. One whose voice is unique from others. One that has flaws. I’d say more, but then I’d be posting my blog scheduled for next Thursday. LOL. Shea Berkley says: Oh-nooo, Autumn! I didn’t mean to undermine your topic. Dangit! You can call me a stinky, cliche-spitting, wannabe writer that has less sense than a two-year-old climbing into a dryer at the local laundromat. Great ride, but it makes my brains all mushy. So very sorry. Forgive me. We can change topic. Tell you what. I’ll save my opinion for Thursday. Anyone have a new topic they’re burning to know about? Hey, sweetie. We’re cool. I meant if I keep typing I’d be exposing all my thoughts. Really there is so much to say about this topic. So please, reveal your answer. Right now, my secondary characters are just leaping off the page, and the h/h? Not so much. Need to hang it up for today before I gut this scene competely! Shea Berkley says: Secondary characters can be so much fun because they aren’t carrying the story. We can go play with them and not feel guilty. I hate it when that happens. Once I gave all the cute lines I gave to my secondary character to my heroine. I had to nix most, but some worked really well. So, in your opinion, when do you know when it’s time to gut a scene? Liz Talley says: I always know when it really doesn’t serve a purpose other than humoring me. I had one scene in the book that’s debuting in June that I loved. It was a girlfriend scene. It was funny and warm and now resides in that darned file where it will never see the light of day. But I just knew it was the one that had to go. But those secondary characters had a ball in it. I enjoyed it even if no one else will. Shea Berkley says: The cute scenes are the hardest to axe. I love good rapartee, but cuteness for cuteness sake is wasted words. Dangit! Indulgence vs. necessity: This is my biggest issue right now, because in the series I’m writing, I know that Book Two’s secondary character is Book Five’s hero. I’m choosing which details to reveal about the secondary character very carefully, and I think what’s happening right now is that I’m focusing on finding the “right” details so much that the h/h are getting lost in the scene. Today I spent hours gutting a scene like a trout, and…ended up going back to what I had before I started. I was choking the life out of the scene, and it showed. Shea Berkley says: God love ya, Tamara. I’ve been there. I’ve written series before and I got some great advice from one of my pubbed friends. She said not to sacrifice the current story for a future story. In other words. Focus on the H/H. Let this other guy’s personality show, but don’t make a huge effort to pull him too tightly into your H/H story. I chaffed at this, but if you don’t concentrate on the H/H story, then you’ll never make it to book two, three, four or more so it’s pretty moot. You’ve got to nail the story in front of you before you can move on to the other ones. Made sense to me. Elisa Beatty says: Like in movies–character actors are often so much more interesting than the leads! (They don’t have to be all Hollywood perfect and “safe.”) Shea Berkley says: You know you’ve nailed character when your readers clamor for a book about one of your secondary characters. My dream? Someone actually threatening never to read my books again unless I write so-and-so’s story. Wow, what great insights. I wish I had something to add — but I don’t think I do. I tend to love all my characters. (If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be writing about them, now would I?) On another note, I think I just encountered that mythical East German judge … Said judge gave me a very low score, but the only real feedback was that I can’t punctuate. Surely someone would have pointed that out to me before I submitted my GH entry, right? More than one person read it, including you, Shea … (I won one of the first critiques you gave away here.) So I guess I’m wondering how much stock to put into comments like that. And I wanted to say thanks for the synopsis-writing help y’all gave me last week. Aw, Arlene. I wouldn’t put much stock in it if it’s contrary to everything you’ve heard. And Shea, I love that picture. Now that looks like an interesting character! Shea Berkley says: Ain’t she cute? Shea Berkley says: LOL. Yeah, I think I would have noticed if your puntuation was off, Arlene. Go read this blog: Angie Morgan wrote it about the comments she received in contests she entered right before she sold. Pretty interesting stuff there. My suggestion is to put it aside for a few days and then go back and see if there’s anything that may strike you as true. Just because she’s off about your punctuation doesn’t mean she’s off about everything. Sure, it’s harder to take her seriously, but you don’t want to write her off. Sometimes it’s one little thing. Or … maybe not. Sometimes people are just plain odd. Elisa Beatty says: I have to say–a lot of people who critique punctuation in contests are wrong, wrong, wrong. I mean, they literally have their technical rules wrong. (I’m going to blog about this topic soon). My guess is that if other