4 Ways To Write Dynamic Character Descriptions

September 18, 2018 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 1 Comment

Last week, I shared about describing minor characters and how we shouldn’t let these opportunities pass us by. This week, I wanted to dive deep into how our protagonists (and antagonists) describe themselves. This often trips up new writers and offers particular challenges if you’ve chosen to write your whole novel in deep point of view.

Avoid The Obvious

I’ll begin by restating a point I made last week that you need to avoid the obvious unless there’s something remarkable about it. Everyone has two eyes, a nose, two ears, a chin, hair, etc. If there’s something about one of those features that shows readers either something about the character being described or the one doing the describing, then that’s fine. Otherwise, you might not need to tell readers things they already assume to be true.

Avoid Cliche

The protagonist who looks in the mirror and catalogues their appearance is a bit tired. Same with the character who walks past a mirror or store front window and notes their appearance. Unless this character is often checking themselves out, this has become cliche.

Particularly in deep point of view, one common violation is the protagonist who touches their curly red hair. Who thinks that to themselves? I sure don’t. I might push the hair out of my face and think – ugh, I need a hat. I am not going to think: my unruly and frizzy black hair is driving me crazy. There may be an argument to be made for someone choosing an outfit and holding up dresses in front of herself in a mirror, but even then, they’re not going to think: which outfit highlights my hourglass shape and full-figured bosom?

Remember, the character is telling the story–you aren’t. What would the character think? What does the character see?

What Does Your Character See?

This leads to my next point. There are many occassions that we look into a mirror to examine a particular part of our face or figures. We might focus on the pimple on our chin or study our neck to see if the cat’s claws left a mark. This is fine if it serves the story, but avoid the temptation to have the protagonist catalogue their appearance while they’re in front of the mirror.

What does the character see? What do they focus on or zero in on? People who aren’t particularly self-confident will avoid looking at particular parts of their body. They go to great pains to only look the parts of themselves they like. What don’t they notice? What do they continuously overlook? And what does that show readers?

Examples

In Adrienne Young’s Sky In The Deep, the main character Eelyn never describes herself or her appearance. Instead, we get a sense of what she looks like, what fashions she wears, by the way she notices her partner’s hair, expressions and clothing. Her fighting partner, Myra wears her long hair in long braids, keeps the hair on one side of her head shorn (brush cut) to the scalp. Eelyn adjusts Myra’s armour and so on, so readers understand what Eelyn’s wearing by how she notes problems or adjusts Myra’s clothing and vice versa.

We get a sense of what Eelyn sees as normal when she is kidnapped by another people group and all she can see are the differences and how foreign they look to her. Readers have no problem understanding the dress, culture or appearance of the characters though the author doesn’t tell us what she’s wearing or how she wears her hair directly appart from where it differs from what’s normal to her.

In Claire Douglas’ Local Girl Missing, we’re not told what the two main characters look like. We see them through the eyes of the other twenty years apart. This novel had a unique construction in that one character tells her story in the present and the other character tells her story through a journal twenty years in the past. It’s interesting to see what has and hasn’t changed, which fits a small-town setting quite well.

What Stands Out Or Isn’t Normal For Your Point Of View Character?

If your character is tall, does she notice the one man she doesn’t have to look down on? That could be one way to show readers she’s very tall for a woman in her society.

A character with blue eyes, who feels those blue eyes are her best feature, may spend time only choosing tops that complement or bring out the blue in her eyes.

There are innumerable workarounds for this. But don’t stop there. Dive deeper into character. Physical beauty is often in the eye of the beholder. One man sees a scrawny woman and another sees a woman who’s lithe and toned. Let the physical details you choose to bring out share something about the character doing the describing, even if they’re noting their own appearance. This is easily contrasted by the views and reactions of other characters — do they have a realistic or authentic view of themselves?

“I’m a sight this morning: two shirts, heavy pants, a scarf wrapped twice around my neck and tucked into a thick sweater knitted by my daughter thirty birthdays ago…and still my body shivers with a cold that will never go away, a cold that has been eighty years in the making.” The Notebook, Nicholas Sparks

Sure, we know what Noah, the point of view character above, is wearing but that doesn’t show us anything about his character. It’s how he feels about what he’s wearing–that shows us much more than his clothes do, right. Someone who’s eighty can have a variety of perspectives about their current season of life, but Noah here — seems tired. He’s worn down.

Been told you should learn Deep Point Of View? Had an editor or critique partner tell you to “go deeper” with the emotions in your fiction? Looking for a community of writers seeking to create emotional connections with readers? Check out the Free Resource Hub and then join the Going Deeper With Emotions In Fiction Facebook group.

4 Ways To Create Unique Character Voice That Work For Any Novel

May 2, 2018 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 2 Comments

Creating unique character voice for your characters is essential for great fiction. Even classical writers like Tolkien writing in omniscient point of view were able to imbue their characters with enough uniqueness that you felt like they were an individual. Yes, precious.

In writing styles like deep point of view where the writer needs to become invisible and let the character tell the story entirely, creating unique voices for each pov character can be challenging.

