Characters are peculiar. Algis Budrys, my one-time teacher, stated it less generously. “All important fictional characters are insane.”
I remember being shocked by this, and I asked him to explain. He said, if nothing else, stories put such an emphasis on character goals that these would, in real life, be considered pathological obsessions. Characters need to be motivated. In fiction, the major characters need to have story goals. They also enter each scene with specific goals that matter profoundly to them and drive their conversations, actions, choices, thoughts, and feelings. They are all obsessed.
Does this have to be true for every story? Isn’t there a value to subtlety and restraint? Isn’t exaggeration reserved for cheap melodramas and comedy? You could easily conclude that if you were to search (as I did) for articles on exaggeration.
The suggestions I found are valuable, but I think the subject deserves a broader treatment. Even the most sober, realistic, dramatic work can benefit from including characters that are bigger than life. Shakespeare’s tragedies are as likely to include oversized characters as his comedies are, and they are not overwrought. In fact, there are subtleties to most of his major characters (in both comedies and dramas). He makes them vivid and memorable without their becoming caricatures. But with their becoming bigger than life. If you think of the characters you remember from works you respect and return to again and again, you’re likely to find (unless you mostly lean toward anti-story literature) the characters are both real and, in some way, exaggerated.
Why is this? Why don’t more direct, faithful, and clinical treatments of characters work? I got the answer not many years after than my chat with Budrys while reading Jack M. Bickham’s Writing Novels That Sell. (My copy of this book is dogeared and has a permanent place on my bookshelf.) He says that the medium of writing itself clouds perceptions, creating a need to increase intensity, just to approach real-world experiences. In fiction, we see through a glass darkly. To prove it to his students, Bickham created a ridiculous, clownish version of a cowboy. It was (and is) vivid, and he actually used that character successfully in a series of novels.
That’s comedy, but take a moment to consider how extreme Hannibal Lector is. Or Walter White. More than obsessed, their actions and words push to extremes that invite parody. And it’s not just villains. The kind of fearlessness that Tom Joad and Atticus Finch had might create circumstances where, in real life, you wouldn’t want to stand too close to them. Frankly, if Hamlet came walking down the street, I’d cross to the other side.
As implied above, exaggeration can be situational. Cases of murder in fiction far outnumber those of petty theft (even though this is not reflected in real world statistics). And, as the imaginative power of homicide has waned, we have been subjected to serial killers in more stories. But let’s move to a more general view of vivid characters and get to the how.
How can you use exaggeration to enhance characters and make them memorable?
On the latter, traits and descriptions are effective tags to let readers recognize and recall different characters (major as well as secondary). Repeated phrases, references to limps, and reminders of the hero’s startling pale blue eyes can be slipped in at regular intervals. These usually are lightweight, “Hello, may name is…” prompts for readers, but, with care, they can be tuned to suggest more about the characters.
Under reactions and over reactions have a lot of power and are easy to slip into stories. There are many examples of heroes who seen oblivious to danger and even joke when they face death. I think of the jump off the cliff into water in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Sundance refuses to jump, and finally confesses that he can’t swim. Butch: Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill ya.
Attitudes can set some characters off in ways that mark them. Obviously, phobias (e.g. fear of heights in Vertigo, fear of snakes in the Indiana Jones movies) can set expectations and both tell us who the character is and contribute to the plot. But characters might also be compelled to respond to disorder (straightening framed pictures) or need to wipe off a chair before sitting on it. Or smell their food before eating it. Sensitivity and perception can be valuable, too. An artist who can’t abide clashing colors. A detective who notices calluses or ink on the fingers of a suspect.
Reflexive action and hesitations can also say a lot. A quick reaction could indicate lack of control or specialized training. A delayed response might show prudence or dullness. And, once the normal timing of responses is established, changing it can underline growth (e.g., not striking back immediately to counter minor insults), decline (accepting abuse because of cowardice), or a strategic choice. When timing surprises a reader or the audience, the moment stands out.
