Serie-ous Work

by Kariss Lynch, @Kariss_Lynch

I love watching a good television series, especially one that has multiple seasons on Netflix. There’s something about watching a character enter the screen unsure and feeling incomplete before they are swept into an adventure that forever changes them. And every season, that adventure morphs and grows. So does the character, romance, and friendships. The trick is learning how to write a consistent point of view hero and heroine over the course of a series.

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Making Flawed Characters More Palatable

Jennifer Slattery writes soul-stirring fiction for New Hope Publishers, a publishing house passionate about bringing God’s healing grace and truth to the hopeless. She also writes for Crosswalk.com, Internet Café Devotions, and the group blog, Faith-filled Friends. When not writing, Jennifer loves going on mall dates with her adult daughter and coffee dates with her hilariously fun husband. Visit with Jennifer online at JenniferSlatteryLivesOutLoud and connect with her on Facebook.

Making Flawed Characters More Palatable

Our characters must be authentic, but there’s a fine line between real and palatable, especially when dealing with bitterness and anger. We all act like jerks at one point or another, and so will our characters. The trick is to balance their more abrasive side with likeability. 

This was my challenge with Tammy Kuhn, the heroine in Intertwined. Abandoned by her husband for another woman, she was angry and left scrambling to hold on to her career while raising her children by herself. Plus, his behavior toward her and their children throughout the novel was less than honorable.

If in her situation, most of us would react… strongly. But in my effort to make Tammy real, I also made her unlikable. Because understanding why a character does something and admiring them are entirely different things. Strong characters need flaws and heroic attributes.

Give your flawed characters someone to care for

For Intertwined, this came naturally as my main character was a mother who loved her children fiercely. The trick was making her bitter less self-focused and more protective. Readers have more grace for a yelling Mama-bear than they do for a screaming, embittered woman.

Another example is Katniss from the Hunger Games. Had Suzanne Collins created a surface level character, we’d be left with a self-defending killer. And the series would’ve tanked, because though most of understand why someone would kill to survive, such behavior isn’t admirable. However, because she fought to save her sister and the people in her district, Katniss became a hero. The author gave Katniss hero qualities in the beginning, before we’d developed distaste for the character.

Show the emotions behind the behavior

This is where an author needs to dig until they uncover the vulnerable and good, revealing this in a way readers understand. Show a character’s interpretations, thoughts, and perceptions, in an authentic way—that’s where the challenge arises. Most of us react without understanding why. But regardless of how self-aware your characters are, you know. By placing clues throughout the novel, you can help your reader decipher motivations as well. 

Use secondary characters to reveal POV’s psyche

 My main character in When Dawn Breaks responded to fear and pain by lashing out internally. He called certain adults names in his head. The social worker who ripped him and his sister away from his mother became Ferret Face. The woman in charge of the group home he was sent to became Skin Flapper. I did this because teenagers reveal sorrow through anger.

Unfortunately, one of my early readers didn’t understand and developed negative feelings toward this character. I knew I needed to find a way to reveal the why, but I had to do it in a way that was authentic. So I had the character slip with his tongue and call the social worker, an adult trained to understand childhood trauma and behavior, a name. When he apologized, she said she understood he was merely hurting and lashing out at those he believed to be causing his pain. This gave context and meaning to his harsh behavior.

In both stories, I was able to use present authentic yet unpleasant behaviors without causing my reader to turn on me.

What are your thoughts on this subject? What are some ways you create authentic characters will realistic flaws and struggles without losing their likeability? Share your thoughts in the comments below, because we can all learn from each other!    

Intertwined

Abandoned by her husband for another woman, Tammy Kuhn, an organ procurement coordinator often finds herself in tense and bitter moments. After an altercation with a doctor, she is fighting to keep her job and her sanity when one late night she encounters her old flame Nick. She walks right into his moment of facing an unthinkable tragedy. Because they both have learned to find eternal purposes in every event and encounter, it doesn’t take long to discover that their lives are intertwined but the ICU is no place for romance….or is it? Could this be where life begins again? 

