Character Profiles [ Edited ]

[BookClubEditor]

Introduction

What's the best way to create whole, interesting characters? How can we really get to know the characters we create?

We'll spend approximately two weeks on this topic. During this time, you'll find this topic and the discussion question threads permanently placed at the top of the message board, where you can find them easily. Included here is a writing exercise, with instruction for how to post it for peer review. At the top of this book club page, we'll notify the group when we're moving on to the next topic.

One important thing to note: even though we will be focusing on one core topic at a time, please remember that all of the topics will be on the message board, available for you to read and discuss at any time, at your own pace.

Character Profiles

If you're going to create great characters for your stories, you will need to know a lot about them. Perhaps not too much, though … characters are like icebergs. Often only the tips of characters are visible to the readers, but the part beneath the surface gives each character weight and stability.

Getting to know characters is part of the creation phase, and often much of this work is done before the actual writing. Bear in mind, though, that some writers prefer just to start writing and see where the characters lead them, and that is fine too.

A highly effective method for getting to know your characters is to construct character profiles. You do this simply by thinking up and, perhaps writing down, all sorts of information about your characters. For instance:

Physical Appearance

Logically enough, it helps the readers to have a picture of someone they will be spending time with. You can't judge a book by its cover, but physicality can affect who someone is. Who knows if blondes have more fun, but if someone suddenly bleaches her hair platinum blonde, that could say something about her -- about who she is and wants to be.

Social Influences

Even if you're not a hard-core Freudian, you'd probably agree that people are largely formed during infancy and childhood. If your parents are both alcoholics, it will most likely affect you. If you grew up poor in the South, you will be different than if you were raised rich on Park Avenue. Religion deeply influences one's outlook on life. Whether a character is married or not and has kids or is childless: all help to form who that individual is.

Personality

The personality is largely a function of the prior two categories. (On the other hand, sometimes siblings are born with very different personalities; nature trumps nurture.) Personality is where the real action is, and it will affect most everything a character does in a story.

But before you try to figure out these qualities for every single character, let's take a slight detour.

The fact is, you don't have to devote the same amount of time profiling every character in your stories. Think about your favorite novel. Some characters appear on page after page, while others show up less frequently, and some barely appear and are soon forgotten by the reader. A story that spent an equal amount of attention on each of its characters would either be very long or very superficial or very boring. All told, there are two basic categories of characters in the well-told story: Flat characters and Round characters.

Flat Characters

They're not really distinguishable from the furniture, nor should they be. They do exactly what's expected of them (ex: giving someone change at a supermarket) and no more. In other words, they are "flat" -- one-dimensional - so don't look to them for richness or complexity of character. Otherwise they would distract from the major characters. Most of your very minor characters should be flat.

Round Characters

Like most real people, they are complex. Usually this results in contradictions within these characters. In case you haven't noticed, people contradict themselves all the time. A character is round if he or she can do something surprising, which you accept and believe because the character is dimensional. You want the major characters in your story to be round, dimensional, contradictory, and fully human.

Making Profile Lists

As you might imagine, flat characters are pretty easily drawn. Just provide readers with the necessary and expected information, and you're done. A waiter takes orders, brings the food, leaves the check -- period. In other words, if you know a character will be small, you don't need to spend a lot of effort profiling them. When it comes to round characters, however, it's often helpful to create rather elaborate profiles for them. Some writers actually make a list that they fill in with various traits of their characters.

Review the list on pages 38-39 of Writing Fiction for ideas about your character's phyisical, sociological, or personality traits. Or, you can click here to download a blank Character Profile.

Discuss This Topic

Click on the discussion topic below to go to that thread.

• Create a Profile

The Writing Exercise

• Go out in the world and find a total stranger that seems interesting in some way. You can talk to the person, if you like. Or you can simply observe the person for a short (or long) time.
• Give this person a fictional name and think of the person as the basis for a fictional character.
• Fill out a profile list for this character. Refer to the Questions on pages 38-39 of Writing Fiction. Or you can click here to download a blank Character Profile.
• The information you put in the profile should be at least partly made up. Don't hesitate to make up almost everything. The stranger was only the starting point for your fictional character.
• For extra practice, fill in a profile for your favorite character from a novel you've read recently (or your favorite novel). You don't have to go combing through the book. You can just fill in what you think the appropriate answers might be. And it would be interesting for you to fill in answers to traits that aren't actually mentioned in the book.

To share your passage with the group, create a New Message and use "(Your Book Club User Name), Character Profiles -- Writing Exercise" in the subject line.

Enter your writing sample, and tell us about the person you used for your stranger. Did you find it easy or difficult to fill out the profile for this person, and why? Might the character you created work well in a fictional story?

If you share your writing sample with the group, feel free to comment on other writers' passages as well.

Message Edited by BookClubEditor on 01-05-2007 03:51 PM