Creating Characters

by Lauther, Howard

  While most turning points in the background of a character may have been imperceptible when they first occurred, only through the binoculars of hindsight—or through the information the author surreptitiously passes on to the reader or viewer—does it become clear that a life has been redirected, for better or for worse.

  WORK

  What kinds of jobs has the character had, or has he held just one for many years? Has his employment been in the same general discipline, or in a variety of fields? Did he like any of his past jobs? Hate any of them? Have his past jobs placed little demand on his true capabilities, or has at least one of them required more than he is able to give? Has he ever been fired? Laid Been part of a labor strike? Has there been a job that he wanted badly, but didn't get?

  Has he always dreamed of having his own business someday? If the character has been self-employed in the past, what kind of business did he run? Did he like it or dislike it? Was it successful or unsuccessful? Did something happen to cause him to lose it? Did he start the business from scratch? Inherit it? Invest in a partnership? How many people did he employ, if any? Who were his competitors? What was his worst experience? What was his best?

  Has the character always enjoyed working (perhaps even been called a workaholic), or has he always lived for weekends, vacations, and holidays? Does he just do what is expected of him and no more, or does he get involved in extra things while on the job?

  Did he ever have a boss whom he greatly respected or disrespected? Did he ever have a conflict with a co-worker or an employee? If so, what was it about and what were the repercussions?

  What has he learned from his jobs that can be seen as valuable? In his mind, of what has he been deprived during his years of employment?

  (For more on jobs, see Chapter 12.)

  9. What Is the Character's Self-Assessment?

  While busily instilling internal and external traits, fears, desires, strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes into a character, perhaps the author may want to step back for a moment and let the character have a say. Doing so may provide some extra insight.

  Suppose a character proclaims, the sole decision-maker in this company. All I do is give it to the legal department for their review." Such a claim suggests that the character may be indulging in a bit of self-deception, for if he was truly the only decision-maker he wouldn't let any legal experts crimp his style. Embedded in that statement might also be such traits as caution, reliance, and pomposity—any of which the writer may use to full advantage as he develops his character.

  Sometimes you can present and destroy a character's self-assessment in a single sentence. Example:

  Jack Smart prided himself on his ability to make quick, independent decisions—each of which came layered with countless coffee-drenched committee meetings attended by those who, like miners, labored in the lower echelon of management with only their computer screens providing them light.

  Characters often weigh the sum of their own parts at some point, and the conclusions they draw become their self-assessments. And if the characters don't say it, they will often think it. For example:

  "Look, I'm the breadwinner in this family, and don't you forget it!" Joe reminded them.

  I've been a hermit while drowning in a sea of people, thought Herman.

  "Oh God, I'm such a loser," Franklin moaned.

  "I'm your door-opener. I hold the keys to your future success," said Billy Joe softly.

  "I'm a lucky guy. Always have been," smiled Fred. Now, while it may not be necessary for the character to actually utter or think his self-assessment during the story, it may indeed help the writer to know what his character would say if the occasion demanded it. The manner in which a character might quickly define himself could have a great bearing on what he does, or how he thinks, as the plot unfolds. Such miniature self-assessments may be right on target, or they could suggest, as I have mentioned before, that the character is engaging in self-delusion. In the latter case, the writer is obligated to discreetly inform his or her audience of the truth.

  A self-assessment that is way off the mark can be the basis for comedy or tragedy, or for both. For example, let's say part of a male character's self-assessment is that he is a great lover. Now, the author can set up some wonderful comic scenes in which a rude, grossly overweight, beer-swigging Casanova is always left empty-handed, cursing the insensitivity of women who have fled for their lives. But in a tragic turn, his true-blue wife of over 30 years may die of cancer near the end of the story, leaving this "great lover" as helpless as a beached whale.

  Besides self-deception, a character's self-assessment may reflect, for example, self-admiration, self-loathing, self-importance, self-congratulation, self-reliance, self-accusation, self-pity, or perhaps self-righteousness.

  The categories that follow may permit one or more of your characters to provide a self-assessment. Many categories contain actual quotes; some have sample assessments that have been devised for that category. There are, of course, no limitations on how many may be selected.

  ACTION

  What might the character say about himself that would tell us about his need to engage in physical or mental activity, or his aversion to it? Regarding action, a character's self-assessment may reflect his commitment to doing things rather than talking about them, or perhaps his general passiveness and possibly his willingness to talk things to death. The character might paraphrase a statement made by Eleanor Roosevelt: "I must do things I think I cannot do."

