How To Snap Some Life Into Your Dreary Little Characters

Darling,

Every plot is well-trodden, and so one’s only hope of avoiding cliche is eye-watering specificity of character.

Each person is unique, I’m told. But the mechanics of fiction work against the creation of snowflakes (nonpolitical). One needs each character to play a position on the field: hero, antagonist, wise advisor, so forth. This thrusts them into archetypal boxes. To lean on the sports analogy, one knows something about an American football player the instant I reveal they’re an offensive tackle (large) or wide receiver (fast).

This is good. One imagine one wants unending possibility, but then one stares down the infinite and immediately needs to lie on one’s fainting couch.

I like a bit of a box. Let’s use my novel Ash and the Butterfly to illustrate.

The first spark of Ash was a musing about wide-eyed, excitable Grace, briefly introduced in a previous book. She seems so frivolous—what if she’s actually a genius?

Grace, once fleshed out, created a box in which to create her enemy/interest, Luke:

• She’s enthusiastic—to some, silly; therefore, he’s reserved—to some, arrogant.

• She’s surrounded by love and luxury; therefore, he’s alone, circumstances modest.

• She must hide her intelligence; therefore, his is widely celebrated.

Of course, I also needed to build Grace’s perfect match—in the same character. To layer resonances and similarities beneath the contrasts.

Again, the box: Grace’s loyalty and dedication are mirrored in Luke. As is her propensity to neglect herself. Of course, her sharp wit demanded an equal. Because her story is about living in a world that responds poorly to a woman’s brilliance, it was crucial to imbue Luke with enough confidence in his own intelligence that he’d have a refreshing lack of ego in the face of a lady with extraordinary gifts.

All to say: the box is our friend.

And yet, used sans finesse, the box can fashion quite cardboard characters.

There is a two-dimensional version of “she’s loud, he’s quiet,” a trite version of every twist in any novel. We know it when we read it: characters make the structurally correct move, but it feels unearned. Because they don’t quite feel like people.

I use certain exercises to address this tang of cardboard.

As a caveat, these do demand boldness. Pulling things back later is often necessary, in the name of subtlety (if that’s your kink; no judgment).

Wild as the experimentation gets, when the dust settles, the architecture of the character has invariably been changed for the better.

The hit Netflix series Nobody Wants This tells the story of a non-religious woman falling for a Nice Jewish Boy. A producer encouraged the creator to make him not just Jewish but a rabbi—to raise the stakes, and make the character a more extreme version of the archetype.

For one draft, push your central idea to its absolute limit.

One subcategory that understands this is Billionaire Romance—rich taken to extreme. Exponentially more hot billionaires exist in romance than on Earth! Rather a la the preponderance of dashing dukes in historical romance, come to think of it.

In performing this exercise, I ask myself: what’s the billionaire version? How can I push defining traits further?

I might imbue a strong character with literal superpowers. Make a heroine’s “dry spell” a conscious celibacy era. Take a hero’s Favorite Uncle energy and push it to Widower and Father of Four.

Stop calling your villain devilish and make him the actual Devil, darling.

Once, I was crafting a grizzled character of great authority, and couldn’t spring him from cardboard prison. I called a writer friend. “I’ve seen this man many times,” she agreed. “But . . . I’m not sure I’ve seen this woman?”

It cracked the grizzled vet open. Now, I often perform the anti-cardboard exercise of changing the gender of one or more chracters. This nudges relationships out of rote heteronormativity. It throws character traits into a new light; suddenly, aggression seems merely assertive, or modesty reads as cunning. (Fascinating, no?)

Sometimes I switch them back. I keep what works. I’m ruthless. (Or am I handsome and clever?)

Make your heroine do the thing that most causes you to cringe in fear of losing your audience. For one draft, let her make choices that render her terribly unlikeable.

I’m not suggesting you make her stupid. Let her make your worst mistake. I’ve made heaps of horrifying ones, so I’m assuming just once, your judgement went awry.

Allow your hero to transgress so badly you can’t imagine how he could be redeemed. Then try to redeem him. If you go too far, adjust the next draft, but don’t you dare pre-adjust. Invite the most difficult version of the problem.

This sounds like it would generate towering caricatures, but often, the shift is incremental. In Ash, Grace works with a family friend named Philip. Initially, he functioned as comic relief. He spouted banter, gesturing drolly with a wine glass.

Hmm, I thought, upon reading the draft. In life, I’d watch a man like this and suspect he had a drinking problem.

I’d been protecting Philip, because I liked and related to him. (Now you know: my chief flaw is empathy.) And so in the next draft, he was as charming . . . but a full-bore drunk. This inspired further investigation—after all, whatever pain he was in required considerable medication. In the end, when I stopped protecting him, I found the heart of the novel.

I came away from that experience so encouraged to dig into a “good” character’s quirks until I unearth the darkness. Somehow, the good remain good—more luminous, because they’ve been given depth.

There you have it. Three small but potent weapons. Do let me know if they help.

LMxx

PS You must be dying to read Ash and the Butterfly. Click here. My thanks for your patronage, it means everything to me!