How to Write a Novel. Part 3: Character as Engine
Summary
- Develop protagonists with compelling desires and authentic flaws, ensuring their journey drives significant personal transformation.
- Use side characters and their relationships to create conflict, show depth, and move the story along.
- Blend inner and outer conflicts by showing internal struggles through actions and a clear character voice.
Protagonists: Desire, Flaws, and Change
At the heart of every compelling novel is a protagonist driven by a profound desire. This isn’t just a fleeting wish, but a deep-seated want that propels their actions and defines their journey. Equally crucial are their flaws: the internal limitations, mistaken beliefs, or personal weaknesses that complicate their pursuit of that desire. These flaws create internal conflict, making the character relatable and their struggle meaningful. The novel’s arc is fundamentally about the protagonist’s change. Through confronting obstacles and their own shortcomings, they must evolve, adapt, or transform. This change is the payoff for the reader’s investment, showing how the events of the story have left an indelible mark on who the character is.
Secondary Characters: Contrast, Tension, Reflection
Secondary characters are more than just background figures; they are narrative tools that serve specific functions. They can provide contrast to the protagonist, highlighting different ways of responding to challenges or embodying opposing viewpoints. They introduce crucial tension, either by directly opposing the protagonist’s goals or by creating complications through their own actions and desires. Secondary characters often act as reflections, mirroring aspects of the protagonist’s inner world or externalizing themes. To manage them effectively, ensure each character serves a clear, distinct purpose within the story. Avoid populating your novel with too many; every secondary character should advance the plot, challenge the protagonist, or deepen a theme. Give them a unique voice, a clear motivation to feel real without overshadowing the main narrative.
Relationships as Narrative Machinery
Character relationships are not static backdrops but dynamic narrative machinery. They are living engines that drive conflict, reveal character, and advance the plot. Their alliances, rivalries, loves, and antagonisms create the necessary friction that fuels the story. A relationship might provide the protagonist with a much-needed ally, but also a source of vulnerability. It might introduce a new obstacle, or force a revelation through direct confrontation. The evolution of these connections, from initial understanding to deepening complexity or fracturing conflict, should directly impact the characters’ decisions and the overall progression of the story.
Interior vs. Exterior Conflict: Making the Inner Visible
Novels thrive on both interior and exterior conflict. Exterior conflict arises from the plot: the challenges, antagonists, and obstacles the character faces in the outside world. Interior conflict, conversely, stems from the character’s own mind: their doubts, fears, moral dilemmas, or conflicting desires. Effective storytelling constantly weaves these two together. An external threat often forces a character to confront an internal weakness, and an internal struggle might prevent them from effectively dealing with an external problem. The key is making the inner visible; characters’ thoughts and feelings should manifest through their actions, reactions, dialogue, and the choices they make, rather than being simply stated.
Voice and Worldview: How a Character Shapes the Reader’s Experience
A character’s voice is their unique way of perceiving and articulating the world, coloring every internal thought and observation. This filter is deeply tied to their worldview: their personal beliefs, values, biases, and experiences. To establish a distinct voice and worldview, consider their unique vocabulary and syntax, their habitual patterns of observation, and the specific emotional lens through which they interpret events. Show this through their internal monologue, the way they describe their surroundings, and their particular reactions to conflict. This distinct perspective immerses the reader in that character’s reality, building a powerful, subjective connection to your story.
Characters are not mere vessels for plot; they are the core of your novel. By focusing on their desires, flaws, and the authentic evolution of their inner and outer lives, you transform a series of events into a deeply meaningful experience for the reader.
How to Write a Novel. Part 4: World, Atmosphere, and Reality »