Self-Editing Part 3: Character Development

Article by Kathy Teel

In our drive to finish a manuscript, we can lose a lot of focus, especially with our characters. I remember once I wrote a scene where the male protagonist was yelling at some hospital personnel. The female protagonist told him that yelling wasn’t going to help, and she turned to the clerk and asked him nicely for what they wanted. Fine…except my character never asked nicely for anything. I was so caught up in the drama of the hospital scene that I lost sight of my character’s true self. For a minute, I actually wrote her as though she were me.

And that’s the problem—we easily slip out of our character’s voice and into our own. But getting into character for a writer is a very similar process to getting into character as an actor. It’s a whole different head space, and it’s hard work to maintain. I can almost guarantee that you can’t maintain it for an entire first draft…you slip out of character and back into your regular self.

As subtle as they are, those are the places in your writing you have to identify. Once I realized that my character, eager to help the man she loved, would have dealt with a bureaucrat by putting a knife to his throat, the scene got back on track—including the tension between the protagonists (he didn’t really approve of her straight-to-weapons approach to life).

So when you go back to your manuscript to revise, here are some questions to ask of your characterization:

• Era-appropriate. Those of us who read historical romances know this error well. How many strong-willed, independent 21st century women are stomping around Regency England asserting their equality? It’s not that women didn’t have strong opinions two hundred years ago; it’s that they never would have gone around asserting those opinions in the same way the women we know do it. You have to let them be themselves, not you in armor or a ballgown. Check to make sure that a character would have done in his time period the things you have him doing.

• World view. How does your character view reality? Is it basically good, with a few unfortunate events? Are the universe and the natural world full of meaning, or essentially meaningless? Is science their guideline for reality, or do they accept supernatural revelation? You have to clarify big-picture questions like this, because if you don’t, your character falls into your worldview. I believe in God and the possibility of meaning in history…but not all my characters do. I have to make sure that I don’t fall into letting my voice speak through their bodies.


• Past experiences. It’s important that you know far more about your character’s past than will ever be revealed in your book, because the past always affects the present. Say that a young lady travels to care for her dying uncle. Is he the beloved father-figure who took care of her after her parents died? Or is he the molester who made her childhood a living hell? That one distinction will affect her thoughts as she wipes his brow, changes his sheets, or spoon-feeds him broth. And really, the reader never has to know, but it will be clear that something is going on when we see how she holds her hands, her facial expressions, and her tone of voice.

• Mannerisms. Most of us start out with a clear idea of our characters’ mannerisms—perhaps he taps his fingers on the desktop when he’s angry, or perhaps she picks at her nails when she’s insecure. But those mannerisms often fall by the wayside in about the third chapter. I’m not saying that we need to see him finger-tapping in every scene, but non-verbal communication is every bit as important as verbal, and much of it tends to be particular to the character. Establish early on what mannerisms express what emotions, and then let us see those expressions throughout.

• Background. Characters don’t spring out of nowhere, and where you came from affects where you’re going. There are other good articles on this site about how upbringing and geography influence character development—check out March 2, 2011, and November 5, 2010. The important thing to remember is that people don’t exist in vacuums. If you’re writing someone who could exist as she is in any time or place, you haven’t done enough character work. Character traits are universal—greedy, generous, angry, vengeful, caring, insecure—but the way those traits are lived out is very specific to one place and its culture. Make sure your character’s gestures, attitudes, rhythms, and actions conform to his culture and region.

To do all that deep character work, you might want to take a look at a book called Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn From Actors, by Brandilyn Collins. It’s perfectly understandable if your character is a little blurry around the edges when your finish your first draft. Just apply these tips and you’ll end up with characters that are sharp, memorable, and live on in your readers’ memories.