or laughing with him. Active characters shape the plot through the choices they make, and their desires create mirrored desires in the audience.
As a writer, you have two very powerful tools for creating active characters: actions and dialogue. Active characters use plenty of both. They make choices, doing and saying things that lead to new choices and new actions, advancing the plot. Use these tools to your advantage. Give your characters plenty to say and do. Make them leap, make them dance, make them cry, and make them laugh. In short, make them live. You'll keep both your characters and your audience engaged in your story.
USING ACTION TO DEFINE CHARACTER
Contrary to what many people think, action isn't just about plot. Actions also reveal character. What a person does shows us who he is—not just who he says he is. We all know how this works in real life. How many of us had a classmate who was saccharine sweet on the outside but talked with an acid tongue as soon as someone else's back was turned? Do you remember the shy girl who never said a word, but when courage was needed she was the first one who stepped up? Or how about the popular guy who acted conceited until he was alone, then he couldn't stop talking about his little brothers and sisters?
When we watch a person make choices, we're able to gauge many things about her. How passionately does she truly feel about something? Is she capable of sacrifice? Cowardice? Love? Maybe she's more afraid then she's letting on.
The revelatory power of our actions is no less true in fiction. In fact, it's probably even more necessary on the page, where a story exists for only one reader at a time and there's no one to ask for a second opinion. The best example of this power is the use of the unreliable narrator. When an author uses this technique, the character is telling the audience one thing, but the audience is expected to come to a different conclusion based on the character's actions.
How can this be accomplished? We do it by showing what a character does, not just what he says.
In my book Saint Iggy, I used the unreliable narrator technique to create a portrait of a young man who is having a hard time figuring out his true nature. In the beginning of the book Iggy has just been kicked out of school, and he relates the story from a point of view that is distinctly his own, minimizing his role in causing the trouble and placing much of the blame squarely on others. However, the reader, being outside the situation, sees Iggy's actions in addition to his words and can question his version of events.
Here's the account of his expulsion as related by Iggy in play format:
Me: (coming in late to Spanish class because I followed a hot new girl) Can I sit here?
Mrs. Brando: (confused) I think you have the wrong classroom.
Me: (correctly) No, I'm in this class.
Mrs. Brando: (really patronizing) Son, it is December and I have not seen you in this class even once before, so I don't know what classroom you are looking for. Are you new here, too?
Me: (being real patient) Nooo, I am in this class and if you'd just check your list from the beginning of the year you'd see that, (under my breath really freaking quietly) Bitch.
Mrs. Brando: (spazzing out) Are you threatening me? Do you have a weapon? Are you on drugs? Someone get the principal. Call security. Help! Help! Help!
Even as Iggy tells his story, which is obviously highly dramatized, his actions give us a different sense of things. He's come in late to a class he doesn't really belong in and he calls the teacher a bitch. Although he's trying to tell us that the teacher was being unreasonable and patronizing, the audience doesn't quite buy it. Throughout the novel, Iggy oscillates between low self-esteem and grandiose ideas of what he can accomplish, and it's up to the reader to decide, based on the choices he makes, whether Iggy is ultimately a saint or a villain.
If you are using the unreliable narrator technique,
As a writer, you have two very powerful tools for creating active characters: actions and dialogue. Active characters use plenty of both. They make choices, doing and saying things that lead to new choices and new actions, advancing the plot. Use these tools to your advantage. Give your characters plenty to say and do. Make them leap, make them dance, make them cry, and make them laugh. In short, make them live. You'll keep both your characters and your audience engaged in your story.
USING ACTION TO DEFINE CHARACTER
Contrary to what many people think, action isn't just about plot. Actions also reveal character. What a person does shows us who he is—not just who he says he is. We all know how this works in real life. How many of us had a classmate who was saccharine sweet on the outside but talked with an acid tongue as soon as someone else's back was turned? Do you remember the shy girl who never said a word, but when courage was needed she was the first one who stepped up? Or how about the popular guy who acted conceited until he was alone, then he couldn't stop talking about his little brothers and sisters?
When we watch a person make choices, we're able to gauge many things about her. How passionately does she truly feel about something? Is she capable of sacrifice? Cowardice? Love? Maybe she's more afraid then she's letting on.
The revelatory power of our actions is no less true in fiction. In fact, it's probably even more necessary on the page, where a story exists for only one reader at a time and there's no one to ask for a second opinion. The best example of this power is the use of the unreliable narrator. When an author uses this technique, the character is telling the audience one thing, but the audience is expected to come to a different conclusion based on the character's actions.
How can this be accomplished? We do it by showing what a character does, not just what he says.
In my book Saint Iggy, I used the unreliable narrator technique to create a portrait of a young man who is having a hard time figuring out his true nature. In the beginning of the book Iggy has just been kicked out of school, and he relates the story from a point of view that is distinctly his own, minimizing his role in causing the trouble and placing much of the blame squarely on others. However, the reader, being outside the situation, sees Iggy's actions in addition to his words and can question his version of events.
Here's the account of his expulsion as related by Iggy in play format:
Me: (coming in late to Spanish class because I followed a hot new girl) Can I sit here?
Mrs. Brando: (confused) I think you have the wrong classroom.
Me: (correctly) No, I'm in this class.
Mrs. Brando: (really patronizing) Son, it is December and I have not seen you in this class even once before, so I don't know what classroom you are looking for. Are you new here, too?
Me: (being real patient) Nooo, I am in this class and if you'd just check your list from the beginning of the year you'd see that, (under my breath really freaking quietly) Bitch.
Mrs. Brando: (spazzing out) Are you threatening me? Do you have a weapon? Are you on drugs? Someone get the principal. Call security. Help! Help! Help!
Even as Iggy tells his story, which is obviously highly dramatized, his actions give us a different sense of things. He's come in late to a class he doesn't really belong in and he calls the teacher a bitch. Although he's trying to tell us that the teacher was being unreasonable and patronizing, the audience doesn't quite buy it. Throughout the novel, Iggy oscillates between low self-esteem and grandiose ideas of what he can accomplish, and it's up to the reader to decide, based on the choices he makes, whether Iggy is ultimately a saint or a villain.
If you are using the unreliable narrator technique,
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