Characters–Walk-in, top down, bottom up

Graphic by Peg Ihinger

When it comes to characters, one of the first things writers are told is that characters should be “well-rounded.” This is usually followed by advice like “know your character’s purpose” and “give them flaws.” Sometimes, there’s more specific advice, such as “demonstrate (i.e., “show”) characterization in actions and speech.” Very occasionally, somebody provides specific advice, like “give characters distinct speech patterns and characteristic actions.”

What you seldom get is a reminder that none of these things are interchangeable Lego blocks. They’re more like a lot of really weirdly shaped puzzle pieces that have to fit together to make a believable picture.

This is compounded by the fact that unless you’re writing some version of Robinson Crusoe, you aren’t going to have a bunch of characters who are each standing somewhere in lonely splendor. These characters are going to have to interact with each other in believable ways that writers have to take into consideration.  They also have to fit their role in the story.

Note that “fit together” does not mean “fit together perfectly” for any of the above situations. Individuals are inconsistent, and often want two or more mutually incompatible things at the same time. Group dynamics, mediation, and consensus building are common phrases because of how frequently people don’t get along with each other even when they’re all supposed to be on the same team, working toward the same goal. Even story roles are flexible—the main character may be a Grade A hero, a muddled protagonist, or an outright anti-hero, depending on the story.

A writer who just slaps down a bunch of traits is liable to get a pile of things that either don’t add up realistically (a nervous, lazy, exuberant, cynical, introvert), or that add up to the same thing (an obsessive, controlling, fanatical workaholic). This can sometimes work, if it happens for only one character in a story, but if every character in a story is unrealistically one-note or unrealistically random, it gets obvious very quickly. It’s also not something one can get away with repeatedly, except maybe in a series revolving around the same one-note character (who can be presumed to have the same personality throughout).

Most writers figure out fairly quickly that they need more than a bunch of random answers to questions like “what slang does this character use?” or “what is this character’s purpose/motivation/greatest fear/worst habit/etc.?” On the other hand, one has to start somewhere.

For pantsers and some planners, “somewhere” is Page One of the story. These are the folks who write their way into their characters—that is, they start writing and see how the characters develop. One writer famously doesn’t even give their characters names until the rough draft is at least half done. Working this way usually means a fair amount of revision on the early part of the story to keep the characters consistent.

More commonly, writers build characters to some extent before they start the rough draft. There are walk-into-your-head characters, who show up without being asked and demand a story (or take over one that’s in process, much to the disruption of the writer’s plans), but they’re rare and uncontrollable. They’re great when they happen, but you can’t force them.

Top-down characters, for me, usually start with their roles. This can be their role in the story—hero, villain, sidekick, mentor, love interest, traitor, minion, etc.—or it can be one or more of their roles in their world (a character can be both a king and a father, a lawyer and a Little League coach, a retiree and a fisherman, etc.). Characters, like real people, have multiple roles simultaneously, some of which can change over time.

The character’s story role is important to me mainly as a gage of how deep I need to go into the character. I need to know a lot more about my protagonist than I do about the security guard who appears for two lines on Page 136, for instance.

Thinking about the character’s roles in their world tells me more about the person, even if that role isn’t active for them anymore. (Every person is, or was at some point, a child; everyone has or had parents, even if they’re now an orphan. After a certain age, most people learn how to make a living, whether they’re self-taught, apprenticed, trained by family, or sent to school.) Because a lot of roles begin or end with milestones (leaving home, graduating/completing an apprenticeship, earning a degree, marrying, etc.), thinking about a character’s experiences in that role usually ends up with a timeline of significant moments in the character’s life.

From there, it’s usually a matter of bouncing back and forth between the character’s personal history, things I know I want for the plot (e.g., “this character’s parents were murdered when he was ten”), and worldbuilding (“this character was apprenticed…how, exactly, does the apprenticeship system work? Are there guilds? Oh, hey, maybe I can use that research on the Hanseatic League…). It’s like pinball, where the point is to keep the ball of my attention bouncing around collecting scraps of plot, characterization, and worldbuilding until the story hits critical mass.

Bottom-up character building is harder for me, because it usually does start with a couple of random character traits. I have to consciously test things until something goes “snap” and I start to get a feel for the person. At that point, it’s back to plot/world/character pinball.

Ultimately, what I need is a feel for the character. Lists of traits don’t do it for me as a starting point, though they can sometimes be helpful once I have a bit of background and a feel for the character (as in, “Oh, hey, I hadn’t thought about that, but if these things happened to her in the past, I bet she does have this kind of PTSD…good to know).