  ADVERSITY

  Before a character will be able to make a statement about adversity in his life, he will have to have experienced hard times. In 1977, Don Grant was quoted in the New York Times: "I'm like an old tin can in an alley. Anyone who walks by can't resist kicking it." Or maybe your character shows fortitude, and would say something like, "I've never run from trouble." A self-assessment might show how the character has handled either long, well-entrenched misfortune or the sudden appearance of short-term trouble. When adversity has appeared, has the character been a problem-solver? Has he panicked? Become a worrywart? Or has he waited until the misery has passed?

  BEAUTY

  The character who provides a self-assessment regarding physical beauty will more than likely fall into one of three camps: (1) beauty is present;

  (2) beauty has vanished, but the memory hasn't; (3) beauty has never been present. If the character has never had physical beauty, does the self-assessment reflect displeasure, resignation, humor? Or perhaps speculation about what it would be like to be beautiful? In the latter instance, a character might say, "Just once, I'd like to know what it feels like to be in a room and know that men are stealing glances at me." On the other hand, maybe the character's definition of beauty goes beyond the exterior. Dwight D. Eisenhower made the following assessment in a 1943 letter to his wife: "Decency-generosity assistance in trouble ... these are the things that [I find] of greater value

  CHANGE

  A character's comments on his reaction to change may tell us a great deal about him. If he reveals that he does not adapt well to change, an author may want to put changes in his path and, in the process, stir things up a bit—test the character's spirit and flexibility in full view of all the rest of us. Another character may well acknowledge that taking advantage of change in his earlier days helped to make him very wealthy, and yet he may admit that the more successful he has become, the more conservative he has turned out to be. Still another character might say, "The only time I get an itch to change something is when things aren't going well." A self-assessing statement may mirror the character's fear of those shocks that naturally inhabit new systems, new trends, and the abandonment of old principles.

  CHILDREN

  If the character dislikes children, will he admit it? If the character has children, how does he assess himself as a parent? The character who provides a self-assessment that uses his own children as the topic may speak of his success or failure in parenting, or the wisdom of using or not
using discipline, or the pleasures or tortures of educating them (which may include the first day of school and the last), or the favoring of one child over another, or the continuous effort expended to look good in their eyes.

  COURAGE

  The character who makes an assessment of his own courage need not have displayed courage to any degree. In fact, he could say, "I've spent the greater part of my adult life being fearful of saying something that others would feel is inappropriate and afraid of doing something that may be seen as being contrary to the actions of the crowd." Lyndon Johnson said, "I'd rather give my life than be afraid to give it"; but if he was never in a position where he had to prove it, was he wrapping himself in a kind of self-romanticism?

  If a character is embarrassed by his own obvious display of courage, self-assessment will be of little use; the writer will have to depend on someone else to do the talking.

  DUTY

  For a character to say anything meaningful about the obligations he feels, his moral code will doubtlessly have to be more pronounced than someone who simply says, "I've never missed a day's work in my life," because that same character may spend his nights in a bar, drinking beer with the boys, while his wife and kids are at home alone. Unless the character is indulging himself in self-delusion, a statement about duty will only take on meaning when the audience hears something like, "I can't say 'no' to my friends." Or: didn't go to war because we wanted to, but because our country needed us." The character may express a duty to himself, if not to others. Whether he has fulfilled an obligation or simply acknowledges that he has such an obligation and expresses his commitment, it is the stuff of which duty is made.

  EDUCATION

  If a character says something about his education, will he stress the importance of the knowledge he gained in the classroom, or outside of it? For example, if he is a businessman whose education has been gained through the school of knocks," will he still regret not getting a college diploma even though he has made a lot of money without it? How might the character define an ignorant or an educated person? What importance has the art of listening played in his life? The character, who might be a teacher, an industrialist, a scientist, or a journalist, might say, I've always tried to do is get people to think." Or the entrepreneur who has long since left the classroom could say, "I have learned not to shoot down an idea during its maiden flight."

  EXPECTATIONS

  Our skills and our intelligence often cause other people to expect us to meet certain standards, simply because they know we are capable. Likewise, some of us recognize our own abilities and place goals at some distance from ourselves, with full intention of reaching them. In the high-jump it would be called "raising the bar." In truth, a great many of us either do not meet the standards expected of us, or we fall short of reaching our own objectives. In that situation, a fictional character's self-assessment may range from embarrassment to accusing others for his failure. If, on the other hand, he achieved something that surpassed everyone's expectations, that character might say, somewhat gleefully, "I did it, and proved all those S.O.B.s wrong." But if so far he hasn't been successful, the self-doubting character could say, "Maybe I set my goals too high."

