Last week, I wrote a 2 part blog post on the process of writing characters (which you can find here and here). I did not plan on posting a part three, but here it is.
As I wrestle with my many projects, I find myself remember the most difficult characters I’ve ever written. There are plenty of examples in modern literature with the perfect character. Wolverine (“I’m the best at what I do”), Optimus Prime (the Autobot who is too wise and too good to ever be truly beaten), Superman (the uber-boy scout who is invulnerable to everything). Hey, why else do you think Kryptonite ended up with so many flavors and Superman’s origin keeps getting rebooted?
Perfect characters who cannot be beaten on their own turf must be dealt with In Other Ways. This doesn’t just mean taking them out of their comfort zone. It means stripping them of what makes them special, making them vulnerable to the things they normally can fight against. It means finding a loophole where you can throw that character through the wringer for the story’s sake. And if you’re writing Work for Hire, it means trying to do it without fundamentally altering the character.
When you’re stuck with Wolverine, Optimus Prime, or Superman to write for… Well, it gets old after a while. How many different ways can you muddle Wolverine’s sense of smell or remove his adamantium claws? How often can you use human hostages against Optimus Prime, or have him “distracted” by inter-Autobot rivalries before the readers wash their hands of Prime and want Megatron to win for once? And do you really want me to get started on Superman?
Don’t get me wrong. I love doing Work for Hire / Media Tie-In. But this is one of the reasons that I love Jar Jar Binks.
Yes, I actually said it. Feel free to flame away. I love Jar Jar. Why? Because he’s fallible, gullible, and clumsy. Because, stereotype that many people may consider him to be, he is the Perfect Character for a writer. He can be used and abused. He is sincere. He tries. He doesn’t always get it right, but when he does, he gets it right in a way no one expects. I can do things with Jar Jar that I can’t do with most heroes. He is not stupid. He’s not smart, either. He is the Everyman, the person who gets caught up in crap because he’s there and unable to walk away. Curiosity is Jar Jar’s biggest strength, and his greatest weakness.
When you sit down to create your characters (or write about ones that have already been created), your first job is to figure out how to make them dance to your tune in ways that are true to the character and believable to the story. In order to do this, you have to understand the difference between what the characters want, and what they need. Who they are, and who they will become.
There are a lot of stories out there with characters that don’t change, but the successful ones are few and far between these days. Most of the no-character-arc stories are Work for Hire pieces in which the author is not allowed to fundamentally change the status quo of the world or the character. This is not acceptable writing for original fiction, though. Characters must change, be it slowly or in small bits at a time.
So take your time. Think about where your characters will be emotionally, physically, and spiritually at the start of your story. Then think about where they should be at the end of the story. Then fill in the missing pieces as you write, or as you finish creating your character. This process, I think, is much more meaningful than filling out some silly character questionnaire. At least, it is to me.
