Characterization and character interaction are, even moreso than plot, one of the most important elements that goes into the making of a story. When it comes to a choice between caring about characters or caring about plot, most readers will lean for the former. Knowing your characters as three-dimensional people in the course of your writing will assist you in valuable ways and allow you to build them as you go along.
How do you get to know your character? I've always likened it to becoming friends with someone you don't know very well in the beginning of your relationship with them. Spend time with them in your writing and in your thoughts, ask questions of yourself about them. A few of those questions might be:

Just WHO is your character anyway?

No one's going to care about your character unless you take the time to put details into them, the little finishing touches. Let's say I've just made a new character for the sake of this news piece. Her name is Susan Smith and she has blonde hair and brown eyes, but there's certainly more to her than the way she looks. She has a voice as sweet as honey. But, guess what? No one's going to care. It's not what someone looks or sounds like that makes them important, it's their beliefs about the world around them, their dreams and aspirations, and how willing they are to achieve them and what they'll do to those ends. In sum, the reader cares about what makes your character human.

What is his/her personality like?

Is Susan a good girl who always listened to authority, or was she prone to acting out once in awhile? More often than 'once in awhile?' Was she the one being picked on in school, or the one who was picking on other people? Was she shy, quiet and passive? Loud, aggressive and determined? Maybe somewhere in between? Mellow or uptight?

Your character's base personality needs to be determined so that people get a feel for how they tick, what motivates them and what their normal/abnormal behaviors are. If Susan's usually the quiet one and suddenly starts screaming at people for no reason, the reader is going to figure something is wrong and upsetting her. Same goes if Susan was a loudmouth who suddenly clammed up. People might look twice at her and wonder what her problem suddenly is.

What is his/her general background and how did it affect him/her?

Was our Susan born in the lap of luxury, or did she have to claw her way to the top after years of being the underdog? If the former, she might be very bratty and spoiled, very hard to please, and may come to expect only the best from everyone around her.

How might it be in the opposite situation? Just think, if you had to scrape to earn everything you got in life, imagine how it might make you. Would you be more cynical towards some aspects of the world, or would it make you just that much more grateful for everything you have?

Were Susan's parents always there for her, or was she always left alone? Growing up, we all want to feel secure. Someone who has that security is often more confident and self-assured, whereas someone who didn't might be more timid and needs more reassurance. Just as nature vs. nurture affects us, so too does it affect our characters. Backgrounds often play a large part in personality.

What was his/her education? If Susan dropped out of high school, she isn't going to talk like a graduate from Yale or Oxford University, and her booksmarts might be outshone by her streetsmarts. On the other hand, if she got a Master's and graduated college, she might speak and act in a way that flaunts her knowledge more openly.

As you get to know your character more through the things that you write, the answers will become clearer. But, keep in mind you need to do the work to reap the rewards! One character might ' pop into your head' with more clarity than another, but that doesn't mean they're going to write themselves. Sometimes, as you actually write something, some parts of characterization you thought you had down pat change or modify themselves in ways you wouldn't expect as the story moves along. The relationship between plot and character is symbiotic--one relies on the other to accomplish your ultimate goal, which in this case is a complete story.

Play with some background ideas for your characters and see where they take you. You just might be surprised where you end up.


What flaws and habits does s/he have and how does it affect his/her everyday life or lives of those around them?

As I said once before and will say again, no one is perfect. Everyone has a trait or two that they're not willing to tell the neighbors about. Some are a little more private than others, but they're still affecting characterization. Someone who needs to live with the consequences a private habit that the society around them might not find acceptable might be a more nervous, secretive person than someone who has a habit that's right there in the open where everyone can see and needs to deal with.

For example, if Susan was an alcoholic but trying to hide it from her coworkers, she might turn out to be quite a different sort of person than if she was, say, just plain clumsy. People would treat her differently as well in reaction to her habits. Was Susan late to work today because she had one too many last night, or because she dropped the iron on her foot when she was steaming her slacks and had to make a quick stop by the hospital before she made it to the office?

Depending on the sort of person Susan is, their speculation, and therefore their views and opinions of her, as well as their interactions with her would differ. Rather than whisper behind her back if she was the alcoholic, they might keep their valuable crystal paperweights off the edges of their desks if they thought she might be banging into them on the way to her own seat every morning.

How exactly does s/he handle different situations?

Circumstances dictate reactions on both our parts and our characters', and each character, like each person, is going to react differently.

