Creating Characters

I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to what it takes to create characters. How do we writers manufacture the illusion of living human beings through words on the page? And I use that word, illusion, advisedly. It’s vital to remember that what we are doing when we write fiction is creating illusion, all of it, from the stories we make up—even if bits are borrowed from life—to the people who populate them. It’s not life; it’s an imitation of life.

I’m caught in this internal monologue right now because I find myself questioning the characters in Blue-Eyed Wolf, the young adult novel I’m tiptoeing so cautiously back inside. There are two key characters who are young men, 18 years old. And while I have reared a son and have a gaggle of grandsons, the 18-year-old male is not my forte. I can admire their physical prowess. I can sympathize with their inevitable confusions. I can see how utterly beautiful they are. But how do I make one—not to mention three—come alive on the page and be both believable and distinct from one another? Of course, on one level I tell myself I already know. I’ve been doing it for many years.

Haven’t I?

A review I read recently commented that this particular story had strong characters, and I found myself asking What does that mean? I examined the book in question and decided that what the reviewer was referring to as “strong” were characters defined by a single trait. Examples we all know would be Eeyore by his depressive view of the world. Charlotte the spider by her maternal wisdom. Pippi Longstocking by her irrepressible independence. All of them unquestionably strong characters . . . or at least they all have a single, strong characteristic.

But then I asked myself, How many real people do I know who could be hung on a single peg that way? And the answer came back swiftly. Not a single one.

Now, I’ve already acknowledged that when we create characters we are dealing with illusion, not life. So perhaps there is nothing wrong with the single-peg technique. It works, after all. But I find that when I try to do it with my characters something rings false for me. I want my characters—even the side ones—to hang from more than one peg!

And yet more than one peg gives us a less identifiable, believable, perhaps less strong creation. If your character is Eeyore you know that, however kind his friends might be, he will find a way to feel bad about himself and the world. He is absolutely reliable at every turn of the page. If you present too many sides to your characters they may be more “real,” but they won’t be seen as “strong.”

I have come to realize in this exploration that I am not good at creating characters with a clear single identity. What I can do is climb inside and give the reader a glimpse into a complex, interesting, human mental process. I often receive letters from young readers that say something like, “When I read On My Honor I always knew what Joel was thinking and feeling.” And that’s what I do well. I inhabit my perceiving character and invite my readers in.

The characters I don’t inhabit? They can still reveal their inner worlds by what they say and do, of course, but I’m not sure I’ve ever created one that lives on in my readers’ minds. They would certainly never be called strong.

The single peg works. I know it works. After all, I’ve just cited characters from beloved classics, stories that will live far longer than anything I have ever written.

And, of course, I understand the technique of starting off with a single characteristic, even a stereotype, and then giving the illusion of complexity by introducing a contradiction. The soft-hearted bully. The courageous coward. The passionate prude.

But for this story I want more . . . perhaps I want more than I can deliver.

Today, when I was walking the dogs, I came up with an idea for a new easy reader. Why not, I suggested kindly to myself, return to something you know you can do?

Why not?