Characterisation
So, you’ve got your plot structure of What Happens and What Goes Wrong against your framework of BEGINNING – MIDDLE - END.
You’ve got Who’s involved, where and when, for reference and clarity..
You’ve got your colour-coded pacing visuals applied with Action, Intrigue and Reflection/Decision Making.
You’ve sprinkled in moments where themes you want to explore are planted.
For the story to feel rounded, you then want to layer in how the Characters in the story react to everything going on around them on a personal or emotional level.
Writing The Winter Solstice Pact, it helped that there was an existing canon with well-developed characters, as there was a relatively flawless, well-known baseline to work from. I found myself asking how Harry, Ron and Hermione would react to certain scenarios in WSP if they were teenagers, and then asking myself how they would react as adults.
Are the two reactions different?
The answer - Some were different, some weren’t.
That’s the nature of real people. “Development” isn’t always necessarily “change.”
Applying characterisation to WSP required me, therefore, to come up with an idea of what the trio (and a host of other characters) DID during the intervening 22 years between Deathly Hallows and WSP. This, unfortunately, included going through what their attitudes were at the end of The Cursed Child, whose story and Characterisation (especially of Harry) I was not massively happy with.
But gauging what was in Cursed Child made me realise that there needed to have been quite some serious stuff happen between the end of the canon up to the stage play. I didn’t really want to specifically address or Retcon any of it – I took a “less said about it, the better” approach. And I think I largely got away with it. I wanted to use the more practical relationship that emerges between Harry and Draco in Cursed Child for WSP. How Harry deals with the James/Pericula situation was a conscious attempt to undo some of how Harry came across in the Cursed Child. This gave Draco’s inclusion both a practical and an emotional input to the story.
If your work is a brand new work, you need to really get to know your characters, from what their favourite foods are, what their politics might be, and crucially – what they WANT. When you know what a character generally WANTS, and how bad they want it… everything falls into place.
Entire books have been written on this topic by people far more clever and accomplished than me so I won’t labour the point, but once you establish what each character WANTS, everything they do, every choice they make, every thought they have in their head practically writes itself.
In Game of Thrones Arya WANTS to get back home to Winterfell after Eddard’s killed at King’s Landing. Once she realises there’s no ‘home’ to go to, she WANTS revenge. Every choice she subsequently makes is motivated by that ‘Want’. We love and respect her for staying the course, through thick and a whollllle lot of thin, even though what she wanted changed during the various seasons of the show. And hell, if you didn’t learn anything from Baelish’s monologue about every choice he makes being motivated by a vision of him ending up on the Iron Throne, then you need to rewatch it. Baelish is LITERALLY spelling out what his character’s WANT is, his single-minded drive.
Moments where characters act in line with their wants (and even sometimes against them) become moments that make you understand who that character IS – or, in terms of WSP, who they are now, many years later.
Think about characters you like in books or TV/film – the ones you instinctively feel drawn to, enjoy watching or find yourself outright rooting for are the characters who are the most true to themselves. Even when they behave in a way they’re ordered to or expected to by others, if you show them not liking it or fighting against it, they will be compelling as a character if they’re true to themselves. Think Richard Fish in Ally McBeal, or Bron in Game of Thrones: they’re true to themselves, therefore compelling, but they are ultimately selfish and unlikable characters… who the audience ends up really liking, against our better judgement.
So, once you’ve got your plot established, and the themes you might want to cover, you can make another column against each plot point with how each character’s WANTS is either satisfied or frustrated by events. This section gets you to focus on how events might change what a character wants, or what their priorities are. It means at every stage of every section of the book, the characters are consistent and their actions/reactions are understandable. Crucially, what your characters say and how they say it will practically write itself when you’ve got their Characterisation nailed down.
I gave a fellow Reddit author an example of this point which illustrates what I mean really clearly. It starts like a joke.
‘Harry, Ron and Hermione shuffle into a busy compartment on The Hogwarts Express. The only free seat is dirty, (maybe someone spilled some pumpkin juice on it).’
What does each character do in that scenario? My answer would be:
Ron – wouldn’t be massively bothered. He’d probably just sit down on the dirty seat, maybe after brushing it ineffectually with his sleeve.
Hermione – would avoid the seat, look for another or try and magic away the mess.
Harry – would throw a newspaper over the seat before sitting down, or just stand because his scar’s hurting and he’s full of existential dread.
How might the above choices change over time, however, when the characters are older?
Ron – probably much the same, except he might audibly sigh when he sits down and grumble about selfish people.
Hermione – the other passengers in the carriage would offer her their seat, her being very-recently Minister for Magic. She’d probably even suggest the other passengers leave the carriage entirely.
Harry – might not even notice the seat was dirty because of all the things going on in his head, sit on it and feel bad about it later. Maybe he’d get frustrated nobody else cleaned the seat. Maybe he’d tear the damned cushion off and promptly defenestrate it out of anger.
