*The writers interested in non-fiction or non-narrative poetry will please be patient with me while for this blog and for a few following I will be focusing primarily on fiction writing.
Characters are the most important aspect of any work of fiction in which they are present. They are the emotion and power in a story, the glue holding everything together, the fibers of the yarn being spun. They have the power to make or break the writing with a single misplaced action.
Some might argue that the plot is the key element for obvious reasons, and while it is true that a good plot can carry a book staggering distances (Harry Potter anyone?), as Ray Bradbury so excellently puts it "Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations." However these characters are also possibly the most difficult things to write, which is where the fun comes in.
A good character should be all about balance. You never want a character who is completely one thing. That would be boring, predictable, and worst of all not believable. (For the sake of convenience, we'll name this hypothetical character that I will be talking about. We'll name him Billy. Billy Joe Stuart.) Your readers want to believe in Billy Joe Stuart. After all, they did believe in Harvey Dent. ;) My point is that they want to understand the world through Billy's eyes. They want to laugh when he cracks a joke, feel empathy when he get's hurt, and cry as if for a loved one when he dies. On a rainy day, they want to watch their troubles dissipate when they so much was read the name Billy Joe Stuart as if they were seeing an old friend. And that's what the character (unless blatantly otherwise intended) should be, a friend to your reader. As a writer it is not simply your job to invent the character, but you must bring him/her to life.
The quote heading this blog is by Ernest Hemingway who said in full, "When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature." In order for the reader to believe your characters you must believe in them first. Know them like parents know their children. Understand their positive, negative, and neutral traits. Know the motivation behind every action and the central motivations that run their lives. For this, people watching and heavy self-analysis are highly encouraged.
Feel free to pass on your own flaws and habits to them, and always, always give each one at least one characteristic that makes you shudder. No one is perfect, not even the hero of the story. You want to like your hero and you want the readers to like the hero, but the hero has to have a flaw in order to be considered any good. He has to slip up and make a bad decision some time. This will come fairly naturally if your mind is open enough to let it.
In any situation, there is an infinite number of decisions your character can make, some of them morally very poor decisions. Allow them to take this route and do something that you really wish they hadn't the heart to do. (*Please note here that it imperative that none of these bad decisions are forced and that they are, indeed, something your character would be willing to do in that time and place. Never break character.) In small doses, this will shock the reader into emotion, and if done correctly, earn their respect for you as a sophisticated writer of a very realistic character. No one likes to read about someone who is right all the time. I'll leave you with that for now, and continue to Part 2 in my next blog.