Character Differentiation

[ladymarella]

i have been thinking lately about the characterisation in my novel.
There are several characters who I feel I know extremely well, and to me they are fully formed. There are others, that are not fully formed as yet; I am still building the pictures of them up in my head. the problem I am running into is with some characters, I don't know how different they are coming across.
My main issue here is with a group of four characters, two male, two female. The two females are best friends, and the two males their love interests in different parts of the novel. I've started to try and establish the different character traits between them, but what is the best way to go about this, so the character comes to life on the page for the reader. it's one thing for the writer to have an idea of the character in their head, it's another thing to have it come through for the reader.
Any ideas?

[Claudie]

One of the things I do when I'm not sure how vivid my characterisation is, is that I make a list. Or, well, two lists.

First I write down my characters' main traits, all in a column. They can be physical, personality, or backstory. Then I start a second column (the rest of the page, mostly) and write what actions, either from his daily life or from the plot, translate those traits. If he's impatient, he might grumble at his computer's lagging time or tap his foot after a minute or two of wait. If he's an extravert, he might give hugs to people he met just once or twice but whom he esteems a lot. If his dad killed his favourite dog when he was a kid, he might react strongly to any reference to animal cruelty.

That kind of things. They might look stupid and obvious on the page, or even generic, on the list, but once you start incorporating these details in the narrative, it gives your reader clues to pick up from. They'll build his personality in their head without you telling them.

Watch your dialogue, too. The way people phrase things reveal a lot about their personality. I'm a compromise-type, and if you pay attention, I rarely emit black-and-white sentences when I talk. If you're not sure about how well this works, assign readers to a character, and ask them how they'd describe their characters after. It's not a sure-fire way to verify (perceptions change a lot), but you can tell if you're way out of line, at least.

That's all I got! Hope it helps.

[Nicole R]

Claudie's suggestions are great! I also ask a list of questions for each of my characters. Things like:

What is the most important thing to this character?
What has been the most defining moment of his/her life?
What is he/she most afraid of?
What would he/she never do?
What would he/she never give up?

You'll start to build a pretty in-depth understanding of their distinct personalities and nuances. You might also want to check out Donald Maass' Writing the Breakout Novel. There are a couple great exercises in it about creating Larger Than Life characters.

Good luck!

[polymath]

Claudie and Nicole R's advices are both top notch. I've been working on character differentiation through character and narrator voice, and idiosyncracy and idiom development. Idiosyncracy has potent persuasion appeals from uniquely distinguishing characters and their settings. Idiom when it's personal is idiosyncracy. When idiom is regional it might not be as translatable to another audience region, and then might need stronger context than idiosyncracy for reading and interpreting ease purposes. Where idiosyncracy just needs to be slightly off center from a generally universal character mannerism, trait, behavior, or personality.

One caveat, avoid Funny Hat Guy motifs as much as possible, Maybe they aren't quite cliché. They are outworn because they are convenient to use and common in inexperienced struggling writers' writing. Though there are artful uses of Funny Hat Guy motifs.

Shiner, Lewis. "Funny-hat characterization" Part Six: Character and Viewpoint Turkey City Lexicon. SFWA.org. http://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/turkey-city ... workshops/

[ladymarella]

So, I went on a date tonight.

I knew him beforehand from the pages of my novel, but eight and a half pages later I feel as if he is really coming alive to me.

Thanks for the great advice everyone. Claudie, the list idea sounds great, but I really do feel i am the sort of person who works better with writing out my ideas in this case. Now i think about it, I've never been a list maker when it comes to planning writing. that probably explains why my writing planning notebooks are 700+ pages with almost no white space.

And polymath, thanks for the funny-hat guy list. The entire list looks like it has a lot of good things on it to avoid.

I quite enjoyed my first date, and i have the feeling i shall be going on many more in the near future.

[Claudie]

Thanks for the great advice everyone. Claudie, the list idea sounds great, but I really do feel i am the sort of person who works better with writing out my ideas in this case. Now i think about it, I've never been a list maker when it comes to planning writing. that probably explains why my writing planning notebooks are 700+ pages with almost no white space.

That's cool. It doesn't matter how you do it. The point is to think of how his personality translates into actions. Huge blocks of prose can work, too! Do what fits you best. I'm a list-maker, so I do that, but each to his own!

[MAP]

The way I nail down a character is backstory.

To me, real people aren't a list of traits but are shaped through their experiences. Delving into their family life and childhood always helps me discover who that character really is even if none of it shows up in the text.

I suggest thinking about the backgrounds of the two characters. Once they each have their own unique life story, I think they will be two very different characters.

At least this is what works for me.

[Claudie]

Yeah. Elements of the backstory are included in my list, and I do work on it aside, too. It does shape up a lot of who these characters are.

[ladymarella]

I love coming up with back story and ended up with a lot of it last night, which was really good. Really helps you to delve into the psychology of a character

[Falls Apart]

One thing that I started doing is having a slideshow saved with pictures I found online of how I think the character would look. I've found it really helps them feel "realer" to me. Also, you should always know more about your characters than will ever be relevent to the novel. Even if his/her background, family, finances, religion, philosophy, etc., will never come up in the story, it will still be an important part of who they are, and a significant motivator.

[guichizango]

I agree with MAP. For me, writing out lists of characteristics is a bit impersonal, I really want to delve into their inner personality. I take a moment in the character's life, the moment that really shaped who they were, whether it was the moment they risked their life to save an old woman from a burning building or the when they fell in love and were spurned, but whatever the moment, I take it and write it out, so that I can really see how they would react in the situation and to see how that situation shaped them for the future, aka the actual story. Then later, I can say that they wouldn't act in such a way and know why.