Two weeks ago, I talked about the HOW and the WHY in creating your characters to make them believable. This is how you create characters that, when they are introduced to a noble death, your reader sympathizes with them, and may even shed a tear. That’s what you are trying to create.
Endearing and believable characters.
The girl next door, the guy at the soda shop (for you 50s fans), and, of course, the group of people who meet for the first time and become first a like-minded group, then a family. When I think of this situation, I am constantly reminded of the movie Red Dawn. A bunch of high school kids separated from their families become a guerrilla warfare outfit fighting invaders in their country.
Seriously, when a kid dies, everyone is sad.
How do you do this?
Slow, interpersonal, metered, growth.
The character can go from clueless to a leader, but needs to take their lumps along the way. A high school senior would not be a great leader, regardless of what you may think. Not because they are not a leader, but they lack the life experiences and the time to assimilate those experiences into their mental and emotional makeup.
Take a character who is a womanizer for most of their lives. They cannot go from being a womanizer to not being one. It just does not happen without a lot of time spent evaluating their life. Eventually, they will come around and begin to see they need to change, to grow, in order to become a valued member of society.
The same goes for a woman who believes they have no use for men. They will see that in their existence, each person they know can aid their growth, learning, and stability.
HEY CHRIS, DO YOU HAVE AN EXAMPLE?
I do. However, the example is such that you may need to think about it for a minute before you understand. Cerebral characters.
Let’s see, I’ll see if I can create one for you here…..
Bill is tall and fairly average-looking, but as the women of his town say, he is easy on the eyes. Has he always been that way? No. Twenty years ago, he was still tall, but his gut hung over his belt, and his hair was draped over his shoulders. Facial hair was random, to say the least. How did he change? One afternoon, he was fired from his job and was not able to get another job after a few months. He queries each interviewer and receives a “We’re going in a different direction” answer. What direction? He finally asked, and an interviewer replied honestly. His appearance did not conform to what the company is attempting to represent. He went to the gym and started walking the indoor track. He worked out with light weights, started eating better, and managed his hair and beard more closely. He does not ever want to be a slave to his body or his appearance, but he understands that as a sales rep, he needs to present a professional air.
OK… So far, you understand where he came from and where he is at in this point on his timeline. Now, something needs to go sideways so you will become emotionally indebted to your relationship with him.
Bill was at the gym one afternoon and felt, off! He did not seem to have the strength and he was getting tired. He cut his routine short and figured he was comeing down with something so he stopped into the urgent care on the way home. By the time they brought him in the back, he was worse. He could barely stand. He was dizzy, and nauseated. He was having trouble focusing on what he was looking at.
The drew blood, lots of it, in hopes they see a flag being sent up by his body.
There are a couple of paragraphs that did not get sent
Here they are:
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They drew blood, lots of it, in hopes they would see a flag being sent up by his body.
Bill waited and waited. And waited.
Finally, the doctor returned to let him know all he needed was a vitamin.
Calcium, to be exact.
Bill realized that his dislike of milk products could have led to this.
Maybe the supplement would be a good thing.
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Now, we see that Bill could have had something terrible. He could have been very sick and not known it, but he ended up needing to drink more milk.
Determine what makes the character tick, and use it throughout the story. But, whatever you do, be consistent CHARACTER to CHARACTER