Writing 2200: Deep Characterization

Now that we’re in the 2000 level “courses,” so to speak, it’s time to work on refining our craft. This next portion of the seminar is all about characterization.

I posted about characterization a few weeks ago – a standalone post that covered a lot of territory. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to take a deeper look at characterization, and also go more slowly. Posts will be spread out in smaller chunks – this is partly for you, but mostly for me since my writing workload is crazy right now!

First off, let’s talk about Inspiration and Originality; chiefly, how to figure out what inspires you, why it inspires you, and how to study literature in a way that enables you to use that inspiration to come up with your own original characters and plots.

Inspiration and Originality

There’s a phrase that I like to use: “Every story has already been told, and Shakespeare told them all better than the rest of us.” Yes, I do love Shakespeare – serious Shakespeare, and dick-joke Shakespeare – but the real point is: I don’t think there’s any such thing as a “new” story anymore. Fiction is rooted in fact. Human fact. Stories are about people struggling, people triumphing, people falling in love, and people doing unspeakable thing. Most writers are working off a Classic literary canon, and we’re all trying to tell our own stories amidst other stories that might sound like ours. There will be inevitable similarities. There will be homages and tributes; there will be rewrites, retellings, and reimaginings. There’s every chance that someone on the other side of the world is right now writing a story eerily similar to yours, and neither of you know it. And then there are pop culture icons that are modern versions of beloved Classics…the original fanfiction, don’t you know. The best thing any writer can do is read widely, work hard, and focus on your own story.

I want to take a brief moment, since I fussed about it on my IG story this weekend, to acknowledge that sometimes…it’s not a coincidence. There are predatory writers out there. The ones who think publishing books is a great way to get rich quick. Who scan the market, see what’s selling, and pick authors to outright copy from. These people are not paying homage to a favorite author, nor lovingly referencing the Classics. These people are outright stealing; sometimes it’s a simple matter of using another author’s ideas – anything from plot lines, to archetypes – to literal copy/pasting and name-swapping on entire scenes. Like I said: predatory. Malicious.

We’re not going to waste another second on that sort of thing.

Then there’s benign copying. It’s unconscious. It’s not malicious, and we’ve all done it. It’s how we learn how to write. It’s how we go from attempting our first stories to finding our own literary voices. When we start out, we mimic the styles of writers we revere, and eventually, we start to understand the ins and outs of execution, and can accomplish the same thing using our own unique characters, cast in our own unique story.

Though I do believe there is such a thing as a natural propensity for writing, no one starts out with his or her own confident, original style. That comes through lots of reading, lots of practice, and lots of hard work and dedication. We begin to learn our strengths and how to use them, and the more we read and study literature, the more we understand what really makes a character lovable, and a book readable.

In the next few posts, we’ll take an in-depth look at the characters we love, and why we love them, and hopefully you can pick up some ideas for your own work. I’ll walk you through some of my own early, embarrassing writing attempts, and share what I’ve learned along the way.