For as long as I could remember, I had a consistent interest when it came to writing — creating different kinds of characters. Of course, like many tweens and teenagers going through those awkward years between childhood and adulthood, I too fell victim to creating overly-perfect or just straight up insufferable characters that you could find in a large majority of fanfiction on the Internet. But in the end, those otherwise cringe-worthy years gave me a lot of valuable experience, especially when it came to balancing traits and understanding the motives and development of a character’s psyche.
I often feel as if writers take a different approach to learning about people. We tend to observe personality traits very closely, I think, mostly to find some bit of inspiration. Writers have to get traits for antagonists and villains, after all, and I highly doubt many of them are good friends with serial killers and textbook sociopaths (although I’m sure a surprising number are). I don’t want us to sound totally untrustworthy — of course we don’t do this all the time, but perhaps there is an art form in itself to creating compelling, immersive characters.
But it’s exactly through these immersive experiences that I feel as if I get a grasp of different mindsets. The three years I took fictional creative writing in college, I submitted several “character analysis” pieces, which simply put their feelings and experiences front and center, letting it narrate the piece and take it in its own direction.
At first, when I was a freshman, I still didn’t quite know what I was doing — but I covered a topic I know fairly well. Some writers might not feel the same way, but I always feel as if I put a little bit of one of my own traits into my characters, and adjust the intensity accordingly. I’m not male, nor have I lost my spouse to a brutal murder that left me a single parent — but I know grief and I can relate to the feeling of being fine one moment, and grieving the next. Some people perceive characters as being completely removed from reality. Sure, they can be different species and have different hardships, but inherently, the way a character grabs the attention of the audience is through their thoughts and feelings, which are inherently “human” qualities. You don’t necessarily have to address them as such, but they are understood to be that way — that is how an audience connects with a character, and that’s why some character deaths are more hard-hitting than others.
Compelling characters can really make a piece. Plot-driven stories can be done extremely well, but there should always be some grounding to the characters. If the plot is “happening to them,” then the reader ought to care about how they get affected by it. How they change from it — because very few characters never change from their experiences. People don’t work that way. The second piece I wrote from a character-analytical perspective, I looked through the eyes of a war veteran suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I did my research, but that usually doesn’t tell you much aside from what you as an outsider can do to help them. All of those cases are unique to the person, and the only way I was able to portray it correctly was by putting myself in that person’s position — getting inside their heads. I didn’t quite realize that other people thought this was an acceptable method until I met some of my classmates and my writing teacher. In the past, I would be a little concerned that I was a little too into the heads of the characters I created, like I had some sort of problem. But that ended up becoming my greatest strength as a writer.
Pacing and progression are still struggles for me, but character development and portrayal are second nature and I honestly could not and would not trade that for any other skills. As someone who is extremely introverted has trouble connecting with people, I’m truly happy to be able to understand to some extent how people feel in different situations and be able to channel some of my own emotions through my writing.
