Characters

The other night at a seminar on writing someone talked about characters. She said, which is something I have heard many times, that characters are the center of any work of fiction--not plot, setting or any of the other elements of narrative discourse (though they are all important). Characters make or break a book. Or a television show. TV shows that continue on do so because people get to know and love the characters.

To the side is the cast of Magnum PI, a show I watched regularly in
the 1980s when I was in graduate school. The shows had a successful run due to many elements:  exciting action, intrigue, the setting in Hawaii. But the characters--Thomas Magnum, Rick, TC, and Higgins--featured in peoples' imaginations. You got to know them, love them, and, more importantly, understand them and know how they acted in different situations. When a plot unfolded you wanted to know what they would do. When they behaved in an unusual manner, you knew you would learn something about them
that would be a revelation. When you talked with your friends about the last episode, you would say things like, "I can't believe Rick would do something like that," or, "I didn't know that about Thomas."

So it is with long-running shows like M*A*S*H*, Frazier, Friends, E.R., House, Hill Street Blues--and, of course, with soap operas that run on and on for years. People know, love, and identify with the characters. Writing good characters is essential to writing good stories and novels.

We all have our favorites. Mine is
Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (which I think is the greatest novel ever written). Why do I like him? Because he is extreme--or, we should say, X-treme. He wants the love of Kathy and will do anything to get it. He is all but demonically possessed to get it. When she dies, he is equally driven to have revenge on her family for spoiling their love. He says things like "By hell," "I'm damnably fond of Hareton," and "I am in Hell till you do." "Is Heathcliff a man or a Devil?" one of the characters asks. He is a dark, driven, demonic man who has been spurned and hurt and now is in the rage of Satan himself to see his vision of justice done. Kind of like me.

It is these extreme characters who win over readers' hearts--who become famous due to their raging desire for something. And a good character has got to be driven this way. Does Romeo just sort of love Juliet and if he can't get her--hey, no big deal? Does Captain Ahab think it would be really nice to kill Moby-Dick, but if not . . . well, there are lots of other whales in the ocean? Does Ebenezer Scrooge just sort of like money? The answer is No on all of these. They are driven, obsessed, unbending in their quest for what they want. So talking about characters (and I will be doing that for a while), I would say the first thing is this. Create a character who doesn't just sort of want something. Create a character who shall, as Hamlet said, "move heaven and earth" to get what he or she wants.

One book I read on writing (alas, forgot the title and can't remember the author's name) gave a formula for writing. Formula are dangerous, but this is generally useful. It was WOA. In a good story there is a Want; a character goes after this want and encounters an Obstacle; he or she will then engage in some Action to get the desired thing. The action they engage in will reveal character. We will learn what they are like by what they do.

And if they really, really, really, really want the object, so much the better.

In my novel The Sorceress of the Northern Seas the character of Lybecca wants to avenge the wrongs done to her grandmother, Devonna; and, to complete the matter, she wants to gain the title Devonna was prevented from achieving, The Sorceress of the Northern Seas. Lybecca will stop at nothing to get the title and she will do whatever is necessary to get it. But--like Romeo, Healthcliff, Ahab, Scrooge--she is in danger of being destroyed, since the evil forces claiming the title can only be overcome by good. Good, however, seems weak--unless you really come to understand it. How does one come to understand the nature of benevolence, and its power? Well, you can learn from other people. Get a copy of the book through Amazon and find the full story.

More to come on character.