Personal Trait
Want to create a memorable character? Highlight his most unusual personal trait. Maybe he has scabs on his hands that won’t heal, or he has white-blonde hair unlike any you’ve ever seen. Perhaps he plays the violin left-handed or clicks his teeth together when he’s excited. Maybe he only smiles with half of his face, or he smells like lavender, even on the ball field after a long game.
In essay writing, the writer is the narrator of a true story, which makes it difficult to remember to look at yourself. Take a moment for inventory. What are the most memorable things about you? They can be physical traits or social tics. Do you have a wandering eye, making it difficult for people to maintain a conversation with you? Do you play air drums while you drive? Do you sweat during tense moments or conflicts? Do you forget people’s names? Do you have a strong handshake? Do people always say they love your accent?
When you’re writing fiction, try to find the most unique character trait to highlight, and then match it to a personality. Example: Give a shy woman the prominent trait of looking up to the sky when someone is talking to her. Normally, shy people avoid eye contact, so this feels authentic, but the added detail is unusual enough for your readers to remember. They’ll know she’s shy, but they’ll also be wondering why she looks up. And you, the writer, get to decide the reason, adding another layer to your story. Perhaps she’s religious or thinks there are messages waiting for her in the clouds. The reasoning can appear in your story once you’ve provided the unusual detail.
Desire
We talked about character goals in the scene section, and we need to talk about goals again here. Your characters, whether fictional or real, all want something. A character’s desire is the reason for his actions. In short prose, readers need to see the people as believable, and one way to show authenticity is to reveal their ambitions. Characters—like people—have wants and desires.
What the heck do your characters really want, though? What do they want in the short term, and what do they want in their hearts? Are they hiding a secret? Trying to persuade someone? Seduce someone? Get out of a speeding ticket?
Say you’re writing an essay about the time that you went to the movies with your father and his car was stolen from the parking lot. When you got out to the parking lot with your father, you might have been shocked by your father’s words. Maybe he was fine but swore because the thief ruined your after-movie plans. Any and every detail should be driven by some deep need. Maybe your need to feel secure was shattered, or maybe you needed a shopping trip with your father for a specific purpose. Either one works. For added effect, consider showing opposing desires.
Hurdle
What is keeping your main character from her goals? There are physical hurdles (ex: age, money, other people, a disability) and emotional ones (ex: a breakup, the loss of a pet). Maybe she tries to talk to someone, and he ignores her. Maybe your character wants to go hiking but sees a diamondback snake at the trailhead. Maybe she is on a plane that has just run out of fuel. All of these hurdles can be compelling, but hurdles that she puts in front of herself can reveal character. Self-sabotage tells us volumes about the saboteur. For example: A character who drinks too much the night before an important meeting is setting herself up for a consequence. Maybe she hates her job and wants to be fired so that she can restart her music career, or maybe she wants to prove to herself that she’s still young enough to keep up an all-night pace the way she did when she was as young as the latest crop of new hires.
“Where do you find characters? Everywhere! They show up in newspaper stories, at the supermarket, from a snippet in an overheard conversation. Often they arise out of intriguing alchemical combinations. It’s when you take the way your grandma so delicately slipped on her white gloves, wriggling her fingers like small white worms to get them to fit just so, and your lingering regret about not going to drama school and pour [all] this into a 72-year-old woman who enrolls in a three-day introductory course for magicians in Las Vegas. Give her an unmet need or a fear that governs her life, and there you have it—a character who will inevitably lead you into a story.”
—LISA FUGARD
TEN TIPS FOR CREATING A FULLY-FORMED CHARACTER
Reveal the physical traits of your character—gender, age, and body type—and then zero in on the most interesting detail. Maybe he has gray eyes that remind you of a wolf. Perhaps he has an old-fashioned handlebar mustache or a scar across his nose.
Every person has a history. If she grew up in a town with an unusual name, say so. If she grew up in poverty or great wealth, mention that, too. Details add to the reader’s overall impression of this person.
Think about this person’s family. Is she an only child? One of seven? Does she still talk to her parents? These details shape a person’s attitude toward others.
What is this person’s occupation, and how does he feel about it? Is he living his dream job, or does he wish he’d traveled another path in life?
Religion matters in your characterization if it matters to your story. If you’re going to point out that the woman at the doctor’s office is wearing a cross, you’ll also need to let your readers know how you feel about that. Present your main character’s own religious attitude as she observes this woman.
Politics, like religion, matters in your characterizations if it matters to your story. If you’re going to designate someone as a Democrat or a Republican or anything else, you’ll need to add an attitude toward that distinction.
Some people have habits that make them distinct. Think about your characters. Do they bite their nails, chew their lips, or twist their hair? If you’re working with fictional people, consider taking these habits further. Maybe he bites his cuticles, scratches the corner of his mouth until it bleeds, or chews on the ends of his hair?
