Five Ways to Get Into Your Character's Head

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine

"If you could read my mind," Gordon Lightfoot once sang, "what a tale my thoughts would tell."  We may approach a story that we write as one single story, but it has more layers for readers to enjoy when we take advantage of the fact that each of our main characters has his or her own hidden history.

How do we unlock those secrets deep inside our fictional friends?  I offer these five easy pathways to perception.

FEEL THE FEAR
Knowing your characters' primary goal for the story (finding the right mate, conquering an enemy, winning a case), imagine the worst that can happen to them.  What will be the consequences if they fail?  What obstacles can you put in place to make it all but impossible to succeed?

Not feeling their pain yet?  Up the stakes by giving them an internal struggle in direct conflict with their goal.  Claustrophobia could be a roadblock for a race car driver.  A med student with a queasy stomach also has demons to contend with.  There's wonderful irony afoot when someone is their own biggest obstacle.

GRILL THEM
One by one, sit your heroes, villains and other significant characters across from you in a virtual chair and play doctor.  Dr Sigmund Freud, that is.  Or Dr Joyce Brothers.  (Or Dr Ruth, if you dare.)  Ask your character probing questions about their life, their background, their goals, etc.  But don't stop there.  Get really personal and ask why they became a brain surgeon, why they want to be a rock star, why they promised themselves to see the world before they're 30.

But don't stop there either.  Keep digging deeper until you uncover the real reason why it's a matter of life and death to them that they succeed in their goals.  Persist, because they'll be as evasive about revealing their true selves as you are. Be Barbara Walters and make them cry if you have to. Don't worry, they'll forgive you.

CONSULT AN EXPERT
Your circle of friends and acquaintances is an extravaganza of information and personal experience to help with your character development. Is your hero a policeman? A mailman? A dental hygienist? Someone you know or someone they know would be glad to help you flesh out the inner workings of your character.

In the name of full disclosure, you may want to tell them ahead of time that it's for literary accuracy. They'll be more open and inclined to tell all.  I once pummeled a nurse friend with an inquisition about hospital procedure until she accused, "You're doing research for your book, aren't you?"

IMMERSE YOURSELF
Walk a mile in your character's shoes.  If he or she has a penchant for gambling, spend a day at a casino. If they have a green thumb, get your fingers dirty in the garden or hang out at a nursery.  If they are a beach bum, I can think of worse things than sipping piña coladas in a hammock for the sake of research.

LISTEN THROUGH THEIR EARS
Just like you, your character has very individual taste in music. Would he/she listen to pop tunes, oldies, heavy metal, country, soul, hip-hop, classical? Who are his or her favorite artists? While you're pondering your character, tune into that type of station or call up the genre on AccuRadio.com. Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino says he'll go so far as to make a mix tape to the tune of his characters.

Or maybe your story takes place in a different time period. Someone in the 1940s was hearing big band music.  Two decades earlier, ragtime was the bee's knees.  If your story takes place in a foreign setting, music from that region makes an ideal soundtrack for your writing.

Any of these activities can help a writer hone in on the protagonist, antagonist, and anyone else in the cast. Of course, being the brilliant and imaginative wordsmiths we are, we can simply create our characters to be whomever we want them to be.  But how much more fun is it when they instead reveal themselves to us?

What Brand Are You?

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine


Some years ago in a writing magazine, I noticed an advertisement for Kleenex®.  But they weren't hawking facial tissue.  This was a fairly official-looking admonishment to all writers advising them that Kleenex® is a registered trademark, and that whenever the word Kleenex® is used, it should be capitalized with the copyright symbol ® added to it.

Presumably this even mattered because people tend to call any brand of tissue a Kleenex®, for example, "Could you pass me a Kleenex®?"  You can already see how distracting it would be for writers to include the symbol in a novel.  Almost as distracting as the heavy-handed alternative, "Could you pass me a facial tissue?"  (People don't talk like that.)

My gut reaction was that Kleenex® should just be happy to be such a front runner that they would become the go-to word for not just their product but all others like it.  However, many products—from Ex-Lax® to Preparation H®—are equally, um, zealous about protecting their brand name.

It does have to be a little frustrating when you're Coca-Cola® and a large portion of the population refers to any kola nut-flavored carbonated drink as a "coke".  But it feels a little over the top when a catchy TV jingle like "I am stuck on Band-Aids, 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me" is changed to the clumsy "I am stuck on Band-Aid brand, 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me". Cramming "brand" in the middle of an established slogan suddenly sounded a little desperate.

You may be old enough to remember Funny Face Drink Mix (similar to Kool-Aid, with the kid-friendly flavors Goofy Grape, Injun Orange, Freckle Face Strawberry, Chinese Cherry, Loud Mouth Lime, and Rootin' Tootin' Raspberry).  In a short time, someone decided that two of the flavors were potentially offensive, so Injun Orange became Jolly Olly Orange, and Chinese Cherry became Choo Choo Cherry.  (I'm surprised Rootin' Tootin' Raspberry wasn't picketed for being insensitive to cowboys.)

In more recent years, perhaps you noticed when the jingle "Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man" became "Ace is the place with the helpful hardware folks."  (That one I do get, since a friend of mine's sister works at a hardware store.)

Clearly, companies go to a lot of trouble to protect their brand.  If you're a writer, you have a brand that should be just as important to you.  While it may seem foreign to think of yourself as a product, consider Hollywood stars with established images, like Brad Pitt and Melissa McCarthy.  It's hard to picture Pitt in a slapstick role, or McCarthy playing Anne Frank.  Then there are chameleons like Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, who can do both comedy and drama, but that very flexibility has become part of their brand.

The cover of a Stephen King book is distinctively Stephen King, evoking the bad vibes that lie inside.  His Maine radio station WKIT is also fit for a King, with songs like "Black Magic Woman" and other ditties that would be right at home in a soundtrack to Christine.  You know what you're gonna get when you buy a Stephen King book because of the consistency throughout his work and throughout his platform.

When readers see your name, what should come to mind?  What image will help promote your books?  Just what is it that you want to say to the world through your writing?   These are good questions to ponder as you tweak your website and before you post things on Facebook.  In defiance of the old saying, not all publicity is good publicity if it goes against the image you want to project.

As you develop your brand, follow in the attentive, consistent footsteps of proven marketing successes like Kleenex®. Becoming a brand people know and love is nothing to sneeze at.