How Do You Build Strong Characters For Your Story

[Neonurotic]

Recently, I had a story that posted where readers could really connect with the male protagonist in the Romance category, but I had comments that the female protagonist and supporting female character were weak. This made the female character's motives not as credible.

So with this experience, I struggled with how to make the other two characterization stronger and wondered how other author's handled characterization.

As the thread title states, how do you build strong characters for your story? Is there something you do while creating your protagonist/antagonist and supporting characters to help build strong characterization? Or do you make sure to include elements in the story to build characterization as you write the story and if so, what are the elements you add?

 

[sr71plt]

I'm afraid I don't use any intentional formulas or techniques on characterization in a story. Pretty much whatever organization is going to happen is done inside my head with little conscious effort from me and I just sit down and let it write. I'll consciously query this or that possibility while the story is forming in my mind. But I don't consciously think "let's do this to make this character strong."

 

[russellvilleman]

I use dialog twixt the characters. And bring the dialog from below the mouth (heart & gut), then their minds after the heart is established. Confrontation, even minuscule is a true path to strong character building. That melds the characters between heart & mind, author & reader alike. Establishing confrontation can be difficult if the author is opposed in their innate/nurtured value system, so they decline to embrace that tool and it's to the stories detriment. Confrontation brings the characters together just as much, if not more than tranquility does. Confrontation causes physiological changes to the author during the writing process & then the reader by default. It draws everyone closer, not apart.

 

[PennLady]

Hmmm. This is a tough one.

I think part of the answer is, the characters need to say and do things that are natural to them, and not what you want them to do. I read a number of stories where the characters do whatever the author wants, even if it doesn't fit with the plot, or previous actions of the characters.

This is the kind of thing I find very hard to explain and would mostly recommend that you read more stories and see how it's done.

 

[russellvilleman]

I think part of the answer is, the characters need to say and do things that are natural to them, and not what you want them to do. I read a number of stories where the characters do whatever the author wants, even if it doesn't fit with the plot, or previous actions of the characters.

^Yes. This.

 

[JimmyHartley]

Base them on someone you know.
Or even TV and movie Characters, just make sure they look different.
So while others may see a cocky suave guy, you see Barney Stinson.

 

[SuperHeroRalph]

Recently, I had a story that posted where readers could really connect with the male protagonist in the Romance category, but I had comments that the female protagonist and supporting female character were weak. This made the female character's motives not as credible.

So with this experience, I struggled with how to make the other two characterization stronger and wondered how other author's handled characterization.

As the thread title states, how do you build strong characters for your story? Is there something you do while creating your protagonist/antagonist and supporting characters to help build strong characterization? Or do you make sure to include elements in the story to build characterization as you write the story and if so, what are the elements you add?

Think of someone you know. Can you see her or him? What would she or he say or do? Sometimes, even real people do things out of character.

Now, how do they fit in your story, maybe the don't. Try someone else.

Slowly weave the description of your character in your story. Give the reader enough information for them to see them, too. Most times an image is so much better than a description.

The best characters are inspired characters. Feel them, see them, touch them. Now, write them.

Once they are on your page, once they open their eyes and start breathing, once they are no longer flat, but three dimensional is when you want to stand back and give them control of the keyboard.

To me, the best stories are character driven stories. If you don't feel exhausted, after developing your characters, then you haven't developed them enough.

You should be drained, as if you've written a part of yourself on that page. After all, writing what you know, most of what you write is autobiographical anyway.

Look in the mirror. Oh, yeah, that character is you.

Now, go write and the best of luck with your story.

 

[PennLady]

Okay, thought some more. These are random ideas that I hope help.

One -- give your characters some kind of history. You don't have to share it all with the reader, but if you have it in your head, that may help.

Two -- it may help to have an idea of the type. Do you want a quiet person? A smart ass? A laid-back person? Work with whatever you pick.

Three -- going a bit back to one, how will the person with that background respond to whatever the situation is? A child of divorced parents, for example, may have different issues going into romantic and/or sexual relationship than someone who came from a marriage that stayed together. But then you have to consider -- was that a happy marriage? Did they treat the kids well or neglect them? All that kind of stuff. Maybe think about what could have happened to them in grammar school, high school, and college that would have an effect.

