The Psychology of Characterization: Writing Characters We Love and Hate

In our last writing chat session, Jon Stars and I discussed characterization, and the psychology behind it. Tune in Mondays at 7:00 to see the next live session. If you'd like to be a part of the next discussion, send in your questions about the new topic: WRITER'S BLOCK.

The best characters in fiction feel more real to us than some real people, and sometimes they are. One of the things that I love about writing, perhaps the thing I love most, is writing characters. Perhaps because it’s sometimes difficult to be genuine in real life. That’s where the psychology of characterization comes in.

Many writers--whether you're just starting writing or you've been at it for years-- wonder how to write real characters in fiction, and what makes the best characters. These people, animals, entities, come out of nowhere with feelings, thoughts, actions, that drive your story. If they’re not consistent, the story starts to feel like cardboard. Fellow author Jon Stars and I sat down to discuss characters in our last writing chat video. Watch the video to listen to the chat, or read below for some takeaways. 

How do you know if your characters are consistent? Three-dimensional? Interesting? What if readers don’t like your character? 

How to Write Characters We Love 

What People Really Care About

“If it’s not the characters, you might as well have a camera going across landscapes.”

The importance of characters must be understood. And cannot, I don’t think, be overstated.

(4:40) When people describe a book they really like, they may tell you about the plot, but they attach to the characters. That’s what drives the thousands of pages of fanficiton produced every day. Characters are what people really like to read, what keeps them turning the page. Why is this? Why do we care about these made-up entities springing from other people’s brains?

Relateability. We love movies, shows, books, plays because we can see ourselves in them.

And this doesn’t mean that every person sees all of themselves in every character. But a reader may see a part of themselves, or something they wish they were, or fear to become. They may see their friend in a character. Or their enemy. And, little by little, they become engrossed in the story, wondering as the character wonders; what do I do? What should I do? What will happen if I don’t do the right thing?

“For me, if the idea doesn’t have a strong character, it doesn’t go anywhere.”

Snape knows a thing or two about being the star of fanfiction.

The moral quandaries, the uphill battles, the tests of strength and patience are as thrilling to us as they are tests to the characters. And as we read (or watch, or listen), we approach the edge of challenges that we may only know a small piece of.

Relateability is a part of the reason why diversity is so important in storytelling. If you never see yourself in the stories around you, if everyone is always different than you, what hero do you find? Can you approach the challenges these heroes approach? Sometimes. But you’ll never have a hero that is your hero. And everyone needs a hero. 

Tune in Mondays at 7:00 to see the next live session. Leave a comment, or send me a message on Instagram @stemlersam about our upcoming topic, WRITER'S BLOCK!

A Stand-In for the Reader

(9:00) How much do you want your reader to know? This partly depends on how you want them to feel. Tense? Certain? Outraged? Your characters can help you do this.

In a first-person narrative, we look directly through the character’s eyes. From third-person, we oten look just over a character’s shoulder. Even with the knowledge of an omniscient narrator, readers know what is happening around a character, or several. The information this gives us tells us how to—or, often, makes us—react.

Your central character, in this sense, is the reader.

This, however, presents a challenge. Your reader knows nothing about the story, other characters, setting, and conflict. Your character may know all about them. To create a realistic knowledgeable character—a sensei, wizard, king, commander, captain—they can’t easily repeat their knowledge for the reader without sounding obvious and redundant (maybe even a little brain-damaged). So how do you tell the reader about the story without being obvious? There are several ways to deal with this conundrum.

“You don’t want your readers to be in the dark. But you don’t want your characters repeating things, either.”

The Beginner: The Beginner character archetype has spanned genres and time. They’re the apprentice, padawan, young cop, new doctor—they know just about the same amount as the reader knows. And reiterating their knowledge—perhaps with confidence, perhaps with fear—can make sense for the reader and for story. Be careful not to make this character ask too many questions, or explain too much. They should still be a character, they should be a person, not a prop. This is the part of your reader that doesn’t know, but wants to.  

“Make sure your character isn’t a sounding board for readers. They shouldn’t say ‘Oh my God, what’s over there?’”

