Building Your Characters from the Inside - Part 4: Epiphany

by Susan May Warren

By now, you should have figured out how to make your character suffer, and what his Black Moment is going to look like (and if not, that’s okay – just go and reads parts 1-3 at these links: Part 1:Values, Part 2:Conflict, and Part 3:Black Moment). Today, we’re going to talk EPIPHANY.

What is Epiphany? It’s the moment, right at the darkest in the plot when the character wakes up to the truth that has been dogging him the entire book and goes, AHA! (Accompanied by a little hand-to-head thump).

It’s the moment when they figure it out, or perhaps the moment when they reach DEEP INSIDE to gather up the strength – physical or emotional that they didn’t know they had, to complete the task.

How do we find that? 

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Building Your Characters from the Inside - Part 3: Black Moment

by Susan May Warren

Welcome back! I hope you and your character and still talking to each other, now that you know his deepest fears, greatest dreams, and know how to hurt him! (If you missed part one you can find them at these links: Part 1 and Part 2)

You will want to be caught up, because today, we’re going to talk about how to put all that knowledge together to create THE BLACK MOMENT.

What is The Black Moment?

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Building Your Characters from the Inside - Part 2: Conflict

by Susan May Warren

On the 12th, we talked about sitting down with your character and getting to the bottom of who he thinks he is to discover their values, dreams and fears. (If you missed it you can find it here.)

WHY do we need to know what they value? Because we want to make them SUFFER.

But why do we want suffering? Isn’t that cruel?

Hey – that’s the price of a good story! Lots of angst and suffering. Suffering makes the character uncomfortable, and causes…CONFLICT!

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Creating Characters We Want To Have Coffee (or Diet Coke) With

by Rachel Hauck

A book is about people. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Or, simpler, extra ordinary things.

But to feel for these people and go on the journey with them we have to see them with the eyes of our heart. Of our imagination.

How do we do that as storytellers?

Details!

Beware! I don’t mean physical details although those are great, but I mean personal, down-to-the-soul details.

Describe the protagonist life, hinting at wants, goals, dreams.

Why have they walked onto the page?

Imagine a play if you will.

The stage is dark save for the spotlight.

The main character walks onto the stage, in costume, and begins to speak.

What could they possibly say that will make you lean forward to listen?

What emotion or what story could they share that would make you care?

What opening line would grab you?

That’s how you have to build your characters before you walk them onto the page.

I used to play act as a kid, making up dialog between me and oh, you know, Donny Osmond.

We’d carry on whole conversations.

Now I do the same for my protagonist and secondary characters.

I see them in my mind’s eye.

I do my level best to get to know them in my heart.

Anyone who’s been in a writing class with me has heard the account of how I dug deeper for the characters June and Rebel in Softly and Tenderly, the book I wrote with Sara Evans.

I knew Rebel had been a cheater. And originally I decided that once he fell off the fidelity wagon, he intended not to do it again but just got caught.

Sin will do that — keep you longer than you intended to stay and take you farther than you intended to go.

But as I wrote the confrontation scene it lacked… punch. I felt like I was writing in circles.

I got up to take a break and ended up dialoging with myself, playing both characters, and I know you ALL have done it too, and came upon a break through line.

Here June is confronting him as to why all the affairs. Rebel is a high powered southern lawyer.

BEGIN

“It just got easy, that’s all.”

“Easy? Do you know how many nights I cried myself to sleep… How helpless I felt to stop you… I mentally packed my bags so many times.”

“I told you, it just got easy.”

“Does revenge taste that sweet Reb?” RH: Here’s where I learned June also had an affair. Early in their young marriage when she felt alone during Rebel’s law school years.

Rebel whipped around to face her. “You stole my son, June!” <– BREAK THRU LINE!

END

I gasped here! What does that mean? I didn’t know but I was going to find out. It felt brilliant!

So I dug around until I discovered the whole story! This bit of news popped the story wide open and created much deeper, more complex characters.

Here’s another example from How To Catch A Prince.

I created a fun, over-the-top media mogul, Gigi Beaumont. She’s both a protagonist and antagonist. I know… I know… but I like to bend the rules.

When we first meet her in the heroine’s POV, Gigi is commanding, smartly dressed with perfect hair and nails.

But when we switched to Gigi’s point of view, we see a different character.

BEGIN:

Gigi

Even when she was a girl running barefoot through the hills of her Blue Ridge, Georgia, home, Gigi Beaumont had a nose for news.

She’d collect all the best gossip by sneaking around the wizened mountain women— who had a knack for telling a yarn or two—as they talked in the Mast General or strolled the town square. Then she wrote their stories and mimeographed them on the machine she found in the church basement, producing her first newspaper at the mature age of ten.

When Mama read it, whoa doggies, she gave Gigi a walloping for the ages on account of what she printed about the mayor’s wife. But when it turned out to be true—an affair with the sheriff—Mama became her chief distributor and fact finder.

