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Second
That Emotion
By
Joel Phelps
One
trait all humans share is our ability to feel, to have an emotional
response to either internal or external stimuli. In order to create
realistic, relatable characters, you have to duplicate that trait
in them.
Determining
this trait will give you the clue to what I call a character's
emotional core -- the vital essence that motivates his
or her every action, consciously or subconsciously. This core
also plays a major role in the way in which audience members perceive
your character.
That's a lot of pressure to put on a writer anxious to create
a memorable, fascinating but fictional human being. So where to
begin?
A
good opening move is to ask yourself, what is important to
your character? What does she want more than anything else?
Why does she want it? To what lengths will she go to obtain it?
The answers you choose and the way you present them to the readers
will largely determine the degree to which your readers will be
able to empathize with the character.
As
an example, let's look at a character we'll call "Karen." While
deciding the character's goals, we give her the trait of
caring most about finding romantic love. The desire for human
companionship is readily understandable to almost everyone, meaning
Karen could very well be a character with whom the readers could
empathize.
Next
we'd try our hand at determining the reason(s) behind this
goal...understanding why Karen wants to find romantic
love, why that has become the most important thing to her. Doing
so means developing a history of Karen's life.
What
past event(s) have led her to desiring this more than anything
else? The possibilities are endless, but could include the following:
- Her
favorite aunt died without having married, and confided to Karen
that growing old alone was the worst thing that could happen
to a person. Or...
- She's
the only one of her friends who's not married and she feels
left out. Or...
- She
was once in a relationship that ended badly and she's hoping
the second time is the charm.
Each
possibility not only offers a different reason for Karen's feelings,
it adds the benefit of provoking a different response in the reader.
So you should start deciding how you want your audience to
respond towards your character. They might surprise you--in
fact, they probably will--but you can still try to shape their
reactions in different ways.
For
example, selecting the first hypothetical rationale for Karen's
need for love (the single aunt theory) means Karen's primary desire
is fueled by fear; the second option (no other single friends),
envy; the third option (bad prior luck), optimism.
Let's
assume we want Karen to remain a likable character and we choose
the third option, believing optimisim to be an admirable trait.
Our next step is to determining to what lengths your character
will go to obtain what she wants.
This
step is very closely tied to the previous one, in which we asked
why Karen wanted what she did. Since we've decided Karen had a
bad experience but has since recovered enough to want to try again,
it's unlikely that she, having previously been emotionally wounded,
would willingly inflict the same type of damage upon another person.
So it's safe to reason that Karen would stop short of intentionally
inflicting that same type of pain upon another person in order
to reach her goal.
By
answering these questions, we've accomplished several things.
We've given Karen ...
- a
goal, which translates into a storyline;
- a
rationale for wanting to accomplish her goal, which serves
the dual purpose of making her emotionally accessible to the
reader; and
- a
moral code by which she'll act as she tries to reach
her goal.
Though
greatly simplified here, this method of creating characters can
be extremely useful. It ensures that your characters have a storyline,
a motivating factor behind their actions, and a code of ethics
by which to act (and for you to test as you advance your plot).
As
your characters either accomplish or are denied their goals, the
answers to each of the questions can and will change, but keeping
the new answers in mind should enable you to follow new directions
for your characters and allow the readers to follow their evolution.
Please
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in the poll to your left. Thank you!
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