One device I love is the over-sized reputation. Characters who are worth talking about are worth knowing. Hearing about a character before he or she is introduced sets up expectations. It creates questions. When characters talk about someone, it creates a need for confirmation, so readers are looking for that when the character comes on the scene. The whole concept of making an entrance in the theater relies upon this. My favorite example in film is Hitchcock’s Rebecca, where who the title character is (and what the protagonist assumes and comes to learn about her) supports much of the plot.
Relationships matter. An out-of-control character (such as a ranting boss) who is put up with by other characters can push the limits of real life and stand out without becoming a caricature, just because we fall in line with those around him or her. This can reach the point, as in The Sopranos or The Wire, where murders are shrugged off. While we don’t accept them in the stories as exaggerated, deep down they are so outlandish they stick with us. This (using reactions of others) is a powerful tool to get away with making characters using absurd behavior to make more vivid.
Of course, major story decisions, with regard to conversations, actions, choices, thoughts, and feelings, can and should be exaggerated, but I hope the above expands your toolbox. These also may feel less risky, less obviously consequential, so they provide good starting points for those who are reluctant to paint with too broad a brush.
Remember, you can always dial things back in revisions, so it’s invaluable to get comfortable with exaggeration and master it. Avoid being reasonable. Normal actions and reactions don’t make an impact. Polite comments are not quotable. Characters who dress appropriately and have not defining physical features fade into the background. Predictable is boring.
Hitchcock said, “Drama is life with the dull bits cut out." So, while there’s a place for subtlety and naturalism, that has to be rationed in storytelling. Push to the limits. Master art’s shouts and whispers, and avoid life’s droning.
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Casting Your Stories 3: Glimpsing a character's other side
I did a series here on pivotal scenes, based on my study of Paddy Chayefsky work and ideas. Those posts focus on story, but they could easily be read as how to reveal the essence of characters, usually their dominant aspects, through choices and actions. Logically, that should be this post, but I’ve decided point to that earlier work and not reinterpret it in this post. Instead, I’ll share some of what I’ve discovered about how small but significant moments reveal the less dominant aspects of characters, often leading to deeper connections with readers and audiences.
I've never forgotten Damon Knight's advice on creating important characters – make them 70% (good or bad) and 30% (bad or good). This came back to me while I was binge watching The Wire. A young drug dealer (D'Angelo) is established early on as a ruthless character who has committed murder at a young age. He's also intelligent, sporadically out-of-control, and completely committed to the drug dealing business. But, after all this plays out through several episodes, he takes the time to advise a younger dealer on getting out of "the game" and returning to high school.
Suddenly, a bad and scary character is showing he cares for others. In fact, he even takes risks to protect the younger man.
Not bad as far as illustrating the 70/30 rule of thumb. To me, it was a good illustration of how important it is to give the audience a clear idea of the dominant character traits before introducing something different. It also did something else. It opened up new story possibilities. I had to wonder whether D'Angelo would keep to his dedication to the game himself. It also created a degree of empathy, not just because it revealed this positive dimension of the character, but because the advice D'Angelo sacrificed to provide was rejected and his protégé ended up dead.
David Simon provided the same sort of surprises elsewhere in The Wire. For instance, the most active and thoughtful and, in some ways, horrifying drug dealer, Stringer, is tailed at one tense point. Instead of ending up revealing more criminal activity, the detective discovers Stringer studying business at the community college. He's an able student who immediately applies what he's learning to one of the organizations front businesses, but also to make the drug dealing more effective.