Forty-six years later, she still crawled around behind the storytellers and gossips, hoping for the scoop. The scandalous story that would turn the world on its ear.

Mercy knows, Beaumont Media needed a break. A big one. Hiring Mark Johnson was just one stealth move to reignite her newspaper’s faltering brand.

END

Here we have a bit of Gigi’s character history (which is very different from backstory!) and we see this woman is both hungry for success and gifted.

She’s following a life long passion, her superpower!

Hopefully I created descriptive elements to help the reader know who they are dealing with in this story.

We don’t need a lot of physical description here. We get it in other scenes.

What I needed in this scene was her heart. To show just who Gigi Beaumont was and why.

So, how do you know if you have a dynamic character that can rise off the page and grab the reader?

Here’s an example from award-winning author Deborah Raney’s novel, Home to Chicory Lane.

BEGIN
Still, despite his rough childhood, and a couple of wild years in high school, Chase had defied the odds and turned into a good guy. A really good guy. Their youth pastor from Langhorne Community Fellowship had taken Chase under his wing, and by the time Landyn was old enough to date, Chase was toeing a pretty straight line.

Well, except for the tattoo. Dad had come completely unglued when he heard Chase had gotten inked. She’d finally calmed him down by explaining that Chase’s Celtic cross––on his collarbone, so it was hidden under most of his shirts––was a symbol of his faith and of the permanence of God’s love for him.

END

I can see this guy, can’t you? Wild, tattooed, but wearing the symbol of his new faith. I get him right away. We see he’s “toeing” the line so perhaps he’s still trying to earn God’s favor. And the tattoo is kind of his reminder, “Behave yourself.” There are a lot of places Deb could’ve taken this. Great description.

Here’s a clip from best selling author Denise Hunter’s Married ‘Til Monday. (Great title, eh?)



BEGIN

After work Saturday Abby showered off the bakery smell, dried her hair, and pulled it back into a messy ponytail. She scrubbed the makeup from her face, exposing the freckles on her nose, and threw on a pair of jeans with her Eagles T-shirt, hating the way her hands trembled. It was just one date. Then he’d leave her alone.

END

What I love about this is her Eagles t-shirt and trembling hands. We know what kind of music she likes and that tells us a lot about the character. And trembling hands indicates she’s nervous. Funny to me she’s going on a date and trying to look her worst. No make up, sloppy ponytail. Makes me ask, “What’s going on here?” Denise took the opposite of the norm. Good idea to always flip a character or scene upside down and see what’s on the other side.

Here’s a few tips on how to create deeper characters:

1. Be specific. Get down to nitty gritty details. Tell a slice of life and use it to shape the character.

2. Utilize MBT’s Story Equation — the SEQ. Dark wound of the past, lie and fear, contrasted with greatest dream.

3. What’s your character’s happiest moment. (Be specific!)

4. Remember your story is about dealing with a specific issue (notice the word specific is used a lot) so build your details around that one event.

5. Go beneath the surface. Turn a character or situation upside down. Instead of a male character what happens if you make him a her? A character is more than hair or eye color, or skin color. More than she liked cafe mochas and the Beatles. Those are great but you must answer the question: Why does she like those things? Dig deep. Think outside the box.

Now, go write a brilliant character.

TWEETABLES

Creating Characters We Want To Have Coffee (or Diet Coke) With by Rachel Hauck (Click to Tweet)

Tell a slice of life and use it to shape the character~ Rachel Hauck (Click to Tweet)

Turn a character or situation upside down~ Rachel Hauck (Click to Tweet)

New York Times, USA Today ​and Wall Street Journal best-selling, award-winning author Rachel Hauck loves a great story. She serves on the Executive Board for American Christian Fiction Writers. She is a past ACFW mentor of the year. A worship leader and Buckeye football fan, Rachel lives in Florida with her husband and ornery cat, Hepzibah. Read more about Rachel atwww.rachelhauck.com.

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Are Your Characters Practical Atheists?

By Michael Ehret

We're entering fully into summer and I'm thinking about Christmas. Christmas cookies, specifically. I love making sugar cookies with cookie cutters. It’s fun to slather colored powdered-sugar frosting for that extra layer of sweetness over those recognizable holiday shapes.

Even though frosted differently, those cookies all look the same. There’s not a lot of difference between my cookies and the ones my kids create. And they taste exactly the same—sweet perfection.

One of the challenges writers face is creating characters who don’t look like all the others. Characters who aren’t stamped out of the same dough everyone else is using.

God changes lives—just not mine

A sermon I once heard reminded of this. The pastor, Eric Carpenter, had just begun a series called “Practical Atheist,” focusing on Christians who believe in God, but live as if He doesn’t exist. (Based on Craig Groeschel’s book, Christian Atheist.)

