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
Position in story: : Supporting Role
Age:
|
21
|
Nationality:
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Aboriginal Australian
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Socioeconomic level as a child:
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Poor
|
Socioeconomic level as an adult:
|
Welfare Drunk and likes weed or gives the impression he does
|
Hometown:
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Can’t remember, just drifts around
|
Current residence:
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Sleeps in a car behind Smudge’s Garage
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Occupation:
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Perceived Unemployable
|
Income:
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Benefits
|
Talents/skills:
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Charismatic, technical abilities kept hidden, mechanical sympathy intuitive driving skills
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Salary:
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Wastes everything and not frightened to bot borrow or steal to get what he needs
|
Relationships:
|
|
Birth order:
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One of five, he is the third child
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Siblings (describe relationship):
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Michael (Micky), Mary, Ruth, Lydia
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Spouse/partner (describe relationship):
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Fancy Free
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Children (describe relationship):
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None he lays claim too
|
Parents (describe relationship):
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Eunice (Mother) Jack
|
Physical Characteristics
|
|
Height:
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165 cm
|
Weight:
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48 kg
|
Race:
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Aborigine
|
Eye Colour:
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Brown
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Hair Colour:
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Black and curly
|
Glasses or contact lenses?
|
None
|
Skin colour:
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Light brown
|
Shape of face:
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oval
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Distinguishing features:
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Killer grin
|
How does he/she dress?
|
Scruffy, likes things with brands that he defaces
|
Mannerisms:
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Gregarious
|
Habits: (smoking, drinking/drugs/addictions etc.)
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When he can and a bit of weed
|
Any physical illnesses?
|
One evident
|
Health:
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Good
|
Hobbies:
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Play station games, darts, pool, he is a gambler
|
Favourite sayings:
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Deadly brother
|
Speech patterns:
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Puts on an aboriginal twang when needed to capture his audience
|
Disabilities:
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Born Black and can’t change it.
|
Style (Elegant, shabby etc.):
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Shabby, but can put on the Ritz when required
|
Greatest flaw:
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He has a poor opinion of himself which he hides
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Best quality:
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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:
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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:
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Very High
|
Any Mental Illnesses?
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Only insecurity
|
Learning Experiences:
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Lots of life skills with tribal elders
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Character's short-term goals in life:
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To get through the day
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Character's long-term goals in life:
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Make it to the grave
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How does Character see himself/herself?
|
As a failure and always will be a complete fraud to his outside persona
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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.
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Does the character seem ruled by emotion or logic or some combination thereof?
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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.
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What would most embarrass this character
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To be found out that he cares
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Spiritual Characteristics
|
|
Does the character believe in God?
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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
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What are the character's spiritual beliefs?
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He hides his belief from everyone
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Is religion or spirituality a part of this character's life?
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Only when alone and confused, does he reach out to the white God his mother believes in
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If so, what role does it play?
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Not often needed
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