people haven’t been pointing out problems with your punctuation to you, this particular judge was working from imaginary rules. There’s some REALLY bad misinformation out there. And that bad information really leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths. People are paying entrance fees in good faith, expecting to get expertise in return. I received some contest feedback that I honestly felt the judge should have paid ME for, because it was obvious they were working out their own issues with my manuscript. Yeah, I said it. Shea Berkley says: I think we’ve had the same judge before. (sigh) Since I use a fair amount of humor in some of my stories, I always get that one judge that doesn’t see anything funny about XYZ. Seriously? Life if too short to be stoic 24/7. Shea Berkley says: Okay, here’s my take on writing a good character. It’s about action. Acting and reacting to the conflict in the story. Let them get passionate about something. Give them enemies/problems that set them in motion. Get into their skin. As a writer, we must see the world from our characters eyes, not our own, and explore their emotions and choices and give the reader a ride. Even if it’s a quiet story like a proper Regency, the underlying emotions should come out in the dialogue and their controlled behaviors. Often it’s what isn’t done or not said that draws the most attention on the page. So, is making a good character about dialogue? Yep. Is it about emotion? Absolutely. Surprises? It had better be. Conflict? Most definitely. Action? In my opinion, a book is only as good as the characters interaction with the conflict and plot. So there. That’s my quick and dirty take on characater. Trust me. There is so much more to this subject it’s crazy. I could go on for days, but this is a group blog and not my personal rant page. I’m going to be teaching a class in April about layering a scene with the writers online classes, and I touch on this and so much more. Yep, I’m a writing geek. I get into this subject way too much. I can’t seem to help it. Maybe I need some sort of intervention. Hello. My name is Shea and I’m a literary junkie. Ouch! A really interesting take, Shea, and I love it, because what the characters *do* incorporates all that other stuff. Coolness! You’re awesome as always! Oohh, ooohh…(raising hand madly)…that means you’re really SHOWING character through action . Had to do it to you Anyway, loved this blog. Can’t wait to see the next one! Robin Addison Fox says: Shea - GREAT topic! And I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the photo you used!!! Addison Shea Berkley says: Boy, it was a bear to get it on the blog. Thanks to Jeannie’s techie moves, I have a picture on this blog. Can I just say, I am woefully incompetent when it comes to stuff like that. I seriously wanted to cry yesterday. Darynda Jones says: Okay, finally got back to this. Your take on character is fantastic and I agree 100%. Robin is right, showing is everything. You should post some examples. You writing rocks so hard. I hope you are feeling better, Shea. I was going to give you a hard time Saturday because right after I teased you about singing in the shower with your sexy-cold voice, I caught a killer cold! I think you cursed me from afar. Hugs, Shea Berkley says: I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it Saturday. I was really bummed. I’ve heard Laura Kinsale speak before, though. She’s great. I would never curse you, Darynda. I think you know I’m much more in your face than that. We’d take it to the parking lot, babe, and do a Westside Story rumble. Sort of like that Bufffy episode. Wouldn’t life be great if we were in a musical? Of course, singing and dancing with a cold would be a bummer. You could take a knee every-so-often. Hope you feel better. I seriously couldn’t do anything but moan from my bed for over a week. Let’s pray you fair better than me. Darynda Jones says: LMAO. You kill me. I didn’t really figure you for a curse-from-afar kinda girl. I would love to be in a musical! Love you missy and I hope you are doing better too!!!
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. So, your original question was “What makes a good character?” I’ll take a stab, but can’t wait to hear what you say.
Okay, now I’m dying to know and I will be on the road to Ay, Bee, Que toward the end of the day. You’ll have to tell me Saturday, darn it!
A good character to me is one who surprises with depth and unexpected layers. Even bad guys can have layers. They’re often psychotic layers, but they’re there.
Great pic too!
~D~
PS, this is just going to kill me.
Surprises. That’s a good one, Darynda. There is nothing worse than a character who does exactly what you expect all the time.
Exactly!
Ditto what Darynda said!
What makes a character great for me is the subtle something that tells me right away this isn’t your normal: rake, debutante, accountant, mercenary, etc. Now if I knew HOW to do that, I’d be a rich, rich woman.
Ha! I think you’re doing pretty darned good in that area, Jeannie!
If you ever figure that out, come tell us. It’ll be our little secret.