I'm working on a story now where the female lead is a musician. However, her family is sports-crazy and she was always relegated to second place, and she knows it, and there are various issues. I started writing her as a little uncertain, but a friend of mine pointed out that if she's going to be a musician and get up in front of people to perform, she's going to need a lot of confidence and self-confidence, which means she came by it despite the reaction she got from her family. Her best friend, also in the band, has a lot more support. So Female Lead will be more generally defensive about things, but also more assertive, where Best Friend will not be so defensive.

I think it's too easy to give a character one "big" event -- usually a breakup with an s.o. -- and use that as the basis for their character. That may work for some things, but you need more than that.

So don't be afraid to make up a life for your character; even if you don't write that all down, it will help with what you do decide to write.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Okay, thought some more. These are random ideas that I hope help.

One -- give your characters some kind of history. You don't have to share it all with the reader, but if you have it in your head, that may help.

Two -- it may help to have an idea of the type. Do you want a quiet person? A smart ass? A laid-back person? Work with whatever you pick.

Three -- going a bit back to one, how will the person with that background respond to whatever the situation is? A child of divorced parents, for example, may have different issues going into romantic and/or sexual relationship than someone who came from a marriage that stayed together. But then you have to consider -- was that a happy marriage? Did they treat the kids well or neglect them? All that kind of stuff. Maybe think about what could have happened to them in grammar school, high school, and college that would have an effect.

I'm working on a story now where the female lead is a musician. However, her family is sports-crazy and she was always relegated to second place, and she knows it, and there are various issues. I started writing her as a little uncertain, but a friend of mine pointed out that if she's going to be a musician and get up in front of people to perform, she's going to need a lot of confidence and self-confidence, which means she came by it despite the reaction she got from her family. Her best friend, also in the band, has a lot more support. So Female Lead will be more generally defensive about things, but also more assertive, where Best Friend will not be so defensive.

I think it's too easy to give a character one "big" event -- usually a breakup with an s.o. -- and use that as the basis for their character. That may work for some things, but you need more than that.

So don't be afraid to make up a life for your character; even if you don't write that all down, it will help with what you do decide to write.

^ ---- PennLady has has the right of it.

Create a character sheet for each character...background, life experiences, flaws, strengths. Be explicit, verbose in the description of your character. Now with all this in mind write the story.

Also, characters are a reusable resource. Change the name or the gender and you have a whole new character.

 

[SydneyBlake]

You are asking how to develop strong characters? I think there are several techniques you can use to help you. The final goal is to really get into that character's head and to be able to show the reader what's going on in there.

1) I sometimes write something like a journal entry, a first-person account of events from that character. I may do this for several characters, giving each POV for the same event. This helps me get into their heads and to find each individual voice.

2) Think of a TV character or a movie character whose personality is similar to that of your character. Imagine them in your story, and see if that doesn't help. Be careful, tho, that you don't create a carbon copy of somebody else's character.

I hope that helps.

 

[annanova]

Recently, I had a story that posted where readers could really connect with the male protagonist in the Romance category, but I had comments that the female protagonist and supporting female character were weak. This made the female character's motives not as credible.

So with this experience, I struggled with how to make the other two characterization stronger and wondered how other author's handled characterization.

As the thread title states, how do you build strong characters for your story? Is there something you do while creating your protagonist/antagonist and supporting characters to help build strong characterization? Or do you make sure to include elements in the story to build characterization as you write the story and if so, what are the elements you add?

Ooh, I think I remember that story.

Honestly, I'm of the opinion that 'strong' and 'weak' are fluid terms. Not all characters will be equally strong, and sometimes, they really shouldn't be. It is acceptable to have characters who are less... fleshed-out than others. Or it should be, since not everyone who enters our lives will be an open book to us.

The characters that I use most frequently evolve with every story. I don't write down their histories, but I feel them with me when I'm writing. If I don't feel them, I put the notepad down or turn off the computer, and take a walk.

For your example, if I'm thinking of the right story, it wasn't so much that the women were weak, IMO, it was more that I saw them pushing their agendas on the male character. I liked the overall story, I just felt your ending was rushed.

 

[3113]

Did you have fun writing her?

Recently, I had a story that posted where readers could really connect with the male protagonist in the Romance category, but I had comments that the female protagonist and supporting female character were weak. This made the female character's motives not as credible.

