Lesson 4: Characters

And here we come to one of the big questions we often ask ourselves as writers. “How do I make people interested in my character?” And that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Before our readers can become deeply invested in the lore of our worlds, or get on the plot train and ride it out to the ends of Mordor, they have to care about the people involved.

And I think it’s time we recognize the weaknesses of fan fiction: a lot of fanfictions are written around established characters. There are much fewer opportunities to practice the full scale of creating and developing characters. And because of this, I think if you were to randomly pick a hundred writers out of all the exclusively fan-fic authors out there, character writing would likely be the most common weakness.

Writing is an art. But somehow, many people (I don’t know if it’s most but certainly many) think they can take their ideas and put them onto paper and have it be great. People don’t think the same way about music or painting. They don’t expect to master a song or a pose without practice. It should be the same with writers and their characters (and plot and setting but we’ll get to those later). 

Empathy and interest

Empathy is going to be a huge factor in how we get readers to engage with our characters. The first and foremost reason is that your perspective characters are the surrogate for the reader. That’s why published stories will usually start with a main character who doesn’t know a lot about the world. 

Percy Jackson, for example, only knows a few things about Greek mythology and relies on his friends and mentors to gradually introduce him to his powers and the rules of magic. Harry Potter is another classic example. He gets a whole host of friends, teachers, and mentors to help him out. Luke Skywalker has Obi-Wan. Bilbo and Frodo both have Gandalf. That’s not to say all your characters need to start as “the new guy” to establish empathy, but it does highlight the importance of making your characters relatable. 

Likeability, Activity, Ability

When we’re considering how to capture interest with our characters, it’s helpful to imagine as if we had character creator sliders for how likeable or in control our characters are as they progress throughout the story. 

I think likeability should be the easiest one to understand, we ourselves have people and personality traits that we find appealing. Sometimes this means the character can be humble, good, kind, funny, or have any other positive and generally heroic trait. But characters can also be charismatic or a little cocky and confident. Note that confidence does not equal how much agency or ability a character actually has, it’s only how much they think they have.

Take Rainbow Dash, as an example. Early on, she believes herself to be the best flier in Equestria. She has a likeable kind of confidence, most times, because it has limits but also because she actually has the ability to back it up. And that transitions us nicely to ability.

Ability, I think, is actually harder than making a character likeable because we have to be careful about playing into the hands of power scaling and power fantasies. Especially in adventure fiction, inexperienced writers tend to rely on the spectacle of powers and abilities. Granted, it can sometimes be done for comedy, much in the same way One Punch Man does, but if the story is taking itself seriously, relying on spectacle is not going to take your characters very far. 

“Ideas are cheap, execution is everything.” Apparently, this quote is attributed to some investor on Shark Tank, but I attribute it to Brandon Sanderson, best selling author of the Mistborn series. But what does it actually mean?

Looking at Rainbow Dash again, I would say her highest trait out of these three is her ability. Her abilities as a flier are simultaneously as high as they can be, while also being the least interesting part about her. It is, by design, stagnant and unchanging. Rainbow Dash was fast from the first episode to the last. And that’s fine, as long as the writing effort is directed to where there can be change. 

And that leads us to activity. Also called proactivity, this category regards how motivated or active a character is at pushing the story along and affecting change in their lives. You generally, not always, want your main characters to be proactive, not reactive. Because when they are the driving force of the plot, the reader thinks “Okay, now this is the character’s story.” 

It ties into our own desires to have high self-esteem and self-efficacy. When we feel like we are able to take control and have a positive effect on our lives, we tend to think more positively about ourselves and are more willing to take the next steps towards what we want. 

The episode “Testing Testing 1, 2, 3” is where we have a clear snapshot of Rainbow Dash’s starting level of activity. Simply put, who’s story is the episode telling? Rainbow Dash’s, or Twilights? I would argue that Rainbow Dash loses her proactivity by being forced to study, the story switches from “Rainbow Dash trying to learn” to “Twilight trying to teach.” Twilight is more proactive in getting all the resources for Rainbow to learn from.

So, with Rainbow Dash as our snapshot, where would we place Rainbow on these three character sliders?

• Likeability: medium. She’s confident and loyal, but sometimes her ego gets the best of her. But not for no reason.
• Activity: low to medium. She actively wants to be a Wonderbolt but stops short when presented with a new challenge.
• Ability: high. Rainbow Dash is the fast one, and it’s never brought into question. 

Before we move on, I just wanted to say that I’m fully aware that Rainbow Dash’s hesitation to learn can also be considered a lack of ability. I originally wanted to shorten this section into just Likeability and Agency, since proactivity and ability have some overlap. However, they’re still distinct enough that I realized it’d be easier to just go into details for both, rather than describing a broad category.

