Getting into Character

Today's topic is Writing Through the Eyes and Mind of a Character.

This is certainly no easy task, and there's no telling how many ways this is done by countless authors.  This topic begins to creep into the area of style, which only comes from practice, experimentation and experience.  However, I can share a few concepts.

The foundation for this topic is knowing your characters.  You must know about their personality, biography and physiology, along with any other specific details (depending on the character).  Why are these things so important, you ask?  Well, imagine you had a character who had a slight limp in her left leg from some childhood accident.  She finds herself being chased by a pack of wolves for some strange reason, and the only way to escape is up a tree.  Do you think her limp will affect the way that passage is written?

You bet.

Personality and history are important also.  Let's say this same character was given her limp by a fall.  Let's also say that this fall was caused by her brother: a rotten, villainous older brother.  Let's say further that our heroine, because of the accident and the aggression from her brother as a child, has become someone who is easily afraid, perhaps even paranoid, and very wary of boys who are older than her.

Let's say she finally escapes from the pack of wolves, through badly hurt, and finds a solitary cottage at the edge of the woods.  With no other help in sight, she bangs on the door, and is met by a young man.  Do you think that her personality and history will affect how the next passage is written?

You bet it does!

If you're writing this passage, you'd most likely include some thoughts about her fear at seeing her host, worry and alarm at his every move as she sits on a table waiting for her wounds to be treated.  Perhaps you'd write that she notices a strange curiosity in his eyes, that she becomes more and more surprised at his gentleness rather than the aggression she was expecting.

You can see how these little details will affect how a story is written.

It's necessary to keep track of whose perspective you're writing in.  I like to keep each section (between breaks, that is) of the story confined to the point-of-view of a single character.  There may be interactions between other characters, and the one through whose eyes I look may notice expressions and reactions of others, but thoughts and asides are only given by the one in focus.

This is one way of doing it, but it's up to each author to figure out how to best write perspectives in order to fit with a given plot.  For example, Frank Herbert and Jane Austen both decided to change perspectives between characters pretty often, with no break in between.  Ray Bradbury, in his book Fahrenheit 451, sticks with the perspective of only one character throughout the entire story.  Others, such as Timothy Zahn in his work The Icarus Hunt, write not only from the point-of-view of a single character, but also in the first-person.  This was their prerogative, as it is yours.

The thing to realize is this: creative writing is just that--meant to be creative.  It's an art, just like painting, drawing, sculpting or composing music.  And what do artists do?  They bend, change and break the rules.  Now, I'm not recommending throwing away all the rules of grammar and language to be creative.  But it has been done.  For example, in the book No Country for Old Men (written by Cormac McCarthy; I've never read it personally, but I've thumbed through the pages), no quotation marks are used and in many cases, no apostrophes.  I don't know if that adds or takes away anything from the story, but it's an example of how writing, as an art, can bend the rules.

As an exercise, put your characters through their paces to get a feel for writing from their perspective.  Create a situation that your character stumbles into and write a short vignette about how he/she handles it.  Try writing it from different perspectives (i.e. passersby, other characters in the situation, etc.).  Try changing a certain detail, like making the young man from our above scenario into an old crone, and see how she deals with things then.  This is a great way to...get to know...your characters.

Time for WORD OF THE DAY!!!

Traipse - [treyps]

1.) [verb without obj.] to walk or go aimlessly or idly or without finding or reaching one's goal

2.) [verb with obj.] to walk over, tramp

3.) [noun] a tiring walk

Examples: 1.) The vagabonds traipsed through the countryside for days.  2.) In his rage, he traipsed the flowerbed until the tulips lay dead and dying.  3.) We were thoroughly exhausted after our traipse across the wilderness.

May your quills always be inspired,

J Cole

Image: Tom Curtis / FreeDigitalPhotos.net