Characterization

I recently gave feedback to a friend on one of her stories in progress. She is a beautiful writer, in that her diction is often flawless. She knows how to pick interesting details to describe, and she words them delicately, with nothing less than grace--an enviable trait. She is creative, and her words seem to spill naturally onto the page, belying the obvious effort she must put into every sentence. And yet this story that I read did not work. That's the rub--isn't it?--that you can be a brilliant wordsmith and still not come up with a good story.

Her problem, at least on the surface, was her plot. Her plot was not believable. But her real problem was with characterization. At JMWW, we are most interested in character-driven stories. After all, if the characters aren't compelling, the story certainly won't be. Plus, the characters are what make the story, the plot, believable.

Readers don't need to know absolutely everything about a character. But we do need to have a feel for who they are and for what motivates them. Otherwise, their actions seem meaningless, random, and the plot has no momentum, no inevitability.

Also, it is important that characters actually do act. If all a story does is describe a character, then it is just a character study, a sketch. So, here are some tips (from a writing professor at Towson University) on characterization that could be useful:

* If you write in first person, it has to be the narrator's story.
* One way to define a protagonist is to say what he/she wants.
* If the protagonist knows something important, the reader should know it, too. However, if the protagonist doesn't know, then the reader doesn't have to either.
* A protagonist should make a choice, and should be responsible for what he/she does.
* A protagonist should be allowed to be vulnerable.
* If two characters are talking, one should want something from the other.