Who are your favourite characters from literature? Who are your favourites from the real world? How about your personal life?
I want you to conjure these characters up in your mind, and really think about why they are your favourites. Focus on them and ponder for a moment…
The truth is, there could be many reasons why you love (or love to hate) your favourite characters, but one thing I can tell you for sure; you have a strong, lasting, emotional response to them. In other words, they resonate with you.
It should come as no surprise that the characters you plan to write (or speak) about should have an emotional impact on your audience. That’s the key insight I want to share today. Use characters in your stories that audiences can resonate with.
Let’s break down the essential elements of storytelling…
The purpose of a story for you, the public speaker, should be to make a point that supports the main purpose of your speech. Your purpose could be to inspire, sell, teach… or simply to entertain. In all cases, an effective story should have the following elements:
Before we explore how to make our characters work, it’s important to separate characters into two categories; ancillary and main. Ancillary characters are only there to complete a scene. They are characters you cannot exclude for plot purposes, however they are not integral to the plot. For example, a waiter that serves you in a restaurant, or a taxi driver that drives you to an airport.
Ancillary characters should not have a detailed description other than their basic function, unless they are of particular interest. Think of them as living props within your story and nothing more. If you focus on them too much, your audience will become distracted from the plot. Main characters are those that are integral to the plot. If any character isn’t an integral part of getting to the point or message you are trying to share, make them ancillary or if possible edit them out.
Tip 1: Only include and/or develop the characters that matter to your plot.
Next, help the audience to build a sensory “picture” of each character in their minds. Your audience should be able to hear, see and feel the characters for themselves. This is easier than it sounds, and you can achieve it with one or two well-crafted statements.
Let’s start with a few examples…
“Frank was a well-built no-nonsense chauffer.”
“Mary ran the shop like a drill sergeant.”
“Mark had hunched shoulders and a sheepish voice.”
Do we have a coherent picture of these characters in our minds? Possibly. You may already have pictures in your mind, or even what their voices sound like. Does it matter if these voices or visuals are inaccurate? Not if it doesn’t matter to the plot.
What happens if we change something in our descriptions?
“Frank was a well-built no-nonsense grandfather.”
Notice how your impression of Frank changes. Let’s try…
“8-year-old Mark had hunched shoulders and a sheepish voice.”
This begs the question, if I’m supposed to keep my character descriptions brief, what should I include?
The answer is to give the audience just enough to form a coherent picture in their minds. Don’t include anything that’s superfluous to the story. We don’t need a detailed rendition of what people were wearing, the colour of their hair, eyes, etc. unless it’s essential to the plot, or otherwise aesthetically interesting.
On the other hand, don’t leave any lingering gaps, ambiguities, or unanswered questions. In one of my classes, I invited the attendees to share an early experience of fear from their lives. A third level student named Karen told a story from her childhood. Karen’s tale involved her older sister Janice who took charge of 6-year old Karen, when one day they were separated from their parents at a carnival.
After Karen had finished speaking, the audience offered some verbal feedback. Many listeners were bothered that they didn’t know how old Janice was in the story. I had wondered it myself. It was important to know, because if Janice was 15 years old I might have had a different emotional reaction to the story than if she was 7.
What are the essential details you can include to bring your characters to life?
Age, gender, name, occupation, character traits, skills and quirks are all potentially powerful details to share. It’s up to you what you feel is enough to service the plot and allow your audience to form their mental picture. Ideally, you want your audience to say to themselves; “I know someone just like that” or “I’ve never met anyone like this before.”
Tip 2: Give your audience enough character description to form a mental picture, but no more.
If you have enough time, it’s also useful to “show” rather than “tell”. In other words, don’t say “Frank was an angry boss”, say instead, “Frank was always shouting at people in the office for making mistakes.” Define traits through action rather than adjectives… but only if time allows.
A common mistake many rookie storytellers make is that they do not give their characters a voice. Look at this statement:
“Last night my mother told me that she loved me.”
This is a common style of “reporting dialog”, but there’s a problem here. The narrator is relaying what their mother said, not quoting her directly. Try this:
“Last night my mother told me, ‘I love you to bits, my little man.’”
In the second example, the mother has been given a voice. With an indirect report of dialog, we only get a summary of what a character said. With direct dialog, we get (or should get) the exact quote. This allows us to experience their vocabulary and manner of speaking. With distinctive tweaks of the voice you can also give us a sense of that character’s vocal patterns (accent, tone of voice, etc.). You can also demonstrate their emotional state during the scene.
Tip 3: Give your characters a voice through direct dialog.
Finally, if you are one of the characters in your own story, never make yourself the hero. Instead, make sure you portray yourself as someone the audience can relate to on their level. That way, if you manage to resolve conflicts and gain successes within your story, your audience will feel they could do the same. Inspire the notion “If I can do it, so can you.” If you portray yourself as Superman, the audience will feel some distance between themselves and you. They won’t feel able to “do it”.
Bonus tip: Never make yourself “special”, always make yourself “similar”.
I’ll finish with a quote from Walt Disney…
“I try to build a full personality for each of our cartoon characters – to make them personalities.”
If Walt can do it for cartoon animals, we can surely do the same for the people that matter to us, and our stories.
Coming up next, a crash course in story writing – “The three narrative styles that form powerful stories.”