Note that the 70/30 is accomplished by talk (advice) and action (study). It can also be achieved is less deliver on the part of the character. In comedy, Freudian slips, where a character uses the wrong word can often be surprising and revelatory. An accidental disclosure in the Mary Tyler Moore Show is one of my favorite 70/30 moments. Mary is admiring a picture Ted Baxter has hanging on his office wall. It shows Ted shaking hands with a celebrity (as I recall from seeing the show years ago). Mary touches the photo as she points only to reveal that the face of Ted has been pasted over someone else's image. It's funny and surprising, but it's also a humanizing moment for a character who has often been an insufferable blowhard. Mary's reaction, trying to smooth it over, is well within her character, but the vulnerability of Ted is memorable and a special moment for the audience to connect with and care about him.
In the cases of D'Angelo and Stringer and Ted Baxter, the characters have a lot of time to show their 70% sides before revealing something new and unexpected. Usually, and a series (as opposed to a feature film), many episodes pass before the character is established to the point where revealing the 30% doesn't undercut the 70%. An exception to this was a brilliant pilot for Hill Street Blues. The police captain Frank is a powerful advocate for his people and their work, which puts him in conflict with Joyce, who is an equally talented and determine public defender. Within that first show they clash, only to have the two of them revealed as a couple in the last moments of the show. It's an effective, even tour de force, instance of going from the 70 to the 30 rapidly. If you have a Steven Bochco level of talent, give it a try.
To summarize, dialogue, action, and accidental surprises can be used to bring something new to a character. This can make characters more authentic, put doubts in the heads of readers and audiences so that the story is less predictable, open up new story possibilities, foreshadowed later story developments, make character choices more difficult (and thus more interesting), and create empathy. I've also noticed that in some cases these acts set up new relationships and make subsequent teamwork between very different characters more realistic.
I'm still exploring this, but I strongly suspect that in drama most of what the character is trying to achieve fails when they are acting in 30 mode. Often this explains why their usual approaches (70) are diametrically different. Their skills can't take them where their hearts want to go. Or disappointments have led them to hide or overcompensate for gentler tendencies.
On the other hand, in comedy, the softer moments often lead to something positive for the character. They may have success in those smaller goals or enhance connections with other characters.
Is this surprising? Usually, we expect the heroes of dramas, acting in their dominant modes, to achieve their goals. But is completely acceptable, and often expected, that the protagonist in a comedy will fail to achieve the primary goal.
I've never forgotten Damon Knight's advice on creating important characters – make them 70% (good or bad) and 30% (bad or good). This came back to me while I was binge watching The Wire. A young drug dealer (D'Angelo) is established early on as a ruthless character who has committed murder at a young age. He's also intelligent, sporadically out-of-control, and completely committed to the drug dealing business. But, after all this plays out through several episodes, he takes the time to advise a younger dealer on getting out of "the game" and returning to high school.
Suddenly, a bad and scary character is showing he cares for others. In fact, he even takes risks to protect the younger man.
Not bad as far as illustrating the 70/30 rule of thumb. To me, it was a good illustration of how important it is to give the audience a clear idea of the dominant character traits before introducing something different. It also did something else. It opened up new story possibilities. I had to wonder whether D'Angelo would keep to his dedication to the game himself. It also created a degree of empathy, not just because it revealed this positive dimension of the character, but because the advice D'Angelo sacrificed to provide was rejected and his protégé ended up dead.
David Simon provided the same sort of surprises elsewhere in The Wire. For instance, the most active and thoughtful and, in some ways, horrifying drug dealer, Stringer, is tailed at one tense point. Instead of ending up revealing more criminal activity, the detective discovers Stringer studying business at the community college. He's an able student who immediately applies what he's learning to one of the organizations front businesses, but also to make the drug dealing more effective.
Note that the 70/30 is accomplished by talk (advice) and action (study). It can also be achieved is less deliver on the part of the character. In comedy, Freudian slips, where a character uses the wrong word can often be surprising and revelatory. An accidental disclosure in the Mary Tyler Moore Show is one of my favorite 70/30 moments. Mary is admiring a picture Ted Baxter has hanging on his office wall. It shows Ted shaking hands with a celebrity (as I recall from seeing the show years ago). Mary touches the photo as she points only to reveal that the face of Ted has been pasted over someone else's image. It's funny and surprising, but it's also a humanizing moment for a character who has often been an insufferable blowhard. Mary's reaction, trying to smooth it over, is well within her character, but the vulnerability of Ted is memorable and a special moment for the audience to connect with and care about him.
