Digging Deep Into Your Character

I met with my local writing group today, the Saturday Writers.  Jean, one of our members, had an interesting story to relate.  She had noticed an unfamiliar man walking around her apartment complex this week.  He was dressed oddly, in a long light-weight coat, with a round black hat.  He walked slowly with his hands clasped behind his back.

After some mild anxiety (who is this guy and what is he doing?), her writer instincts kicked in and she decided to include him in her current manuscript.

But who was he and why was he dressed like that and why was he just walking around?  She brought those questions to the group.  And we were able to use one of my favorite exercises for brainstorming.

Using this unusual man, we began contributing possible reasons to explain his appearance and behavior, trying to reach beyond the obvious.

Some of our ideas:

• He’s from another country and is wearing their traditional dress.
• He’s a religious man and is using the walks for meditation.
• He lost a bet and must walk each day, dressed like that.
• He’s mentally confused, either mildly or in a severe clinical way.
• He’s practicing a character for a stage play.
• He’s a predator who uses his benign but unusual appearance to throw his victims off guard.

You can see that our ideas go from the normal, even expected (from another country) to the unusual (lost a bet).  This brainstorming technique can help you create characters who are individuals, rather than stock characters.

When using this technique aim to get at least twenty reasons down before you quit.  You want to move beyond the common to deeper, more unusual reasons to explain your character’s actions or motivations.  This will make your characters more interesting and your story more compelling.

So how about you?  Do you have any character problems in your story?  Are you having trouble determining the “why” for a character’s actions?  Post the details of your character’s situation in the comments and let me help.

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