Mini writing workshop: What should we know about your character?

Thank you for checking out the mini fiction writing workshop. In this series I share small, actionable tips for writing fiction. Whether you're a seasoned or developing writer, hopefully you will find some useful information.

This workshop is about knowing your character, and delivering some important details that help your reader get to know your character too.

Okay, on to the topic of the day!

Source: Image by Tabor, Pixabay

What should we know about your character?

I love to read articles and guides about fiction writing. Sometimes I learn something entirely new. Other times, I love to be refreshed on the fundamentals. A New Yorker article titled Eight Rules for Writing Fiction offers some timeless advice.

Create three-dimensional characters. Say you’re writing about a hard-charging banker who’s having an extramarital affair. This is a good start, but to avoid turning him into a cliché, you need to fill him out in three dimensions. In every paragraph, tell the reader exactly how high, wide, and long he is. For instance: “Benjamin Waller, a hard-charging banker who stood six feet one, with a size-thirty-two waist and a chest girth of forty inches, was having an extramarital affair.” Also mention that he drives a flashy sports car.

But wait. Not so fast.

It's all too easy to "info dump" and shove all the things we think the readers need to know in their faces. While I like the advice to "create three-dimensional characters," I would argue that there are other ways than listing all of a character's traits in summary form in a sentence or two. Possibly better ways.

Here are a few considerations:

• The method you choose should have a bit to do with the genre in which you are writing. The description of Benjamin Waller in the article excerpt above might be perfect as a setup for a crime novel, for example, but you wouldn't use that method in literary fiction.
• If you want to follow the "show don't tell" rule (also one of the eight rules in the aforementioned article), then you would definitely want to take a different approach. Perhaps you would get right into action and dialog, for example, and give us insight into the character's traits through behavior. Much can be learned from the things a character says and does.
• And finally, if you are writing in first person, describing the main character's appearance in detail simply isn't an option.

Let's look at a few examples.

Tooth and Claw

In this excerpt from the New Yorker story Tooth and Claw by the well known author T. Coraghessan Boyle, we learn about the character through his description of his day. It is told in first person, so we learn everything through observation, not a description of the character's appearance.

It had been a long day: breakfast out of a cardboard box while cartoon images flickered and faded and reconstituted themselves on the TV screen, and then some desultory reading, starting with the newspaper and a couple of National Geographics I’d picked up at a yard sale; lunch at the deli, where I had ham-and-cheese in a tortilla wrap and exchanged exactly eleven words with the girl behind the counter (“No. 7, please, no mayo.” “Have a nice day.” “You, too”), and a walk to the beach that left my sneakers sodden. And, after all that, it was still only three o’clock in the afternoon and I had to force myself to stay away from the bar till five, five at least.

What did we learn? Well, we see that the main character is single (breakfast out of a cardboard box), that he's not working, a bit bored, and trying to fill his day with activity, and that he is struggling with alcoholism. None of that is stated outright. We learn through his description of his day.

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

In this classic story by the venerable Joyce Carol Oates, we learn about a young girl and her mother, as well as the dynamic between them.

Her name was Connie. She was fifteen and she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right. Her mother, who noticed everything and knew everything and who hadn’t much reason any longer to look at her own face, always scolded Connie about it. “Stop gawking at yourself. Who are you? You think you’re so pretty?” she would say. Connie would raise her eyebrows at these familiar old complaints and look right through her mother, into a shadowy vision of herself as she was right at that moment: she knew she was pretty and that was everything. Her mother had been pretty once too, if you could believe those old snapshots in the album, but now her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie.

This story arguably walks a line close to "telling" vs. "showing," but it's done so masterfully that we don't notice. It doesn't fall flat the way a summary description does.

Oates could have written, "Connie was terribly vain and looked at herself in the mirror every chance she could." That would have been telling. Instead, we discover through a combination of description, action and dialog that she is vain. And also that her mother is jealous of her beauty, and criticizes her.

