I’ve been thinking about the question of character these past few days, specifically pondering Jake and Corinne’s characters in Julius. One of the many problems of Julius is that I’ve created two characters that have no tension. They’re charming, idealistic, financially comfortable, attractive and they whole-heartedly support one another. It’s an ideal relationship that anyone would like to have, but in reality doesn’t exist. Couples fight, they get frustrated with one another, they have differing opinions and sometimes the glue that holds them together is more like Elmer’s rather than epoxy.

To add some tension between my now Not-So-Merry Marxists, I used the old “Write what you know about” rule and took a long and hard look at past relationships (short term, long term, romantic and platonic). From there I created a mind-map of all of Corinne’s traits to see if I could see an underlying action that dominated her personality and that would cause conflict with Jake. Jackpot! I saw a trait that could cause her a lot of problems and that could also be part of the underlying theme.

As for Jake, his personality borders on charm and arrogance. Other than that I really didn’t know how to change the relationship dynamics between him and Corinne until I decided to make him 11 years older, edging very closely to that half-century mark—a time when you reconsider values and beliefs, career choices, personal relationships, finances and so forth Once, I made that tweak, it opened so many doors of conflict.

I was putting off this task for a number of reasons—the big one was that I liked my two protagonists as they were. There’s no question I want my characters to be liked, but maybe not so much.

And now a new feature in these posts: a question to readers.

What major (or minor) changes have you made to your characters and how did it change your story? 

As part of my outlining endeavors, I’m using a template that helps make my character three-dimensional. It’s a bit of a futile exercise for Corinne because as the main character and narrator, she tells the reader so much of her history as a kid, her feelings about certain topics that the reader gets a pretty good picture. As for Alvah, he’s also pretty well-developed because of the research I’ve done where most of the information I got from Alvah himself (his books), and from his son Dan.

Although in my mind I have a clear picture of Jake, I realize that he needs more muscle.I’m attempting to add more to his character, but I confess that this exercise is a bit boring. Is it the template I’m using or is it because I’m too enmeshed in the old habit of just writing what comes to mind? To help me make Jake a real person, I downloaded  How to Create Fictional Characters: A Proactical Template and Guide for Novelists and Short Story Writer, an e-book by Patricia Gilliam.

Gilliam has a broad background on psychology, TV broadcasting and she writes that her approach to character development is somewhat different than other writing guides.  This got me curious of how different it is and I pulled out Nancy Kress’ Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint out. Gilliam starts out by suggesting brainstorming ideas then she follows it up for the rest of the book with just about every question that you might have about an individual, from their name to their secrets. Overall, the list of questions are fairly comprehensive. Next she provides character traits on a scale where you rank each trait on scale of one to ten. The next section is creating a fictional, but flawed hero, and she comes up with good questions that fall under plotting.  Finally, she has a creating a believable villain which follows the same guidelines for creating a hero.

When I first skimmed through the book, I thought, “I know all this,” but after taking a closer look at the questions and reading it more carefully, I realized this isn’t a simple character sketch, but a full character’s biography. And of course it can take just as long to compile as to write the book.  What I discovered is that if the exercise is boring then that means the character is boring too, not good at all.

In the Kress book, she provides a modified template for a mini-template, but Kress also examines emotion and viewpoint. The techniques in her book are more in line of they typical book on craft. She writes about back story and flashback dramatized (which she notes you have to earn to write it. In Julius there are flashbacks, I think earned because of the sub-theme that you can’t understand the present without understanding the past).  Like other books on craft, she provides samples from published works to give the reader a better idea of how to bring to life emotion and the nuances of character development.

Overall, between Kress and Gilliam, using the template along with Kress’ more evolved character crafting, you can probably make yourself a pretty real character. So real in fact that people might think he actually exists. Now if you actually had the physical means to create the perfect man (or woman) and bring him or her to life, you’d have some story. Silly me, it’s called Frankenstein.

If you’re intrigued by Gilliam’s templates, you can download them from The Fictional Character Development Template. Just be prepared to spend time writing a lot about that character, and keep in mind not everything will make it to your story.

Onward to bring Jake to life. He’s got some things to do to improve Julius.

Joe Wallace, author of Diamond Ruby, posted a couple of weeks ago on his Facebook update an interesting writing exercise. He’s actually doing this for publication, but he’s working on a Diamond Ruby side story from her niece Amanda’s point of view, and he’s discovering new things about Ruby from this young girl’s perspective.

When I read that I knew I had to try something similar. Craig–a former boyfriend of Corinne’s–leans more on the reactionary side. So I thought it would be a good exercise to flesh out Corinne from Craig who is attracted to her, but at the same time ideologically and intellectually repelled by her political beliefs and lifestyle.

While getting more insight about Corinne, I think the exercise will also help flesh out Craig. My goal is to have a split audience to either sympathize with him, and another group to be completely put off by his motives. And as I write this I’m realizing that this character will have a much larger role than I had originally thought.  Well, I think with the interfering Alvah, the capricious Jake, and the reactionary Craig, Corinne will have her hands full!

Onward to write from Craig’s point-of-view.

Becky Levine has an interesting post on tension, and she writes of setting goals for the characters. She says:

We make it clear what they want, or–at the very least–what they’ve assumed will happen. And we create obstacles. Big obstacles that arc over the scene, and mini-obstacles that hit the characters like scatter-shot, all through the scene. Some of those obstacles come from other characters, some from the environment, and some from the character actually going for the goal. An obstacle can be challenging, painful, irritating or laugh-out loud funny.

One of the main criticisms, apart from not making one of the characters as well-developed as the MC, is that it lacks tension. Most of the tension comes with the MC struggling with her doubts, but how do I extend that so it creates more head-knocking with the other characters? This week’s exercise is to create a list of goals for each character.

I realize this is rather elementary and I should have done it way back when, but when I started Julius I had an idea and just wrote. I was a pantser. Now I see the benefits of planning, outlining and structuring. There is, though, a part of me that wants to buck this exercise in organization and just write. I want to finish! Alas if I stick to my old ways I’ll never finish. So I’m doing a George Costanza. Remember when George decided to the opposite he normally does and how good his life turned out (at least for a few episodes)? Instead of letting the characters do what they want, it’s time for me to take control and plan some predestination. After all, I’m writing it. I am their God.

And on that note, time to play God.

Am I taking a creative cheat by basing a character on a real person? The Alvah Bessie that I’ve made up is mischievous. He has an agenda and knows that by insinuating himself with the story’s narrator, he’ll get what he wants. That’s the fiction part. I have no idea whether the real one was manipulative or not, and this imagined trait just adds a little color.  Otherwise, I’m trying to stick to his real personality quirks, and he had plenty.

Some of the feedback I recently received has been about other characters that come purely from my imagination and who appear briefly in a few scenes or just in name only, but they’ve resonated with a few readers. I’ve been fooling around with the idea of expanding one specific character’s role and see whether she moves the story forward and adds a little mystery. I already see her very clearly in one scene, and she just might appear in only that one, but you never know…. 

I guess it’s time to take her out and see how well she plays with others.