Building Character, or how I do it anyway

Over time I have joined my writing club members and others in writing workshops, to discuss character development. As authors we are always searching for ways to fix not only a character's physical attributes, but their mannerisms, beliefs and style. Hoping they will live as the people of our imagination. 

      For me character comes from people I see or hear, anywhere, or at any time. For instance, I might observe a mother trying to control an unruly child. I will watch how she manages the situation and if it fits the character I'm writing, I store those observations for later. Even the child’s tantrum can offer inspiration. Noting the words and actions used to recall that behaviour for when it is needed.

It is the same with animals, if your character is good with dogs, then the best place to study how interaction works is a dog park. An alternative is to watch, How-To shows, on television. Maybe you can draw on your own experience and adapt those to your story. As a writer I think about what I see and how it affected me at the time. I often ask if the scene affects my emotions? What are they and can I save them for later in a story. Or can I tell a story from the animal’s point of view?

I try all of these techniques to build character that I think are believable. They live in the world I have outlined and it is my task to bring them to life for the story's reader. Leading characters are contracted to show the reader what motivates them and I try to do this by showing their emotions through behaviour. How they handle their fear and elation. I try to use an action to show remorse, rather than say they are remorseful.

During my first three novels I used a cheat sheet similar to the example below. Danny Mitchell is a lead character in a screen play I'm writing. This Character Profile Sheet has worked well up until now, but I needed more to understand who Danny is. 

When writing Toby Farrier, I stumbled at one point and could not get the villain fixed in my mind. At the same time, I was reading Elizabeth George’s book about her writing process and remembered her chapters on character development. I took her advice and wrote about five pages describing Banker Bill's  rise from the gutter to becoming successful discovering all of his brutal tactics and criminal traits. Sometimes you just have to start typing to discover just who the character is.

I did not have mention height hair colour or if he wore glasses, but by the fifth page I knew him. He was a scheming despot with a small, but important part in the book. That exercise took about half an hour and it helped me over the hurdle. The gate to the last few chapters had been unlocked and the final words ran onto the page. Discovering the traits of his character finished the book.

I created Danny Mitchell as a supporting character to leading man, Smudge. Here is part of his story, it may only be part of a day in his life, but it helped me understand the essence of him. I hope you enjoy Danny's quirks, faults failings and underlying desires as much as I do.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT:    DANNY MITCHELL'S STORY

Danny felt his fingers wander across his face and imagined his skin looked like the floor of a drought ravaged dam. He could be dreaming and rolled into the shade searching for sleep. It was no use; he was awake enough to feel his brain slosh like water in a balloon. Today, it was worse than ever and he wondered just what concoction was in the rum bottle he swiped from Dunga last night.

Sounds of morning filled the park near the creek, he looked at the shadows, they were still long and pointing west. He listened to the breeze, there was no murmur from the town yet. His legs dragged from the sleeping bag and he dropped his tracksuit pants on top of his shoes. He sniffed his tee shirt and pulled his head away, the brain sloshed and he had to steady himself against the back of the park shelter. The shirt dropped onto his pants and he thought about breakfast. His stomach heaved and he doubled over expecting a taste of bile, it didn't come, but he dry-retched. His brain sloshed some more and a headache started its daily climb into pain.

Danny, naked as his ancestors, staggered toward the hollow of a gum tree that had stood at the south end of the park before white man set foot in the area. He fought the turmoil of two cultures, but his physic resisted his belief that he was a loser. Now here if an onlooker saw him they would believe he was the perfect specimen of a hunter gatherer. Light danced across his back glowing ebony, brown and silver as he passed under the trees. He reached in and drew a string up and out, until a flour sack dropped at his feet. He found a bar of soap and headed for the tap to the west of the tree, he found the gardener's hose and tossed it over a limb of the tree. Yesterday a trigger fitting improvised for a shower head, today it was just the hose. He snaked the hose out into the sun and waited for the water to warm inside it. 

At the tap he adjusted the flow, soaped his hands and turned it off until he lathered his body. He remembered a moment a few weeks back and it made him laugh. A lady dog walker spotted him in his ablutions and put a hand to her mouth. She seemed confused by the sight of him not knowing whether to run or stay. Danny called to her saying no matter how hard he tried the colour wouldn't come out. She turned on her heel and raced the dog up the path.

The water was warm and he held the hose in one hand as his fingers ran over coiled springs that was his hair. He lingered thinking about the promises he made his mother. Daniel, as in the lion’s den, she told him. He was a prince among men and he too would rise to be revered like King David. Why, he wondered, would anyone expect this little Aborigine to be capable of making a difference. It was easier to just do what everyone else expected, be a bludger. That is what he is best at. 

He had no warning when the water turned cold and as he jumped about he spotted the dog walker again. It was tempting him to call out and tell her he was performing his tribal cleansing dance. Danny imagined a wet dog shaking when he tried to rid himself of as much water as he could. His thoughts drifted to the story of Moses and imagined him leaving the safety of the river and into the King’s palace. The oppression of slavery, but then to wander for forty years in the desert, Danny found it hard to comprehend. 

Thankful his mother didn't call him Moses, he would have wandered aimless, not like Moses, Moses had a purpose. Anyway why did she give her kids these biblical names, he thought about his siblings, yeah that was why, they all had something to live up to. Daniel Mitchell, her only disappointment.

