Unearthing Character
By Dave King | August 20, 2024 |
HAMLET, Laurence Olivier, 1948
Of all the skills writers need most, creating authentic characters is probably the hardest to achieve. Each character is unique, and the techniques that writers use to bring them to life are so complex and layered that it’s nearly impossible to talk about them in general terms. I suspect that the writers who are best at it aren’t even aware of how they do it. That’s why they often talk about finding a character rather than creating one.
Not being able to break characterization down to teachable principles is a source of real frustration for those of us who teach writing and those of you trying to learn it. But there may be a way to spot and study clear examples of genuine, deep, authentic character and see – or feel — what they have in common.
I’ve written before about how you can break out of your own head by reading books from earlier eras. Everybody’s thinking is shaped by unconscious cultural stuff that gets steeped into our heads from childhood. And that cultural baggage is where a lot of flat, lazy characterization comes from. You can never get rid of these cultural ruts entirely, but the more you can break out of them, the less likely you are to create characters who are much the same as each other and your readers. Meeting characters from the past gives you a better chance to create real individuals.
You can refine this technique further. When I read older books, every once in a while I hit a passage that strikes me with how modern it sounds. These passages can be anything from an offhand observation or a line of dialogue. But these moments represent true, authentic character – individuals with views on life that aren’t simply a rehash of whatever’s current in the culture at the moment.
One thing that ties a lot of these passages together is that they are based on close observation rather than lazy or blind assumption. Such as this passage that caught my eye in the Iliad (Robert Fagles’ translation):
He tore that Argive rampart down with the same ease
some boy at the seashore knocks sand castles down —
he no sooner builds his playthings up, child’s play,
than he wrecks them all with hands and kicking feet.
In the middle of an epic battle between warring bronze-age Greek city states, with the god Apollo stepping in, here was a glimpse of something I’ve seen in my quiet New England village. Homer had clearly watched boys building sandcastles and then knocking them down again for fun, and he gave his readers that description without embellishment. He realized they would immediately recognize it. And we still do, nearly three millennia later.
“I am heartily ashamed of myself, Lizzy. But don’t despair, it’ll pass; and no doubt more quickly than it should.” Mr. Bennett, in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
This quip, too, involves some close observation – Mr. Bennett clearly knows himself pretty well. But it also shows another sign of timeless character – it comes to the surface most often in intimate, self-revealing moments. When you’re talking in public, it’s natural to conform to what the people around you expect from you – to put on a public persona. Your authentic self tends to come out when you’re with someone you can be yourself with. I suspect Mr. Bennett would never have made this delightful, self-deprecating observation if he were talking with Mr. Darcy or, quite possibly, Mrs. Bennett.
Sir,
The other Day entering a Room adorned with the Fair Sex, I offered, after the usual Manner, to each of them a Kiss; but one, more scornful than the rest, turned her Cheek. I did not think it proper to take any notice of it till I had asked your Advice. – Letter to The Spectator, Jan. 11, 1712.
The Spectator replied:
The Correspondent is desir’d to say which Cheek the Offender turned to him.
One of the great joys of the enlightenment is the triumph of wit. Wit is short, pithy, and precise. It’s also at its best when it trips up the kinds of cultural conventions (a man expecting kisses from random women, for instance) that make for flabby, uniform characters. It’s hard to be witty without being individual and even counter-cultural. I’ve often been surprised when people who lived centuries before my time make arguments that still stand today. Like the eighteenth-century argument against racial prejudice, from Stephen Fovargue’s A New Catalogue of Vulgar Errors that ended with, “I must beg Leave to quit the Subject, till some one has convinced me, that a white Horse is better than a black one.”
So how do you learn from these modern passages in antique books? I’ve tried to tease out a couple of general principles for where to find authenticity in your characters – close observation, intimate situations, counter-cultural wit. But the things that make these passages feel authentic are idiosyncratic. In fact, they might not strike you in the same way they struck me. Because you can’t create authentic individuals by following the rules.
