“Secrets of Great Characters”
In comments recently, Tom posted a link to an interesting site: “Secrets of Great Characters, According to 6 Science Fiction Authors.” Their advice:
* Get to know them as individuals, rather than types
* Try making your characters scientists
* Base them on people you know
* Give them a thought-out world
* Figure out what they love, and what they fear
* Don’t aim for larger-than-life — and overshoot
* Don’t obsess too much about setting and toys
* Find out who’s hurting
* Keep your characters grounded
It’s a good read which, as Tom noted in his original comment, has relevance to all types of genres. Of this list, one really leaped out at me: “Figure out what they love, and what they fear.” That reminded me of the interview excerpt here with screenwriter Robert Towne. In that interview, Towne said this:
“The single most important question, I think, that one must ask one’s self about a character is what are they really afraid of? What are they really afraid of? And if you ask that question, it’s probably for me the single best way of getting into a character. That finally is where stories are told… with a character that’s real.”
What they fear… what they love. Don’t they represent opposite portals into a character? One they do everything to find, the other they do everything to avoid.
How about you? What do you do to ‘find’ your characters?