Shifting the scales

Now that we’ve established interesting characters by balancing out these three categories, how do we progress? A character, no matter how well balanced at the start, will become stale if nothing among these categories change (with an exception, which I’ll discuss later). In the example of proactivity with Rainbow Dash, the episode “Wonderbolts Academy” shows us the transition for Rainbow to become a more active character in her own story. 

Upon receiving news that she is a wingpony to Lightning Dust, Rainbow initially doesn’t question or protest the decision. She is reactive, not proactive, and does what she’s told she should do to impress Spitfire. This results in putting her friends in danger, which gives her the final push to make the choice to stand up to Spitfire and quit. It is when things go wrong that we as writers can show our characters being forced to make a change. 

After all, how many people in real life do you think has had to make a change in themselves when life suddenly hit them in unexpected ways? 

The result of this activity shift comes up in the episode “Newbie Dash.” The episode is focused on an external conflict stemming from the other Wonderbolts’ treatment of newbies. This time, when she’s hit with the realization that she’s being hazed by the other Bolts, Rainbow takes an active role in trying to resolve that issue. 

Thus her character has shifted to something like this: 

• Likeability: High. 

  • Her confidence is not just earned by her physical abilities, but it is endearing because she maintained her positive self-image through her personal challenges. “My confidence comes off as cocky, but it gives me the courage to fail.”

• Activity: High. 

  • Rainbow’s development is that of a character who learns that success is not always going to come to them just because of their own talents. She moves from being a young prodigy to a professional among equal peers. Though she was always motivated, she becomes more versatile and adaptable with how she chases her dreams and creates opportunities for herself.
• Ability: High. Rainbow Dash is still fast.

This is just one way that you can adjust these sliders to make your character’s development engaging to your audience. In this example, Rainbow Dash is a primary character of My Little Pony, and thus embodies heroic traits and heroic character development. She changes for the better, but that is not always necessary. 

Tragedies about a hero’s fall, a villain origin story, or a corruption arc, are just some examples of how you can have a character’s arc trend negatively while still being engaging. What’s important, however, is that these “character creation sliders” are not treated as three unrelated categories. We already mentioned how activity and ability can overlap, but likeability is also adjusted in response to changes in activity and ability. With Rainbow Dash, we see that her personality doesn’t change despite her likeability generally trending up, due to her behaviour being recontextualized through her changes of activity. 

But what about characters who don’t change, but are still liked? These are what we call “iconic characters,” they are characters who we like automatically, either by design or because the character is established. In many renditions of the Justice League, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are some of the most well-known iconic characters on the hero roster. 

They are in the category of “established” characters. They have a lot of history with the audience, have probably already gone through their own character arcs, and rest comfortably in their newfound improvement and accepted flaws. Iconic characters of this kind do not change or change very little, because the audience does not expect them to change. I think this is especially prevalent with fan fiction writing since many people make a big deal about keeping “in-character.” 

The appeal of established iconic characters is thus their interaction with other characters, who can either be iconic as well or new and fresh-faced. 

The other kind of iconic character is one who is made to be iconic from the start, whether or not the audience is aware of it yet. In the Dragon Prince, General Amaya is one example of an iconic character. She is a motivated soldier, a dedicated protector, and thus far in the show, she has hardly deviated in any of the three sliders.

The Dragon of the West, General Iroh, from Avatar the Last Airbender is another great example of an incredibly engaging iconic character. As far as his character goes, he also never deviates much from his established personality as a wise and capable mentor, nor does his central motivation to guide Zuko ever change.

One final example to solidify the pattern would be Princess Leia. In Star Wars: A New Hope, Leia is introduced to us as a space princess with the means and motive to fight against imperialism. Then the heroes Luke and Han show up, and she’s still the one motivated to fight the Empire. Within A New Hope, Luke is busy trying to learn the Force, and Han is still learning not to chase money all the time.

From all these examples, a pattern arises that when we use iconic characters in writing, the characters themselves are not what makes the story interesting. They act upon the plot and push it along, or create meaningful dialogue with other characters, but the stories they are in are never about them. 

Instead, iconic characters can serve as plot devices or as character foils to develop the main characters. Or, as with crossover events or in comic-style storytelling, the story might not be about the iconic characters, but about the new relationships formed when iconic characters meet, which leads us to the next point.

Interesting chemistry through relationships

The easiest way to think about writing good characters is to think about why we like other people in the first place. Assuming that you do, in fact, happen to like other people. Why is Henry Cavill such a fan favourite among comic book and fantasy fans? Well, he collects Warhammer models and almost missed the Superman role because of World of Warcraft. He is relatable to his fans. And how do we know he does those things? Because he says so. Or other people mention it.

That’s right, it’s dialogue. We tend to like people when they say things we like or agree with. Crazy, right? Characters show competency when they are the ones explaining things to other characters. Characters show they are active when they are declaring their goals and wishes. Characters show their likeable traits when they say likeable things. 

