There are complex and detail questionnaires created for authors to describe their characters. Beginning with the most important question, “what is the character’s role in this book?” They then move down through physical descriptors (how tall are they? Are they overweight? Do they have long hair or a beard?) To demographics (gender race and ethnicity), background and health habits (where were they born? Where are they from? Do they have brothers and sisters ? Do they smoke cigarettes? What brand?) on to idiosyncrasies (Do they wear hats? Do they not pick up their feet when they walk? Are there earrings too large. Do they mumble when talking?)
It’s easy for the first time novelist to wonder whether all of this detail is necessary. The best answer that I can give is that it is not necessary for you to have all of this knowledge to put in the book? In fact, many of the answers to these questions may never appear in your novel. However, is it necessary for you to know the answers to these questions, so that your characters can come alive? Yes. You want your characters to be as close to conscience entities as you can make them. And the more alive your characters are, the more interesting your reader will find them.
Now, the way to make a character come alive is a little nebulous. You devote yourself to inventing, developing, remixing, adding and adjusting the character traits over and over until they are not just a figure (six foot man with a limp) but are a character easily visualized to be alive and challenging (a tall boy with a right sided limp, a Mohawk for hair and a physics book under his left arm). This is somebody to right about! With this preparation, you write as though the character is alive, and can deliver a powerful emotional experience to the reader. In addition, a character such as this, doesn’t need to be told what he is going to do. And you know that because when you are writing a paragraph about them, or creating their dialog and you step over the character’s line, you say, “Nigel wouldn’t say that, nor would he sign up for a military academy.” And at this point, the character is telling you what they would do and what they would say.
When your characters start creating their own scenes, doing and saying what they want, it is time to write. At this point, they need very little direction from you. And as we pointed out in an earlier blog, this becomes more like taking dictation from your characters than actually having to write about them.
One example I have of this is from Catching Cold-Judgment. Meredith, The CEO of a drug company visits the apartment of the company’s head legal counsel and her arch nemesis. Both are struggling to recover from a bomb blast that took place at the company headquarters. She reached for the door with her right hand, heart pounding. Her left hand was numb, really numb. The surgeon explained that re-plantations were over 85 percent successful, but the thick clumsiness of her reattached fingers hadn’t even begun to go away. “Hello?” she called out, recoiling from the urine stench. “Get the hell out of here,” Jasper said. Her pulse jumped at the grating voice that scratched her nerves raw. “It’s Meredith and I’m coming in.” She walked in, holding her breath. Jasper lay on a sofa in his underwear, facing away from her and toward the window. His right leg, looking swollen and tight, was exposed up to the mid-thigh. It was pale with multiple red and purple blotches. The left leg was gone from the hip down. Pills lay spilled on and over his chest, falling down into the sofa crease on one side and the floor to the other. He popped one. “I’d ask you how you feel,” she said, “but I think I know.” “You don’t know anything,” he said, lifting up and farting, “except how to remain as CEO.” She towered above him. “Did you have anything to do with the bombing?” Jasper sat up. He’s lost so much weight. She shivered. “What,” he yelled, sitting up, spilling more pills. “How can you ask me that? I was motivated to demolish your career, not the whole damn floor. I wanted to rule SSS from up there.” He closed his red-rimmed eyes. “I was poised to strip you of the CEO title. The executive committee was with me. And,” he said, lifting up to her, grinning, “I would have succeeded but for the blast.” He collapsed back into the couch, breathing heavily. “Yes,” she said, turning from him and walking to the chair four feet away. “But I think that you know who did it.” “Why would you say that?” “A young man was seen coming in and out of your office just a few days before. Some say it was Stennis’s son. Apparently the young man spent hours alone in there.” Jasper smiled. “Maybe he was studying for his law degree.” She sat on the upholstered chair and shrugged. “Maybe. Anyway, I told the police,” “You did what?” “And they tracked him to an eastern shore seditious group.” “Jesus.” “Jesus has nothing to do with this. It’s only a matter of time for you.” “One way or another.” He belched so loud she thought it echoed. “How’s your hand?” he asked. She lifted it, allowing it to glisten in the pale late October afternoon sun. “A little better than useless. The skin color’s coming back, but it’s still weak, and I can’t feel much. They tell me my feeling will return, but slowly.” “An inch a month.” “What?” She looked down at him. “That’s how slow the regenerating nerves grow. One inch each month.” “Then I need to be more patient.” Jasper grunted and then took another pill.“ Lucky you. I feel too much. One leg’s gone, but both hurt.” “Not seeing a doctor?” He glared at her. “I got my pills, Meredith, and if there’s nothing else, you can leave my apartment.” Flushing, Meredith stood, putting all of her weight on her right hand as she balanced on the chair arm, heart pounding. She hated him yet ached for the wreck of his life. “Jasper, when I started at Triple-S, you were the best corporate lawyer money could buy. Sure you were ambitious, but that’s no flaw of people in this industry. When Cassie arrived, she was happy to work under you, to learn from you.” “I’ve always been just my own client,” he said, shrugging, voice softer. She looked away from his hideous attempt at a smile, shaking her head. “I know that you detest me, but that could not have been the entire reason for this . . . abomination, this ruination of us.” She pointed to her weak left hand and then to the stump of his left leg. “Look at the pain you have caused me and you. Plus—” “If I lost my leg because of you, then it was worth it.” “The other deaths and injuries. The loss of your friend Stennis. Nita is now blind. Why all of this senseless agony? What drove you to this?” “Because I’d rather be in eternal hellfire than serve you,” he said, thick spit flying from his mouth. “I hate your righteousness. Every good you do, I will labor with my last breath to destroy.” She walked over to him. “I don’t think we’ll see each other again.” “You’re wrong,” he said, belching. “See you in hell, bitch.”
