Laura Snider – On Characters

Hi everyone! Welcome to another installment of The Creator’s Roulette series. Today I’m excited to host Laura Snider, the author of Unsympathetic Victims, a legal thriller, book 1 in the Ashley Montgomery Series. Unsympathetic Victims will be released this week in ebook, hardback, paperback, and audiobook. Today on the series, Laura is telling us about characters, why we relate to them as readers and like some more than others. Let’s welcome her and get started.

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Laura Snider on Characters

Every reader has a literary character that they love. For some, that beloved character is the protagonist, for others it is the villain. Sometimes it is the main character, other times it is a secondary character. It can even be someone who rarely appears in the book. For example, two of my favorite characters in the Harry Potter series are Sirius Black and Bellatrix Lestrange. But why? Why do we choose one character over another? 

Relatability

The best characters reflect the humanity in us all. Which means a well-developed character is not all good or all bad. They have flaws, just like their readers. This is what makes them so relatable. It allows us, as readers, to identify with their struggle. To dig deep within to find similar emotions. In other words, it allows us to empathize with the character. 

It doesn’t matter if the character is “bad” or “good” in the eyes of the story’s protagonist. What matters is that the reader sympathizes with the character’s plight. The character could be doing some really terrible things in the story, but if the reader can understand why they are acting in such a way, then their actions can be forgiven, even justified. 

Backstory

To be relatable, characters need to be three dimensional. They are people after all. They came from somewhere and they should have hopes and dreams, places that they want to go. I’m not saying that each character should have their past and future spelled out, but the reader has to be able to understand why characters make certain choices. 

For example, let’s take two characters. We can call them Sally and Ronald. Let’s say Sally is Ronald’s supervisor. Let’s make Sally 25 years old and Ronald sixty-five. Ronald has been late to work every day for over a month. Sally gave him some leeway, but she ultimately decides to terminate him. With these facts alone, the reader is going to say, so what? Ronald deserved to lose his job. 

But let’s give Ronald a back story. Let’s say he has worked at this job every day for the past thirty-five years. He was a diligent worker and gave the company every spare moment of his time. His beloved wife constantly begged for him to spend time with her, but he kept telling himself that he would save the money, spend every moment of his retirement with her. But then she was involved in a fatal car accident. Now, with these added facts, how do you feel about Ronald losing his job? A bit worse, right? 

Details

If characters are people, then they should be unique. They should have a preferred type of music, genre of book, and a favorite TV show. These facts can be included in the story, but that’s not a requirement. The reader just has to be given enough information to visualize these things for themselves. These details can describe your character without the dreaded information dump. It is a way to show rather than tell. 

For example, let’s focus on clothing. Clothing can describe a character’s social economic status. A character wearing a tattered hand-me-down t-shirt indicates something different than a character wearing designer wares. The lawyer who wears a Notorious RBG t-shirt under her suit jacket is likely a bit of a rebel. The student that wears socks with their Birkenstocks is probably not a fashionista.  Bright colors can indicate a positive individual, dark colors the opposite. 

All the tenants of clothing flows to all sorts of other tangible facts. A large house that is in disrepair can be a good place for a depressed character to live. A trash bin full of wine bottles and lottery tickets would be a great way to describe a desperate character. 

I’m not saying that a writer should list these details in a book. In fact, do the opposite. A few carefully placed details will make all the difference in the world. 

Challenge

 All characters should have something they want and something that stands in their way. Sometimes the thing standing in their way is an object, sometimes it is another character. The point is, there has to be some kind of challenge. A struggle. 

This is what allows us, as readers, to root for the character. Even minor character should want something. The want can be a physical object, like a new house, or an emotional desire, like the affection of another character. 

Think about some of your favorite stories. Were those characters relatable? Did they have backstories? Were they three-dimensional? Did they have a challenge? I bet the answer to all these question is yes. Because that’s what makes them realistic. Human. And that is why you love them. 

Resources for Character Building

My favorite writing books that truly helped me when I first started writing were On Writing, by Stephen King, and Bird by Bird, by Ann Lamott. I also feel like the International Writing Program has some excellent free online classes. I think I’ve listened to everything through the IWP so long as it was in English, but I particularly remember the Storied Women MOOC pack and the Hidden Meanings MOOC pack as helpful. 

The International Writing Program classes can be found here: http://www.distancelearningiwp.org/moocpacks

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Tell us about the last character in a book you had a special connection with.

Connect with Laura on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok (@laura.snider.writer).

Read more on The Creator’s Roulette series on the series homepage.

Cover image: Photo by Ricardo Cruz on Unsplash