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The following is a transcript of this episode. The complete transcript can be found on the podcast’s website.
[00:00:00] If your character were a puddle of water, could you splash around in that puddle and not even get your feet wet? If you think that your character is pretty shallow, then let's talk about this second installment of Character Development 101. Today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! And welcome back to the show.
[00:00:46] Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in a tiny house who is here to show you that you can write that work of fiction regardless of how busy you claim to be. Last week, if you remember very well, last week we talked about the importance of names. We talked about the importance of if you're writing a work of fiction that takes place in current times, or if it takes place in other times, but in this world, it's important to do some research, to make sure that the name makes sense, to make sure that the name fits. I said points like if your character is 37 and make sure that you choose a name that came from the eighties, likely.
[00:01:38] Also, I invited you to explore the possibilities of what your character's parents might be like. You may not have to do a big character profile thing for them, for this character's parents. But knowing who the characters parents are and knowing a little bit about how they might make decisions can lead you in the right direction toward finding a good name for your character.
[00:02:13] If you're, if the character is parents are conservative, they would likely choose a common and popular name. If the parents are progressive, it might be a different name. If the parents are super religious, it could be a biblical name, different things like this.
[00:02:30] So this allows us to better understand the character because to have a believable name is important. I also said that if your character's name is completely original to you and completely original to your world, please make sure it's not impossible to pronounce. Just because if it's hard to pronounce, a lot of us are not even going to try and that can affect our relationship with your character.
[00:02:59] So it can clue us into the character themselves. It can clue us into family dynamics. It can also clue us into the culture that they were raised in and the world that they live in, if you put thought into what their names are and how you formulate names. And if you think about the names of the other people they live with or see on a daily basis, all of that is important.
[00:03:28] Today we are going to go beyond the name and we are going to talk about personality of your character. So what makes them interesting. What makes them deeper than a puddle of water, that if you step in it, you don't even get your feet wet? Because it is important to have a good, well thought out character who believe, who acts in a well thought out manner and does things in a consistent and believable way. Sometimes we can be surprised. Sometimes it's fun to be surprised by the way a character is behaving. It can sometimes be a part of the plot. If the character kind of goes AWOL and does things out of character, it can be interesting for us to read that and figure out why.
[00:04:28] However . we have established that the character is reserved and shy and suddenly she is taking off her shirt and dancing on the bar top for no reason at all, we can see inconsistencies there, and that can pull us out of the story and it can affect the relationship that we have with that character.
[00:04:51] So one of the things that comes to mind with figuring out who your character is. When we start to write a story, oftentimes we will have a sort of a profile or a document that will give us the important information on who this character is. It's called a character profile. It can include their name, it can include their hometown. It can include their vocation.
[00:05:25] It can include their interests and maybe their manner of behavior. It can include anything that the author claims is important. And usually the author will reference this sheet or at least come to memorize this sheet, especially if the character is in the book a lot. But another approach that we can do is we can take this.
[00:05:50] Person that we have created, and this is actually a very good idea, especially if you have a character that just came into your world, came into your book and you still need to figure out who they are. It is fun to take this character's personality, and to pretend to be them sort of, and take a personality test for them.
[00:06:18] That way you can learn about who they are by answering the various different personality questions on their behalf. You can think about the way that they would react to this or that situation. You can think about their preferences. You can think about what makes them excited. You can think about what makes them scared.
[00:06:40] You can think about all those things. And as you answer those questions, regardless if at the end of the personality test they end up being an INFJ, or whatever personality test you choose to do. I mean, even if it's like, what spirit animal are you, or if you were a color, what color would you be?
[00:07:02] Or one of those aura tests or whatever funny thing. What candy bar would you be? Just responding to those personality questions as if you were that character will make you understand that character better. And it's a fun exercise to do, especially if this character is new to you and you need to get to know them in a hurry, just sit back and take a personality exam for them.
[00:07:31] Having a good deep character is, if we were to look at this kind of many years ago, good character development was usually typical of specific genres and not very typical of other genres. There has since been really a lot of crossover and a lot of, you know, prove them wrong type stuff throughout all genres.
[00:08:00] But there are still some ways that this holds true. There are still some genres that focus more on character development. And there are still some genres that focus more on the plot. If you think about romance, most romance stories have a plot that's pretty basic.
[00:08:21] They have a plot that is not the point of the story. The point of the story is to build the relationship. And the point of the story is to discover who these two people are and how they work together. Usually the plot is simply an engine to get to that type of self discovery and the events themselves kind of don't matter a lot.
[00:08:47] Sometimes it's a war story. Sometimes it's enemies to lovers. Sometimes it's a lot of different things. There are plenty of romantic tropes that we could get into where they're focusing on people more than they're focusing on events, because that's the point of the genre. Another one that can kind of fit into this category of focusing more on characters rather than plot can be a coming of age story.
[00:09:17] You have a person who doesn't know who they are. You have a character who is uncomfortable in their own skin, perhaps they're quirky. Perhaps they have interests that they don't understand, or that makes them not fit in with their peers. And we go through this type of self-discovery process in order for them to come out a normal or an exciting, or an admirable human being at the end, in order for them to be comfortable with who they are.