In the cases of D'Angelo and Stringer and Ted Baxter, the characters have a lot of time to show their 70% sides before revealing something new and unexpected. Usually, and a series (as opposed to a feature film), many episodes pass before the character is established to the point where revealing the 30% doesn't undercut the 70%. An exception to this was a brilliant pilot for Hill Street Blues. The police captain Frank is a powerful advocate for his people and their work, which puts him in conflict with Joyce, who is an equally talented and determine public defender. Within that first show they clash, only to have the two of them revealed as a couple in the last moments of the show. It's an effective, even tour de force, instance of going from the 70 to the 30 rapidly. If you have a Steven Bochco level of talent, give it a try.
To summarize, dialogue, action, and accidental surprises can be used to bring something new to a character. This can make characters more authentic, put doubts in the heads of readers and audiences so that the story is less predictable, open up new story possibilities, foreshadowed later story developments, make character choices more difficult (and thus more interesting), and create empathy. I've also noticed that in some cases these acts set up new relationships and make subsequent teamwork between very different characters more realistic.
I'm still exploring this, but I strongly suspect that in drama most of what the character is trying to achieve fails when they are acting in 30 mode. Often this explains why their usual approaches (70) are diametrically different. Their skills can't take them where their hearts want to go. Or disappointments have led them to hide or overcompensate for gentler tendencies.
On the other hand, in comedy, the softer moments often lead to something positive for the character. They may have success in those smaller goals or enhance connections with other characters.
Is this surprising? Usually, we expect the heroes of dramas, acting in their dominant modes, to achieve their goals. But is completely acceptable, and often expected, that the protagonist in a comedy will fail to achieve the primary goal.
Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Casting Your Stories 2: The ensemble of characters
Characters who live in isolation are difficult's to connect with. A key recommendation for people writing monologues is to imagine who the character is speaking to. Tom Hanks’s Cast Away character (Chuck) needed Wilson in his movie. Without that soccerball, important dimensions of the character could not be explored. In fact, storytelling has long been dependent upon community.
Many legends and myths depend upon familiar human traits that are embodied by characters and illuminated through contrasts. Think in terms of polytheistic religions. The pantheons allow(ed) for people to see the individual gods through their interactions with communities of gods. In "real" life, we continue this very human tradition in other ways. For example, Hollywood always has a strong man (The Rock, e.g., Hercules) and a sex goddess (Charlize Theron, e.g., Venus). In addition, I’d argue that it's possible to connect current actors with actors claim similar roles in the past. How different is Harrison Ford from Humphrey Bogart? Or Tom Hanks from Jimmy Stewart? (These contemporary actors have literally played the same roles in movies that amount to be remakes, Sabrina and The Shop Around the Corner/You've Got Mail.)
So, while my last post in this series emphasized finding specific and original characters, it's valuable to explore archetypes, as well. My recommendation would be to do this after a fast draft, during revision, but many accomplished writers I know design their characters with reference to making sure a collection of "types" are included. It makes me uneasy to think about doing this with the main characters, but it's probably safe to build secondary characters from the beginning with the right kind of pantheon in mind.
For instance, comedy, especially in the case of sitcoms, draws again and again from a familiar set of character types. As a great article on Sitcom Character Archetypes elucidates these, drawing from the Commedia dell'Arte, a form of theater that dates back to the Renaissance. The article translates these to characters like The Wisecracker, The Square, and The Bully and provides examples (from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Murray, Lou Grant, and Mary, respectively).
