Or, semi-mini. Characters can elevate what might otherwise be a simple plot, or even an overdone plot, and make it into something entirely unexpected. Characters are impactful. They collide with the prose and leave craters.
When writing, communicating character voice is pivotal, whether it’s a cast of first person POVs or a removed third person omniscient narrator. Voice and style humanizes the characters and leaves a lasting impression, giving a unique feel to a writer’s story that can’t be found in any other story, or that separates one similar story from the next.
So, how can we build up the voice in our narrative? How do we infuse that soul into the words and really bring the story to life? Here are a few things to consider:
- Personality.
Imagine two characters picking up a photo. They’re not going to see the same photo – or, at least, they’re not going to see the photo in the same way. When we observe things, we tend to assign traits, such as, “The light was warm and inviting,” or, “The ridges of the shoe cut into my flesh, as if the shoe refused to fit,” as two basic examples. The way we assign traits depends upon our personalities, which impacts the overall mood of the writing and, consequently, the story.
Imagine that, of the basic examples I used above, I flip-flopped the personalities. Instead of the light being “warm” and “inviting”, the character might think, “The light stung my retinas. I turned my face away.” Instead of the shoe refusing to fit, the character might think, “The ridges of the shoe cut into my flesh, as if to tell me I’d have to survive breaking in my feet before I was worthy enough to wear it.”
So, how do we get a grasp of how a character’s personality will affect the narrative? That question leads us to –