Jasper had been a nemesis through the entire Catching Cold Series. Conniving, dishonest, and morally abhorrent with an ever painful right leg that just gets worse, this character in my mind was almost pure evil. Thus it was easy to write what he would say and do in this scene. He told me. Here is a scene between Rayiko and Jon in Catching Cold Redemption. Their relationships power grew as the depth of Jon’s lowliness deepened and Rayiko’s dissatisfaction with her husband created continued unhappiness. This scene wrote itself.
He had hoped to get some thinking done before she arrived, but he was already late. He checked his watch: 6:05 pm. Maybe she won’t even be able to meet me tonight, he thought. That would mean— He walked into the CiliCold office. Rayiko, standing in the middle of the living room, turned to face him. “What’s up?” she said, hands by her sides. He walked behind the brown sofa to pull back the curtains, letting the golden sunlight through, illuminating them both. He really didn’t want to talk about this. “Breanna called me last night.” He cleared his voice then looked straight at Rayiko. “She talked to me about this Cassandra Rhodes, the attorney caught up in that bad suicide business at SSS.” “And the same one who co-opted our accountant,” Rayiko added. She sat down on the sofa. Jon took the overstuffed red leather chair a few feet from her to his right. “So I’m told.” He could feel the anger swelling in him as he opened and closed his fists. “She actually wants me to consider hiring her.” “You look pretty pissed over there.” They sat in silence on the couch for a few moments. “You know, the first nine of ten answers I got when I asked myself should I hire her were no.” “And the last one?” “Hell no.” They laughed. “I mean,” Jon said, standing again. “What sense does it make?” He jammed his hands into his pocket. “She went out of her way to destroy us. I’d have to have a hundred pounds of brain damage to hire this woman.” He snorted. “She’s untrustworthy. Plus, this is somebody I don’t really know. I don’t have any intuition about her. I have no experience with her. A traitorous stranger looking to get into our fold? The whole thing is laughable.” “You forgave Breanna,” Rayiko said, crossing her legs. “Yes, I did,” Jon said, nodding. “I knew her, and I understood her situation before she let herself be used against us. I could bring that background to bear. This situation with Cassandra though—” “I think she goes by ‘Cassie.’” His head pounded. “Maybe her friends call her ‘Cassie,’ but she’s not a friend of mine.” “Sit,” Rayiko said. Jon stared at her. What the— “Now, Jon,” she said, smiling, gesturing to the leather chair across from her, now bathed in the sun’s orange glow. “You keep this up, then you’re going to pass on the wrong person for SSS and the right person for us.” He hated these riddles. “What do you mean by that?” Jon said, struggling to control his voice. “I mean that Cassie went through a hell that you don’t know. Terrible emotional damage after the suicide. Plus, she has been cut loose from Triple S.” “Any idea why?” Jon said, feeling himself breathing easier. “No, I don’t. I just know that the tables have turned on her. I spoke to Breanna two nights ago, and she told me that Cassie just showed up at her door. Alone. Unkempt. A ruined person. You ever been down like that?” Jon shook his head, and Rayiko leaned forward through the lengthening shadows toward him. “How about during that bad business at the university?” He exhaled. “Yep. Sure did.” After a moment, he added, “And I didn’t have one.” “And look at the pain you had to endure. No outlet. No venting. Nobody cared for you or about you. Keeping it all inside was eating you up. You know,” she said, moving her hair off her shoulder, “some people have to go through horrid times just to have a chance to learn who they actually are. To burn all the junk away.” There was a truth in there that he knew he couldn’t shake off. He sighed. “Even if I did reach out to her, what good would she be to us?” “Well, having an in-house lawyer wouldn’t be such a bad thing. “Look, I can’t tell you what to do, but—” “What?” “If you hire her, then you must trust her. Openly. No reservations. No looks back, and no holding back. You have to let her know in everything you do that she is part of us now. If you don’t, then she’ll always be suspicious. Suspected. Isolated. She’ll never be who she wants to be, who she is capable of becoming.” She stopped then stood. “There is no trial run. You do this, or you don’t.” Jon stood. “I just . . . just don’t know if I can do what you have asked.” “Then be the man who can.” He looked down at her for a few moments, anger gone, self-connected again. “Let me think about this some tonight.” They both turned to leave. “Hey, how do you get into my head?” “You know.” “No,” he said to her back as she started walking to the door. Rayiko turned around, taking a step toward him. “I really don’t,” he said, shaking his head, walking up to her. “Never have.” She grabbed his collar, pulling his head closer. “Because,” she whispered, “that’s where you want me.”
What makes the flow natural is that the characters are not forcing themselves on the reader. The reader feels like they are in the room. If readers are comfortable with characters. then they relax and let the scenes surround them.