While it's all too easy to have this become formulaic (something that spoofed in one of my favorite movies, Network), there is a wonderful benefit to ensuring characters have distinct and recognizable differences built in early on, especially for a series. Different perspectives and the conflicts that arise from these allow for varied and deep explorations of premises. For story, there is nothing more deadly than characters who see the world the same way and agree.
There are great benefits for those writing series to look at the characters in their favorites and see how they might be similar across shows. This can reveal both the kinds of characters that are personally the most engaging and intriguing, as well as how the characters connect to create conflicts in scenes, sequences, and stories. Chances are, what resonates with you in the series you appreciate most will point to what your are best prepared to explore in your own works.
This does not mean direct copying or finding an escape from the serious work of infusing characters with their authenticity, but it may help to provide a check on leaving out elements that truly belong in your stories that aren't appearing spontaneously.
The same kind of research can be done for work that is not serial, but it tends to work more on the level of genre. Looking at character types and the communities of characters for, say, a romantic comedy may be less of a task that creates a story engine and more a way to recognize reader or audience expectations.
The ensemble of characters in your story will become invaluable once you have identified a pivot scene that can be used to bring somatic unity and story logic to your work. Each character who needs to be in your story will have a relationship with that scene, even if he or she is not present for that scene. In my work, I found that such reflection on characters — including how they need to contribute to turning points and how those scenes create consequences for them — suggests new dimensions to stories that are difficult to recognize otherwise.
I've also found that a deeper understanding of the work (whether it's a standalone feature or novel or it's for a series) can connect me with small and significant moments that can create empathy for the characters. That will be the subject of my next post in this series.
Many legends and myths depend upon familiar human traits that are embodied by characters and illuminated through contrasts. Think in terms of polytheistic religions. The pantheons allow(ed) for people to see the individual gods through their interactions with communities of gods. In "real" life, we continue this very human tradition in other ways. For example, Hollywood always has a strong man (The Rock, e.g., Hercules) and a sex goddess (Charlize Theron, e.g., Venus). In addition, I’d argue that it's possible to connect current actors with actors claim similar roles in the past. How different is Harrison Ford from Humphrey Bogart? Or Tom Hanks from Jimmy Stewart? (These contemporary actors have literally played the same roles in movies that amount to be remakes, Sabrina and The Shop Around the Corner/You've Got Mail.)
So, while my last post in this series emphasized finding specific and original characters, it's valuable to explore archetypes, as well. My recommendation would be to do this after a fast draft, during revision, but many accomplished writers I know design their characters with reference to making sure a collection of "types" are included. It makes me uneasy to think about doing this with the main characters, but it's probably safe to build secondary characters from the beginning with the right kind of pantheon in mind.
For instance, comedy, especially in the case of sitcoms, draws again and again from a familiar set of character types. As a great article on Sitcom Character Archetypes elucidates these, drawing from the Commedia dell'Arte, a form of theater that dates back to the Renaissance. The article translates these to characters like The Wisecracker, The Square, and The Bully and provides examples (from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Murray, Lou Grant, and Mary, respectively).
While it's all too easy to have this become formulaic (something that spoofed in one of my favorite movies, Network), there is a wonderful benefit to ensuring characters have distinct and recognizable differences built in early on, especially for a series. Different perspectives and the conflicts that arise from these allow for varied and deep explorations of premises. For story, there is nothing more deadly than characters who see the world the same way and agree.
There are great benefits for those writing series to look at the characters in their favorites and see how they might be similar across shows. This can reveal both the kinds of characters that are personally the most engaging and intriguing, as well as how the characters connect to create conflicts in scenes, sequences, and stories. Chances are, what resonates with you in the series you appreciate most will point to what your are best prepared to explore in your own works.
This does not mean direct copying or finding an escape from the serious work of infusing characters with their authenticity, but it may help to provide a check on leaving out elements that truly belong in your stories that aren't appearing spontaneously.
