Characterization ©
By Mary Beth Lee

Dear Author,

Thank you very much for considering XYZ publishers for your manuscript. While your work has several elements appropriate for our line, your characters don't quite grab me.

Good luck finding a home for your manuscript.

The editors.


Character creation can make or break a book. It can make or break an entire manuscript. Sure, plot, tension, conflict, motivation and goals all come into play, but without a real framework for those elements to take place, there's no book. Romance novels are relationship books. Books about a man and a woman falling in love. A fictitious man and woman created by us.

Sounds easy. And when I first started writing, I thought I totally understood the element of characterization.

It took a few years for me to figure out that characterization is much deeper than what I thought. It's not enough to know what the characters look like and to let the reader see that.

The way a person looks is a great start, but it's just the beginning.

Looks are important, but they're the stuff of paper dolls. Paper dolls are flat images. They're not going to make a reader care.

Individual dialogue patterns are great. In fact you can give your characters some awesome lines that sum up who they are quite quickly.

In Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, readers are introduced to hero Bobby Tom Denton . A lovable jerk who has a lot of changing to do. The story opens with Bobby Tom's agent asking if he knows anything at all about acting. When Bobby Tom says no, the agent says that's what he figured. Bobby Tom's response sums him up perfectly:

"I don't see what difference it makes. Movies like this, all anybody has to do is kick ass and undress women. Hell, I've been doing that since I was eight years old."

Page 3 and we know Bobby Tom is sexy, funny, irreverent, and that he uses humor to hide his fears. No paper doll there.

But dialogue can actually take away from characterization if it isn't done correctly. Tickle Me Elmo talks, but I wouldn't use him as a character in my books. Make sure you use the same rule for it as every other word you're writing: if it doesn't move the story forward in some way, cut it. Your words have work to do. If they're on strike, fire them. (As the author, you're playing God. You can do that.)

Remember, your characters breathe, smell, taste, touch. They are completely human, not just a collective bunch of descriptions.

Also think about adding quirks to your main and secondary characters. In Rachel Gibson's Daisy's Back in Town, the hero learns he has a fifteen-year-old son. Gibson, a master storyteller, uses a scene to show the hero (before he knows of his son's existence) with his small nieces. One of the nieces always looks at her feet when she's walking around, and he has to grab her before she runs into him. Great story. Made me laugh. A few chapters later, the hero's son is introduced to his new family. He has to grab his small cousin before she runs into him.

Small touch with a huge payoff in character development.

By now, those of you who've been at this a while have learned the daunting secret that good writing isn't enough to sell a manuscript. Those of you who are new: pay attention. Good writing goes a long way, but it's not the bottom line. You have to work the craft as well as nurture the creative spirit.

Romance readers want more than a good story. They want characters they can relate to, and let's face it: they want to fall in love all over again. If the characters aren't real, that's simply not possible.

Write your stories, make them shine, but most of all, breathe true life into your characters. Make them feel real. Study the books and movies with your favorite characters, and see what it is that those writers do that you can use to help improve in your own work.


Sources other than my own multi-rejected imagination: www.charlottedillon.com; Make Your Words Work by Gary Provost; Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips; Daisy's Back in Town by Rachel Gibson

Just for fun:

MB's Favorite Heroes

Jackson Parrish: Daisy's Back in Town by Rachel Gibson

Alex DeMarco: Wild at Heart by Jane Grave

Catherine Mann's Wingman Warriors, a Silhouette Intimate Moments series (All of them, but especially Grady)

Bobby Tom Denton

MB's favorite Heroines

Bridget Jones by Helen Fielding

Gracie Snow in Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Phoebe Somerville Calebow in It Had to be You by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Movies/TV shows with great characterization techniques

Alias

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Season1, 2 and 5 especially)

Angel

The O.C.

Top Gun

Bridget Jones Diary

Hope Floats


There are a million more favorites out there, but thatUs mylist, and IUm sticking to it. Make your own lists, study them diligently andget busy making your characters the best they can be.

Please be aware that these articles are all Copyrighted to their respective owners, all rights reserved worldwide. Reprint only with permission from Copyright holders.