At the beginning of the sermon Carpenter said, “It’s like when we say we believe in a God who forgives, but refuse to accept His forgiveness personally or refuse to forgive others. We believe in a God who changes lives, but don’t believe we can change in meaningful, deep, abiding ways.”

That’s when I thought of the characters in my current manuscript. Are they cookie-cutter Christians, cruising through life with a few bumps and scratches that are easily covered by a new layer of “holiness” frosting? Or are they authentic Christians even while living real, flawed lives?

And if they aren’t, what would my book be like if they were?

Creating misery

My characters—and yours—need to suffer, and not just a little. I need to find each one’s core weakness and exploit it. Then exploit it again and again and again.

We need to find the point in each character where they’re a practical atheist—where they don’t fully trust God even if they outwardly claim otherwise. And then we need to make them miserable in that exact area.

When we do that, we can help the character—and the reader—find their way back to God or more fully turn their weakness over to His strength.

And that’s when our characters step out of the cookie cutter and start to live and breathe. That’s when the story we’re telling becomes transformational—for the author and for the reader.

____________________________________

Michael Ehret has accepted God's invitation and is a freelance editor at WritingOnTheFineLine.com. In addition, he's worked as editor-in-chief of the ACFW Journal at American Christian Fiction Writers. He pays the bills as a marketing communications writer and sharpened his writing and editing skills as a reporter for The Indianapolis News and The Indianapolis Star.

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Dissecting the Male POV--Part Two by Patty Smith Hall

Today, we’re going to dive right into the second part of dissecting the male POV, the inherited characteristics of each and every man to ever grace the planet, attributes that are sometime taken for granted when we’re mapping out our characters. If you missed part one of the series, don’t worry—you can find it here.

But let’s begin. I don’t know about you but I love to see all the pictures of everyone’s babies and grandchildren that pop up on Facebook. In each sweet face, you can see tiny glimpses of the past—grandma’s nose, Daddy’s blue eyes, Mommy’s dimple. A characteristic imprinted into their DNA. But doesn’t stop there—how many times have you heard that a child got their single-minded determination from their father or their sweet nature from their mom?

But what about Adam, the first man? Did he inherit any innate characteristics from his Father? Absolutely! In fact, man inherited two characteristics, one of which we’re going to talk about today—that of the provider.

Provider
Think back to those first few moments after God discovered Adam and Eve in the Garden after they’d eaten the forbidden fruit. Even in their sin, God had so much love for the humans He’d created, He provided them with clothing to cover their nakedness. Adam saw this and it awoke in him this need to serve, to make sure Eve, their children and those he feels responsible for were taken care of.

It’s also the curse God had given Adam after the fall (Genesis 3:17-18.) Men may not like to work but they do it anyway because the need to provide for their family is so strong. They rank each other by their job; the better the position, the more respect the other men give him. So to be unemployed brings shame to most men which strikes at his self confidence and make him think he’s ‘less’ of a man because he can’t provide. Providing gives a man meaning and purpose in his life. Men consider it an honor to provide.

But there are different levels of how the provider characteristic plays out in a man’s life. The man with an underdeveloped need to provide lacks ambition and drive. These are the guys you find playing video games or messing with their cars. Think Howard Wolowitz from The Big Bang Theory. Here’s a guy with a degree from MIT, hanging out with all these research scientists and does he feel the need to further his career by going back to school? No, he’s too busy playing video games and chasing women while still living at home with his mother. Howard finally starts to grow up once he gets married but some men in this category don’t. They feel little urgency to provide, and this lack of ambition hurts the men themselves as well as the women who love them.

The man with an overdeveloped need to provide place a great deal of emphasis on their career, their goals and their ambition. They’re workaholics who may provide material things but spend so much time working, they don’t nurture their relationships or take care of their spiritual needs. Sometimes, the need to provide gets them into debt, or they become so obsessed with providing for the future, they fail to provide their family with basic needs. An example of this would be Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character) in  the movie, Jingle All the Way. Howard is so involved in providing a beautiful house and a good life for his family, he fails to nurture his relationship wit his son. He breaks his promise to be at a karate belt promotion because he’s too busy making a business deal. He forgets to pick up the only toy his son asks for at Christmas.

Keeping this trait and it’s variations in mind when you’re developing your male characters will make him feel real to your readers.

Next month, part three--Man as the Protector

A BABY TO CHERISH 
Home from the war, army nurse Thea Miller is determined to adopt her late sister's baby and begin a new life. But someone else has the same intentions—the town sheriff and Thea's old friend, Mack Worthington. Now, in order to keep her niece in the family, Thea must reach an agreement with him.

Mack isn't sure Thea—whose actions once hurt him badly—is committed to baby Sarah. And a judge may never approve a single-parent adoption for either of them. But what if they got married? It would be a marriage in name only. Yet the more time Mack spends with Thea, the more he begins to believe their pretend family can become the real one they've both been longing for.

