On Communication, pt 2

14 July 2010 | Filed Under Guest Post 

2. The Character-to-Character Factor

Virtually any story can be summed up in sequence – A happens, causing B, causing C, causing D… all the way down to the concluding letter, wherever you put it. What causes the reactions? The characters.

Though the Narrator is the cornerstone of the piece, the characters are what create the plot and, by extension, are the reason people want to read on. In many cases, the Narrator can be a character itself (Jennifer’s completed work “The Narrator,” for instance). The characters can make or break the story. When it comes to the cast, it can be easy to overwhelm your audience with person upon person, building a crowd that is impossible to remember in detail. On the other side of the coin, having no characters or just one can lead to a monotonous experience that is gladly forgotten. As a rule of thumb, I’d try to avoid making a cast of characters that could play a full game of soccer against one another (unless that’s the point of your story). But it is entirely possible to do more – Stephen King regularly has appendices for the characters in his books.

Just as with narration, focusing on a development of voice can create a plethora of opportunities for your story. But there is a necessary distinction to be made between the two: most narration comes from someone whom knows what has happened and what will have happened by the time the story is complete; most characterization comes from someone whom, unless special circumstances apply, know nothing about what will happen.

This is the conundrum I, and I’m sure many others, have faced with characters. How do we write up a character that comes off realistically?

From my experience, there is only one way to make it work – trial and error. Start by considering what you, the writer, know. Everything. You’re the only person that will know everything. So see what happens if you remove one detail from scene, then a different detail. Keep going, and eventually you’ll have put together a set of details that you can mix and match. These are potential starting points for your characters. Once this is done, or if you have a character firmly in mind, you can start adding personal information as needed to define the character. But how much should you flesh out?

Sure, it’s great to fully define a character so we know what we’re dealing with, but remember that there is a story going on. If the character doesn’t change or changes very little, the idea doesn’t really expand all that far. On the other side, it can depreciate the changes occurring in the play if a character is as mutable as the wind. It’s a function of the story, in the end – you can’t know for certain until you experiment.

Voice is a tricky element. Characters, like you and I, filter information through their own perspective; this is where a ear for conversation becomes the most important tool you possess. Each character doesn’t need to have a truly unique voice – people sound exactly the same in a subway car, right? – but it needs to set them apart enough that we can see the differences between them. A nine year-old girl and a Harvard professor do not speak the same. The next time you’re listening to someone, consider their vocabulary, idioms, expressions… You’ll notice patterns. Almost everyone has a natural cadence, and you can find your characters’ voice by looking to this. Again, for example:

“I do not know what you are talking about.”

“I don’t know what yer talkin’ abut!”

What sets characterization apart from third-person narration is the presence of a conditional vocabulary. In the first example, the difference between the two altered the qualification we attributed to each. Here, both expressions can be used because we, as people, use different modes of communication; the latter may be the main character at home, and the former the same character in a more formal work environment. Characters react differently in context, which affects characters within the story more than narrators without.

Conclusion

The point of this essay boils down to three points:

a. A story is an effort by the writer to communicate to an audience;
b. The story is an effort by the narrator to communicate to the audience; and
c. The story is the result of the characters communicating to the characters.

It’s all a matter of communication. Experiment, experiment, experiment, and you’ll hear the voice you’re looking for. But be careful:

“Character and thought are merely overshadowed by a diction that is overbrilliant.”

– Aristotle

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