Audition Your Cast of Characters

Pride and Prejudice photo, from Amazon.com

(any excuse to post a picture of Mr. Darcy)

Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint, by Nancy Kress, is loaded with great advice about...well, characters, emotion, & viewpoint! One of the cool tips is to assemble the players we've thought of for the next book, and then make them work for their roles.

I learned the main character can't just waltz into a novel, assuming she's the best person to tell the story. What if her older sister captures more passion? (Jane's story instead of Elizabeth's? No!) What about the love interest? Would he be the best person to ignite the author's creativity? (Pride and Prejudice from Mr. Darcy's point of view...deliciously different)

Kress's solution to the "whose line is it anyway" dilemma? Audition these players, and see whose viewpoint would provide the best story. She suggests we ask the following questions when choosing our star:

• "Am I genuinely interested in this character?"-- If we're constantly thinking about this person, inventing backstory, dialog, and character traits, there's a good chance this person would work well as the lead.
• "Is this character or situation fresh and interesting in some new way?" -- This is where we can add a twist to a structured mystery, or choose the unlikely hero of our story. If my idea surprises me, I'm hopeful it'll surprise readers.
• "Can I maintain enough objectivity about this character, combined with enough identification, to practice the triple mind-set--becoming author, character, and reader as I write?" -- This was another great lesson I learned from Kress's book, and I blogged about it here.
• "Do I want this character to be a stayer or a changer?" -- Kress points out that some of our favorite characters have "stayed," such as James Bond, meaning his basic character is unchanged throughout the story. Other favorite characters have "changed," and by the end of the story, they were completely different people (Mr. Darcy!). If we want our main character to be a "changer," which person in our cast has the greatest capacity for change?

This advice is great for me, because I normally think of plot first, and then character. This taught me to choose my main character wisely, because he or she will determine which story will be told. My next book is formulating in my head now, and the characters best be ready for a casting call.

How about you? How do you choose who will play your main character, and who will play supporting roles? Do you create plot first, or character?

WHAT? Writers Must Be 3 Amigos At Once?

I'm reading "Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint" by Nancy Kress, and I'm lovin' it. Will it become my new obsession, like Plot & Structure? Time will tell! But I'll be sharing some of the cool tidbits from this book.

Nancy Kress points out that the most important aspect of creating great characters, even more important than craft, is that "...you must learn to be three people at once: writer, character, and reader."

Hmmm. Sounds intimidating at first, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. I've done a bit of this naturally, but it was great to be reminded of why we need to switch sombreros.

(1) Writer

Obvious, right? We're thinking about pacing, word choice, mood, and dialogue. We're referring to our plot notes (if you're a plotter) or capturing ideas as they come to you (if you're a pantser). We want to be sure our spelling and grammar are correct.

We might even be thinking ahead to markets, and what our agent or editor will think of our story. This is our Writer sombrero, and it's totally important that we wear it. Cuz you know, otherwise stuff won't get written.

(2) Character

Here's where we step into our character's skin. We draw from past experiences so we can add depth and authenticity. Like, when our character is embarrassed, and we remember our most shameful moment, and our neck burns. We're inside our character's head and imagining what she'd say.

Even with our villains, there's that little evil side of ourselves who comes out to play when we're setting up failure for our MC. Happiness, frustration, shame, fear...we've experienced these emotions ourselves, and we empathize, and hopefully succeed in transferring emotions to the page.

During these moments, we are the character. This is our Character sombrero, and it's important that we wear this one, too. It makes our characters real.

(3) Reader

Ahh, this is where we step back and view our work as an outsider would. The reader doesn't know all the details we've worked out in our heads. She doesn't know that we've drawn upon real experiences to add authenticity. She isn't aware of the steps we've taken to foreshadow future events. She doesn't even care. All she cares about is what's on the page.


Kress points this out in her book, and it was a lightbulb moment for me. It doesn't matter if I think my character is the most lovable person in the world, and that everyone should root for her. If I didn't build that up properly, it's my bad. But if we step back and read like a reader, and not the writer who already knows every intimate detail of the story, we make progress. This is our Reader sombrero, and as avid readers ourselves, we can relate to how important this step is.

Are you worried about switching sombreros and remembering to do it all? Me too. But Kress reminds us: "Your ability to inhabit all three mind-sets grows with practice. Experienced writers do this without ever thinking about it. Even beginners do it part of the time."


And why go through all this trouble? Kress says: "...by focusing on character, by making craft choices that build character, by becoming that character, and then by ensuring that all your choices and emotion actually have been translated to the page--by doing all that, you give readers what they want."


And that's what it's all about, right?

Have you ever heard of the three mind-set? Do you do this naturally, or do you force yourself to stop and switch sombreros? I'd love to hear how about your process.


photo credit