Mastering Character: A Back-to-Basics Approach for Writers at Any Level

Are you struggling to create memorable characters that drive your story? Whether you’re just starting out or have years of experience, mastering character development is crucial to engaging your audience. In this episode, Zena dives into the fundamentals of character creation, exploring why every writer—no matter their experience—should revisit the basics.

Tune in for practical insights that will take your storytelling to the next level!

Key Takeaways:
-Why every character needs a personal crucible to drive their story.
-How to differentiate between characterization and true character.
-The importance of consistent, paradoxical characters to hook your audience.

Revisit the basics, and watch your characters—and your writing—transform!



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Transcript

[00:00:00] Zena: I'm a writer. I work in Hollywood. I primarily work as a script doctor slash consultant, which means I'm the person who never gets credit for anything, but I go and fix things.

[00:00:12] And I'm telling you, one of the major areas that I constantly am fixing are character issues.

[00:00:19] ​

[00:00:19] Zena: I'm really excited about this. This is like an area of passion of mine. And when I teach at writers conferences across the country, 

[00:00:38] I have limited time to unpack character and there's so much to say. And so even this is sort of just scratching the surface. 

[00:00:46] So that said. We'll dive in. We're going to start and talk about what is a character. It's a good place to start if we're going to talk about character and we're going to learn how to build great characters. What is a character in the first place? 

[00:01:02] So that's the first question. Why do we start with people? Well, we start with people because the heart of every story is a personal paradox.

[00:01:13] What I mean by that is that at the core of every story is a character on a journey and they're trying to achieve something that is true for every single story. But it's more than just that they're on a journey. It's also that they are undergoing some sort of personal transformation. If they don't undergo some sort of personal transformation, then what was the point?

[00:01:39] It's very much like life. Life is about suffering. And really what we're doing in story is we're causing our characters to suffer. It is through the suffering that they undergo change. We're going to talk about that more in a bit, but the heart of every story ultimately comes down to a character's personal crucible that they are going through over the course of the telling.

[00:02:04] And it has to be about people or else we, the audience, will suffer. Do not care. It's because it's about people that we care and I can prove this by the way I can prove this because what I can say is If I go to a sermon Say at a church and the pastor presents a five point presentation on theological issues I might be passionate about theology, but those don't take up residence in my brain.

[00:02:40] I don't remember them But if the pastor tells a compelling story I will remember those theological principles for the rest of my life. Why because it's about The people when it's about people it's that is the thing that is the thing God designed us to care about others to be connected to others to relate to others So it has to be about people or else there's no Emotional connection with the audience and that is key for successful story So we can't on we can't actually ask what's more important in story like You Oh, your plot or your character.

[00:03:25] I hear this happen a lot where people are like, well, mine is a plot. You know, it's really driven by plot. It's a high concept piece or other people saying, well, mine's more of a character driven piece. And what I want to argue today is that it's all character driven. It doesn't matter how high concept your piece is.

[00:03:43] If we don't care about the characters, We will not care about your story. We won't care about how clever your plot is. And furthermore, the story will unfold according to the specific choices that your character makes in that story. So the plot is a result of who your character is. And if you switch out the main character, even if you have the same basic structure, it will radically change.

[00:04:13] What story you're telling. For example, who here is familiar with the Pied Piper? Anyone? You know the story of the Pied Piper? Okay, there's a rat problem in a village. They call up the Pied Piper to have him take away the rats. He plays his little music, the rats sing. You know, it takes the rats away, but then the village refuses to pay him.

[00:04:36] And so what does he do? He plays the music and now he takes the children away as a punishment for that village. Well, there's a lot of different ways. That's the basic arc of the story, but who it's happening to will radically change everything about how we perceive that story. If it's told through the point of view of the Pied Piper, it's one thing.

[00:05:01] It's a story about just retribution, perhaps. But if it's a story told from the point of view of one of the mothers Now it's a radically different story, even though the story beats might be the same. Or if it's a story told from the point of view of one of the children who gets taken away, it's a radically different story, even though the story beats are the same.

[00:05:26] Same is true if it's one of the children, still one of the children, but this is the child who sees that something's wrong and is, is trying to stop everything. Now it's going to be even more, you know, it's different. So who it's happening to actually matters. Even if the story beats are the same, it changes the story.

[00:05:44] Are you with me? So this is how the heart of every story is a personal paradox or personal crucible. It's a personal story of suffering. Now,

[00:05:59] Why do we call them characters and not real people? Well, because, they are better than real. Now, um, What do I mean by they are better than real? Well, the truth is real life is boring and tedious real life is Really hard to nail down it could change radically even people that we know They're not consistent to us.