Case in point: Entrapta, from Netflix’s She-ra reboot. Entrapta’s character is one who is incredibly competent with the technology of the world, to the extent that it is her defining trait and role in much of the story. As a very major side character, she gets a lot of screen time to explain her thoughts on technology and science rather than just fiddling around, and her outlook on discovery is even integral to some of her personal ethics and ways of life.

Inversely, we can have other characters talk about how good someone is at something, or how driven they are, or how much they’re liked. Drawing from my own work, Marionette from “Fighting to the Top” talks to Sunset Shimmer and highlights the motivation she sees in Sunset’s fencing. It serves as a two-way establishment of character. 

Marionette moves up in her likeability because she recognizes the determination of the protagonist, the perspective that the audience understands best. It’s kind of like a “finally, someone else gets it!” feeling. But also the reader gets confirmation that Sunset’s proactivity and ability are not just in her own head, because others around her are acknowledging her effort, which shows her actions do have an effect on those around her.

And all this talk of dialogue (hah) brings us to one big, glaring problem.

How to write dialogue

I feel like dialogue should be its own lesson. Maybe it will. But given that it is so relevant to showing who a character really is, I think at least something has to be said about how to write dialogue because it is one of the biggest areas amateur writers, and some professional ones, struggle with.

For fan fiction writers, including myself in my early years, one general rule needs to be said. And it’s about the dialogue tag “said.” Oh, what’s that? You expected me to say that you shouldn’t use the word “said” and instead opt for more descriptive scenes? No! Don’t do that, it’s exhausting to read. Rule number one:

• “Said” is invisible to readers.

When you have a long conversation between characters, it’s important to occasionally remind the reader who is talking with a short action beat or dialogue tag like “she said as she stood up,” or “he whispered.” The longer your description, the more you pull your reader’s attention from the dialogue.

Do not be afraid to use “said.” Sure, don’t overuse it either, but if you read popular published novels, you will see that they are inundated with the word “said,” or other short dialogue tags like “added,” or “mentioned” or “whispered.” Functionally, I take all those to be the same, albeit with some added flavour. 

If you want the dialogue to shine when it needs to, just use “said.” Especially for arguments or quick back and forth conversations, it doesn’t matter where the characters are standing or what they’re looking at. If dialogue is the focus, then focus on the dialogue. Estimates for how often “said” is used in dialogue can go up to even 90%, but I tend to think it’s closer to 80% or 75%. 

That’s not to say you should get rid of beats. While it’s necessary to have the conversation organized, action beats are valuable as the writer’s tools to control the pace of the dialogue and guide the reader’s thoughts. That is why rule number two for fan fiction writers goes so well with rule one:

• Ellipses are never invisible to readers

An ellipse is a void in the middle of a text. It’s nothing. It has no sound or meaning. And like the ringing in your ears when you sit in an absolutely silent room, it is loud. An ellipse is a glaring red flag to the reader saying “Oh, by the way, there’s a pause right here that you should know about.” 

Rather than force pauses in your dialogue with an ellipse, employ an action beat. Example:

• “I’m not sure what I want to give her… but I know I have to try my best!” 
• “I’m not sure what I want to give her,” he said, his voice gradually trailing off before bouncing back with conviction. “But I know I have to try my best!”

The difference between these two is that the ellipse is asking for the reader to pause without any indication of how long. The reader has to meet the author halfway and inject their own pause. When you place your own action beat, the reader has no choice but to pause the dialogue and follow your pace.

Thirdly, it’s important to give your characters different voices. I think this is the hardest thing to do in terms of dialogue since we all usually tend to write closer to how we naturally speak. But when you have characters talking in distinguishing ways, you can often strip out a few dialogue tags. For example, if I have two characters who are on the run, one might say things like:

• “Let’s blow this joint.”
• “They’re on our tails!”

Meanwhile, the other character might express the same ideas as:

• “We need to leave.”
• “They’re gaining ground!”

A character who speaks more literally and formally versus a character who speaks with idioms or slang will always have distinguishing voices, even when the writer’s not explicitly stating who is talking.

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Homework:

• Select a character from any story and media and define where they start and end in terms of their likability, activity, and ability. Make sure you understand where the changes occur and how the story showed that.

• Write a scene (250-750 words) featuring two original characters which almost exclusively dialogue. Use the dialogue to give context to what is happening and to show the personalities of the characters talking.

  • Build on top of this by adding action beats for roughly a quarter to a third of the dialogue.
  • This is an exercise in word efficiency. Less is more. We are working well with less so we can do great when we add a little more.
• Review further details on writing dialogue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpWKp-fnZuU

Comments

[FillyElliot]

These are excellent lessons, please keep them coming!