All-Knowing Sensei: Your knowledgeable character knows what’s going on. The more they know, the more power and authority they have. Put the camera on this character’s shoulder, in their mind, and you can give your reader the knowledge—and the power, the authority—your character has. As the character reviews the situation, the past, considers the future, and their options, they do the same for the reader. The way in which the character considers these things (Bitterly? Cynically? With control and certainty?) also invites the reader into their personality, and make the exposition less obvious. 
 

This is clearly a very mysterious book...

“What’s he up to? A big part of the mystery is what IS he up to?”

Dark Mysterious Leader: This is, admittedly, a character archetype I can’t stay away from. The Dark Mysterious Leader (DML) may know everything, but conveys very little. This is, of course, the key to their mysterious charm. This also makes room for exposition in a number of ways. The other characters wonder—and can sensibly expound upon—the DML’s motives, past, actions, and intentions without being redundant. The information the DML does decide to give away can also serve as exposition. Again, the way in which they do this (Begrudgingly? Annoyed? Frustrated? Regretful? Deceitful?) will show the readers who they really are.

I Don’t Like Your Main Character Very Much

(12:00) Ouch. That’s a tough one to hear. 

 

Everyone wants to write a main character that is likeable. And this doesn’t always mean they’re good. But they must be interesting.

It’s tempting to write a perfect person, especially if this character is a big part of you (and don’t we all write ourselves into our books in some way?). It’s even therapeutic to write characters the way we would like to be, or hope to be. However, can you think of a character in a book or show you related to, who was perfect? Probably not. If you’re like me, they irritated you. You wanted something bad to happen to them, just so they weren’t so damn perfect.

It can be equally tempting (and, oddly, equally therapeutic) to write a character who’s 110% evil, one who is the worst of ourselves. There’s something peaceful about hating a character who absolutely deserves it. But this evil incarnation suffers the same effect as the flawless hero; the reader wants something bad to happen to them.

“You can create unlikeable characters both ways. When readers want the character to fail, they don’t like them.”

This returns to the psychology of character-building, and how we, as readers and writers, relate to these characters. All writers know that complex characters are essential. Readers quickly become bored with characters whose existence hinges on one attribute (Writers of the Uber Macho Female Warrior, I’m looking at you). But what really makes a character three-dimensional? Where is the line between consistent and simplistic?

Weaknesses and flaws, in storytelling, are not the same. A hero has a weakness so the villain can defeat them (or hope to). A character’s flaw is one that they must confront in themselves. A weakness is an avenue to move the plot forward. A flaw is the road to character growth.

Fully-realized characters often carry opposite, but equal flaws and strengths. This may be conveyed through Competence, Actionability, and Likeability. The Sensei character often knows too much and has become too detached or cynical to aid in the story’s conflict. They are the reader’s still knowledge. The Beginner character often moves too fast, with obvious and laudable good intentions, but too little knowledge to be effective. They are the reader’s impulse to action. Characters that are both competent and effective are often isolated, either too strong, proud, unpleasant, or even afraid to ask for help. They are the reader’s personality flaws.

Another way to visualize this continuum is through behavior and circumstance. A passionate lover, for example, might be beautifully loyal when adored, but vicious when spurned. A confident leader may pull the characters through a tough situation, but lash out when questioned. A shy friend may be a good listener and reliable shoulder to lean on, but little good when push comes to shove. The lively partier is fun and dynamic, but won’t let the party stop.

The same traits that make a character good can, in other circumstances, make them bad. But these traits together make them human.

“If you have flaws in a character and people see themselves in that character, they can’t help but like them…. Even if they hate themselves, they’ll like the character.”

Flawed characters—especially flawed heroes—reassure us that we don’t have to be perfect, and we can still be heroes.

Was this helpful? Interesting? Ridiculous? Feel free to share! And don't forget to Tune in Mondays at 7:00 to Facebook live to chat about a dreaded topic—writer’s block. What is it? How does it happen? How can we solve it? If you like, write questions in the comments, send me one on Instagram @stemlersam, or send your question during Facebook live. 

Search for Profluence of Life

I am writing to you from Brisbane, Australia, at the beginning of an 8-month long globe-trotting solo adventure.

So, why did I go 9,000 miles away from my home and everything familiar? A search for "profluence."