[00:06:32] You know what i'm saying? Like like these husbands and you ever watch those stories about like these husbands and wives and you know You One of them decides to murder their spouse because they don't want to get a divorce. It's crazy, right? Like, this is your, the person that you chose to marry, and yet it ends up with murder.

[00:06:48] It's crazy to me. So, the thing is, in some ways, we can never really know the people around us. We all wear masks. 

[00:06:59] Nevertheless, the point is, is that story characters, we know them. We know them, We know, for example, if they, if, if, have you ever watched a movie or read a book where a character makes a choice and you're like, I don't buy that.

[00:07:17] Mostly happens in TV. Where they might have an off episode and they have a character doing something that you just don't buy. Because you know who that character is. This is the whole thing with Game of Thrones. Like by the end of Game of Thrones, I'm like, this is ridiculous. I mean, I don't buy any of it.

[00:07:33] And it's because they're having these characters do things I just know they wouldn't do. Because we know them now. But they're also better than real because they're compressed in time. I

[00:07:44] mean, just try and fit a real person's life into even a book or a movie. It can't be done. What do they say about Jesus? If we wrote down every single thing that he did, there would be, there isn't a library in the world that could hold everything, right? You have to compress it. You have to tell just a small part.

[00:08:07] Notice in the. Gospels when it comes to Jesus we get a little teeny tiny bit of his birth a little teeny tiny like a Moment when he's 12 and he's in the temple and then then we skip ahead to when his ministry starts. I mean When the heck we miss most of his life it is compressed in time Because that's the story that's being told 

[00:08:33] and their lives are vetted for our entertainment.

[00:08:39] We have to choose the details that fit. we can't include everything. One of the things that I've noticed is that in a lot of the novels I've been critiquing lately, is that people will try to, even in their setting, they'll try to include everything. Because they're trying to really flesh out their novel, set the setting and all this stuff.

[00:09:00] The problem is, anytime you mention anything, it's a setup, and we expect it to play into the narrative, and so there's some things we just shouldn't be mentioning, because it's too much. You have to select only the details about your character that are actually relevant.

[00:09:16] We can just choose the details that are relevant to the narrative, we vet their lives for our entertainment. It's a selection of details that fit the story, fit the theme and leave everything else out. But also see them in a state of heightened conflict.

[00:09:40] Our characters are always in a state of conflict. of heightened conflict. Here's the truth. It doesn't matter if you're writing a novel or if you're writing a screenplay. It doesn't matter. Your character is either currently in a state of heightened conflict, they're about to be in a state of heightened conflict, Or they're just coming down from having been in a state of heightened conflict.

[00:10:08] In which case, they're about to go into a state of heightened conflict. They are always at one of those, but they never stay here because story is always about being in a state of heightened conflict. In fact, we people, normal people, can't live there. We would have heart attacks if we had to live in the state that our characters do.

[00:10:34] Think about Jack Reacher, or, you know, uh, John Wick, or, you know, these, these superhero characters that are just always, they're just always in the thick of this terrible crisis that's happening, or about to happen, or blah, blah, blah. It's just that. They, it would be horrible. We can't, we couldn't sustain it.

[00:10:53] But in story world you have to sustain it. And that's what makes them better than real. Because real life is tedious and boring. But not story life. Okay? Also, we have extraordinary access to them. Again, we can know them in a way that we can never know real people in real life. We know who they are. Rick Blaine will always be Rick Blaine.

[00:11:25] And by the way, this is one reason why sequels are so tricky. Because if a story, and I'll expand on this as we go, but if a story is about a character who goes on a journey and then changes over the course of that trajectory, And so by the end of the story, they are not the same as they were when they started.

[00:11:47] Then when the story ends, they're at a new place. The problem is, a lot of sequels will try to recreate, or it's like it undoes the growth that they've had. They don't know how to start the character at this new place and have them undergo more changes. So they'll actually Have them go through like the same exact adventure to get them to the same exact place.

[00:12:09] But then what was the point of the first story if they didn't really change? Because by the end of the first story, we should believe they have arrived and that they will never change from that. They have arrived. Now, we as people, we change. We'll go back. We revert. We might have a profound growth experience and we might sustain it for a few months or a year or even longer.

[00:12:30] And then we revert back to who we were. Because we're people and we suck. But story people aren't that way. Story characters, once they go through growth, they stay there. And we, we, we expect that. We expect that. And so you can't just repeat a growth scenario. You have to allow the sequel to take them to a new growth.