But if you read older books, be alert for the passages that strike you as strangely modern, that you immediately connect with. When a character fifty, or a hundred, or five hundred years ago says something you can see yourself saying, you’re in the presence of genuine, authentic character. Steep yourself in those moments, learn how they feel, and you may find it easier to create them yourself.
So what are your favorite, surprising moments in books from earlier eras. What characters do you immediately sympathize with, even across centuries. (Shakespeare counts — see the illustration.) What makes these characters so familiar?
Dave King has been editing for nearly 40 years now. He is co-author of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, a former contributing editor to Writer’s Digest, and has contributed more than 100 articles over the last 12 years to Writer Unboxed. He lives on 25 acres in rural Massachusetts with his business partner and wife, Ruth Julian, who also edits his work. His other day job, at least on Sundays, is as the organist at a Lutheran church in Greenfield, Mass.
Loved your examples. Thank you for illuminating how authors in the past wrote authentic characters and how that writing still resonates today.
Modern? Or universally human?
Either one. Although, it’s easier to spot universally human in older books. With modern books, it’s a little hard to separate your own cultural baggage from the author’s or character’s.
Hello Dave, and thanks for another clear, useful post. I think it’s significant that all your examples focus on wit, the surprising insight that catches readers and makes them smile or nod with recognition. This is even true of your quote from The Iliad: the reader is shown how the butchery and mayhem of the Trojan War has its origins in childhood.
As for learning how to make use of wit and humor, the writer must first be capable of seeing and appreciating it in what she reads. And this begins with what she chooses to read. You can’t learn from writers who may be successful, but have little or no capacity for freshness. Their success illustrates how many readers are prepared to reward wit-free writers.
Are you convinced that much “earlier books” are the path to learning better character development? I would point to more recent books like Anne Tyler’s The Accidental Tourist, or almost anything by Elmore Leonard. Both writers show us how it’s done. Thanks again.
You’re right, there is a lot you can learn from modern books as well. But I think the moments of genuine character stand out more clearly in contrast to a culture different from our own. Most modern readers have a harder time sympathizing with, say, the horror of Lydia Bennett’s eloping with Wickham — or even more so, the scandal around the amateur theater performance in Mansfield Park. But Mr. Bennett’s self-deprecation is immediately recognizable.
And I’m constantly stumbling across examples of timeless wit in the strangest places. In the introduction to a collection of his sermons preached in the 1670’s, Rev. John Tillotson writes about a long, involved argument on the nature of truth made by a rival — a Jesuit. (Publishing dueling books became a thing in the seventeenth century.) He finishes by saying, “I believe my learned colleague is trying to show that no true statement can possibly be false. In this I know of few who disagree.”
Boom.
Dave, I wish I had a list of the examples you mention, but I can say this, that often when reading older works or even modern works, I will underline sentences, paragraphs, because they SPEAK to me, and not to sound romantic or silly…they reach out to me. This is writing from and for human nature. It is writing that cross the centuries and speaks to us now…like JAMES, by Percival Everett, who rethinks Huckleberry Finn is an astounding way that highlights humanity in its purest sense. Thanks for your post.
Even with modern works, when you highlight character creation moments that speak to you, you’re steeping yourself in quality characterization. I just think that quality is a little easier to spot against the backdrop of another culture. (Incidentally, you can get the same effect from foreign works of fiction.)
First, Dave, as someone who’s written two books on character, this insight stood out for me: “Each character is unique, and the techniques that writers use to bring them to life are so complex and layered that it’s nearly impossible to talk about them in general terms. I suspect that the writers who are best at it aren’t even aware of how they do it. That’s why they often talk about finding a character rather than creating one.”
