Nov 14 2008
Listening to your characters
I noticed a great discussion that began on the Creative Byline Facebook page including Joyce Carol Oates’s words on creating and listening to characters in writing:
“…[my students] say, ‘We don’t know these people.’ And I say, ‘Well, you have to listen.’”
Joyce Carol Oates says that only after hours of writing will writers discover what their characters really have to say, and that they “won’t know what it is in the beginning.” This plants fear in the hearts of many young or new writers, but they are not alone: Oates describes the first six weeks (!) of writing a new novel as “like hell” for her. Because she has a very broad definition of what constitutes a “character,” her comments are useful for writers of both fiction and non-fiction. Characters’ personalities must become known to a writer, and that only happens if he or she is “listening,” and even then it happens only slowly.
When have you given up? When have you paid the same attention to a new character that you would a new acquaintance? What similarities have you found between getting to know a person and getting to know a character? What differences have you noticed in the depth or complexity of your characters when you approach them this way?
I’m certainly having struggles with the personalities of my characters. Some are so vivid and easy to write that they take on their own story and run with it whether I like where it’s going or not. Others are so stagnant and so unattached to any kind of vivacity that I constantly struggles with them. I do agree with one post-commenter, Holly Larocque Bodger, that, when written well, “your character dictates where they want to go and what they want to do (sometimes to your own frustration!).” But I don’t necessarily agree with what another commenter, Allison Fant, that “Its always easier to relate to the characters and to know how they will react in certain situations because you have experienced it in real life”–running with the argument that characters who are based on someone you know are more real and more impactful. One of the strongest characters in my story is not based on any real person and probably has more in common with other literary characters; yet that doesn’t detract from his effectiveness.
What do you think about characters in writing? What makes a good and effective character? How does a writer make a character “more real”? Do you run into these struggles in your own writing?
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