I want you to conjure these characters up in your mind, and really think about why they are your favourites. Focus on them and ponder for a moment…
The truth is, there could be many reasons why you love (or love to hate) your favourite characters, but one thing I can tell you for sure; you have a strong, lasting, emotional response to them. In other words, they resonate with you.
It should come as no surprise that the characters you plan to write (or speak) about should have an emotional impact on your audience. That’s the key insight I want to share today. Use characters in your stories that audiences can resonate with.
Let’s break down the essential elements of storytelling…
The purpose of a story for you, the public speaker, should be to make a point that supports the main purpose of your speech. Your purpose could be to inspire, sell, teach… or simply to entertain. In all cases, an effective story should have the following elements:
- Characters
- Plot (Events and Scenes)
- Conflict
- Climax (Resolution)
- Carry-out Message, Theme, Moral or Punchline
Before we explore how to make our characters work, it’s important to separate characters into two categories; ancillary and main. Ancillary characters are only there to complete a scene. They are characters you cannot exclude for plot purposes, however they are not integral to the plot. For example, a waiter that serves you in a restaurant, or a taxi driver that drives you to an airport.
Ancillary characters should not have a detailed description other than their basic function, unless they are of particular interest. Think of them as living props within your story and nothing more. If you focus on them too much, your audience will become distracted from the plot. Main characters are those that are integral to the plot. If any character isn’t an integral part of getting to the point or message you are trying to share, make them ancillary or if possible edit them out.
Tip 1: Only include and/or develop the characters that matter to your plot.
Next, help the audience to build a sensory “picture” of each character in their minds. Your audience should be able to hear, see and feel the characters for themselves. This is easier than it sounds, and you can achieve it with one or two well-crafted statements.
Let’s start with a few examples…
“Frank was a well-built no-nonsense chauffer.”
“Mary ran the shop like a drill sergeant.”
“Mark had hunched shoulders and a sheepish voice.”
Do we have a coherent picture of these characters in our minds? Possibly. You may already have pictures in your mind, or even what their voices sound like. Does it matter if these voices or visuals are inaccurate? Not if it doesn’t matter to the plot.
What happens if we change something in our descriptions?
“Frank was a well-built no-nonsense grandfather.”
Notice how your impression of Frank changes. Let’s try…
“8-year-old Mark had hunched shoulders and a sheepish voice.”
This begs the question, if I’m supposed to keep my character descriptions brief, what should I include?
The answer is to give the audience just enough to form a coherent picture in their minds. Don’t include anything that’s superfluous to the story. We don’t need a detailed rendition of what people were wearing, the colour of their hair, eyes, etc. unless it’s essential to the plot, or otherwise aesthetically interesting.
On the other hand, don’t leave any lingering gaps, ambiguities, or unanswered questions. In one of my classes, I invited the attendees to share an early experience of fear from their lives. A third level student named Karen told a story from her childhood. Karen’s tale involved her older sister Janice who took charge of 6-year old Karen, when one day they were separated from their parents at a carnival.
After Karen had finished speaking, the audience offered some verbal feedback. Many listeners were bothered that they didn’t know how old Janice was in the story. I had wondered it myself. It was important to know, because if Janice was 15 years old I might have had a different emotional reaction to the story than if she was 7.
What are the essential details you can include to bring your characters to life?
Age, gender, name, occupation, character traits, skills and quirks are all potentially powerful details to share. It’s up to you what you feel is enough to service the plot and allow your audience to form their mental picture. Ideally, you want your audience to say to themselves; “I know someone just like that” or “I’ve never met anyone like this before.”
Tip 2: Give your audience enough character description to form a mental picture, but no more.
If you have enough time, it’s also useful to “show” rather than “tell”. In other words, don’t say “Frank was an angry boss”, say instead, “Frank was always shouting at people in the office for making mistakes.” Define traits through action rather than adjectives… but only if time allows.
A common mistake many rookie storytellers make is that they do not give their characters a voice. Look at this statement:
“Last night my mother told me that she loved me.”
This is a common style of “reporting dialog”, but there’s a problem here. The narrator is relaying what their mother said, not quoting her directly. Try this:
“Last night my mother told me, ‘I love you to bits, my little man.’”
In the second example, the mother has been given a voice. With an indirect report of dialog, we only get a summary of what a character said. With direct dialog, we get (or should get) the exact quote. This allows us to experience their vocabulary and manner of speaking. With distinctive tweaks of the voice you can also give us a sense of that character’s vocal patterns (accent, tone of voice, etc.). You can also demonstrate their emotional state during the scene.
Tip 3: Give your characters a voice through direct dialog.
Finally, if you are one of the characters in your own story, never make yourself the hero. Instead, make sure you portray yourself as someone the audience can relate to on their level. That way, if you manage to resolve conflicts and gain successes within your story, your audience will feel they could do the same. Inspire the notion “If I can do it, so can you.” If you portray yourself as Superman, the audience will feel some distance between themselves and you. They won’t feel able to “do it”.
Bonus tip: Never make yourself “special”, always make yourself “similar”.
I’ll finish with a quote from Walt Disney…
“I try to build a full personality for each of our cartoon characters – to make them personalities.”
If Walt can do it for cartoon animals, we can surely do the same for the people that matter to us, and our stories.
Coming up next, a crash course in story writing – “The three narrative styles that form powerful stories.”
RSS Feed
