Until you’ve written both prose and scripts you don’t notice how important the idea of character is to drama and how completely indifferent most novelists are to it. After all, novelists of the twentieth century had their almighty voices and their characters were often just the conduit for them. Whether the characters are knowing and ironic like Don DeLillo’s, or self-loathing and horny like John Cheever’s, or horny and horny like Philip Roth’s, those novelists didn’t let their apples fall too far from the tree. Did you know that the novel Stoner, written by English professor John Williams, is about an English professor named William?
But readers of today are a lot like actors. They have questions. So many questions about a character’s backstory and motivation. Above all they want consistency from a protagonist. Do you give the reader what they want? That’s a personal decision. As a writer I don’t mind the challenge of adding complexity to novel characters. For me, I love zeroing in on a telling detail from life that I can grow a character from. What motivates people to do the things they do? Lunch is a great place to observe fascinating transgressions. Here are two that I’m yet to assign to a character.
The producer who drank eight diet cokes in 45 minutes and didn’t go to the bathroom before he left.
The friend who lifted the plate of chicken biryani away from the middle of the table and kept it all to himself.
That’s just one source of inspiration. Below are a few more dos and don’ts for building out characters.
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