When I first started teaching character, a writer friend asked why I chose that topic. I replied, “Because I think I’m good at it.” He responded: “Never teach what you’re good at! It means it’s intuitive and you’ll just gum it up for yourself.” Fortunately, that hasn’t happened, or at least I hope it hasn’t.
I have a chapter in The Art of Character titled, “Are Characters Created or Discovered?” The answer, naturally, is both. Which is where the second insight you provided hit me: “Everybody’s thinking is shaped by unconscious cultural stuff that gets steeped into our heads from childhood. And that cultural baggage is where a lot of flat, lazy characterization comes from.”
I’m sure you’ve found in your work that a great many characters seem to be based on other characters, not people. This is one reason John Updike’s poem about his former classmates and the inspiration they provided is so instructive. In using real people as a basis for character, I often remind my students (and myself) that though we may know a great deal about certain people in our lives, we don’t know their secrets–even if they divulge them, because then they become a confidence, not a secret. In transforming a real person into a character, I think imagining the secrets that you could not possibly know is one way to truly “create” a character, though obviously not from scratch.
As for older texts that provide an insight into character, I’ve always found Kafka’s “Eleven Sons” a kind of gold standard. It’s loosely based on a previous story, “A Visit to a Mine.” In each story, the narrator dissects in exacting detail the inner life of a number of individuals; in “A Visit to a Mine,” that examination is based solely on the impression made by their outward appearance, manner, and attitude. But in “Eleven Sons” the narrator, who is the father, explores not just the appearance but the emotional/psychological/behavioral dispositions that make each son unique. The entire story is just that concatenation of eleven distinct character sketches–or should I say, the text of the story. For with each son, the father explains why, despite each particular son’s virtues, he is not the favorite. At the end of the story, no favorite has been chosen. It isn’t till you’ve read the whole thing and let it sit for a while that you ask, “Why eleven?” Because the narrator represents Isaac, who does not realize his favorite has been sold into slavery by the others.
Oh, David, I like the idea of creating a character through imagining their secrets. It does let you penetrate past (and inform) their public persona. It’s very nice.
And while you can’t break character creation down into general principles (or, heaven forfend!, a step by step process), you can give writers hints that will help them. In my own work, I’ve found it’s more a matter of teaching them to avoid mistakes — like relying on other characters to create your own characters. Essentially, you get the dross out of the way so the real individual characters can emerge.
And the Kafka sounds remarkable. Thanks.
You said: “…imagining the secrets that you could not possibly know is one way to truly “create” a character, though obviously not from scratch.”
David, I like that! Character secrets are the secret to bringing them to life. But I’m not sure I understand the part about “obviously not from scratch.” How else do you create a character? I’ve never used real people or characters from books as a basis for any of my own characters. I have, however, spent a lot of time in my life observing the variety and vagaries of human nature. That provides all the source material, outside my own imagination, I need.
Years ago a writer friend pointed me to Anthony Trollope’s work. I’ve never regretted it.
Funny you should mention it. The inspiration for this article came from Ruth, who is currently reading the Chronicles of Barset for the third time. She actually made a suggestion about how Trollope uses language, but I didn’t have a chance to do the in-depth reading. So I was planning on focusing on him next month.
Watch this space.
Trollope’s use of language is absolutely fascinating. My last reread of the Palliser novels (I recommend skimming through the Parliament arguments, I think they’re filler) revealed an interesting older usage…instead of “he stood,” Trollope uses “he rose on his legs.” Repeatedly.
For some reason I hadn’t noticed this in previous readings.
That said, I also regularly reread Jane Austen as well as Charlotte Bronte. Plus Louisa May Alcott’s non-Little Women/juvenile books. Her thrillers are pretty interesting.
One of the best “hurrying to respond to an urgent call” sequences that I’ve read occurs in Willa Cather’s SONG OF THE LARK. I blogged about it a couple of years back. The lead character is an aspiring opera singer who is the understudy for a prominent performer…and she gets THE CALL. It’s 2-3 pages of sequence, and it is done so well in how it handles detail while conveying urgency. Strongly recommended.