Think about who this person loves more than anyone else. Is it a spouse? A child? The woman across the street? Is their love mutual or one-sided?
Everyone has a big dream. What one thing does your character wish would happen in his life? Does he want to be rich or famous? Does he want to find his birth mother? Does he want to be vindicated for some wrong from the past?
Everyone has a secret. Your characters all have some seeds of hidden knowledge they keep close to their hearts. Maybe they keep it a secret so that someone else won’t get hurt, or maybe they don’t want to lose others’ love and respect. Knowing your characters’ biggest secrets can help you illuminate their motives.
CHARACTER EXERCISE: A BUBBLE MAP OF CHARACTER DETAILS
Thinking of a one-dimensional persona is easy: the doctor with poor handwriting, the muscle-bound fireman, the science teacher with thick glasses. Each of these stock characters has the potential to become an interesting lead, with some work. It’s all a matter of closer examination.
For this exercise, you’ll be creating a bubble map of interesting traits that one of these characters might have, traits that would pull him out of the ordinary and brand him as an original. First, write the word doctor or fireman or teacher in the middle of a page, and draw a circle around it. Then draw five spokes coming off of the circle. At the end of each spoke, give the character a new detail. For instance: fisherman, snappy dresser, eats mints all day, divorced, too thin.
Now circle each of those new details, and draw five more spokes. At the end of each spoke, write specific information about this trait. Maybe he is a world-class bass fisherman, or perhaps he still goes fishing with his father every year. He might be too thin because he’s ill, but he could also be too thin because he’s haunted by something his ex-wife said about his stomach. Write it all down. When you’re done, select the most illuminating details to include in your work.
I’ve included an example of this exercise.
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POINT OF VIEW
Choosing the right point of view is one of the most technical decisions you make as a writer, especially when writing short prose. POV determines whose eyes the reader experiences the
story through (that person is called the viewpoint character). It’s a key choice since different POVs can bring different elements to your prose. Pick a POV strategy that allows you to convey your theme in the shortest amount of space.
When writing an essay, you’ll write in first-person POV, unless you decide to fictionalize your true story.
That’s right; you have a choice of POV even when you’re writing a true story.
How? Consider this: We’ve all had powerful, true moments of change happen in our lives. These authentic moments can be terrific material for a personal essay, but they can also be great inspiration for a short story.
But why would you ever want to fictionalize one of your true stories?
Because sometimes it’s difficult to write about painful events. Fictionalizing your truth can give you a safe distance to explore what happened. Sometimes you might want to hide the fact that you’re telling this true event because other people are involved; sometimes you want to hide the true event from people you know.
Whatever your reason, be assured that those moments you’ve actually lived through will bring authentic emotions to fictional prose, too. When you want to take a true story from your life and retell it as fiction, all you need to do is rethink your POV choice.
AVAILABLE POV OPTIONS
The most common POVs in short stories and essays are first person and third person, but second-person storytelling is an option as well.
FIRST-PERSON POV: A story written in the first person is told with I, me, mine pronouns. This POV is effective in giving a sense of closeness to the character because readers experience the story directly through the narrator’s eyes. With this type of storytelling, it can be easy to get the reader to identify and sympathize with your main character. It can feel as if the narrator is speaking directly to the reader, sharing something intimate and private.
Consider this: You have a story about a shy woman who travels to Bangladesh for the first time—alone. With first-person POV, you can place the reader in her head—seeing what she sees, feeling what she feels, smelling what she smells.
The main character in these stories can only witness scenes in which he is physically present, though, so you are limited to telling your story through this narrow perspective. If the main character doesn’t know something, your reader can’t either.
Example of first-person POV:
The sun-warmed sand beneath my feet felt exotic and indulgent. It seemed impossible that seven days ago I was standing at a car dealership in Ohio watching my husband kiss Janice Letz.
SECOND-PERSON POV: Second person is told from the perspective of you and your. Think of an instruction manual telling you the steps you need to follow to finish a project. This POV is rare in storytelling because it is difficult to pull off successfully. Short stories and essays need to include a narrative arc, and this type of POV makes that tough to accomplish. Second-person storytelling is most often seen in experimental short pieces where the writer has intentionally mimicked an informational brochure in order to convey her story and theme.
Example of second-person POV:
You should ask yourself a few questions before beginning this journey. For starters, why are you willing to travel to a dangerous region, and do you fully understand the consequences of your choice to leave America?
THIRD-PERSON POV: Third person is told from the perspective of a narrator who is not involved in the story. This is the most commonly used POV in fiction. All characters are referred to as he and she when writing in third person. Depending on the type of third-person POV you choose, your narrator might know the thoughts and feelings of all of your characters or only one of them.
Two common options for writing in third person are third-person limited and third-person omniscient. Let’s take a closer look at these options.
