Creating Compelling Stories Using Compelling Characters
Notes from my presentation at the 2023 Red Clay Writers Conference
Close your eyes and imagine you are holding a photo. This one photo, a snapshot, should represent your character’s personality. Maybe it is an ice cream cone because their personality presents as cold, but you know they are sweet and likable. Or maybe it is a child screaming after being told no on the candy aisle in a grocery store because you know your character is a little spoiled and would easily throw a tantrum.
Keep that image in mind.
Blake Snyder (Save The Cat) says, “We need a reason to empathize with a character within the first few pages.”
Goal: Immediate emotional engagement
My fiance and I recently visited a popular nature spot just outside of our town. Winter was wrapping up, but it was still cold, so we went in my jeep and took pictures out of the sunroof so that we could stay inside the vehicle where it was warm.
On our drive back down the mountain, we passed a hiker. He was decked out in hiking apparel and gear, so you know he had been out for a minute. We were right off of the Pinhoti Trail, which my fiancee and I would both like to hike one day, so there was already a curiosity about where this guy had been. But as we passed him, he stopped and turned toward our vehicle and had the biggest, most carefree smile on his face. He genuinely looked happy. At peace.
I knew immediately this was a person I would love to sit down and have a conversation with. I wanted to know more about where he had been and what he had seen. I wanted him to tell me about his hardships and triumphs. And I knew he probably had advice that I could learn from and use, not just on the Pinhoti Trail, but in life itself.
We did not stop and talk to this guy for three reasons.
It was getting dark, and we didn't want to hold him up from getting to where he needed to go for the night.
Did I mention it was cold? Too cold, in fact, to roll the window down and have a conversation.
He could have been a serial killer.
But here I am, several days later, still thinking about this guy- enough so that I am writing him into a workshop presentation. He was a character that prompted an immediate emotional connection.
Why? What set him in my mind enough to keep him there?
Had I seen this guy wearing khaki pants and sipping a Chi Latte in Starbucks, I wouldn’t have given him another thought.
And if I present him to you wearing khaki pants and sipping a Chi Latte in Starbucks, you won’t give him another thought either.
I have to present him in a way that captures your attention. That is the end goal of every author. To set the scene perfectly so that I am connected with your character enough after the first couple of paragraphs that I continue to read your story because I simply can’t NOT read your story.
So, how do we do this? We break it down into four parts.
PART ONE: SETTING (Your Backstory)
PART TWO: APPEARANCE (Displayed Emotions)
PART THREE: RELATABILITY (Engaging What I Feel)
PART FOUR: CURIOSITY (Cliffhanger)
If I am writing about this hiker and trying to write his character with no backstory, all I am writing are facts. It's going to look something like this…
He was a black man.
He looked to be in his mid-20s.
He appeared to be happy.
I can't write his story in a way that captivates you emotionally because I don't know it. But I can tell you my backstory. I can tell you how I once wanted so badly to be on Naked & Afraid that I spent months training to become a survivalist. I can tell you about eating grubs and making a fire from sticks. I can create a compelling opening for my main character based on my backstory as a secondary character and how that encounter with this gentleman was memorable because of my experiences.
I can tell you about his displayed emotions and how that engaged me as an observer.
And I can share with you the cliffhanger questions the brief encounter left me with.
And as writers, we have to know things about our stories that no one else ever will.
Our readers don't need to know all the details, but they have to feel the emotional pull that those details create.
**
We are going to read the opening of 3 books and I want you to look for the four parts of writing compelling stories. Setting, appearance, relatability, curiosity.
One
Mama was such a beautiful, dark-eyed child that she was known as the Indian Princess. Her young life was rough, and she remembers it all- being packed in a straw bed with two sisters and a brother in the dead winter all ill and bone-cold, the sudden sound of vomit hitting the slop jar. She recalls her brother Scooter ramming chicken shit down her throat and her Granny's surefire cure for pinkeye: “Squat and pee into your hands, now; then rub your eyes real good.”
But what she remembers most is how she felt when her mama left.
The Cracker Queen By Lauretta Hannon
PART ONE: SETTING (Your Backstory)
What do we know about the character(s)?
What genre (overall feel) do you sense?
PART TWO: APPEARANCE (Displayed Emotions)
What is the character(s) feeling? Told & implied?
PART THREE: RELATABILITY (Engaging What I Feel)
Are you able to relate to this character?
What emotions are prompted by the opening of this book?
PART FOUR: CURIOSITY (Cliffhanger)
What questions do you have?
Two
Mama tells us it's a game. She pulls back our bed covers, grabs hold of our nightgowns, and pulls me and my sister into the hallway. Momma’s in her pajamas, too, and I stumble against the light and Mama's feet in front of mine. All the lights in the house are on.
I hear noise even though I'm hard of hearing, dull thuds that sound at the other end of the house. I look back, but Momma jerks me forward, tells me to hurry.
We go to the only place that's still dark. The bathroom at the end of the hallway, the small one where there's a window and the shower curtain is lace, not plastic like it is in the bigger one. She pulls us inside and shuts the door behind us, locks it, and keeps the light off.
She smiles at us and puts a hand to her lips, like she's told us a secret. Motioning to the towels, momma pulls them off the rack and sets them in the tub, makes us climb in, and she drapes more on top of us. I feel the thuds again, only in the sides of the tub, and my sister feels them, too. She's completely deaf, but the vibrations in the house are ones we all sense and know.
Mama signs to us.
