Characters & Viewpoints ~ Orson Scott Card
Chapter 1. What is a character?
I’ve listed the notes taken on character building from most important to least important.
A character is their:
Actions & motive: everyone acts a certain way but why do they act the way they do?
Past: “People are what they have done, and what have been done to them.” (8).
Reputation: what do other people think of you. Or more to the book, people gossip and from that, they make a snap judgment. What reputation does your character have with the others in your story?
Stereotype (w/in their job, sex, age, family role, race, ethnicity...): here, the author encourages us to use stereotypes to our advantage. we have to “count on” our readers to make these stereotypical judgments. “Characters who fit within a stereotype are familiar; we think we know them, and we aren’t all that interested in knowing them better. [...] Characters who violate a stereotype are interesting...” (11).
Habits/patterns: what they do on the regular basis and if they try to change it, why?
Talents/abilities: are they extremely gifted? In what away? Are they not?
Tastes & preferences: do they prefer to look or act a certain way?
Body: what do they look like?
Chapter 2. What makes a good fictional character?
There three questions readers ALWAYS ask within the first paragraph: So what? Why should they care? Oh yeah? This is the clue/explanation that should persuade readers to trust you. Huh? Make it clear. Make it believable.
YOU ARE THE FIRST AUDIENCE! - if you don’t care about what you’re writing, your audience also will not care.
Questions to always ask: WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? (in my opinion, the best question) Interrogate the situation and your character. Brainstorm a list of possible ways that events can go wrong, but still, drive the story and your character to an outcome/solution.
WHY? Why is this happening? Why did the character act this way toward this event/person? * Don’t ever settle for your first answer. The first answer is always obvious and too static. Add a twist (the author talks more about this in chapter 3, page 50):
~Maybe character X isn’t out to kill character Y because Y killed X’s family. Maybe X is killing because (they think) it’s their duty to kill, or X is just deranged and obsessed, they think killing is the solution to their problem.