A quick rub with the towel and he set up his camp-stove and boiled some water. It had been a couple of days since his last shave and the beard was long enough to prickle him, time for it to go. He hung a mirror big enough to examine his features from a dead twig. He shook the shaving cream and fumbled for his razor. The blades were dull and he knew care would be required to prevent him portraying a black Norman Gunsen. He filled an enamel mug with water from the billy and soaped his beard. He was right, the blade was dull and a new packet should come his way at the first opportunity.

Danny stood back and through the haze of his hangover admired himself. If they ever needed a black Captain Jack Sparrow, he was their man. He took yesterday’s clothes to the tap and scrubbed them with soap, he rinsed them and lay them onto the slabs of bluestone lining the creek bank to dry. Pleased with his work he stood in the sun and decided to dress for the day.

Breakfast would wait until he could scrounge something from behind the bakery or the grocer's store. Times were tough to be a hunter gatherer. He took a book out of his sack and tried to read it, but his head fought him. A ukulele came to hand, he tried to tune it and even that added to his discomfort. He could lay down in the shade and doze the morning away while his clothes dried, but his body called for exercise. He pulled on a pair of shorts his runners and a tank top. The best way to get rid of the hammering in his head, would be to run it off.

Danny started at a jog and in a few steps found his rhythm, he like the sound his feet made on the kangaroo pad that followed along the edge of the creek. Roos can bound over ledges, but he needed his hands to scrabble over the ridges. All good exercise, the bank opened up and he ran along the flat until the big gully before the reservoir, he dropped into that and crossed to the other side of the creek. At the dam wall, he ran up and down the concrete steps of the overflow until his legs cramped. A jog back to camp would do as his cool down routine and by camp, his headache should be gone.

Back in town he mooched away the day, perfecting his dirty, no-good-Abo persona. This was Danny's life as he understood it, for now.

CHARACTER CHART: SCREENPLAY-----SMUDGE

NAME:                                               : Danny Mitchell

Position in story:                                 : Supporting Role

Age:	21
Nationality:	Aboriginal Australian
Socioeconomic level as a child:	Poor
Socioeconomic level as an adult:	Welfare Drunk and likes weed or gives the impression he does
Hometown:	Can’t remember, just drifts around
Current residence:	Sleeps in a car behind Smudge’s Garage
Occupation:	Perceived Unemployable
Income:	Benefits
Talents/skills:	Charismatic, technical abilities kept hidden, mechanical sympathy intuitive driving skills
Salary:	Wastes everything and not frightened to bot borrow or steal to get what he needs
Relationships:
Birth order:	One of five, he is the third child
Siblings (describe relationship):	Michael (Micky), Mary, Ruth, Lydia
Spouse/partner (describe relationship):	Fancy Free
Children (describe relationship):	None he lays claim too
Parents (describe relationship):	Eunice (Mother)  Jack
Physical Characteristics
Height:	165 cm
Weight:	48 kg
Race:	Aborigine
Eye Colour:	Brown
Hair Colour:	Black and curly
Glasses or contact lenses?	None
Skin colour:	Light brown
Shape of face:	oval
Distinguishing features:	Killer grin
How does he/she dress?	Scruffy, likes things with brands that he defaces
Mannerisms:	Gregarious
Habits: (smoking, drinking/drugs/addictions etc.)	When he can and a bit of weed
Any physical illnesses?	One evident
Health:	Good
Hobbies:	Play station games, darts, pool, he is a gambler
Favourite sayings:	Deadly brother
Speech patterns:	Puts on an aboriginal twang when needed to capture his audience
Disabilities:	Born Black and can’t change it.
Style (Elegant, shabby etc.):	Shabby, but can put on the Ritz when required
Greatest flaw:	He has a poor opinion of himself which he hides
Best quality:	He knows he should live by the Christian principals his mother taught him and knows he hides them by playing the clown
Personality Attributes and Attitudes
Educational Background:	High school in Pt Augusta dropped out in year eleven. Took up a trade as a fitter machinist and found a love in modifying cars, while in Adelaide at a football training camp.
Intelligence Level:	Very High
Any Mental Illnesses?	Only insecurity
Learning Experiences:	Lots of life skills with tribal elders
Character's short-term goals in life:	To get through the day
Character's long-term goals in life:	Make it to the grave
How does Character see himself/herself?	As a failure and always will be a complete fraud to his outside persona
How does Character believe he/she is perceived by others?	Happy, fun to be around, lazy abo bastard, good in bed, great little goal sneak, daring, charismatic, useless. Be dead before he is forty
How self-confident is the character?	Total self-conscious and feels   he is unworthy, a fraud, a liar and a cheat. Nothing his mother wanted him to be.
Does the character seem ruled by emotion or logic or some combination thereof?	He is driven by what he wants to do now, but those traits are balanced by lessons he has learned and therefore logic will sometimes overrule a spontaneous thought.
What would most embarrass this character	To be found out that he cares
Spiritual Characteristics
Does the character believe in God?	Yes, he is conflicted by the teachings of his Baptist mother and the old ways. Both lines of thought have a creator and the Aborigine in him desires to be liked by the spirits of his ancestors
What are the character's spiritual beliefs?	He hides his belief from everyone
Is religion or spirituality a part of this character's life?	Only when alone and confused, does he reach out to the white God his mother believes in
If so, what role does it play?	Not often needed