If you’re writing fiction, you need to make sure that your work is populated by multi-dimensional characters who seem like real people. So ask yourself:
- Are the characters I’ve invented believable?
- Have I fleshed them out?
- Do they have the kinds of inconsistencies, conflicts, baggage, strong points and flaws we all have?
- Do I know what they look like, how they dress, and how they reveal themselves through their body language, and have I shared that with my readers?
My character’s worksheet can help you nail down some of the details, including where they come from, what they look like and how they move. (You’ll want to highlight those details that are as revealing as they are memorable). Dive in deep, and you will hopefully come up with the kind of compelling backstory that makes readers want to know more about either a protagonist and an antagonist. Equally important, the character worksheet can help you populate your novel with nuanced individuals who, like the rest of us, aren’t all good or all bad.
Why worry about that?
Because characters who are predictable are boring, and, as Yi Shun Lai points out in her “Flatlining” article that appeared in The Writer magazine last June, “boring characters make for boring narratives.”
She explores how to write multi-dimensional characters in the April 2020 issue of The Writer:
“Writing multi-dimensional, interesting characters isn’t just about the characters themselves–it’s about the situations you can find to put them in. Some questions for you: What can you do to this character to make them act in a way that we wouldn’t expect them to act? What situations can this character put him-or herself into that will really push the limits of that character’s own bounded awareness?”
If this reminds you of last week’s post about balancing character and plot, you get bonus points!
On the other hand, characters can’t act exactly like real people. As White Oleander author Janet Fitch notes, “In life, we try to avoid trouble. We chew on our choices endlessly. We go to shrinks, we talk to our friends. In fiction, this is deadly. Protagonists need to screw up, act impulsively, have enemies, get into TROUBLE.”
Doesn’t that sound like fun?
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