This is not uncommon in romances--in fact, it's sometime preferred so that readers can put themselves on the "blank canvass" of the female lead who, if she had any real personality, might be harder to see as themselves. Take the Twilight series, for example. No one read those for Bella, I promise you; Bella was just there to serve as the reader's alter ego in the fantasy, which was why her personality was relatively bland.

This, by the way, is not good writing but it is popular fiction.

Here's what happened in your case, and, again, it's common. You loved this male character. He was crystal clear in your mind, he was fun, he was cool, he was--whatever he was. But you really knew and liked him. And you were having so much fun writing him, that your female really didn't matter. Like Bella, she just had to be the object of this guys desire and do whoever you needed her to do in order for things to happen as you wanted them to happen. This is why she fell by the wayside. She wasn't a character at all...she was a plot device.

When you write a story and a character who ought to be important is just a plot device, then it's not their story. Get rid of them. Take the character who is strong, who is fun to write and make the story THEIR story. Because it's going to be their story anyway if all the other character ("Bella") does is give that fun character ("Edward") ways to tell and act out his story. Now if you really want "Bella" to be a character, then after you've completely scrapped her, you must ask yourself "what kind of person--female--would be as much fun for me to write as this other male character I'm writing?" Also, "What female character would really challenge my male character? Keep him on his toes?"

Strong characterization is, essentially, finding elements that make characters fun for you to write. Elements that make them, for you, walk, talk, react--and challenge each other.

 

[PennLady]

Here's what happened in your case, and, again, it's common. You loved this male character. He was crystal clear in your mind, he was fun, he was cool, he was--whatever he was. But you really knew and liked him. And you were having so much fun writing him, that your female really didn't matter. Like Bella, she just had to be the object of this guys desire and do whoever you needed her to do in order for things to happen as you wanted them to happen. This is why she fell by the wayside. She wasn't a character at all...she was a plot device.

Thank you for reinforcing my decision (or lack of effort, at least) not to read the Twilight books.

But yes, good point. If characters are there merely as foils, then they aren't going to be much of anything except ... things.

I've also thought if you have a scene in mind and you want your character to act a certain way, then you need two things. First, design and develop your character so that when you get there, that action will be natural. Second, be open to the idea that you'll need to change that if the original action doesn't fit with the way your character has developed to that point.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

I don't do a lot of character preparation before I write the story. After I finish the first draft--if I feel that a character needs a stronger voice--I will go back and add additional background details or give the character more dialogue so that his or her point of view comes out more clearly.

My next project will be to rework a story featuring four couples. When I finished the first draft, I realized that three of the husbands sound like the same person. I am going to rework much of the dialogue to make them more distinctive and demonstrate that they do not react to the situations presented in precisely the same way. It's going to be a lot of work, I'm afraid.

 

[estragon]

You Might Be Able

to get a license from a really fine writer (thank you, Grandmaster dweaver999) to use his or her characters, and turn out a derivative work, of course reciting the license in a note to the story. Or, as I have heard is done by writers who are less than honest, they read the really fine writers, choose a character they like, and adapt him/her to their situation, trying to disguise their plagiarism. I hasten to add that I have not done the latter personally; I always get a license and use the character by name.

 

[sr71plt]

I don't do a lot of character preparation before I write the story. After I finish the first draft--if I feel that a character needs a stronger voice--I will go back and add additional background details or give the character more dialogue so that his or her point of view comes out more clearly.

The other advice sounds good, but this sounds particularly good. I think it's too easy to overdraw characters if you give detailed attention to them outside of the context of the storyline.

 

[driphoney]

to get a license from a really fine writer (thank you, Grandmaster dweaver999) to use his or her characters, and turn out a derivative work, of course reciting the license in a note to the story. Or, as I have heard is done by writers who are less than honest, they read the really fine writers, choose a character they like, and adapt him/her to their situation, trying to disguise their plagiarism. I hasten to add that I have not done the latter personally; I always get a license and use the character by name.

If they use another character name and different situations, how is that plagiarism?

If that's the case then Shakespeare plagiarized Ovid. And everyone else plagiarized Shakespeare.