Time, age, and life experience DOES change characters. Getting this right was a constant source of thought experiments, leading to some strangely emotional moments. It also made me realise how strongly I identify with Ron Weasley – in writing WSP, the sarcastic ginger curmudgeon became my spirit animal.
Getting Characters making choices consistent with their character in a story set ‘22 years later’ was absolutely a challenge. In The Winter Solstice Pact, I had to add an extra layer of “life experience” elements to the characteristics we all know from the original canon to make the Characters feel real.
I posited that by 42 years old, Harry was tired of fighting, of always being relied on to save the world. He’s exasperated, and developed quite severe health problems from a stressful job and self-neglect. I’ll also admit that my own life experience coloured this take on him – write what you know, remember? His experience in ‘Crash’ was almost directly lifted from my own life experience, without going into it too much. Suffice it to say, I know a little bit about the weight of the world causing your body to collapse.
As my novel took shape, the question clearly became: How does Harry react to the (massive) problem posed by the new Antagonists? And how do the other characters react?
Instead of walking away from his Auror life, I posited that the two factors of being tired and also ill would make him MORE keen to “solve” the problem of the Antagonists, so he can pass the torch with a clean slate and walk away to a quieter, more healthy life. He’s a responsible guy, who takes his responsibility as the crown of thorns that defined his life from the first time he heard the name “Voldemort.”
But I also wanted him to give a non-violent resolution a chance: Harry would remind himself that nobody is beyond redemption, and that people needed to be given a chance to do the right thing. Hell, he gave Draco more chances, after all their history… it’s a grown-up thing to do, especially given the unique features of The Antagonists. He gives the non-violent solution a chance despite it being wildly unpopular with The Ministry, some of his friends and family, and basically anyone involved in the investigation as a whole. It’s a high risk choice, but maybe one he hasn’t given enough effort to in recent years… because he’s ultimately a kind human being, and it also made logical sense.
That felt authentic to me.
An example of when ‘Characterisation over Time’ can go very badly wrong was expertly expressed by the Legendary actor Mark Hamill, when he gave a very curt response to his thoughts on The Last Jedi: “Luke Skywalker would never give up.”
The moment rugged, aging Luke Skywalker was presented with his old lightsaber by young Rey at the culmination of The Force Awakens was a moment for the ages, one that had audiences holding their breath for what would come next. They’d waited over 30 years to see Luke Skywalker on screen again, and when he finally appeared, his facial features, his silence, the look in his eyes and the soaring musical score had audiences entranced. They wanted his hand to reach out and take the item, and perhaps give some sage words for the next generation of Jedi. His stoical silence spoke volumes.
Audiences had to wait until the next film came out to see his reaction to this epic moment – what a cliffhanger!
Rian Johnson then callously committed franchise suicide. He had one of the most beloved film characters of all time literally throwing away the entire foundation of his character with one dismissive gesture: the lightsaber went over Skywalker’s shoulder, and before we knew it, Johnson had him suckling blue milk from an alien teat and throwing each of his beloved, trusted character traits away with the loose abandon of a Death Star engineer the first day he discovered trash compactor panels.
Fans instinctively knew that THEIR Luke Skywalker would never do that. Mark Hamill had the stones to outright say it. But the moment Luke Skywalker tossed the lightsaber over his shoulder rocked audiences because it was the highest profile diversion from character ever written.
Harry would never have given up trying to make the world safe, until he at least thought it’d be in a good enough state to hand the torch on. I refused to toss his figurative lightsaber over his shoulder, and I would be damned if any alien milk would dribble down his chin.
No sir, not on my watch.
Fans hated what Johnson did with Luke Skywalker, and hated Kathleen Kennedy for allowing it to happen. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake with grown-up Harry. And as selfish as it sounds, I did not like Harry’s portrayal in The Cursed Child. In my head I tried to reconcile his portrayal as perhaps being tainted by seeing it through Albus’ eyes, the way teenagers rail against their parents at a certain age and inflate the gravity or aggression adults show them when they’re displeased. The point remains, however – I shouldn’t have spent mental effort trying to excuse/explain Harry’s portrayal. I’ve seen A LOT of comments online about how unhappy people were with Cursed Child Harry, and I’m amazed JKR allowed Jack Thorne to be so callous with her carefully crafted and much-loved character.
At this point, it’s worth saying: a multitude of Alternate Universe fan fictions in the Harry Potter fandom thrill themselves by changing events of the canon and going into “what if…?” territory.
This is FINE, where the premise of the fiction is clearly that it is going to change things up and diverge from canon. That’s the art of them, in some instances. And in certain cases, they’ve been expertly executed (I’m looking at you, Mr Yudkowsky…). But even in these works, a character MUST have some internal consistency, unless they are a helpless Agent of Chaos. It’s the spine of most storytelling – characters don’t always need to have the same motivations, but their choices have to emanate from somewhere consistent with what’s inside them, what’s formed them. These events can be in-story or prior, but they need to exist in some understandable form for the reader.
