PRIEST: Novelist | Compelling Characters

CHARACTER TYPES

The ICON: This type of character is, essentially, its own Character Archetype. It is used as a foundation for other characters, and for parodies or pastiche. Superman, for example, is an Iconic Character; you would be hard-pressed to find a superhero whose concept wasn't based on him. In comics, they speak of the "Big Three" -- Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman. These three characters are considered the original Icons of the genre, although there are many more. In fact, many of these Iconic Characters are, themselves, based on those Iconic Characters of myths and legends. Superman himself is based on Hercules. Spider-Man is the quintessential "trickster", alluding to the African spider-god Ananzi.

There are many, many Iconic characters throughout the history of storytelling. They work well as a way of building the concept of your own characters because the audience is already familiar with the Iconic Character itself. I do believe that Merlin is the most used Iconic Character in the fantasy genre. Take a look at Gandalf or Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars: A New Hope. Every genre has its Iconic Characters -- at least one. Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade is the penultimate hardboiled detective, and the Vampire Lestat has recently joined the ranks of the Iconic right next to his predecessor, Count Dracula.

The SYMBOL: This type of Character stands for something greater than itself, usually a concept or ideal. This allows the audience to identify with the concept as it is illustrated through the story. Gordon Gekko, from the film Wall Street, is symbolic of 1980's corporate greed. The fantasy genre benefits greatly from using Symbolic Characters, but any story can have them. The most important use of the Symbolic Character is illustrating the theme from that concept's perspective.

There is a trick to creating Symbolic Characters. In your notes, give the Character the very name of the quality or concept. The term should be synonymous with the character's own name in your mind. So when you write, say, "Marcus discovers his true identity," you should be able to say equally, "Pride discovers his true identity." Now you won't ever forget where the Character is heading. I know that Marcus' reaction to the discovery will be prideful and arrogant -- that's what he is. The danger in this is forgetting to round out the Character. Sure, Marcus is proud and arrogant. But is this his only motivation? Why is he so proud in the first place? For protagonists to have such things ignored is bad storytelling.

The REPRESENTATIVE: This type of Character is very similar to the Symbolic Character, except it symbolizes a group or class of people. The obvious danger here is stereotyping, but this isn't always a bad thing. Adding elements to a stereotype that are credible allows the writer to use the familiar as a "frame" around a rounded and detailed character. Some Representative Characters actually illustrate historical figures. There are instances where the Representative actually represents the author him/herself.

Dramatic pieces use Representatives more so than any other genre, because dramas typically deal with moral, ethical and social issues that are best illustrated using a Character involved in such issues. Classic science fiction (Bradbury, Orwell, Clarke, etc.) used the Representative extensively, most often as representatives of humanity in general. Modern science fiction has diverged from this practice, more often using Symbolic Characters instead.

The WORDS:: This is not my favorite analysis, but I found that some critics (read, cynics) insist that Characters are "nothing more than certain conventional uses of words on a page: names or even just pronouns repeated throughout a text." I disagree, of course, on the simple foundation that words themselves have meaning, and so logic would dictate that Characters have meaning if words are used to create them. I think this term arose in literary circles to describe the negative effects of "flat Characters." Here's the test: If you can change the Character to someone else and still have the same story throughout, without any further editing, then you've created a name and not a Character. A protagonist or antagonist that fails this test deserves to be called a convention of words.

I only cite this a a Character Type because others have done so. I suggest forgetting it was ever here, if you want to create great Characters.

The PSYCHE: This Character is a Representative Character that reveals an aspect of psychoanalytical significance. In other words, we delve into their psyches, their psychological perquisites and predispositions. This type of Character is rarely planned out; it is simply read in this manner. Still, there are "psychological thrillers", where the Character's mental state is in peril or in a state of transition, and the reader becomes interested in what makes the Character think and act as it does. Many Symbolic and Representative Characters are analyzed in this manner, even when they weren't written for that purpose. This section is added for those Characters that are created for such a purpose.

A NOTE ON CHARACTERS

Detail and Change: These two characteristics are essential in understanding what characters are supposed to do in your story and why. Well-rounded characters are heavily detailed, bearing a resemblance to real people to the audience. Principal Characters should be well-rounded (see the Character Dossier; it assists greatly in creating well-rounded characters). The definition of the "main character" is "the character the audience is meant to identify with the most." Given this statement, the main character should appear realistic to the audience -- sometimes to the detriment of other characters in the novel. In art, when you want something to "leap off the canvas", you create a sharp contrast between the principal element and the other elements in the painting. Some things will appear muted or blurred or hidden in shadows. Likewise, your main character is meant to "leap off the page", and so cannot be outdone by other characters. Secondary characters are "blurred", with less detail. These are commonly called "flat" characters, as opposed to "round".

Also, the characters are allowed to change during the course of the story. Fine novels have been written where there is absolutely no discernible change in any of the characters -- not even the main ones. Sherlock Holmes didn't change one bit in all the years he was in business. "Static characters" are quite common and not always a bad thing. The "dynamic character" does indeed undergo a change, if not a complete transformation. The events of the story cause a profound change in the Character. In the Character Dossier section, I suggested creating a "before-and-after" sheet for your main characters because you might want to create such a dynamic character. This technique will allow you to see who the character will be when all is said and done.

THE MODERN/POSTMODERN CHARACTER

There are a myriad of deviations from the established views on characterization. One prominent deviation is the use of "flat characters" as protagonists. This is best illustrated by the most famous of them all, The Man With No Name in the spaghetti Westerns of the Seventies. As portrayed by Clint Eastwood, this gunslinger was never a detailed character. He also never changed -- not in any measureable way. Still, he's an Iconic anti-hero despite the character's lack of detail or transformation. Mad Max, from the film of the same name and others, is only slightly more fleshed out. I can only come up with film references on this subject, however. It does follow that if a film can get away with using flat, static protagonists, so can novels.

I mentioned that authors sometimes have Representative Characters that represent themselves. There are a number of instances where the author himself is a main character in the story. The most famous, and possibly the oldest, example of this is Dante's Commedia. The epic poem occurs exclusively from his perspective. In other works, the author might turn up as a supporting character or simply make a cameo appearance. The "author surrogate" (a Representative of the author) is the preferred choice, of course, because the author can speak his/her mind freely. Dante had a rather long discourse on the Church, for example, that would not have gone over very well with a Catholic audience in a non-fictiitous work. This occurred because Dante (the character) was removed from Dante (the author) by the extraordinary settings and events of his epic.

Our modern and postmodern writers even use real people shamelessly as characters, often in a way that stretches belief enough to differentiate fact from fiction. Many period pieces do this. One example is the many uses of Jack the Ripper as a character. This is cheating, really -- we don't know who he was. Political fiction sometimes use references to real politicians of the era. This works very well when writing period pieces because it adds realism. If you're writing a novel about World War Two, using Churchill, Roosevelt or Hitler as a fictitional character is an advantage. These are usually supporting characters in novels, but not always.

Albert Einstein was the main character in several fictitious novels of the Eighties, and at least one film. There are also works of "historical fiction" that, by their very nature, must use real people as characters.

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