Let's throw out a scenario and try a few different avenues there. Again, we're going to use Susan, and today there's a big meeting at her office with the higher bosses. How might she react? That would depend on if she was responsible or not. Is she a calm and collected person who would be the first one in with that big report in hand and a smile on her face? Or is she going to be the one that stayed in her cubicle too long typing that report and therefore came in late with the thing half-done and looking sheepish? It's up to you to decide with your character.

Getting along with others...or not...

Moving along, let's say I've been working on Susan and her personality for awhile and now want someone for her to interact with. I come up with someone named Jack Clark. Whereas Susan is, now that I've settled for her core characteristics, a clumsy scatter-brain, I need to decide how Jack is going to react to and treat her. I have a few options. I could always make Jack a sort of ' partner in crime' with her and give them similar personalities, letting them bond that way. Or, I could have him be responsible and uptight, always frowning at and trying to tolerate her mishaps. As with life, we're all going to meet people who like us, people who don't, and then people who aren't going to care whether we're there one way or another. And you guessed it, it's not going to be different with your characters in that respect, either.

First meetings are important. The first impression you get of someone is often the one that sticks with you for a long time to come, and so you need to determine how your characters met. What were the circumstances? Were they thrown together and made to deal with one another to achieve a common goal? If Jack met Susan at the office and needed to work with her in order not to get fired, he might be a little more tolerant and willing to meet their mutual goal than if she was the loud girl that came onto him too strongly at that office party a few weeks ago. Here, plot plays a part too--if your characters are in opposition, you need to have a plot device that keeps them together so they can interact. It doesn't always need to be the dramatic or the catastrophic that keeps characters together.

Even if Jack and Susan are the best of friends, disagreements are bound to happen. Different opinions on different subjects will cause friction between people even if they know one another well. One argument doesn't mean the end of a friendship, but it might produce hurt feelings--how might Jack and Susan handle those? Wait a few hours and apologize? Or wait a few weeks? In a situation like that, what would your character do? Work out a relationship between two characters and see how it might grow/change over time.

Each set of characters is going to act in different ways. I keep saying it, but it can't be more true. As your cast grows, mix situations up and practice-write the results, even if it's just an experiment. It's fun and can expand your perceptions on different characters.

Writing them together

After a little more thought, I've finally gotten Jack and Susan to a point where I feel confident writing them together in a scene. Let's go back to that big office meeting and have the setting be the morning before that big presentation is due. I've decided for the sake of tension to have Jack be somewhat the opposite of Susan in personality. The test in how well your characterization comes is when you do the actual writing; you can have a recipe for a cake, but whether or not the cake comes out well is how carefully you prepare and bake it.

"Are you done with that yet?"

At the voice behind her, Susan yelped and came dangerously close to dropping her full mug of coffee on her keyboard. As the black liquid sloshed over the sides of the mug, Jack reached over to take it from her, making a face as it splashed across his polished black loafers.

"Don't scare me like that, Jack!" she scolded, turning in her chair to glower. "And don't take my coffee, either, you know how I need it in the morning."

"Then finish that report. Roberts needs it on his desk in two hours or we're both on the way to the unemployment line. How's a pink slip sound to you?" Making a face, the executive set the offending coffee down and snatched for the box of tissues sitting on the desk behind him to bend and wipe his shoes. "I'm sure not ready to throw out five years of busting my back because you can't do a lousy report, personally."

"Has no one ever told you you're no fun, Jack?" Pursing her over-painted lips, Susan began to hunt out the next key to construct what he hoped was going to be a mesmerizing sentence. Goodness knew they needed one after that last blunder in front of Roberts last week.

"I'm no fun? Work isn't about fun, Susan, it's about money. Staying alive, paying bills, that adult stuff you're not interested in. 'Fun' isn't going to brew my morning coffee, that's for sure." He was starting to lose his temper now. "If you're not done within the next hour, we're going to be---."

"I heard you." More hunting and pecking across the keyboard ensued as her tongue poked between her lips, the color reminding him of a fire engine. "Don't you get tired of being a blow-hard, too?"

Jack swore under his breath before turning and storming off. Nothing he did ever seemed to faze his work partner and in some ways, he had to admit he found it almost alluring.

Pay close attention to how they spoke and acted around one another. Fitting characters together takes time and patience, and often more than one try before it 'clicks.'

As always, I can't claim to be an authority on anything, but I always try my best. If anyone has any questions, comments, or serious and helpful advice on how to improve this or especially what to do for another article, please comment here or note me and I'll get back to you ASAP.

Happy writing!



Other articles in this series so far:

On Mary-Sues: [link]