The same kind of research can be done for work that is not serial, but it tends to work more on the level of genre. Looking at character types and the communities of characters for, say, a romantic comedy may be less of a task that creates a story engine and more a way to recognize reader or audience expectations.
The ensemble of characters in your story will become invaluable once you have identified a pivot scene that can be used to bring somatic unity and story logic to your work. Each character who needs to be in your story will have a relationship with that scene, even if he or she is not present for that scene. In my work, I found that such reflection on characters — including how they need to contribute to turning points and how those scenes create consequences for them — suggests new dimensions to stories that are difficult to recognize otherwise.
I've also found that a deeper understanding of the work (whether it's a standalone feature or novel or it's for a series) can connect me with small and significant moments that can create empathy for the characters. That will be the subject of my next post in this series.
Thursday, November 7, 2019
Casting Your Stories 1: Three questions to qualify your heroes (and other characters)
Did you ever notice how often the characters you remember are the villains? I don't think this implies anything sinister about humanity. The popularity of Hannibal Lecter is not evidence that many of us long to be cannibals.
Instead, I think it plays on our curiosity, fascination with limits (freak shows and disasters), and a rejection of the safe and the mundane in fiction. The last of these is intimately related to how many writers approach their stories. They create main characters who are comfortably close to who they are. These characters often hide or minimize their flaws, do unsurprising things, and provide justifications for anything that edges toward being antisocial.
Authors protect themselves when they protect their protagonists. They let their guard down when they're dealing with villains and often can be more authentic with these characters. One trick a writer shared with me was grabbing some of the best lines from villains and seeing if they might be easily adapted to (or stolen for) the heroes. It's surprising how often and exercise like that can open up a story in later drafts. I've seen this both with my students and with my own work.
We often look to ourselves when we create viewpoint characters, but it can be more powerful to take on a bigger challenge. For important characters, especially the protagonists, I look to answer three things:
Does the character make me feel uncomfortable? One thing my sister used to do to me what I was very small was provide tours of the terrifying. It might be an abandoned house where ghosts were supposed to be or a place in the words where a murder (according to her) had taken place, or a ditch where a ravenous animal was known to slice off the limbs of little boys. While ghosts, murderers, and predators all create visceral responses, they never has the power over my imagination my sister did. Or created indelible memories. It was difficult for me then (and now) to understand who this creepy tour guide was. Those experiences created a puzzle about my sister’s identity that could not be solved. So characters that create questions that are difficult to answer but important tend to be memorable. And these characters can be the heroes of our stories if we dare to make that choice.
Does the character surprise me? In an earlier post, 50 Rude Questions, I provided examples on how to challenge and interrogate characters. Even though the questions are probing, the answers are not always revealing. Often this means that the character will never do something unexpected. Unless I have some means to take more deeply, the right tool for character vivisection, these characters do not belong my stories. At least not in major roles. But some characters give answers that suggest new questions, intrigued me, or even shock me. The more my interviews of characters make me curious or takes me in fresh directions, the more likely it is that these characters will find their ways into my stories. And, more more, it's the protagonists who speak and act in unexpected ways.
Does the character know things or experience life in ways I don't? I get excited when I learn new things. As much as "write what you know" is good and tested advice, it's valuable to create characters that require research. By definition, a story can't be predictable if there are a lot of open questions. So I tried to include characters whose histories and professions are different from my own. This is scary when those characters are protagonists or antagonists or viewpoint characters. Sometimes I have a premise that falls apart because new information proves my initial assumptions were wrong. (And the real danger is not having to put a story aside, but twisting the facts to allow the story to proceed.)
A safer route is to make these characters who are strange to me secondary within the story. That way they can liven things up without tearing things down.
Of course, these three questions assume you've found characters that could fit your premise and that are defined enough to take a closer look at. It takes a lot of preparation to build characters that lead to clear answers to these three questions. Unless… You lean on your own experiences in terms of people who interest and intrigue you… Or you are a history buff who digs into quirky people who existed in the past… Or you've heard gossip about someone you never met, where the stories hook you, but there are blanks that need to be filled in. Each of these may provide just enough to supply starting points for characters without "from scratch" work required.