  FAILURE

  Unless the character has failed at least once in his life, a self-evaluating comment on the subject seems unlikely, though certainly not out of the realm of possibility. The self-deluding character who looks only at his successes might say, "I've never failed at anything." For that person who learned from his mistakes: "Each of my failures served as the bedrock of my later success." But a comment from a self-pitying character might be, "Everything I touch turns to dust." What does it say about the fictional character who admits that he has failed? Or the one who denies it? If he will not accept the blame for his flops, upon whose head will he place it?

  FAME

  A character who has never wanted fame may say so. A character who wanted fame and didn't get it may blame himself. But the character who has had fame may complain that it has made him unhappy in some way, for example: "I can't go anywhere or do anything without some photographer sticking a camera in my face." In a 1979 TV Guide interview, Howard Cosell complained, "I have been called a company pimp, a prostitute, and a man with no trace of decency or morality. I have been vilified by people I have never seen." Or take the character who once had fame, but doesn't any longer: "The road to the top was hard and exhilarating; the road down has been quick and humiliating." A self-assessment may take on meaning for a fictional character if fame, for example, magnifies his vanity, disturbs his privacy, undermines his freedom, intensifies his loneliness, increases his hostility, amplifies his greed, or has jilted him for another.

  FREEDOM

  The character who delivers a self-assessment about his own personal freedom need not frame it in terms of a constitutional right. The character could simply be a henpecked husband or an abused wife, either of whom may desire freedom and yet be frightened by the unknown: "Every time I think about leaving, I don't know where to go." The cloistered monk could experience an invigorating freedom within a very small room ("The silence transports me"). Someone who has been denied freedom all his life might say, "Just once, I'd like to know what true freedom really feels like." If a character should evaluate his life in terms of the freedom he enjoys or doesn't have, no matter what field of endeavor he might be in, among the things he might address could be the freedom to speak ("I watch what I say because it could get back to the boss"), or the freedom to think differently ('(I joined the Republican party because that's what my family expected").

  FRIENDSHIP

  When someone says, "Oh, I've made tons and tons of friends in my life," we put it in the box marked Exaggeration. Wisdom eventually allows us to differentiate between friends and acquaintances, and thus we tend to place a lot more trust in the individual who says, "I have one good friend. I think." In his book The Fabulous Democrats, David Cohn quoted President Warren G. Harding's self-assessment about his relationship with his friends: "I have no trouble with my enemies. But my goddamn friends ... they are the ones that keep me walking the floor nights." A character who assesses his friendships may deceive himself, or display as much caution as a poker player trying to draw to an inside straight, or be vitriolic. Whatever he says, it will tell us something about him and the people with whom he associates.

  HAPPINESS

  A self-assessment on the subject of happiness is tricky. The biggest problem is that happiness can be so transitory and deceptive. Give someone too much of a good thing and he becomes bored and unhappy. If happiness was a mountain range, many of us would probably feel that we spend a good part of the time in the valley. A fictional character who is asked to make a pronouncement about his own personal happiness may first question what is meant by the word "happiness." Then, weighing the good times against the bad—not to mention all those in-between times—the character may wind up saying, "Well, I'm not unhappy, if that's what you mean." Just like the rest of us, fictional characters—except for those times when love has screwed their heads on silly or when good fortune springs out of the dark and kisses them on the cheek—will usually be at a crossroads, hoping that if they turn left, right, or go straight ahead that things will be better than what they have experienced so far. Only the truly miserable are likely to give a solid, definitive answer.

  HEALTH

  The character who says, "All my days have been a succession of aches, pains, sneezes, coughs, acid indigestion, and blurred vision," gives us better self-assessment than the character who merely says, "Lately I get tired just bringing the fork to my mouth." A character's appraisal of his own health would be especially advantageous to the writer who wants to make that character's physical condition an integral part of the plot. With luck, that writer would wind up with something as deliciously comic as the hypochondriac in the last play Moliere ever wrote, The Imaginary Invalid. But how a character feels about the state of his health or what he says about the trends it has taken i
n his own family could dictate how he conducts his life. For example: "Heart disease runs in my family on my mother's side. And if the pattern holds, I'll never see 40."

  HOME

  What does "home" mean to the character? Is it a town, a neighborhood, a street, a house—or the people who either live or once lived in that house? Said Senator George McGovern of his hometown: "I still love to go back to Mitchell and wander up and down those streets. It just kind of reassures me again that there is a place that I know thoroughly, where the roots are deep" (Life, 1972). Has the character ever had a place that he could call home? Has he always felt like a stranger regardless of where he has lived and how long he was there? If a character owns a IS-room mansion, what part of it, if any, is really home? When a character provides a self-assessment about home, does his idealism, regret, or confusion about it get in the way? Or does it conjure images of coziness, or wearing what he likes, or the comfort that comes with intense familiarity?