Before I turned to writing and teaching writing full time, I worked as a freelancer which roughly translated to writing anything for practically anyone. I did quite a bit of ghostwriting, usually for a president or CEO or founder of a non-profit. Oh – you thought they actually sat down and personally wrote all those direct mail campaigns and emails? 0_0

I had to completely disappear and write a piece that read like it had come from someone else. The best compliment I could get was to have a client tell me people commented that they sounded just like their blog, newsletter, whatever. That was the job. So, what’s the key to creating a unique voice and disappearing as the writer? (You might find this post – 4 ways to become invisible with deep pov interesting.)

Catchphrases and Signature Exclamations

When ghostwriting, I listened for a turn of phrase — something they repeated. One client kept saying to me he was “neck deep in alligators.” These little snippets were amazing glimpses into personalities and priorities.

How does the way your character phrases things show their personality or priorities?

“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”
Kathryn Stockett, The Help

Does your character have a signature phrase or exclamation? The phrase above tells us a lot about the character, doesn’t it. This character isn’t overly educated, but very kind and very wise.

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!”
Claire Fraser — Outlander, Diana Gabaldon

Claire is a character familiar with faith but not a strict adherent and doesn’t care who knows that, nor is she particularly lady-like given the time-period, or conventionally feminine. It just says so much about her character.

“You got some ‘splainin to do, Lucy!”
Ricky Ricardo — I Love Lucy!

“I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
The Godfather

“Bah! Humbug!”
Ebenezer Scrooge — A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

Each of these catchphrases signature exclamations gave audiences a good deal of insight into the character and how they saw the world.

You really only have to sprinkle in a few of these signature phrases or turns of speech to give credibility to character voice. Used sparingly, as you might add spice, it can be effective.

Metaphors and Similes

Metaphors and similes are perhaps the most common literary devices fiction writers use. Metaphors are more precise than similes but both can be effective. A simile is a comparison using “like” or “as” whereas a metaphor is a comparison not using like or as.

“. . . she tried to get rid of the kitten which had scrambled up her back and stuck like a burr just out of reach.”
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

“Elderly American ladies leaning on their canes listed toward me like towers of Pisa.”
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

An easy way to add character voice is have the character use those things they are most familiar with as metaphors and similes to describe things. She’s angrier than a hornet in a Coke can – what would that tell you about the character who said it?

“The café was like a battleship stripped for action.”
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

“The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires.” D
Dracula, Bram Stoker

Just remember to use metaphors and similes sparingly, for emphasis. In the quote from Stoker above, it would’ve been easy to slip in more than one simile there, but he’s only used one for punch. Love that.

Apply Filters

Everyone sees the world in their own unique way. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure and all that. What one person values has no value at all for another. What your character places value on shows readers what they care about, what they’re willing to fight for, die for, etc.

Your character’s perspective should color every word you use. Characters can show readers what they’re seeing by describing how they feel. Are they an optimist? Are they driven – what would they find annoying or ignore? Do they have an artist’s aesthetic appreciations or more of a soldier’s utilitarian focus?

Here’s an example of filters. Sarah is the point of view character in both bits below, but I’ll give Sarah two different “filters” that will affect how she describes what’s happening. Can you tell how Sarah feels in each example?

First Example

Catherine answered the door and invited Sarah to the back patio. She followed Catherine, tucking her elbows in and hunching her shoulders to avoid touching anything. If you-break-it-you-bought-it applies here, she’ll be broke before they get to the kitchen. Sarah asked questions about the different pieces of art and furniture, more questions than necessary to be polite. She pretended to brush dirt off the patio chair before sitting. Out of time.

Second Example

Sarah checked her watch again. Catherine opened the door finally and invited her to the back patio. Sarah could see the patio doors from the front entry, but Catherine insisted on taking the long way through the living room and kitchen. Catherine’s ability to decorate wasn’t going to get them out of this mess.

Remove Yourself

Some writing teachers place too much emphasis on developing their writer’s voice. I chased it for a good long time too, but I’ve come to learn that my author voice is simply which stories I choose to tell and how I choose to tell it.

Will you use profanity or not? Will your stories be fast-paced, dark, or always end happily-ever-after? Sometimes genre must dictate some of these choices, but please don’t mistake your writer’s voice for character voice.

Character voice will be distinct to one character and can and will change from novel to novel. How you tell a story and which stories you choose to tell, that will have more consistency between all your work.

How To Recognize When Your Protagonist Isn’t Your POV Character

February 15, 2018 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 1 Comment

Is your protagonist the best POV character for your story? Just because the story is about them doesn’t mean they’re the best storyteller in your cast of characters!

Deciding which character is the best one to tell your story can be tricky. Sometimes it’s a no-brainer, but sometimes an author makes an unusual choice that has us scratching our heads. Having a child’s point of view in ROOM was not what I was expecting when I picked up that story. Yes, Jack was an important character but he had no agency himself. Why is Watson telling all the Sherlock Holmes stories and not Sherlock? Ensuring the right character is telling your story is the difference between success and reader indifference.

