Okay.  The readers have spoken.  I laid out the case for the importance of “character” in your book, and then the following week, the importance of “plot.”  I wasn’t taking side. Just saying both are important and asking how you felt.  And the winner is – character.

So, if that’s the most important aspect, how to we achieve the three points I said we needed to accomplish with character.  We need to get the reader to identify with the protagonist.  We need to make the reader care about that character. And lastly, we would like to have the reader feel the need, physically, to help the character.

Let’s start with names. Select the name carefully. Don’t just pick up the telephone book (where they still have those), thumb through and select one   Pick one that has, or will have, some meaning for the reader.  J. K. Rowling in her Harry Potter series, chose excellent names, ones that we would remember and identify with the character.  Even the names of the various houses of the students were meaningful.

Don’t have names of characters too close to one another—unless your intention is to cause some confusion, or misidentification.   If your three main female characters are Jean, Jan and Jane, you are making things difficult for the reader.

How about a memorable name?  Skywalker.  It fits and is memorable.  Or Scarlett O’Hara.  Scarlett is not only a memorable name, but it also fits the character. Imagine if Margaret Mitchell had named her character Jane Smith instead.  Names do make a difference.

Writers often do a character bio.  I recommend this approach.  The bigger the bio the better. It forces you to “know” a lot about the character, which will in turn allow you to make the actions, attitudes, thoughts of the character be consistent.  You don’t put all of that information into the manuscript, but it nonetheless colors the character, makes the character much more real, works to prevent the “two-dimensional” character we try to avoid. As an added feature, it keeps you consistent in your treatment of the character.  And if you end up writing a series with that character, you don’t wind up giving her blue eyes in one book and green eyes in another, or making her short in book two when she was a tall and willowy in the book one.

Develop a voice for the character, one that the reader will recognize, even if we don’t put in an attribution.  When possible, it is good if this voice tells us about the character, perhaps the background or history of the person.  There’s a reason why she is so soft-spoken, or why she is loud, or abrasive.  Avoid too much dialect, which becomes tiresome.

Keep the character true to herself. No abrupt changes, unless you make it clear why this happened and that reason is logical. Ideally, such change should be inevitable under the circumstances you’ve created.

At some point, we must like the protagonist, and dislike the antagonist. This is not necessary at the beginning of the book. Often the antagonist seems likable in the beginning. Only when his true nature comes out half-way through the book do we begin to dislike him. The protagonist should come to this realization before or after the reader does.  Before, and the reader wonders shy the protagonist can’t see the good in this person, and only later does the reader recognize the evil lurking beneath the surface.  Or more often, the reader can see the problems the antagonist is capable of causing, perhaps has already caused. Why can’t the protagonist see this? Why is she so naïve? 

What about the sidekick? Select this person carefully. The sidekick has to provide very specific things for the main character. But it must remain clear who the main person is. Tonto never led the charge; Robin was never the main man.

One last note.  For minor characters, if they have been off-stage for a while, make certain the reader remembers who he or she is. Give a little tag that jogs our memory. Oh yes. He was in the café when the shooting happened.

That’s enough for today.  I’d love to hear your comments, and suggestions for additional work on this very important aspect of the novel. I’m sure we’ll revisit characterization again.