“We are practicing,” she signs, “for an earthquake.” Her sign for the last word is big as she makes the word for earth, then clenches both hands into fists and beats the air in front of her.
Light comes in from underneath the door behind her, and we can see that her face is animated, her eyes big, and my sister laughs. I want to laugh, too, but I am distracted by Mama's fists in the air, her small, pale knuckles, because I think of the other fists at the end of the house where our earthquake is, where Daddy is.
A House Made of Stars by Tawnysha Greene
PART ONE: SETTING (Your Backstory)
What do we know about the character(s)?
What genre (overall feel) do you sense?
PART TWO: APPEARANCE (Displayed Emotions)
What is the character(s) feeling? Told & implied?
PART THREE: RELATABILITY (Engaging What I Feel)
Are you able to relate to this character?
What emotions are prompted by the opening of this book?
PART FOUR: CURIOSITY (Cliffhanger)
What questions do you have?
Three
It was my last day as a middle schooler. I couldn't be happier about the impending months of glorious sleep called Summer vacation. I watched as all my other classmates seemed to blossom from grade school children into well prepared Middle School bound teenagers. I tried to act as though I had it all together, but I was terrified. I just knew that over the summer those same freckle-faced girls I'd called friends would become like the girls you see on magazine covers and would enter high school with their expensive clothes, bubblegum-flavored lip gloss shining bright enough to temporarily blind you, and their perfect hair falling beautifully into place with each step they took. They would take one look at me with my new braces, still wearing my same, pink framed glasses, and have sudden amnesia that would cause them only to forget that I ever existed. But I had two full months before I had to worry about that. Right then, I had no worries. I only had a summer of doing absolutely nothing on my plate.
Perfectly Imperfect by Karli M Donalson
PART ONE: SETTING (Your Backstory)
What do we know about the character(s)?
What genre (overall feel) do you sense?
PART TWO: APPEARANCE (Displayed Emotions)
What is the character(s) feeling? Told & implied?
PART THREE: RELATABILITY (Engaging What I Feel)
Are you able to relate to this character?
What emotions are prompted by the opening of this book?
PART FOUR: CURIOSITY (Cliffhanger)
What questions do you have?
What do those 3 beginnings have in common?
An immediate emotional connection with a character. One that leaves you with curiosity about what will happen.
What do the 3 authors of our books have in common?
They have an emotional connection with their character. One that drives them to write life into the character in a way that bleeds through the page and leaves you curious. Like seeing someone for the first time that you know is interesting and probably has a great story and you are left wondering if you should try to strike up a conversation or leave it alone for fear of looking like an idiot to a complete stranger. Much like I felt with my hiker.
Of those 3 story openings, which do you feel you most connected with?
What grabbed your attention and caused you to select that particular story?
Was it setting (backstory), appearance (displayed emotions), relatability (engaging what you feel), or curiosity (cliffhanger)? Why?
It is important to understand why you connected with the particular story you most connected to and why you connected with it. If it was because of the appearance (displayed emotions), then you might be more apt to write this particular feature into your scenes. You would be tempted to lean this way as a matter of preference. That is okay!! But, it is important to know this about yourself and to work on the other 3 because not all of your readers will connect with your story in the same way. Some readers need to connect with your back story, some need to feel a sense of relatability by having their feelings challenged, and others are simply curious creatures and need to be left with a cliffhanger so they can wonder what information they might be missing.
**
Now let’s look at your character.
Think back to the snapshot you selected to represent your character’s personality. Why did you choose this image? How is that characteristic or those traits displayed in your opening scene? Do you feel that you have accurately established the voice of your character in that scene?
Character voice is hard to shake without a slow transition.
Example:
One by one the words spill out of his mouth, over-enunciated for dramatic effect. As if they were weighted, he hurls each one at me, pausing between them to see if the desired damage has been achieved. It hasn't. It won't. This isn't my first time hearing such things. The first time I heard them was as a small child as they were pouring from the lips of my vile mother.
I watch as he morphs into something almost unrecognizable. The beautiful soul I fell in love with begins to step backward, away from me, into a shadow. It crouches there to hide, as I wish I could do. I am left with a being so full of hate and rage, but in its eyes are the remnants of a child filled with hurt, unforgiveness, and shame. A child that is almost masked by the aggression that his host exudes.
Working Title by Karli Land
In this selection, the character has a very distinct voice. You would not be able to write this character as passive after reading this opening scene. He is anything but passive.
This brings us to something you should remember when writing your opening scene….
*You should be careful not to falsely portray your character for the sake of an exciting opening scene.
Now let’s think about that opening scene. Remember, your opening scene sets the stage for the emotion (tone) your reader can expect to feel between the front and back cover. Does your opening scene tell your reader what they can expect? Think back to the sample passage we just read together. It sets the stage for a dramatic story. There is no way for me to warp this into a comedy a few chapters in.
This brings us to something else you should remember when writing your opening scene….
*You should be careful not to falsely portray your tone for the sake of an exciting opening scene.
**Your Turn**
Consider what we have talked about today and write an opening scene for your novel. Remember to incorporate as many of the four traits we have discussed while staying true to your character’s voice and the tone of your story.
**Another Assignment**
Learn your characters. Dig deep to understand why they do what they do. Ask them questions- even if the answers will never make it onto the pages of your book.
Questions you need to ask your characters- taken from The Ultimate Character Development Workbook by Colorful Crow Publishing (available at colorfulcrowpublishing.com)
What do you wish others knew about you?
If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?
What life experiences have shaped who you are today?
What do you think people will say about you when you die?