At risk of being forever dubbed “Captain Obvious,” I’ll say that character is probably one of the biggest drivers for a story. Sorry, I just can’t help myself. I’m going to do what I’m going to do.
So here’s part 4 of “things other than ideas that drove my story writing.”
Part 4: Character
Many novice writers and some published ones struggle just to distinguish their characters from each other. I see this especially with action ensembles. They laugh at the same jokes, support the same politics, believe in the same metaphysics, and hate the same people. I admit to struggling with it myself, the underlying problem being that I really, really, really want my good guys to be essentially good and likable.
One of my favorite approaches to fight this tendency is to write characters that start off in complete opposition to me in one or more ways and to occasionally have them speak against my most sacred convictions. It’s a great way to learn to understand other people and even humanize them—even if they’re no-good, lily-livered, beady-eyed Libertarians from Yuma. (Just kidding, Libertarians. I had to pick on someone… What? Why is the guy in the cowboy hat snarling at me?)
I spent a lot of time over the years working on character development. I wanted them to be real people. But how in tarnation did you write a character-driven story like they’re always talking about?
After writing a few hundred stories with a hundred or so different characters, I think I finally get it. When a novice has a story in mind, it’s one of a small subset of precious creations, and bringing it to fruition the way he imagines supersedes any pesky issues with character—they must behave for the sake of the story! When you write a hundred stories in a hundred days, however, the ideas aren’t quite as sacrosanct and something sublime begins to happen—the characters begin to call the shots.
I felt grumblings of this early in the process, such as the single-minded character in “Day 37: Scabby the Grinder,” but I believe the first characters that truly took lives of their own were Ty and Will in “Day 109: Ty, Will, and the Big Mystery.” I didn’t know it at the time, but these guys turned into my own origin story of the Men in Black. Though the stories followed a logical progression, the action and dialog were driven almost exclusively by what I expected the characters to say and do according to how I’d drawn them. From the very start the characters revealed themselves more than story and did some surprising things.
If you’re interested in following that series, I don’t have a tag, but you can go to the first one above and click on the “western” tag. Most of the stories listed will be about these Men in Black and their friends.
The only way I know to deliberately write something character-driven is to simply ignore any story objectives you have and focus on what you think the character would do. Sometimes the results will be subtle, as it often was with my Men in Black. Other times stark personality traits will radically effect how the story progresses, as it did for the troll in “Day 337: Junder the Tree Puller.”
However, I think character-driven stories really shine when the story marches on and the characters have little “moments” that don’t determine story, but somehow keep it alive. In “Day 149: Off the Axis,” Eric’s mischievous streak creates little moments with everyone he meets—even though they are frozen in time. The reader doesn’t see it, but he can imagine how Eric effects all these lives through space and time just by being who he is.
Don’t forget about relationships. Character traits don’t just determine how they act individually, but how they interact with each other. “Day 344: Sparrow” shows two characters who barely know each other trying to solve a problem from radically different perspectives. The problem gives them compelling reasons to be all business, but their immediate like for each other overrides and interweaves the way they solve it. I knew this Groundhog-Day story had an inevitable ending, but I actively pushed character before resolution, even letting character get in the way of a resolution. The result was far better for it.
I believe writing character-driven stories is best learned through experience. Just write—write as many different stories with as many different characters as you can. Eventually you will let them go and discover how much they can bring your writing alive.
Flash a Day for a Year 