Why it's important to create 3D characters

People comes in all shapes, sizes and demeanors in the real world. They have complex desires, peculiar habits, and very specific motivations that drive them to do what they do. Excellent fiction captures those things. It reveals characters' motivations and characteristics in a way that captures our attention and makes us want to know more.

We become intrigued by interesting yet somewhat familiar traits, when they are paired with an interesting scenario. Connie's vanity is perhaps familiar. We have known Connies before. But there is an added layer that her mother was once a beauty too, and that Connie is oppressed by her mother's jealousy. What will happen? What will Connie and her mother do next?

Fiction writing is a bit like fishing. We need to cast out our reel with some good bait on the hook. If our descriptions are flat, or we don't provide information that makes it possible for the reader to relate to the character, we don't stand a chance of reeling that reader in.

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Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this mini writing workshop.

The writing workshop collection

You can browse my collection of writing workshop posts in the links below.

Mini workshop series

Short posts on specific writing topics:

• Mini writing workshop: Who are you writing for?
• Mini writing workshop: What does "show, don't tell" mean?
• Mini writing workshop: Can you write if you don't have time? (Finding where you can fit writing into your life)
• Mini writing workshop: What should you write about? (Ideas for finding inspiration for your stories)
• Mini writing workshop: How do you start a story? (How to determine the starting point)
• Mini writing workshop: What is magical realism? (Exploring the magical realism genre)
• Mini writing workshop: Should you write in present tense or past tense?
• Mini writing workshop: Must your character do that? (About writing tics and character pet peeves)
• Mini writing workshop: What's it all about? (About story lines)
• Mini writing workshop: Must we fight? (About conflict in fiction writing)
• Mini writing workshop: What's the point? (About making things happen)
• Mini writing workshop: What prompted that? (About writing from prompts)
• Mini writing workshop: Who said that? (Tips for writing dialog)

Mini workshops in 50-word prompt posts

Brief workshops, typically 3-5 paragraphs, at the top of 50-word short story challenge posts:

• Mini writing workshop on "tense"
• Mini writing workshop on the editing process (with a walkthrough example)
• Mini writing workshop on taking time to write
• Mini writing workshop on the power of editing
• Mini writing workshop on critique
• Mini writing workshop on fixing punctuation errors
• Mini writing workshop on mainstream publishing (with a resource for 50-word story authors)
• Mini writing workshop on voice and language (as compared to the importance of plot)
• Mini writing workshop about becoming a great writer
• Mini writing workshop on contests and challenges
• Mini writing workshop on what makes a story a story
• Mini writing workshop on demystifying story writing
• Mini writing workshop on 50-word short story writing process
• Mini writing workshop on the steps for writing 50-word stories
• Mini writing workshop on micro-fiction and writing succinctly
• Mini writing workshop on the "why" of writing
• Mini writing workshop on the challenge of micro-fiction

In-depth workshop posts

The original writing workshop series:

• Writing workshop volume 1: The beginning
• Writing workshop volume 2: Exploring voice in writing
• Writing workshop volume 3: Say what you want to say
• Writing workshop volume 4: Serial fiction projects on Steemit
• Writing workshop volume 5: Getting organized and actually writing
• Writing workshop volume 6: Tips for writing anywhere, anytime
• Writing workshop volume 7: Should you write historical fiction?
• Writing workshop volume 8: Prompts, contests and challenges - oh my!
• Writing workshop volume 9: Pushing through insecurity and writing anyway
• Writing workshop volume 10: Perspective and POV in fiction writing
• Writing workshop volume 11: Second person point of view in fiction
• Writing workshop volume 12: How to write your character's background
• Writing workshop volume 13: What to do with all these voices in my head?
• Writing workshop volume 14: Write your story from a logline
• Writing workshop volume 15: Three tips for improving your fiction
• Writing workshop volume 16: How to accept criticism on your fiction writing

Thank you, as always, for reading, following, upvoting, connecting, HODL'ing, resteeming, laughing, sharing, and being you.

Note: The image is sourced from Pixabay.

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://jaynalocke.com/2019/04/07/mini-writing-workshop-what-should-we-know-about-your-character/

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