Is it possible to write a transcendent character without first falling in love?
FIND A REVISED VERSION OF THIS ESSAY PUBLISHED BY THE WRITING COOPERATIVE HERE:
Writing A Transcendent Character
I don’t often dare to talk about my philosophies on writing because of the audacity that it requires, but I sometimes have an urge to share something important to me about the craft and how I do what I do. Most of the time, I fantasize some whimsical daydream of eloquently crafted descriptions that I could never pen then haphazardly scribble some melancholy nonsense into my journal and gag at its simplicity. Or, I ignore the urge completely.
I’m not sure how I came to the decision to write this brief collection of thoughts but maybe it’s because I finished the novel that I had been working on a few months ago and have been desperately missing my protagonist so much that I’m flirting with depression or because I surprised myself with how little I knew to say when my nephew asked me for writing advice.
I tried to tell him something important but fumbled, lost my words, and spewed out some general information about having to be honest and vulnerable. Here are some of the things that I wished I had said.
I start with a question: What kind of character am I trying to write?
I consider the rigid archetypes and envision where he/she would typically fit in that system. Once I know if I’m creating a protagonist, antagonist, primary, or ancillary character, I consider how they would fit into other archetypes. I understand that memorable and relatable characters come from an emotionally complex starting point and I never pigeonhole them into categories like the hero, the everyman, the villain, the savior, or the mentor. I’ve never written an antagonist that couldn’t be a protagonist from another viewpoint. You shouldn’t either. Some fantastic stories exist with that one-dimensional character model but they’re better known for their overall plot and scale as opposed to consummate, psychologically complex, and engaging cast of characters. Stories like Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived In The Castle and Emily BrontΓ«’s Wuthering Heights are populated by compelling people that feel real and honest because they are fluid and deeply flawed. I like to remember their work when I consider whether or not a certain character that I’ve written can be considered gimmicky, which, to me, is a curse worse than the four-letter F-word.
When I can clearly see the character from the angles of a loved one, parent, sworn enemy, and dear friend, then I know that I have a good grasp on the kind of person that I want them to be. Then it’s time to get into their heads and see how they view themselves.
Over the years, I have developed a variety of methods to get into the headspace of a character: from filling out 15-page long character profile templates where 30% of the questions don’t work for my story to drafting out random and mundane moments of their lives for practicing their personality and response to outside stimuli.
It took a long time to realize what works best and most thoroughly for an empathic person like myself, but once I did, there was no going back.
I take multiple 50-100-question length Myers-Briggs Personality tests as the character for a period of time until I have a reliable result. This might be really hard for some people because of an inability to understand the complexity of human nature and reconcile that with their own schema, but it’s worth a try for some interesting insight into the kind of person that you’re trying to write.
Sometimes I get so immersed in a character that I spend the day channeling them, adopting their mannerisms, and seeing the world through their eyes – like method acting live theatre. For me, the most immersive methods are the best. I feel for my partner who has had to contend with a few moody and bizarre personality shifts over the years.
I create playlists of songs that inspire and innervate parts of their personality. Music is incredibly evocative and has been used to stimulate profoundly emotional responses in human beings since the earliest men and women made flutes and whistles from mammoth tusks and bird bones. I split these playlists into two categories: one for music that stirs thoughts of them in myself and helps me to expand on their personality, and another for music that they would listen to themselves – to better pick their brains for their thoughts and feelings. This has helped me to add the nuanced icing on the cakes of some of my favorite characters. This could easily help a less empathic writer to better see the world through the eyes of their character.
To write a character that transcends the medium, you have to fall in love. You have to write someone so completely that you could slip into their skin. When you come up for air, they should feel more real than the people in your life. Because then they’ll feel real to the reader too. If you write them carefully enough, they will take on a life of their own and steer your story in surprising and affecting directions that you may not have been able to conjure on your own. A transcendent character is a writer’s muse.
You need to be an empath. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary. Most writers are empathic to some degree. How else could we create people, places, and stories that we take seriously enough to pen a 100,000-word novel about?
I don’t do those extra immersive steps for every character – only the ones that I fall in love with, who typically end up being the protagonists or antagonists.
My goal is to write someone that the reader will remember fondly years after finishing their story. The fancy words, eloquent descriptions, and emotive dialogue aren’t enough to make a lasting impression. You need to make the words on the page disappear and fill in the paintings in the reader’s mind.
I often recall a few lines from Richard Wright’s memoir Black Boy that encapsulate my feelings on writing better than I ever could with my own words:
If I could fasten the mind of the reader upon words so firmly that he would forget words and be conscious only of his response, I felt that I would be in sight of knowing how to write narrative. I strove to master words, to make them disappear, to make them important by making them new, to make them melt into a rising spiral of emotional stimuli, each greater than the other, each feeding and reinforcing the other, and all ending in an emotional climax that would drench the reader with a sense of a new world. That was the single aim of my living.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that I put a lot of myself into my protagonists and arbitrary favorites as a baseline for their emerging pathos – I understand myself better than any other human after all. But by the time that I am writing their story, they evolve so completely that I can barely see my echo anymore. That’s always breathtaking to me because I spend so much time with them that they feel like old friends – often more dear and tender than the ones that visit for dinner and marijuana cigarettes on the roof on the weekends. They are my friends, lovers, and confidantes. Sometimes, they are all that I can think about and I lose time immersed in the worlds that they populate.
If you find yourself falling in love with your characters then you’re on the way to writing someone that will step off of the page and take on a life apart of you.
For new, emerging, and seasoned writers, take this advice lightly and find a way to incorporate it into your existing toolkit. Make it your own because there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all advice, especially when it comes to something as personal and powerful as writing.
I love to write. I love reading just as much. To all of you writers: you make me proud to be a human being and grateful to be alive. I love you all. Keep writing. I’ll keep reading.
See the source of my current depressive longing, my beloved Alma Castillo, the Afro-Latina, transgender protagonist of my LGBTQ literary fiction novel The Life Of Alma ‡
The Life Of Alma, 15k-word excerpt
A playlist of songs that have helped me to get into Alma’s headspace. Without some of this music, she would not be the woman that she is today. ‡
- Zayn for a Day
- It Came!
- My Story About a Trans Teenager Was Published in a Literary Magazine!
- Philadelphia, Fall 1992
- Protected: Masculine Trauma and Gender Identity
Link Up On INSTAGRAM And TWITTER
β₯I Want More Friends
Share A Post! It Really Helps!
Want an update every time I post something here? Subscribe. Itβs free.
Thanks For Reading!