The Writer's Corner: Developing Characters

Since I seriously began writing several years ago I am constantly working on improving my craft.  A friend of mine told me recently that to get good at anything you need 10,000 hours of practice. Of course, I had to translate that to something that had meaning to me so I figured out that if you treated the art of writing like a job and practiced 40 hours a week - it would take you 4.81 YEARS to develop any degree of proficiency. Which seems completely reasonable to me. And which also means I have a LOT of practice yet to do!!

One of the areas that I want to specifically focus my efforts on this year is the art of developing characters.  There has been many a discussion about what drives a story: Plot or characters?  Though I love a good plot full of unexpected twists and turns, my answer always falls on the side of characters. Because if I don't care about the characters, I don't care about the twists and turns.

As writers, we probably all know about creating character charts - basically a summary of character traits, both physical and emotional. But it's the next step that intrigues me - creating scenes that show how the forces of the physical and emotional backstory are reflected in the character's actions, ie. creating character motivation.

I read a great blog post recently, written by my class of 2k11 buddy, Tess Hilmo, talking about character tells vs. character traits. (You can read Tess' whole post here.)   I'd never even heard of character tells before but basically a character tell is something they do that reveals something of their character. For example, a character straightening their tie incessantly. Tess's well-made point is that the 'tell' should also be built in with a trait to create more depth. For instance,  the tie straightening could reflect the character's insecurity - if that is the intent then that 'tell' should also be reinforced with insecurity being a trait of the character and flesh that out with other examples.

I found another fascinating blog post by Livia Blackburne about building strong characters by having them act out of character. (Read her post here.) We all get an initial first impression of characters when we start reading.  Livia's suggestion is to have a character act completely opposite to the reader's initial first impression to create a powerful dramatic effect.

On that same note, my family has just started watching the TV series, LOST. (I know, I know, we're a few years behind...) Anyway, the point is, I made a comment to my husband last night that it was interesting how our loyalties to the characters shift as we grow to more about them. Our initial first impressions were not always accurate, which does make the character infinitely more interesting.

There's lots more to discuss on this topic but tell me what do you think makes characters memorable?

Who are some of your favorite literary characters?

~Kiki