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Building Believable Characters

by Linore Rose Burkard

[I'm honored to be joining the talented writers of Novel Rocket who really show what it means to have iron sharpen iron. Thank you, Novel Rocket, for having me! This month, I share a portion of a workshop I give for newer writers.] 


Author Joanne Reid has said, "One of the leading causes of rejection by a publisher is poorly developed, one-sided characters." Just as deadly for an author is to have a reader reject his or her work after publication for  the same reason. Cardboard characters. Like Flat Stanley, they lack depth. In short, a lack of character development means a failure to enchant the reader. 

Don't let "Flat Stanley"enter your novel!

So the question becomes, how do we avoid being that writer? Is there a key to creating characters that aren't one-sided?

Publishing experts agree there is. Believable, well-rounded characters share basic building blocks that any writer can use. Some may seem obvious, but even published authors can fail to include one or more of these elementary features of a well-rounded character, so take note.   

1. Individualized Appearance 
Seems intuitive, right? But I read a book that despite being generally enjoyable, failed to let me know what the heroine really looked like! I had a great sense of who she was emotionally, but I wasn't even sure of her hair color. Don't make that mistake. 

From hair color and style to fashion statement or lack thereof; posture, facial expression, body language--it all counts and you can use any single feature to distinguish a character simply by highlighting that feature. Anything that sets them apart from the crowd is what you want your reader to notice. It doesn't even have to be something "different" as much as something peculiar to that person. 

 At the same time, don't overdo it. Keep description short unless you have a thematic reason for emphasizing it; but be specific. Include the basics such as ethnicity, hair and eye color, stature, etc. Don't make it a boring catalog or include every attribute, but use context to convey  information in as unobtrusive a manner as possible.  

Example: At six-foot-two, Jared's height made Sheri feel like a dwarf; she didn't like it. (In one sentence you learn how tall Jared is--and Sheri isn't. You also learn Sheri doesn't like feeling short.) 

2. A Solid Background
Heroes, heroines, and all main characters need a past, a history that is specific. Most of this history will not need to appear in your book, but if you are going to write the character well-rounded you'll need to know it. Many authors find they rely heavily on the past history of their characters as they write, often creating plot twists that work ONLY because of that history. Nearly all of Jane Austen's novels use this as a plot-device. She carefully hides details of a character's past until the seemingly sudden twist rocks the world of the novel--at which point the truth is revealed (discovered), everything makes perfect sense, and the story can end satisfactorily. 

Never forget that the reader desperately wants your story to make sense. It gives a feeling of completeness to the book, a satisfaction that mustn't be denied them. Your characters don't have to be likeable or loveable--but they must make sense. Even if they are comprehensible to no one else but themselves (and the reader) they must at least be that. Background is the key to what makes sense for them. 

3. Emotion (or Motive) 
This digs deeper into the idea of a character making sense. Their actions must align with their beliefs, or result in conflict. If actions result in conflict, it has to be crystal clear why they did whatever they did. One of the driving forces in some novels is simply a quest to answer that question: Why? Why did Johnnie kill Susie? Or, why did Susie marry Johnny? In other words, motive and emotions are everything in a novel, just as they are in real life. Real people do things for a reason, and don't do other things for a reason. Fictional characters have to be similarly engineered.   

When it comes right down to it, most plots hinge on the emotions or motives of characters, because conflict arises where feelings and obstacles meet. When you have a character who is forced to do or say things he or she doesn't really mean or want to do or say, you have conflict. When you have conflict, you have a story. 

A character can be at odds with himself, his surroundings, his family, even God--any obstacle can work, just as long as the reader understands why it's a conflict. This means you have to imbue your character with emotions. Figure out what makes your protagonist tick--then put something in the way that makes them reel, and you've got a plot that's moving forward.      

That's about all I can fit into one post, but if you suspect your characters are flat, try using these building blocks to flesh them out: Individual Appearance, Background and Emotion. Soon, instead of a cardboard dummy like Flat Stanley, you'll have a genuine person on your hands. 

What about you? Do you have a favorite device or "building block" to flesh out your characters? Share your method with us in the comments.  

Happy Writing,
Linore

Linore Rose Burkard is best known for historical regency novels with Harvest House Publishers, including Before the Season Ends, the award-winning The House in Grosvenor Square, and, The Country House Courtship. As a writer noted for meticulous research as well as bringing people to life on the page, Linore’s books delight fans of historical romance with “Heyeresque” humor and Austen-like manners.  Linore teaches workshops for writers with Greater Harvest Workshops in Ohio, is a homeschooling mother of five, and has recently finished a YA novel. Keep up with Linore by subscribing to her free newsletter at LinoreBurkard.com

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