[00:12:53] To grow in a different way, a different direction. And the, the, this, the films and novels That are able to do that are the ones that people are riveted in now. Sometimes the changes are

[00:13:06] Coming of age type changes. Let's look at harry potter seven books Harry needed all those adventures to be able to be ready to take on voldemort at the end So he started with smaller adventure. I mean they were still big Life and death from the very beginning, but nevertheless class He started with, uh, he couldn't have taken Voldemort on until the very end.

[00:13:36] He had to have each of those adventures, each of those times of growing with his friends, of darkness, of loss, of suffering, of regret, of insecurity, of self doubt. about what's going on in him. And so each of the stories allows him to grow in an incremental way to prepare him for the ultimate climax climax, which is when he finally has to face and take on the greatest threat.

[00:14:06] evil wizard of all time. So sometimes it's not that they're completely changing their personality. He's not changing his personality. He's just becoming more the person he was always meant to be through these, each segment of the adventure. All right. So we have extraordinary access to them. They must be comprehensible to us, meaning they must be consistent. we should never have our characters doing something where the audience is taken out of the story because they're like, wait, So and so would never do that.

[00:14:42] I don't buy it. Now, there's times when we're fooling the audience because there's a bigger plan. And, and so we justify that as best we can so that we get to fool them later. But if it's truly a contradiction, truly a contradiction, then that's going to sabotage your story.

[00:15:02] So, they must have a degree of consistency, which is not to be confused with the notion of paradox. Paradox. Which we will get to momentarily.

[00:15:12] Now comes a huge question. And this is where it starts, right? This is actually the start of how you build a great character. This question right here. What's the difference between characterization versus true character? 

[00:15:33] Characterization, characterization. is the sum of all of the observable qualities about a human being that we would be able to note if we were to say, take a notebook and follow them around during a day.

[00:15:49] These are all the things about them we can observe. We can, we can understand their age, their IQ level, their Their sexuality, their style of speech and their gestures. If they have any favorite expressions, their choices of home, their car, their dress, education, occupation, personality, their levels of nervosity, their values, their attitudes, who they voted for, right?

[00:16:17] These are all of the aspects of humanity that we could know by taking notes on someone day in and day out. But this assemblage of traits. This is not true character. This stuff is important, but it is not true character. True character is What a person does under pressure. True character is revealed in the choices that a human being makes under pressure. And by the way, the greater the pressure, the truer and the deeper the revelation of that essential nature is.

[00:17:01] So I'm going to tell you a story. That will help bring this home.

[00:17:04] So let's say you have a brain surgeon and an illegal immigrant. And by the way, pretend it doesn't have anything to do with the, the, the, some of the controversy that we've been going through lately, this is just, uh, a brain surgeon and an illegal immigrant in this country.

[00:17:22] And here they are. They are driving home from work and they come upon a bus on fire, a school bus on fire, and there's kids trapped inside. Is that a pretty high stakes scenario? I would say so. There's life and death, right? There's kids inside. So the first acid test is what do they do? Are they going to risk themselves to save these kids?

[00:17:50] Because that shows character, right? But before we even analyze that, let's, let's ask this question. What is the characterization of each of these characters? What, what, for example, do we expect from the brain surgeon? What are some traits that we can say about the brain surgeon?

[00:18:13] He's safe in his community. He's respected in his community, right? He's admired probably. He's considered a hero. He already saves people for a living, right? He's expected to save lives.

[00:18:28] So he, we, he already has a hero status to him a little bit, right? Okay. Now tell me about the illegal immigrants. 

[00:18:35] The assemblage of traits. He's probably, I mean, he's a criminal. Uh, he's probably maybe not educated, right? and, um, probably not very trustworthy, right?

[00:18:49] Because these, uh, it has to be sneaky, whatever, you know, we're just, uh, we're going to go with that. All right. So they come across this bus. Who has more to lose?

[00:18:59] both have stuff to lose, right? The difference is we have a higher expectation that the brain surgeon should do something because of his characterization. We expect him to behave heroically. We do not expect the illegal immigrant to behave heroically.

[00:19:19] So we wouldn't be surprised if he tucks tail and runs. We'll think he's a coward because he would be. And yet. We would expect that. So already we have a tension here between characterization and true character. But let's say they both don't even hesitate. They get on that bus. And by the way, the brain surgeon risks, I mean, forget about losing his life.

[00:19:46] Maybe he's just even gonna burn his hands. He can't do his surgeries anymore. I mean, he does have that to risk too. Um, so, you know, they both have something to lose. But they both jump on the bus, and now they're both, so that shows that they're both being heroic, right? They're both willing to take that risk, so their actions show that they're heroic.