In The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart, the main character intentionally aims to abolish his narrative continuity by submitting to the random choices of a dice-throw. Ultimately, the narrative continuity of a bog-standard, self-determining individual making choices based on his underlying character is replaced by another consistency - of his adherence to the random fall of the dice. The author is overtly trying to demolish his ego, but in doing so, he simply replaces one system with another, albeit a more seemingly-random one. BUT – his character’s actions ring true because his decisions stem from this choice – he is a consistent dice-user, “consistently random”.
Ultimately, characters ought to act from an internal position that is explained, demonstrated or even just hinted at. We as readers enjoy authentic characters: we might not like who they are or their reasons for behaving as they do, but we resonate with characters who are true to whatever is motivating them at that time.
George RR Martin plays with this in Game of Thrones: he makes us hate characters one moment and love them the next… all the while, however, we miss the point that he’s got us talking about them, thinking about them, arguing about them. We are ENGAGED by characters who are true to what makes them tick.
And that, in a poorly-written nutshell, is Characterisation.
In terms of applying this to your novel– it’s simple. We’ve already introduced Problems and Themes.
Think of these two aspects of the story and apply them at all times to what your character says or does in response to them – this is why conscious Characterisation is the last step to layer in - and you can do this as you go.
What attitude do your characters display towards what’s in front of them? Is what you’ve chosen your characters to do/say/think entirely predictable? Is it understandable, or defensible, based on what’s happened to them in the past, or what they fear will happen to them in the future?
I wanted to make The Winter Solstice Pact contain credible, grown-up versions of our favourite characters from childhood. If a reader says “Ah… Given what’s happened to him, [X] makes sense,” then that’s a win. These can be in response to the smallest, potentially unimportant moments, or major decisions your character agonises over.
I wrote that Ron greeted Draco at The Burrow with a glass of whiskey. He was still a bit acidic, but ultimately took a grown-up approach to allowing him to come to the Burrow as a fellow father. That didn’t mean that he would be happy when it transpired Draco was working as an Undercover Informant for The Quarter – I had him go nuts about that – which again is not a simplistic, childish reaction to a scenario, it’s a multi-faceted, grown-up approach to what was in front of him.
I used my Excel Spreadsheet to track changes in decisions or standpoints of the characters, and what it explicitly demonstrated about the character. I found doing this for Harry and Ginny’s relationship was particularly useful: I wanted it written down solidly so I knew the standpoint each character was taking, when it came to adding the prose: I didn’t want to leave Characterisation to chance.
Character ARC:
By now, you’ll have a bulging spreadsheet of:
1) What happens, pacing colour-coded
2) What themes are touched on
3) What we learn about the characters attitudes/’wants’/back story
For a novel to ‘work’, each character should have an arc: which is to say, they begin the story in one state of being, stuff happens which changes/affects them, and in the end they are so changed by the events that they are in a new state of being.
Think about Game of Thrones again, and consider this question: is there a single character who DOESN’T significantly CHANGE (or DIE) by the end of their involvement? Nope. Every single character is affected by what happens in the story, either by their own hand or by the hand of another.
This is called AGENCY: where characters in the story actually AFFECT the story, and in turn are affected BY it. (Think Raiders of the Lost Ark – if Indy hadn’t been involved, what would the end result be of the whole thing? It’s a broken story that happens to be a great film – a great example of agency gone totally awry, but working anyway because of… Spielberg and Ford)
So, in Winter Solstice Pact, I wanted Harry to be at the peak of his skills, but also nearing a physical and mental breaking point. The events in the story cause him serious medical issues, which in turn causes him to rethink his life and ultimately make a massive life change at the very end. He evolves, partly out of necessity, and partly out of choice. He sees risk to himself and others in the way a grown-up does: he has a family, now. Not being around through injury or illness affects someone other than him. He’s not ready to sacrifice that – he already sacrificed himself once, before he was a father, and once was more than enough.
The events of the novel also cause Ron to come out of himself, from living a reclusive life to a more outgoing one: he rediscovers his zest for adventure, and his strategic mind is given room to exercise itself once more: in many ways, he re-finds his true self through the events in the book. Hermione discovers she can’t solve everything in the end, and decides she wants to focus more on her relationship and family life which it’s clearly implied she’s neglected.
And Draco? Well, without spoiling it too much, Draco discovers there’s a way he can find redemption for his past misdeeds, if he’s willing to put in the hard yards and take a risk… The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward.
An arc is what a reader will subconsciously look back on at the end of the story. If the arc is grand enough, they will feel like they’ve been on a wild ride. The story SHOULD change a character across it’s duration… otherwise it’s not a story. Explicitly establishing in your own mind how the character arc progresses is a really powerful way of adding depth to your work.