The straight-up definition of profluence is "to flow smoothly." But, if you're going for an MFA literary definition, you gotta go deeper. It speaks to the passage of time through a narrative and how that "flow" is imperative to the experience therein. A Mr. John Gardner coined the lit term in "The Art of Fiction"--

"Page 1, even if it is just a description, raises questions, suspicions, expectations. The mind casts forward to later pages, wondering what will come about and how... The moment we stop caring where the story will go next, the writer has failed and we stop reading."

I writer friend recently mentioned this term to me, I had never heard it before. I realized that I was not necessarily looking for this in my writing, but in life. Working at home in the same town, generally doing the same things each day, I felt that my mind was no longer "casting forward" for anything. The novel I was living, I realized I would never read. Where was the uncertainty? The suspense? The questions? Like...

What the hell is this thing? 

When writing a story, you can't always let characters carry you. Sometimes you have to make events happen, otherwise you get the same thing over and over. No Profluence. I find myself now looking forward, wondering what will happen at every turn-- you know, like a good book.

My blogs are also now on the site niume.com (https://niume.com/profile/106548#!/posts) check it out for some great travel and trip updates from Queensland, Australia, Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan, and TBA, South Korea.

Lastly, looking for a new novel idea and going to post some excepts of different ideas. Let me know which ones you like and I'll stick with it.

One more thing... Photos!

Writing Through Violence: Catharsis

Why do people write? 

A question that surely has multiple answers, even if you ask the same person. To explore fantastic places, to create exotic things. To press the limits of imagination. To entertain, to frighten, the enthrall. For me, it has always been to settle myself; to organize my thoughts, to face my fears, to face my anger and my sadness. 

For me, writing gives me catharsis, relief from feelings I might not be able to face any other way.

Each one of my books is actually a thought which became an emotional wall. And, in a time that now seems more violent that ever before, in the wake a tragically violent event, I draw on my writing. 

My latest series is about violence.

My generation grew up steeped in violence. Global violence came through a speeding plane shattering a national icon when I was ten years old. It came through two young men on security cameras gunning down their peers when I was eight. It came through the next two decades of battles and shootings and gunmen and planes and memorials and bombs and sobbing witnesses and broken families and grieving nations. Looking at the world today, it's sometimes hard not to see the viciousness of war, a plague of hate, and, lately, a darkness that compels people to do terrible things to each other. 

I see these things and I think, “People are terrible creatures.” 

I see these things and I think, “The world is senseless madness.” 

And I wonder, what's the point of preserving a world like that?

Like everyone else, I look for a reason for it all. But there isn't one. And there never will be.

Catharsis is learning to accept that. And accept that it's okay to be angry. It's okay to be sad. 

 And that terrible things don't mean the world is shit and people are shit and everything's pointless. 

Writing takes us out of that negative spiral, puts visceral feelings into words, lets us feel these emotions through the shield of our characters, and allows us to create people that are stronger than ourselves.

 One of the first scenes I wrote was Aborgine, an abandoned ruin of a city stained in soot and blood, and the military experiments that an evil empire burned alive. And the three young scouts that stumble into a pit of human ash. The young woman and two young men don't cry or shiver—they bear their haunting thoughts with stern faces and continue to fight against tyranny.

The next scene became the first scene in the series; a decorated officer, a powerful warrior, loses his friends and bannermen in an assault on an enemy capital. Trudging through mud and bodies and rubble, he kills every man he sees and butchers the city leaders in a vengeful frenzy. He endures punishment for his savagery, carries his guilt wordlessly, and slowly realizes he can become a better man.

Writing can press the limits of imagination. It can take us somewhere else.  It can take our hate and our fear and our hopelessness and give us strength. 

Writing can take us to a war-torn plane cracked by hate and tyranny—and then rebuild it.

I Have Such Doubt!

So, I suffer from doubt. 

Doubt is an insidious thing, sort of like a cold that turns into pneumonia. Like a virus that infects your body, doubt will infect every part of your life if you let it.

Unlike an illness, doubt can disguise itself as comfort. It grows slowly over time, often without notice. Bringing out the worst in every situation, doubt convinces you to stay where it's safe, until your comfort zone becomes a comfort cage. You don't realize that the cold has become pneumonia; doubt has become fear. Afraid to make new friends, afraid to go new places, afraid to try new things, afraid to try for the things you really want.

