Having Real Talk with Your Characters

Jun 3

Introduction:

Let's start with a simple truth: your characters are your children. They start out sweet, wide-eyed innocents to the world, and the next thing you know, they've become a brood of unruly, petulant, impertinent little train wrecks that leave you asking where you went wrong.

Having a general understanding of exactly who your characters are and what drives them will make them more tolerable, even if it won't completely wrangle them into order. As you take this journey with them, you will watch each one change and grow in ways you didn't anticipate. This is fine. This is normal. No reason to panic. To paraphrase the Book of Proverbs, "Set up a character in the way she should go, and by the final chapter she will not have strayed from it. Much."

Motivation 101:

The best definition of character motivation comes from the mistress of the fantasy fiction realm, Deborah Chester, in her book "The Fantasy Fiction Formula." Chester defines motivation as follows:

"…the reasons a character does what he or she does, why this individual is making certain choices and decisions, why this person is pursuing a particular goal, and why this person won't quit." (p. 29)

Understanding the reasons behind a character's motivation directly weaves into other aspects of his or her foundation. This is very helpful to keep in mind when you create other elements of your character, such as:

Personality (who the character is)
Inciting Incident (why the character is doing what he or she is currently doing)
Intended Gain (what is at stake and/or what the character hopes to gain through achievement of goals)

In short, whatever motivates a character will influence their thoughts (the way they see the world) and their thoughts will directly impact their actions (the way they respond to the world). To learn about your character's motivation, you need to talk with them.

What Does Real Talk Look Like?

Having real talk with your characters is exactly that - having a conversation with him or her. If you're a first time author, you may feel a bit silly doing this. The rest of us have already sacrificed our sanity and ability to care about our social reputation, so chatting out loud with our characters (and, by default, answering for them) is just another Tuesday.

Philip Athans best described what real talk looks like in "The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction": "Keep thinking, keep asking questions, until you can't think of anything else to ask." (p. 45). Strictly speaking, there's nothing overly complicated about sitting down and having these conversations with your creations. And because you're a writer, you can get super creative with how to do it:

Go for a walk. Being outdoors with the fresh air, taking in the world around you, does wonders for the creative mind. And if your character doesn't like being outside, make them go anyway. It's for their own good.
Go to the park. Whether you sit on a bench or play a little on the swings, being in a place that harkens back to childhood can get your character talking about her own youth and how a single event tilted her on a different path than her ten-year-old self could have ever imagined.

Side note: if you're going to the park, maybe make sure there aren't too many kids around. Just in case an unimaginative parent decides to take drastic action against the person talking to him or herself on the monkey bars.

Fix dinner. Cooking is a favorite pastime for many people, and for writers it can be even more enjoyable to mix up an old recipe with a "what if" idea. (You already use the "what if" ideas to get the ball rolling on your stories, so why not in the kitchen?) Pretend you're having a character over for dinner and set the table for two (if living with a roommate or significant other, give them a heads-up first). This can be a fun way to learn little tidbits beyond your hero's motivations - for example, you may learn he's a vegetarian or a loud-and-proud carnivore, or realize your heroine has a particular aversion to garlic.

Real Talk Had - What's Next?

Make sure you're taking notes while having these conversations. You can record yourself, keep a notebook on hand (or have one in every single room of your house), or be on your computer while chatting. These notes will then go into your character dossier.

A character dossier is essentially a personnel file on your character. The files on your protagonist and antagonist will likely be much more detailed than those of your secondary and minor characters, so keep that in mind when deciding how you want to store their file:

A notebook
Word document
OneNote notebook
Google Doc

Quick Tip: If you find workbooks more helpful for organizing your thoughts, I highly recommend "The Only Character Workbook You'll Ever Need". This workbook, created by T.M. Holladay, hands-down earns its name. I own one for all of my current projects and cannot recommend it enough.

You may not fill the text of your manuscript with every single detail of your character's motivations (best if you don't, actually…), but you should know every single detail for yourself. These details provide you with answers to the who, where, what, why, and how of who your character is, what he/she is doing and why, and where he/she hopes to be when the journey comes to an end. For your protagonist and antagonist, the motivations may be complex or simple; for your secondary and minor characters, more simplistic. "What's important is that you know the reasons why in each and every character you create." (Chester, p. 29)

Time to Talk!

Now it's time for the fun part - go have a chat with your characters! Have your dossier ready to roll, get yourself situated at the park, in your living room, or on a nature trail, and it's time to talk. The only question left is, what motivations will you find driving your lovable pack of crazy kids?