Bringing your work to a group which can accurately assess the characters within it and are not afraid to say if they are confused by a lack of differentiation is one of the most valuable resources an aspiring author can have. Linked to sharp and accurate critiquing, the group ability needs to be honed and nurtured with regular workshops.
The following basic information could be either circulated before the meeting or read out at the start. Then follow with the exercise. Finish the session with people working in pairs or threes to produce thumbnail word sketches of the characters given.
Introduction
Characters in stories are about real people. Not people whom the author has met in real life, but people the author has created so well they become real. Everything they do and say in the story is driven by their own desires and motives, just as in real life.
For instance: The old gardener with rheumatism is unlikely to scale a wall using just the ivy or say “Know what I mean, old boy?” He would slowly drag the long ladder he uses for pruning the wisteria out of the shed and prop it against the wall. And he would have a good reason for doing so. And he might say something like, “Don’t rightly know as I can answer that.”
Golden Rule: You must know the character so thoroughly that whatever they do or say could not possibly be done or said by anyone else.
And each character must be so full and complete that the reader can get to know them (and relate to them) on first acquaintance. Imagine a scene in your story where all the characters are talking together. Can the reader identify them all just by listening to what they say, or do you have to add the name to avoid confusion?
A common fault in writing is to put the word ‘said’ before or after every single speech, followed by an adjective. He said harshly. She said sweetly. Mrs. Gaunt said firmly. If the speech is right for the character and situation you rarely need to tell the reader this information. Look at these examples:
“My, you are grumpy this morning. Would you like me to close the curtains?”
“Sit you right down and eat up with no more blathering.”
“Take those damned shoes off and carry them. Then you’ll be able to keep up.”
Apply the speeches to the three people speaking in the above paragraph. You do not need to add the direction as it is obvious who said what. Provided, of course, that the character has been carefully adhered to throughout. Look again at the speeches. All of them could be said harshly, not just the one referring to ‘damned shoes’. All of them could be said ‘sweetly’, not just the one about the curtains. All of them could be said firmly, not just the one insisting there is ‘no more blathering’.
But a dour old Scotswoman with a heart of gold is unlikely to speak sweetly, nor to swear in a Sassenach tongue. An aggressive man with a purposeful attitude to life is unlikely to be offering sweetly to close curtains, and the middle speech is definitely dialectic. Oddly enough, the modern woman could say all those speeches in different situations. But not all three in one book by the same character.
Having depicted the characters as you want them, the story is the interplay between them and the impacts they have on each other, to bring about the change from beginning to end of the principal narrative arc.
For instance, a romance must start with two people. How they meet and react to each other is the story. A thriller will have a lot of action being taken by the lead character and a lot of events happening to him or her. And all the action and events will occur because that person was in that place at that particular time because that was how their life was developing at that time.
So, before the first chapter is started, all the characters must be well known to the author. There must be an awareness of who and what they are, where and when they were born, what they like and dislike and who and what they know. And all this information remains inside the author’s head, guiding what the character says and does but never spilling out into large tracts of biographical description. Look at Mrs. Gaunt’s speech again.
“Sit you right down and eat up with no more blathering,” Mrs. Gaunt said firmly.
What does it tell us?
In those few words we can deduce that she is married, probably an older woman (used to taking charge of a situation), a good cook (in that she expects the food she has provided to be beneficial), Scottish (the dialect) and a kindhearted person concerned with others well being. A paragraph telling us this information is unnecessary. But the author will have a lengthy note somewhere giving all these details and more, so that every time Mrs. Gaunt appears on the scene, she is acting according to type. The reader will be informed that she is extremely houseproud by her telling someone that a cat would niver be allowed to roam into her kitchen, thank ye kindly. And poor because she has niver owed a groat to no man. And so on.
As we have seen, speeches provide their own descriptions of the characters. Conversely, no two characters may use the same tricks of speech or expressions. Mr. Gaunt, for example, will not use the term ‘blathering’. In real life, married couples often speak alike. In books, each character is distinctly separate. If they are not, they become unrealistic and the reader cannot get involved with them or identify with them. And the book is put down.
As an exercise, match these speeches with the characters listed below.
ENGLISH SPEECH
- “Can I ‘ave me ball back, mister?”
- “Truly, we have all much to be grateful for, Mrs Jones.”
- “Sorry, madam, they’re all out of stock.”
- “All right, all right, settle down and let’s do some work.”
- “Sixty miles to the gallon and one lady owner, got all the papers here somewhere, just bear with me, while I’m looking for them just sit in it again.”
- “Certainly, sir, take the next left beside the White Hart and Eversley Road is the second turning on the right opposite the post box.”
- “That’d be Miller’s place, that would. Go along to the end and take the little turning past the bend and just keep going. You can’t miss it.”
- “Har, har. You shall die and I shall rule the world!!”
- “Ah, Dotty dear, I am glad I caught you. It’s the Brownies Summer Picnic…”
- “If’n a man wants a drink, he has one, woman! Now get my tea and look sharp!”
- Policeman giving directions.
- Young schoolboy.
- Middleclass committee lady.
- Vicar.
- Villain in a comic spoof adventure.
- Drunk husband.
- Local giving directions.
- Teacher.
- Shop assistant.
- Shady car dealer.
Follow up Workshops
At home, make a list of characters from a piece of your own recent writing together with one brief descriptive sentence for each. Then select two or three speeches for each from the text and see if you can match them easily. If you can do this easily, bring the list to the group and see if everyone else can do the same, without describing the characters to them first, of course. They must meet the characters through the dialogue as a reader would.
Everyone brings a list of characters and speeches similar to the one given. Pass them round and everyone writes their answers on their own notepad for comparison at the end of each exercise. If everyone gets the whole list right, you, the writer, have mastered characterisation.