Most of all, doubt was keeping me from doing what I loved; writing books. I would get halfway through a promising story and a great idea, then get uncertain about the ending. I didn't think anyone would like it as much as I did. When I did finish a story, I was unsure about every edit. If I did finish something, the real doubt sunk in. I was terrified of telling other people about it, much less trying to actively market or advertise the book.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was approaching everything with doubt, always wondering what could go wrong and all the reasons not to do something, instead of reasons to do it. However, there is a cure for doubt. Or, at least a treatment. I just try to take it one step at a time. 

1. Approach with confidence. Before writing out that difficult conflict, getting into the editing zone or going to a book event, remind yourself of the things you're good at to set a positive stage. Think about something you wrote that you're proud of, think of the effort you've put into learning editing and tell people about what you loved when you were writing the book. It's not enough to just think about it; you have to believe it.

2. Remember why you do what you do. Do you do it for fun? Do you want to express yourself? Do you have characters that are clawing their way out of your head (or is that just me?)? Focus on your purpose and not the goal to relieve the pressure.

3. What are you getting out of it? If doubt is all the reasons not to do something, optimism is every reason to do it; meet new people, challenge yourself, show the world what you've made—there's usually a lot of good reasons you wanted to do it in the first place.

4. Get some support. Bring friends along for moral and emotional support. Positive energy flows between positive people. 

5. Continuous effort. Don't let doubt win! Put a cap on that evil genii before he gets out of the bottle. Remember, there is no magic cure. It requires continuous effort, like everything that's truly important.  

Most importantly, mindset is key. No one can instill doubt in you, you have to let it in--and you can keep it out.

Writing Crap Boyfriends Into Sinister Villains

I’ve wasted so much time.

No, I’m not talking about writing books or even blogging. I’m talking about my pathetic, alcoholic ex-boyfriend, of course, who screwed with my mind like it was his new addiction. Another in a long line of the pathetic parasites that infest my dating life, really. However, though an irritating waste of my time that delayed the release of my next book, I realized as I was recovering from my angry warpath that this was a teachable moment. Shitheads help writers write villains. 

And the best villains are the people we love--that become the people we hate. 

Luckily, our artistic minds transform the petty screw-up boyfriends (or girlfriends. "She" works just as well with all of these) we hate into sinister, wretched villains everyone can hate.  Like…

  

The Seducer Vampire

He loves taking you out for dinner

The Seducer specializes in finding what his victim needs so he can take it away. Maybe sex, maybe security, money, maybe a shared interest or understanding. Masquerading as kindness, his victim is utterly taken with him. Until he uses her needs as a means of manipulation, ultimately taking it away so he can watch her suffer. The Seducer is a vampire posing as a magical lover, hypnotizing victims into his dungeon and slowly drinking them dead. He’s Dracula, Lestat, Kurt Barlow. 

The User Court Stooge

Swipe left on this one, ladies.

Ah, my favorite, evidently. The User is consumed by his own needs and feelings, which can never be met. An alcoholic or a drug addict or just a sloppy puppy that can barely feed itself without constant reassurances, the User gets what he wants by playing on his host’s guilt, pity or need to care for something weaker. His life is constantly in shambles and it’s always because of his “bad luck” or “ill fate.” In fiction, the User is the royal court’s manipulative cunt who kills princes with poison while bowing and scraping to the other royals he’ll never be. He’s Little Finger, Lord Belasco, Scar.

 The Abuser Evil Emperor

Likes: Torture, destruction, death.

Emotional, sexual or physical, the Abuser gets pleasure out of degrading and destroying the things he thinks he loves. He either can’t stand what a pathetic shit-sucker he is, or he thinks he’s the master of everything and should be treated as such (or sometimes both, oddly). The most stereotypical shitty partner is also the most stereotypical villain; the warlord sorcerer, the cyborg tyrant, the megalomaniac ninja pirate that wants world domination so can put his giant boot in the ashes. If he can’t own it, he’ll burn it to the ground trying. He’s Sauron, Voldemort, Emperor Palpatine. 

The Liar Sarlacc

Forget the Force, use protection, Luke!

