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Characterisation

By rowland | Posted: 25 April 2009

Views: 376
In my experience the greatest weakness of all new writers, is in their characterisation.  The usual idea is to give the characters one quality apiece: the heroine is usually all sweet innocence and beautiful, the hero, manly with incredible chivalrous virtues, the villain duplicitous to the nth power. In real life every character is an uncertain amalgamation of many qualities. None of us can be represented by a single guise; we are all full of mingling shades of colour.  So remember flat characters cannot be taken seriously, because they do not exist in the real world.
All articles on this website by rowland are copyright ©rowland and should not be reproduced without the author's prior written consent. All opinions are the opinions of their respective authors and are not necessarily the opinions of The Writers' Circle.
Comments 
poppy101
26 April 2009
I could not agree more.  A true character can take you through a journey of mediocre writing, wastelands and beyond, you cling to it because you believe - but do you bother when the writings superb but the characters 2d?
rowland
26 April 2009
I believe that a good literary critic will always demand real people in his books, and that the plot is of secondary importance.
Regards.
Reiner
26 April 2009
I agree with Poppy 101. Characters, especially leading ones, need to have flaws. These flaws can be exploited by other members of the cast. They can be secondary to the main issues. The perfect character could easily scale a tall building when needed. But what if he/she suffered vertigo? Those of you that I have read are all good writers so you know what I mean. Perfection is out, imperfection and insecurity is in.

Reiner
JD Higginson
26 April 2009
I agree entirely, though often it is difficult to step back sometimes and evaluate your own characters. You already know them well but the same can't be said for the reader and it is their point of view that is sometimes hard to achieve.

JD

Writer
rowland

Total posts:
105
Roles: Writer
Xabia Alicante, SPAIN
Rowland has been writing for pleasure all his life. His first award for writing came in 1953 aged nine years when he won a UK school story writing competition and has been smitten with the writing bug ... (Read more)