THIRD-PERSON-LIMITED POV: “Limited” means that the narrator only knows the thoughts and feelings of one character at a time. The advantage of using this POV is that it gives you a little more freedom to share information than you have in first-person POV, while still maintaining a tight focus. The reader gets to filter the events of the story through this one character’s motivations and desires while hearing the narrator’s voice. The caveat: Readers can only see the story through this one person’s perspective. Here’s an example of third-person-limited POV: John pulled into his empty driveway and cut the engine. Lenora’s car was gone, even though she’d just texted him a rant about how he was never home when she needed him. It had been like this for months, her picking fights that didn’t make sense. John opened the briefcase on his passenger seat and pulled out the Henderson file. He looked up the number for Lenora’s first husband.
THIRD-PERSON-OMNISCIENT POV: In omniscient stories, the narrator knows all of the thoughts and opinions of every single character but maintains a God-like distance along the way. The narrator knows things that others don’t and makes comments about what’s happening during the scene. Here’s an example of third-person-omniscient POV: Five days ago the three Clover brothers entered the Radcliffe building and paid the balance due to Federal Bank, which is how they came to own all thirty-two floors of downtown office space.
DISTANCE
Distance refers to how close the narrator is to the action, and it’s something savvy writers navigate with purpose. Let’s pretend that you have a motion-picture camera in your hands. You can zoom in and out anytime you’d like. You can show the most intimate detail on a woman’s coat or show a flyover moment from a jet above the plains of Kansas.
You can adjust your focus exactly the same way in your prose. Zoom in close when you want intimacy. Show specific details. When you want to give the reader some distance, create a broader view and show the bigger environment.
Example:
Monsoon rains pummeled the local mountain. A blond woman sat in her car near the entrance to the hiking trail. (very distant)
Elizabeth Valentine looked at the mountain from the front seat of her car. She hated rain. (closer)
Liz stubbed out her cigarette and cursed her ex-husband. He’d warned her about visiting Sedona during the monsoon season. Right again. The prick. (closest)
ONE MORE DECISION TO MAKE
Whichever point of view you decide to use, you’ll also need to choose between past and present tense. Past tense is the most invisible and unobtrusive tense to write in, but present tense has an immediacy that can’t be denied. The tense you choose should be the one that feels right for your story.
Example of past tense:
Before my mother’s Saturday hair appointments, she dropped me off at Grammy’s house. Grammy taught me how to play poker and bake pies during those long afternoons, and she gave me my first sip of gin.
Example of present tense:
My shoes squeak on the floor of Grammy’s kitchen while we work. She hands me the rolling pin, and I hesitate before taking it. I’m not supposed to know more about baking than my mother, but I think I already do.
TEN TIPS TO GETTING THE MOST FROM YOUR POV
When using the first-person POV, many of your sentences will begin with I, but not all of them should. Find clever ways to reword things so that your page has a variety of sentence openings.
Make sure your viewpoint character has a voice readers enjoy. She’ll be narrating the action, so let her personality shine through.
Your viewpoint character is the only eye readers can see your story through. You can’t reveal any details that he doesn’t know.
In any POV, you—the writer—should disappear into the background. Readers shouldn’t notice you at all.
Keep your POV consistent throughout the story.
Consider the age and education of your viewpoint character, and select words and images appropriate for her vocabulary.
Narrators can be reliable or unreliable, depending on what you hope to achieve.
Narrators can give their opinions on things. In fact, they should.
Usually a narrator tells the
story to “the reader,” but sometimes the narrator addresses a specific person. That can give you an essay or story that feels like it’s spoken rather then written, which can be a powerful way to convey your theme.
The POV you choose should be the one that will hold your readers’ attention the best. You might need to experiment with your piece in a few different POVs before you hit the right note.
POV EXERCISE: FIRST-PERSON VS. THIRD-PERSON STORIES
A great way to practice the most common POVs—first person and third person—is to try them both with the same idea. In this exercise, you’ll write a true story first and then rewrite it in third person.
First, choose a defining moment from your life—maybe your first kiss or your first day as a nursing intern. Anything that elicits an emotional response will do.
Write a two-page essay about this event, telling the absolute truth. Use first-person POV throughout the essay.
Next, take that same event and begin again. This time, use third-person POV. Use the pronouns he, she, and them. Let yourself wander away from the truth as you write the story. Give yourself a bit of emotional distance from the truth, too. Choose a different viewpoint. Let yourself write anything new that comes to you about this event. Maybe you will write a happier ending, or maybe you will change the lesson you learned. Perhaps you will let the whole thing happen in a completely different country. When you’ve finished your second piece, compare it to the first. Which version is more interesting to read? You’ve probably let yourself relax into one of these versions more than the other. Choose the one with the most risk on the page. That’s the one you should revise for publication.
Writing & Selling Short Stories & Personal Essays Page 8