The Liar is a Sarlacc pitfall trap covering his empty hole of a personality with pieces of whatever-you-want-to-hear. He will say, do, be and believe whatever you want (and go to great lengths to figure out what that is) to make you like him. Once you do, the trap falls in and he revels in either eating his victims alive or just watching them slowly die of deprivation. The Liar is less of a character and more of an unfortunate environmental side-effect or beast, though no less dangerous or poisonous. He’s Sarlacc, a Graboid, whatever you want to call the ass-infesting aliens from Dreamcatcher.

The Complete Bag of Shit Monster

Not sure what he's made of, but I know it's shitty.

There’s just no poetic title for this one. A little bit of everything, he’s an oily goo of a terrible person. He’s pathetic and manipulative, full of wrath and lies, a sociopath who knows how to use every one of his victim’s personality traits to his advantage. Most of the time, he doesn’t even know what he is and he wakes up with a new awful personality every morning, like a Wonderball of horror. He’s also a protagonist’s worst nightmare. He’s the shape-shifting shadow monster, the smokey embodiment of evil, the atrocious slime that gets into everything an no one knows how to kill. He’s the Babadook, Hexxus, the Blob, the Nightmare King.

Now that I’ve identified yet another crap-worthless boyfriend, I can get back to what I really love, writing. Book 3: Battle at Bridgetown is finished and will be on Amazon this weekend! Very excited.

Have I missed a shitty partner archetype? Let me know. I’d be happy to include one you may be overly familiar with.

It's (NOT!) A Mask Fetish

I have a thing about masks.

Oh yeah.

We'll say a fascination with masks, to avoid another certain icky word (. . . fetish? Who said that?!)

Masks have many interesting implications; mystery, danger, fear. They're also timeless; masks have been used for thousands of years. Since I know I'm not the only one fascinated with masks it's important to ask, Why are masks so interesting? (Of course, none of this has anything to do with the fact that I simply want to look at men in masks . . . )

The Obvious: Anonymity

(The Town) Better masks than old nuns, imo

Ski masks, bandannas and balaclavas have long been used as a criminal guise, to hide the perpetrator's identity and evade capture. Real crimes and the real purpose of masks then slunk easily into fiction, capturing our fear and, possibly, our thirst for adventure. They cover everyone from Old West train robbers to bank robbers to home invaders. Real crimes are terrible, so why reenact this criminal signature in fiction? What is the allure? Surely for authenticity, but why else? Because train robbers, bank robbers and burglars represent a radical snap in an everyday routine, a dangerous situation, an powder keg ready to blow, all sparked by a view of the first masked criminal. And that's exciting.

Another Obvious: Cover Up

(Kingdom of Heaven) The Leper King

Hiding a wearer's face doesn't exclusively mean they're hiding a crime, sometimes they're just hiding their face. A famous case was depicted in the movie Kingdom of Heaven in The Leper King, who was a real person, King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem in the 1100's, though it's uncertain whether he really wore a mask or not. Many other characters have used masks to hide injuries or disfigurements: V (V for Vendetta) who was badly burned or the Phantom (Phantom of the Opera) who was born disfigured. What is the allure in covering ugliness? Because it's not ugliness they're covering, it's weakness. By putting on the mask and covering their physical weakness, they become greater, stronger even than a normal person with a normal human face. V says it best, “Behind this mask there is more than just flesh.Beneath this mask there is an idea . . . and ideas are bulletproof.”

He's more samurai than man.

A Little Bit of Both: Fear

A masked criminal is a fearful sight because he's prepared and committed to do something bad. But it's more than that. If the mask covers up weakness and turns the wearer into something “more than just flesh” what does it turn him into? For V, an idea, an icon. For, say, Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre)? Or Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13^th)? Something beyond human and therefore something without restraint, remorse or conflict, like an animal, a demon or, that word that we crave for our greatest villains, a monster. This tactic was used in real life long before Leatherface or Jason; Mempo Samurai masks, which mimicked folkloric demons or goblins, lent the eminence of death to great warriors (you might recognize traits of the Mempo mask in another very popular modern mask . . .?)

Though these are not the only reasons behind wearing masks (conformity, cultural significance, religious meaning, prestige etc.) I think they're the most primal of the bunch. Being fascinated by masks, of course I created a badass in a mask; Zensor. Zensor embodies all three of these masked concepts. “When the Jo-Ki take the mask,” Zensor explains, “they forsake their identity. The mask shelters their blame. Their crimes.”

Not just him, all the covers have masks!