[00:20:07] But remember, the greater the pressure, The greater the pressure, the truer the revelation of their essential nature. So let's say we get to a point when they're on the bus and now the brain surgeon, there's only one more child that he can save before this bus is, is done. He has one last child he can save and he's got a, a girl and a boy.

[00:20:33] Equidistance, he can grab either of them, and he has to choose. And let's say he chooses the boy over the girl. What could it mean, deep, deep down? 

[00:20:48] It could mean that he's sexist. It could mean that he believes that the little boy's life has more value than the little girl. Right? It could actually be revealing that deep, deep, because the greater the pressure, the truer the revelation, you put hard choices in front of them.

[00:21:07] And when they make that choice, they're exposing something about their soul. Now he's still a hero, but you know what? We're all flawed. We're all racist. We're all sexist to a certain degree. So you're putting that pressure on the character to Force them to make a hard choice that the more pressure you put, the truer the revelation of their essential nature.

[00:21:30] Now let's go to the illegal alien. Let's say he's in the same situation. You can choose one more child and he's got a choice between a black kid and a white kid and he chooses the white kid. What might that mean?

[00:21:44] It might mean that deep down he's racist. Now again, the reason I say what could, what could, because that single action may not be justified. Be revealing that and you might then flesh it out like we might think oh, he's racist But then you later expose 

[00:22:06] Oh, no, he actually Uh, he lost his son And so it was just an impulse thing to take the boy instead of the girl and now all of a sudden we go Oh, he's not a sexist So now you you do something you switch it on its head You can do anything you want but the truth is The point is that when you put pressure on your characters and you make them make hard choices, you're exposing who they are deep, deep, deep, deep down.

[00:22:30] It's Expectation versus reality now sometimes characters themselves are putting forth They might even think that they're heroic And then in the moment of crisis, they reveal even to themselves that they're a coward, right? This happens all the time. It's great. this is so foundational to everything that you're going to be doing.

[00:22:55] And it gets easier. It's not as complex as you think. And what you're going to find is that once you learn this concept, what you're going to find is you're going to succeed. You're never gonna be able to unsee it. And every single time you sit down to write, you're gonna start with that point of view, like, Oh, well who is this person, like on the surface, and then who are they really?

[00:23:17] And, and how do I, now, how do I show that? What action do I give them to really reveal that? 

[00:23:22] However, before we get there, it's once again time to hear from our sponsor, me. So hello, storytellers.

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[00:24:04] It's going to transform your writing. Just click on the link provided in the notes or head over to thestorytellersmission. com and you can start watching this free training video right away.

[00:24:14] The revelation of true character. In contrast, or contradiction to characterization is fundamental to all fine storytelling. If you want to tell a great story, you have to have a character who is not at heart what they seem to be at face.

[00:24:36] What seems is not what is. And there's so many ways to do that. And, and we're gonna, we're gonna look at that. Paradox. Characters cannot be at heart what they seem to be at face. They surprise us. This is where we get the idea of hidden depth, right?

[00:24:55] This is what we see on the surface, but on, but in reality, they might be a half eaten core, right? And we reveal that over the course of the story. They cannot be at heart what they seem to be at face. Now what is paradox? Paradox is some something with seemingly contradictory qualities. This is the key here.

[00:25:16] It isn't a true contradiction. It means it seems to be a contradiction. What we see on the surface seems to contradict with who they really are. So you might have this weak physically, you know, physically weak character. If anybody here ever saw, it's actually my favorite Marvel character because of this.

[00:25:38] Um, Captain America. He was a weak, weakling boy. I mean, he couldn't even pass the test, but he wanted to fight so bad. And he's the only superhero who's chosen because of his character. He is a, he's a fighter. He's a hero deep down, but on the surface, he is weak. So it's paradox. It's something with seemingly contradictory qualities, but it's not a true contradiction.

[00:26:06] Um, Here we've got this guy, right? I just love this. Here he is, this superhero, but look at him. He looks like a homeless guy on meth. But the revelation of true character in contrast to characterization is fundamental to all fine storytelling. People are not what they appear to be. Even little kids, right?

[00:26:29] And we love it when they surprise us. Major characters cannot be at heart what they seem to be at face. Here's this gal who looks shy and, and, and turned in on herself, but deep down, this is who she is. And we'll see this over the course of the telling. Now, what we'll be talking about, of course, as we go is how do you show that?

[00:26:53] How do you do it? But right now, don't worry about that. We'll get there. Right now, the key is for you to get this, to grasp this idea 

[00:27:01] and, um, we'll see you guys next week. 

[00:27:05]