So, let’s have a quick look at some terminology so we’re all on the same page as we move forward. Characters should have functions in any plot. If they don’t have a reason to be in the story you should consider cutting them.

The Main Character tells the story. It’s through the viewpoint of this character that the audience engages with the story. This is the character the audience relates to most closely. The main character could be the antagonist, the protagonist, the sidekick, whatever.

The Protagonist has the single job of moving the story ahead. They are the ones whose decisions dictate the direction of the story.

The Hero/Heroine is a combination of both the protagonist and the main character. Commonly in the romance genre, for instance, there are heroes and heroines. This isn’t about what the character DOES but about their function within the plot. Romance authors often include both the male and female protagonist’s point of view and they tell their own stories.

To be clear, choosing a main character is a strategic stylistic decision. Your protagonist may be the point of view character and they may not be. These are distinct roles within a story.

Why Veronica Roth chose Tris to tell the Divergent story.

Veronica Roth in her introduction to Four writes: “I first started writing Divergent from the perspective of Tobias Eaton, a boy from Abnegation with peculiar tension with his father who longed for freedom from his faction. I reached a standstill at thirty pages because the narrator wasn’t quite right for the story I wanted to tell; four years later, when I picked up the story again, I found the character to drive it, this time a girl from Abnegation who wanted to find out what she was made of. But Tobias never disappeared–he entered the story as Four, Tris’s instructor, friend, boyfriend, and equal.”

Did you catch what she said–Tobias wasn’t the right character for the story she wanted to tell. At that point she had two decisions: change the point of view character or tweak the plot so it better suited the point of view character she had in mind.

Why Emma Donaghue chose Jack to tell the story of ROOM.

In an interview with The New Yorker, Donaghue explains why she chose a child’s point of view to tell the story of ROOM: Telling these kinds of stories from the kidnapper’s point of view has “become a banal trope of every second crime novel: the weirdo, fetishistic watcher/stalker/kidnapper/kidnapper of women or children. So I never wanted to give Old Nick that much prominence in my novel; just as Ma does, I chose to keep him at arm’s length, not letting him set the terms of the story. And as for telling it from Ma’s point of view, I can’t imagine how to do that without the novel degenerating into a tearjerker, because at every point Ma knows all the reasons to be sad. Nor did I think any of the experts or other adults (such as Grandma) needed their own narration; I thought I could put their sense of Ma and Jack across through reported dialogue. So no, I held to my conviction that ROOM would either have the virtue of originality through being Jack’s tale, or it shouldn’t be told at all.”

Work Backwards

At first I thought choosing the point of view character was a product of character vs plot driven stories but that’s not necessarily true. Donaghue says the kernel idea for ROOM came from seeing a news story about a five-year old boy freed from captivity. Her son happened to be the same age and living with a five-year old launched the story. That story started with a character. I have a series I’ve rewritten … I don’t know, I don’t want to think about how much I’ve rewritten that story. It never felt right. It was the story I wanted to tell–sort of. Then, like Roth, I realized that I was trying to tell the story from the wrong character’s point of view. Who the story is about didn’t change, but I needed another character to drive the action.

First figure out what kind of story you want to tell. Now figure out which character the reader would more likely relate to. What genre of story do you want to write? You don’t have to write from the point of view of the character the story is about. Consider To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Scout is just observing her father working as a defense lawyer in a trial, but as Scout learns to question her prejudices so do we. THAT was the story Lee wanted to tell. If she’d wanted to write a crime story, having Scout’s father be the point of view character would’ve made more sense.

Books Where The Protagonist Is NOT The Main Character

Twilight

In Twilight, it would be hard to sympathize with a sparkly vampire when the audience would be mostly teenage females. Instead, with Bella Swan as the main character, readers can identify with her because she’s just like them. Bella is largely reactive through most of the series, Edward is the protagonist. Meyer had planned to release another version of Twilight from Edward’s point of view and the first fifty or so pages were leaked. The story just wasn’t the same for me from Edward’s point of view. I couldn’t cheer for him in the same way.

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is arrogant, dismissive, rude, sarcastic, and a loner. Watson is the only one willing to spend extended lengths of time with him. Watson stands in for readers because he can ask questions it wouldn’t organically occur to Holmes to explain and let’s face it–Watson is a better writer.

ROOM

In ROOM, Jack has little agency. Things happen around him, to him, over his head. Readers are able to follow the story through overheard dialogue and with an adult’s understanding of a child’s perspective. Donaghue wanted to tell a coming of age story, in the sense that each of us has had that moment where we’ve realized the world is so much bigger than we imagined. We’ve all had moments where things we held as absolute truths (like Santa Claus maybe) turned out to be not quite what we thought or had been told to believe. If she’d wanted to tell a mystery, crime, detective or horror story, then Jack’s point of view would’ve doomed the story.

Have you considered which character is the best one to tell your story? Know any other books where the main character and the protagonist are not the same?