By:
The Fictorians
We’ve
all heard the criticism: “Your characters are flat” or “One-dimensional” “Make
them deeper, more rounded.”
The
problem is, most of the time the people offering that vague advice have no
concrete suggestions for fixing the problem. Many newer authors often fall into
the trap of trying to add quirks or other surface affectations to try to make
the characters appear ‘interesting’. Quirks can be cool, but only if they tie
into the character’s real psyche. If not, they’re just weird and don’t help.
In
my last post, I explored what it means to
have deeper, more complex characters by utilizing Larry Brooks’ three
dimensions approach to character development. Today I want to explore
additional examples from books and television to highlight what we mean when we
say a character has ‘depth’ or is ‘complex’.
First,
we need to know our characters, know them better than we know just about anyone
else in our life. Think about it – most of the people we interact with are
enigmas. We know their surface personalities, and we may know a little about
their history, but how many people do we know well enough to imagine them in an
extremely difficult situation like the ones we’re going to place our
protagonists in, and then feel confident we can predict how they’ll react? The
number is probably smaller than we usually assume. We can’t have that ambiguity
with our main characters. When we place them in extreme situations, we need to
know how they’re going to respond.
Many
of the ‘flat’ characters we see are ones where they don’t seem to have a
history. They step onto the page with no back-story, no childhood, no past
mistakes or triumphs to be reminded about. As a result, we only see the surface
of a character but get no insights into why or how they reached that stage in
life. These are characters with only that first dimension defined. Fine for
secondary characters, but not for central characters.
For
example . . .
Read the full article HERE!
~*~
If
you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they
are again:
- The Latest Trends in the Indie Author Market [Smart Set] | Jane Friedman http://ow.ly/z0iWv
- Novel Rocket: Estimating Kindle Sales From Amazon Rankings http://ow.ly/z1xTm
- All Write - Fiction Advice: Top Writing Tips http://ow.ly/z1xWe
- Which Comes First: A Facebook Author Page Or An Author Website? http://t.co/hBlkqxVtbA via @WritersRelief
- Mobile Evolution: Millennials vs. Generation X - #infographic | Digital Information World http://ow.ly/z1y3P
- Mythcreants » Drawing Character Inspiration From Game Mechanics http://ow.ly/z1y7y
- Southern Writers - Suite T: Step Away From Your Writing and Explore Writing Settings http://ow.ly/z1ya3
- 5 Key Elements for a Successful Women’s Blog : @ProBlogger http://ow.ly/z1ycH
- 7 Lessons Learned While Content Marketing for an Early-Stage Startup - Copyblogger http://ow.ly/z1yeg
- BookMarketingBuzzBlog: Pitching The Media: From The Obvious To The Extreme http://ow.ly/z1yg4
- Writer Unboxed » Why Writers Are More Powerful Than The Supreme Court http://ow.ly/z1yhE
- Revisiting the Four Primary Pillars of Novel Construction | Live Write Thrive http://ow.ly/z1yj7
- Studying Ray Bradbury: a beat sheet of Fahrenheit 451 | Nail Your Novel http://ow.ly/z1ylg
- Why Tumblr Is Pumped: You Can Now Embed Vine Videos On Your Blog http://ow.ly/z1yoB
- Writability: Follow Your Passion http://ow.ly/z1yse
- The Kill Zone: Can Storytelling Be Taught? http://ow.ly/z1yCN
- Friday Links for Writers 07.04.14 – Quirky Research Sources for Writers #2 | elissa lauren field http://ow.ly/z1yGr
- Anne R. Allen's Blog: 12 Dumb Things Writers do to Sidetrack Our Own Success http://ow.ly/z1yHR
- Complex Characters - The Fictorians http://ow.ly/z1yNg
- Seekerville: Return on Investment: What We Stay At Homes Can Do!!!! http://ow.ly/z1yUa
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