Thanks, Joyce.
Many years ago, after Ruth had introduced me to the Pallisers, we attended our town meeting. After a particularly thorny issue was settled, I leaned over to Ruth and whispered, “Next stop, decimal currency.”
I can’t remember where I got it, but the test I use is, “Does this (or every) character believe and act as if they are the hero of their own story?” I’m not sure why that works, but it has for me.
I can see that. After all, everyone is the hero of their own story. And (to go back to what David Corbett and I were talking about) one of the mistakes you can make in creating characters is to have minor characters who serve the needs of your main characters (or main characters who serve the needs of the author). Bearing your test in mind is a way to avoid that pitfall.
Dave, the characters in old books tend to be much more self-reflective, not in a wallowing sense, but that of examen. The Story of a Soul by St. Therese of Lisieux comes to mind. She writes so simply and beautifully about the movements within her heart, I couldn’t help but fall in love with her. Previously, I never understood her popularity–I mean what could I possibly learn from a middle-class French girl? But I am astonished at her depth. My husband is reading Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Unsted and we talk about how much the characters are aware of the weight of their own sins. I can’t wait to read it myself. Thanks for this look into character and looking forward to reading David’s Compass book too, as I deepen my own story people.
That’s a delicious example, Vijaya, and thank you. And you’re right about earlier books being a bit more internal. Writers used to be a lot more concerned with their souls then.
Thanks for the excellent post, Dave. I find some vivid characters and characterization in Jesus’s parables in the New Testament (talk about timeless). The Prodigal Son, for example. We may not totally appreciate the first-century Jews’ outrage at demanding your inheritance before your father dies, but we can still relate to having exploded our lives, swallowing our pride, and begging forgiveness. Likewise with the older brother. We can imagine his fury when his father welcomes the son back with feast and fatted calf after the kid has shamed the whole family and blown half their fortune.
Excellent example, thanks. I’d throw in some of the extended dialogues in John — the Samaritan woman at the well, Nicodemus, the blind man who was healed. They’re all recognizably human.
For reasons not pertinent here I was hacking my way through Ivanhoe a few years ago. By today’s standards it’s dense with unnecessary descriptions, sidetracks, and backstories. The English is old-fashioned and full of Scots and Latin references. And Ivanhoe himself first appears in disguise and then is wounded so badly that he goes back to bed for like half of the frickin’ book. It is so slow. But I remember suddenly realizing in the second or third chapter that Walter Scott was a modern man. I appreciated the wit and repartee among the Feudal lords and peasants alike. It was published more than two centuries ago, but you could make a TV series from it, and … Oh, wait.
An excellent example, Michael, and thanks. And I remember wading through Ivanhoe myself, years ago.
Although this is secondary to the point you’re making, I’d like to praise excellence in translation of ancient texts. Robert Fagles really makes the Iliad and the Odyssey come to life. Contrast that with the stiffness of older translations that create a sharp divide between the ancients and us.
In my own field of Egyptology, a Robert Fagles has yet to emerge. Formal translation of ancient Egyptian texts can mask the playfulness, eroticism, sarcasm, and angst that the ancients laid down between the lines; many translations, unfortunately, are filled with “verily” and “thou” and other distancing language. One text I enjoy is a satire that makes fun of every trade except for that of a scribe (writer!); another is a man debating whether or not to kill himself because he’s just so world-weary. There’s one about a garrulous peasant and another with a talking snake on a magical island. Written over four thousand years ago! There are love poems and letters to dead relatives and all manner of humanity to be found in ancient Egyptian texts, but they are unknown outside of a small scholarly circle. This lack of more intimate, familiar translations contributes to the Othering of ancient civilizations apart from Greece and Rome.
Thanks for giving me reason to reflect on these issues! Finding the humanity and humor in distant peoples is a gift and indeed a great way to think about character.