[00:09:46] Self-accepting, self-love, all that stuff. The plot itself is just the engine to get to that feeling of self love or self-acceptance or finding that chosen family or whatever it might be. If you look at the other side of this coin, there are still genres that are far more focused on the world and on the plot. These tend to be adventure novels, and they fit very well into science fiction and fantasy.
[00:10:22] These also tend to be really biggish books. I mean, you can look at any genre and find huge books. I'm not saying that is different or weird or unique only to these genres, but if we are going through and placing such importance on the world and on events, oftentimes it can lead to the description or the creation of entire cultures or entire people, or the stories of several different people in several different families, because the plot is more complicated and has so much more nuance and so much more facets to it than these other examples that I shared before with romance and sometimes coming of age. So with this, the reader is usually looking for this out of this world experience. They are looking for something. I mean, all books should be immersive. I can completely get that, but the reader is not usually looking for some type of moral lesson or some type of like self-discovery oftentimes with science fiction the hero is already chosen and serves the plot. The hero ends up being the engine for this amazing, beautiful creative plot line to take place, the hero and their friends or the hero and the villain and their friends. And so with science fiction and fantasy, which is what comes to mind, it does not have to only be science fiction and fantasy.
[00:12:17] We focus more on the plot and sometimes the characters and the importance of the characters fall by the wayside. And so I invite you and I definitely do this throughout the drafting process. If you are writing science fiction or fantasy, and you are writing an adventure novel and your main character has one emotion, and that is stoic, which isn't an emotion, but you get what I mean.
[00:12:51] the big muscly guy who beats the crap out of everybody. And doesn't get excited. Doesn't feel sad. Doesn't show emotions because I don't know. That character shows up a lot. And I'm going to invite you to find ways to show that character or to show another side to that character.
[00:13:17] If you are writing a fantasy novel of the farm boy who was orphaned and discovers that he is the chosen one, I invite you to find creative ways to show multiple sides of that character. Sometimes it's like the character gets locked into the storyline and then the story happens to them. And they're just kind of on this roller coaster car with this seat belt that won't come undone and they go and the storyline starts and it goes, and it picks up and then it's over. And. They were kind of just along for the ride. So I invite you to all of the main characters in your book, go through and think about the big things that they are going to do, or that they are going to be involved in and ask yourself why.
[00:14:15] And if you did subject that character to a personality quiz, go ahead and try to integrate that into the way you are outlining your story. And you can do that with any genre. So, if you are focusing more on romance or coming of age, or these other things where character development is kind of the idea, or like literary fiction where you are teaching this really big life lesson or life theory through story, then you really need to nail the character development. That's the whole point of books like that. I just recently read a book that talks about the difference between surviving and living, the difference between simply staying alive and actually doing the living and enjoying life.
[00:15:13] And it was this huge elaborate, beautiful description of these older siblings who have grown up. And it concludes with this very moral related question that you ask yourself, am I simply surviving or am I living?
[00:15:33] If you are shooting for things like that, and you are hoping to demonstrate life lessons, you need to have believable characters do that if you want your readers to continue to read your stuff. However, with fantasy and with science fiction where things are more plot driven, and I'm not going to say that my books are not plot driven, cause that would be a big fat lie.
[00:15:56] I can tell you one thing though, if your plot ends up being weak or if your plot ends up being kind of predictable or if there ends up being some holes in your plot, oftentimes those things can be overlooked a little bit, or at least forgiven, and you can keep the reader interested in your book if the characters are awesome.
[00:16:26] If you have 100% believable characters, sometimes the weaker points of your book can be overlooked or at least forgiven so that you can secure a better readership or a more loyal readership. Right now I'm reading a book called the lies of Locke Lamorah. It's a heist story, which is so fun. It's pretty long-winded, but it has been so fun to be a part of the story.
[00:16:56] The story itself is interesting. But the thing that I love the very most about the book is actually not the exciting story. I mean, the heist is fun and to see the development of a thief and a thief's friends is also really fun and the community has been exciting to kind of be in. But the thing that I love the very most is the beautiful friendship that the main character has with his best friend. These are super morally bankrupt or morally gray people. They're all thieves. And like I said, the entire story is a heist, it's swindling people out of their money, but the beautiful friendship between the main character Locke and his best friend Jean is so lovely. It is delicious. And it is unique and it is special.
[00:17:52] And so even though parts of the story are kind of filled with hot air to an extent, and they're a bit long winded. I like to stick with it because the friendship there is so wonderful.
[00:18:09] So friends go out and with your current work in progress, find the main characters, find the people and the personalities that you are bringing to life in your prose and put them through a personality test and then find ways to subject them to many different emotions, many different emotional triggers and many different ways for us to see more than one side of them. It's okay for a character to trip themselves up. It's okay for a character to not choose the right choice. It's okay for the character to be a jerk sometimes. And to be short-sighted. It's also okay for a character to be wise. All these different things. And so I encourage you to take that and to apply it to your work in progress today.
[00:19:06] So that's it for today, a big thank you to my patrons without your generous donations, this podcast would not be possible. And if you. Would like to become a patron to writing in the tiny house, go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up today. Also be sure to follow me on social media. My tag on Instagram is @authordevindavis and my tag on Twitter is@authordevind. Thank you so much for your time. Be sure to tune in next week and have fun writing.
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