Ultimately, I want to be thrilled by all my characters, including those who are the heroes. If I start out contented with a character as opposed to uneasy and excited, I'm suspicious. I want to be challenged, confused, and uncertain at times. If I'm happy with all the choices my characters make, I can’t learn anything new or experience the joy of discovery as I write. And neither can my readers.
Instead, I think it plays on our curiosity, fascination with limits (freak shows and disasters), and a rejection of the safe and the mundane in fiction. The last of these is intimately related to how many writers approach their stories. They create main characters who are comfortably close to who they are. These characters often hide or minimize their flaws, do unsurprising things, and provide justifications for anything that edges toward being antisocial.
Authors protect themselves when they protect their protagonists. They let their guard down when they're dealing with villains and often can be more authentic with these characters. One trick a writer shared with me was grabbing some of the best lines from villains and seeing if they might be easily adapted to (or stolen for) the heroes. It's surprising how often and exercise like that can open up a story in later drafts. I've seen this both with my students and with my own work.
We often look to ourselves when we create viewpoint characters, but it can be more powerful to take on a bigger challenge. For important characters, especially the protagonists, I look to answer three things:
Does the character make me feel uncomfortable? One thing my sister used to do to me what I was very small was provide tours of the terrifying. It might be an abandoned house where ghosts were supposed to be or a place in the words where a murder (according to her) had taken place, or a ditch where a ravenous animal was known to slice off the limbs of little boys. While ghosts, murderers, and predators all create visceral responses, they never has the power over my imagination my sister did. Or created indelible memories. It was difficult for me then (and now) to understand who this creepy tour guide was. Those experiences created a puzzle about my sister’s identity that could not be solved. So characters that create questions that are difficult to answer but important tend to be memorable. And these characters can be the heroes of our stories if we dare to make that choice.
Does the character surprise me? In an earlier post, 50 Rude Questions, I provided examples on how to challenge and interrogate characters. Even though the questions are probing, the answers are not always revealing. Often this means that the character will never do something unexpected. Unless I have some means to take more deeply, the right tool for character vivisection, these characters do not belong my stories. At least not in major roles. But some characters give answers that suggest new questions, intrigued me, or even shock me. The more my interviews of characters make me curious or takes me in fresh directions, the more likely it is that these characters will find their ways into my stories. And, more more, it's the protagonists who speak and act in unexpected ways.
Does the character know things or experience life in ways I don't? I get excited when I learn new things. As much as "write what you know" is good and tested advice, it's valuable to create characters that require research. By definition, a story can't be predictable if there are a lot of open questions. So I tried to include characters whose histories and professions are different from my own. This is scary when those characters are protagonists or antagonists or viewpoint characters. Sometimes I have a premise that falls apart because new information proves my initial assumptions were wrong. (And the real danger is not having to put a story aside, but twisting the facts to allow the story to proceed.)
A safer route is to make these characters who are strange to me secondary within the story. That way they can liven things up without tearing things down.
Of course, these three questions assume you've found characters that could fit your premise and that are defined enough to take a closer look at. It takes a lot of preparation to build characters that lead to clear answers to these three questions. Unless… You lean on your own experiences in terms of people who interest and intrigue you… Or you are a history buff who digs into quirky people who existed in the past… Or you've heard gossip about someone you never met, where the stories hook you, but there are blanks that need to be filled in. Each of these may provide just enough to supply starting points for characters without "from scratch" work required.
Ultimately, I want to be thrilled by all my characters, including those who are the heroes. If I start out contented with a character as opposed to uneasy and excited, I'm suspicious. I want to be challenged, confused, and uncertain at times. If I'm happy with all the choices my characters make, I can’t learn anything new or experience the joy of discovery as I write. And neither can my readers.
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