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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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Creative Characterization - Like a Good Neighbor ~ by Shelley Gray

Characterization: Like Meeting Your Next-Door Neighbors

By Shelley Gray

I’ve often told people that creating characters is a lot like meeting new next-door neighbors. Whenever new neighbors have moved in near us, I seem to go through a four-step process. At the risk of seeming like a nosy neighbor, I thought it might be fun to compare the process of characterization to starting a relationship with the folks next door.

Step 1: Peek and Greet. When someone new moves in, it’s human nature to take a quick peek at them. You form a first impression. You look to see about how old they are, if they have kids, if they look friendly.

When I begin a new book, I concentrate on physical information such as hair and eye color, ethnicity, age, glasses, scars, etc. I keep track of things in a spiral notebook. I write each character’s name at the top of a page and write down the characters’ basic information as I create it. Sometimes I even cut out magazine pictures and tape them in.

Step 2: Go Visiting. A few days after a someone new moves into our neighborhood, it’s customary to give them some cookies or a loaf of bread. Usually, we end up visiting for a couple of minutes and learn basic information about them—jobs, where they moved from, do they seem warm and friendly? Standoffish? Grumpy?

I ‘visit’ with my characters when I’m done with the first three or four chapters. During this time, I’ll go back over the part I’ve written and add information about each character. Of course, a big part of all that is developing their goals, motivation and conflict. I try to do this with every character in the book, not just the main characters. I figure if someone wanders into my book’s pages, I need to be kind enough to give them a personality and backstory.

Step 3: Bus Stop Talk. When my kids were little, all the moms would usually congregate at the bus stop and visit until the kids hopped on the bus. This was the best way to get to know other moms better. We discovered who got up early and looked like they were ready to conquer anything by eight am. We learned who worked out all the time. Who was patient with their kids. Who kind of wasn’t. You get the idea.

Around the time I’ve written a hundred pages, I revisit my characters to make sure that I’ve gotten to know them pretty well. If the characters seem flat, I spend sometime ‘fleshing’ them out. I give my characters likes and dislikes. People are interesting because they have quirks. Sometimes they’re big quirks, like a fear of some sort. Other times, I create favorite foods, activities that they like or don’t like, favorite sayings or words. Habits, too. For example, maybe a character always checks in with her best friend or mother at nine o’clock every night. Yep, I do my best to add all this in my spiral notebook, too.

Step 4. You Now Know Your Neighbors Next Door! Usually, by the time the new neighbors have lived next door for a couple of months, we’ve sized each other up. Sometimes we’ve clicked. Sometimes not so much. But usually after four or five months, we know each other pretty well. We have a relationship now.

By the time I’m three-fourths of the way through a manuscript, the plot is set, I know my characters, and I know exactly what is going to happen to them by the time I type The End.

This is the time to really check the whole cast of characters to make sure no one seems superficial or forgettable. Little adjustments are made here. Sometimes it’s giving someone a new name, sometimes it’s writing a little bit more of a backstory or giving them a red bike or car or coat. I basically try to give each character the opportunity to shine, even if it’s in a not-so-nice way.

If you’ve never taken the time to really get to know your characters, I hope you’ll give this method a try.

And if you happen to get some new neighbors sometime soon, I hope you’ll enjoy getting to know them as much as your readers will enjoy getting to know the characters in your book.

BIO:

Shelley Shepard Gray writes Amish romances for Harper Collins inspirational line, Avon Inspire and historical romances as Shelley Gray for Harper Collins Christian Publishers. Her novels have been Holt Medallion winners and Inspirational Readers Choice and Carol finalists. Shelley’s novels have appeared on both the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.  

To date, Shelley has published over fifty novels for a variety of publishers. Her novels have been highlighted in the Philadelphia Enquirer, Washington Post, Time Magazine, and USA Today. She has also been interviewed on NPR as well as numerous regional radio stations.

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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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