 

[3113]

Honestly, I'm of the opinion that 'strong' and 'weak' are fluid terms. Not all characters will be equally strong, and sometimes, they really shouldn't be. It is acceptable to have characters who are less... fleshed-out than others. Or it should be, since not everyone who enters our lives will be an open book to us.

True, but those characters shouldn't be our protagonists, which, it looks like, at least one of those females was in this story.

 

[3113]

If they use another character name and different situations, how is that plagiarism?

In a way it is, especially if that character is so clearly X--for example, how many times have you seen Sherlock Holmes and Watson--by different names, but you knew right away that this was Sherlock Holmes (with or without Watson). And you knew for a fact that the writer had "plagiarized" that character for their own?

And yeah, I'll happily accuse Shakespeare of plagiarism. And A. C. Doyle, come to that (Edgar Allen Poe's detective in Murders on the Rue Morgue: C. Auguste Dupin, and hell, come to that Shakespeare has his own Holmes-like detective in, I think, Henry VI--just a brief scene where a murder is solved). And a thousand other writers.

The question is never plagiarism, as you're quite right, everyone plagiarizes everyone, but whether or not you can bring something new and fresh to your plagiarism. Shakespeare isn't famous for being original in story/plot or even characters (only one play wasn't stolen form some other source), he's famous for doing them better than the source, in a refreshing and "original" manner.

 

[Neonurotic]

Good advice all. Lots to chew on. I kind of do a bit of everything suggested depending the length of the story.

I honestly don't believe for the story in question that the female characters were weak, they may have been too ambitious and while yes, they had their own agendas for the main protagonist, they did behave true to their characters.

I need more practice for the Romance category to know the readers there better. I'm male and bisexual so of course I give a little more love to my male characters. So, ya. More research reading for Romance.

@ annanova Yes, likely the story you had in mind since you were kind enough to make a public comment for which I thank you again.

 

[annanova]

True, but those characters shouldn't be our protagonists, which, it looks like, at least one of those females was in this story.

Since neonurotic has confirmed I'm thinking of the right story, IMO, it really isn't a question of the women being weak. It was more in how their "agendas" were advanced.

@neonurotic, I'd be happy to talk with you more about the women in your stories. And wine.

 

[lovecraft68]

Try putting a little of yourself or someone close to you into the character. One of the keys to strong believable characters is how comfortable you are writing them. If they have some of your or a friends traits it becomes easier to write them.

Once you can write them with confidence I feel that gets passed onto the reader. If you are unfamiliar with or awkward with a character it will show.

 

[mynameisben]

The question is never plagiarism, as you're quite right, everyone plagiarizes everyone, but whether or not you can bring something new and fresh to your plagiarism. Shakespeare isn't famous for being original in story/plot or even characters (only one play wasn't stolen form some other source), he's famous for doing them better than the source, in a refreshing and "original" manner.

"One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest."

-- T.S. Elliot​

 

[TE999]

I have a tendency to create a situation, place my characters in it and see how they react. Their previous experiences have a bearing on said reactions and those are revealed as the story unfolds. I seldom do flashbacks unless necessary. You need to be as one with your characters, which can be a challenge when you are writing about the opposite sex.

Good luck with your writing.

 

[Sugary_Comfort]

The stories I've posted on Lit aren't the greatest. I'll definitely be the first to admit that. The strongest one seems to be the little vampire one, which makes sense.

The two female vampires in it are loosely based off myself and my best friend. Well the one based on my best friend is REALLY loosely based off her, I sort of amped up her wild side.

The stories I write that are meant to be books someday, I've been working on for years. My book series has been in the works since 2002. I've been developing those characters this whole time.

So, using those characters as my referencing point here:

There are five main female characters. To start four of them, I used one part of my personality and built on it. One can be fairly snobbish (this coming from the look I give snobby chicks who look at me like they think they're better than me), one is incredibly sweet, one is all fire, and, well, one is actually me. Yeah, I'm one of those lame writers who puts themselves in their stories haha.

I started with just a spark and then began building on it. It's amazing how far they've come and how much more to them there is. I have character sheets for all of them describing their likes and dislikes, birthdays, dreams, and an overall summary of their lives.

I have very few characters who aren't based off me or someone I know. The ones that are still strong but not based off a real person are characters from dreams I've had and they were in the dream enough to show me the foundation of their personality.