Table Of ContentCREATING CHARACTERS:
How to Build Story People
A B O U T THE A U T H O R
Dwight V. Swain has focused his life on writing. Growing up
in Michigan, he was selling long before he was graduated from that
state’s university. He went on to newspaper work, magazine staff
jobs, pulp fiction (more than fifty magazine novels —science fiction,
fantasy, mystery, western, adventure), informational film (on topics
ranging from raising bobwhite quail and acidizing oil wells to men
tal health and promotional pictures), and chasing guerrillas through
all seven countries of Central America as a foreign correspondent.
On the side, Swain worked crops as a transient laborer,
scrubbed decks on Great Lakes freighters, peddled razor blade
hones on street corners, served in the U.S. Army in World War II,
and edited labor papers. A traveler in many countries, he lived
five years in Mexico. He taught in the University of Oklahoma’s
Professional Writing Program for more than twenty years, coaching
hundreds of students to publication. Now Professor Emeritus, he
has been honored with the Governor’s Arts in Education Award.
His books include Techniques of the Selling Writer, Film Script-
writing: A Practical Manual, and Scripting for Video and Audiovisual
Media. He lives in Norman, Oklahoma with his wife, Joye, an inter
preter and travel writer.
CREATING
CHARACTERS:
Hew to Build Story
People
Dwight V. Swain
Writer's
Digest
Books
Cincinnati, Ohio
Creating Characters: How to Build Story People. Copyright © 1990 by Dwight V. Swain.
Printed and bound in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No part of this
book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including
information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher,
except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published by Writer’s
Digest Books, an imprint of F&W Publications, Inc., 1507 Dana Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio
45207. First edition.
94 93 92 91 90 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Swain, Dwight V.
Creating characters : how to build story people / Dwight V. Swain 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-89879-417-X
1. Fiction—Technique. 2. Characters and characteristics.
I. Tide.
PN3383.C4S9 1990
808.3—dc20 90-39640
CIP
Edited by Nan Dibble
Designed by Carol Buchanan
For Phyllis A. Whitney...
fine writer and good friend
C O N T E N T S
Preface
ONE/THE CORE OF CHARACTER 1
What’s the one key element any major character must have?
The ability to care.
TWO/SEARCHING OUT YOUR CHARACTERS
5
How do you find the right character?
You scan the applicants until you locate one who turns
you on and fits the part.
THREE/LABELS, LABELS
15
Why do you label a character?
Your reader needs some clue or two to help him recognize
each of your story people.
FOUR/FLESHING OUT
21
How do you make a character real?
You provide him or her with appropriate tags, traits, and relationships.
FIVE/THE WORLD WITHIN: 1
38
How do you motivate a character?
You devise something that he or she must change
in order to win happiness.
SIX/THE WORLD WITHIN:
2 39
How do you keep a character moving?
You point that character towards his or her private future.
SEVEN/THE BREATH OF LIFE
53
How do you bring a character to life?
You make the character reveal emotion.
EIGHT/BENT TWIGS
61
How much background should you give a character?
Only enough to make your reader—and you—believe in him.
NINE/WILD CARDS 76
What goes into building an offbeat character?
The same elements that you use in creating any
story person —only more so.
TEN/THE ROLE OF ROLES
88
How do you treat a hero?
You shape the hero to fit the job he or she has to do.
ELEVEN/THE LIGHT TOUCH 108
How do you make a character amusing?
You replace reader assumptions with offbeat alternatives.
TWELVE/THE RIGHT WORDS 128
How do you describe a character effectively?
You build the character with significant specifics that lead readers
to feel the way you want them to feel.
THIRTEEN/THE THINGS THEY SAY 137
How do you write good dialogue?
You pay as much attention to feelings as to words.
FOURTEEN/VARIATIONS ON A THEME 146
How do you treat characters in the various lengths, media, and genres?
You design your people to fit your market.
FIFTEEN/THE CHARACTER OUT OF TIME 157
How do you get people to read about characters in unfamiliar worlds?
You provide emotional insight into the world and individuals involved.
SIXTEEN/THE DYNAMICS OF DISBELIEF 169
How do you cope when readers don’t believe in
your characters and stories?
You plug the gaps where belief leaks out.
SEVENTEEN/THE SEARCH FOR ZEST 182
How do you maintain your cutting edge as a writer?
You draw on the stimulus of story people.
Appendix: For Further Reading 187
Index 189
PREFACE
Fiction grows from story people.
This book is designed to help you bring such people into being.
From it you’ll learn barn-brush characterization. Subdety you’ll
have to master on your own.
(Remember what Somerset Maugham said about that? “I was
surprised when a friend of mine told me he was going over a story
he had just finished to put more subdety into it; I didn’t think it my
business to suggest that you couldn’t be subtle by taking thought.
Subdety is a quality of the mind, and if you have it you show it
because you can’t help it.”)
Why will you learn barn-brush characterization? Because I
learned my basics in the action pulps, that’s why. Anything else is
after the feet.
Beyond that, barn-brush handling is what you need to start. It
focuses you on the basics and it’s easy for both reader and writer
to understand.
Not that you’ll stop there, please note. Indeed, you can’t stop,
because with every story you write your mind will automatically
reach out, groping for better, more effective ways to draw your
people. As you find them, make them part of your private kit of
literary tools—your skill will increase and your work will improve
in keeping with your taste and the direction of your aspirations.
So, here we’ll start with the broad strokes of a barn brush, and
don’t be disdainful of the techniques this approach offers. It works,
believe me. Indeed, if you’re of an analytic turn of mind, you’ll
soon discover that, each in his or her own way, the men and
women who created the world’s classics used the same devices
presented here.
How should you use this book? A good way to start, it seems
to me, is a quick scan. That will give you an idea of your present
skill, and where you’re strong and weak. Then you can decide for
yourself what’s old and what’s new—to you, that is—and where
you need to dig in and bear down.
I do not suggest that you work by the numbers, as it were.
That’s a sure way to make writing a drudgery, and writing’s hard
enough without that. Rather, fly by the seat of your pants, setting
down characters as they surface in your story. Then, go back and
troubleshoot the product, reworking to improve any of your peo
ple whom you feel might benefit.
The key word above, please note, is improve. Anyone can create
a character. What I offer here are merely some time-tried devices
by which to make such pseudo-beings better. Sometimes. Because
even the best of devices won’t always work. At its heart, ever and
always, writing remains—to a greater degree than we like to
admit—a trial and error process. So as you work and study to
acquire skill, never forget to pray a little too, for in the clinch we
all need to have Lady Luck riding high upon our shoulders.
It’s the custom in a book like this for the author to acknowledge
the help he’s received from others along the way.
For me, the list would be for too long to include here—the
more so, since memory being as fallible as it is, some not included
would be sure to have hurt feelings. Let me say only, therefore,
that I’ve learned about character and characterization from every
book I’ve ever read, every student I’ve ever taught, every editor
who’s bought or rejected my work.
One name just can’t be left out, however: that of my wife Joye
R. Swain, whose keen insights and discerning eye—and whose too-
often frayed and raveled patience—helped to give this book its
cutting edge.
Words can’t express my gratitude to her.
