At this time of year I want to get into my garden and start preparing beds for the vegetables I usually grow.  Since moving into an apartment this internal need to dig and plant is stifled.  So I must resort to planting hanging baskets, a few at best, to serve my urge to be Farmer Karen.  What I’ve learned from this is that if a need is there, then there is a way.  Much like writing.  If you want to write…you will write.

From Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain, let’s continue with putting character into your characters.

1. The character must have character.

To say someone “has character” means that you know where he stands.  The character is either for or against something.  This character will show desire and direction.  He/she will be a living, breathing human being with all the drives and ambitions, attitudes and prejudices just like a “real” person.  He/she will care about someone, whether good or bad and he/she must react to others.  Give them traits that arouse emotion in your readers. 

If you don’t like the man who drinks too much, or beats his wife, or picks his teeth in public, at least he gives you cause for your attitude.  Keep your hero free of bad habits like those just mentioned, but do give them to the secondary or antagonist character.

2. The first time the character appears in the story he/she must perform some act that characterizes them.

When the character acts we see what they are made of.  This is why you, the writer, should devise incidents that force your story people to reveal themselves early.  Or at least a hint of their traits, in action.  Is your bad guy a thief?  Show him stealing. Your hero picks up a stray dog and takes him home.  In the movie Rocky, he beat the tar out of his opponents in the ring, but once he walked into his apartment he headed straight for his turtle and gold fish.  Even putting them side by side so they wouldn’t be lonely.  By using the character’s dominant trait early on, whether it’s the hero or secondary character you set the essence of that character.

Let the dominant trait stay with that character.   Keep Jane honest, Blackie cruel and Bubba stupid.   You can, of course, modify these traits.  Maybe Jane is upright but greedy.  Blackie, who perhaps grew mean because of his name, is actually a devoted father.  Although Bubba can’t count past ten with his gloves on, he’s a top notch mechanic.

Keep the character’s dominant trait in the spotlight.

3. The characterizing act must be both pertinent and characteristic.

This means you should match characterizing act to the role.  Your hero, whose dominant trait is courage, must always be shown as that way.  Try to keep the character in character.  Don’t have them act in a non-typical way.

Keep writing and I’ll see you in print.