Write well. Write often. Edit wisely.
Readers care about story details and they care about characters.
Both last night and this afternoon I had conversations with readers upset about the way authors had portrayed a character. The first conversation was with a grocery clerk, a stranger to me, and the second was with a family member. Both mentioned that a character who deviated from his personality and from his regular practices really bothered them in the books they were currently reading.
Actually, the grocery clerk was more than bothered. He felt the story had been ruined by a character acting very much out of character. The family member asked me about editing standards at publishing houses.
What’s clear is that readers do notice—and not for the good—when a character behaves in a way that doesn’t fit. Neither of these characters had undergone a legitimate kind of change that would have allowed them to behave in a manner inconsistent with their personality, experiences, emotional status, or skills. For both characters, apparently, the changed behavior was needed to make the plot work. But with the change, the character no longer worked. So changing the character to fix a plot issue wasn’t a successful strategy.
The reading experience shouldn’t be ruined by characters who don’t behave as they ought to. And if readers notice that characters do behave in ways that don’t fit them, it’s because the author created the character one way but had them act in a way that didn’t match.
If you’ve done a good job revealing your characters, readers will notice anomalies. There can be very good reasons for an anomaly, but when there isn’t a good reason, anomalies are problems.
I have no difficult suggestion regarding this issue. Just know your characters. Know their backgrounds, their education, their dreams, their failures and their successes, their disappointments, their expectations, their mentors and heroes, their life-defining moments, their go-to responses, their fears, their emotional triggers and hot buttons.
Know their habits, the responses they make without thinking. And understand what kinds of issues require them to think deeper about a response.
Know what would or could make them act in a way that was outside their normal pattern.
Understand their motivations, but not only for the big issues. Understand why one day a character needs coffee first thing and why the next day he wants tea. Understand why a character acts one way when the bank account has extra money in it and another way when the dollars are few.
Beyond knowing your characters, learn what kinds of characters and what character traits and behaviors will be needed to work with the plot.
If you haven’t included a character motivation that’s necessary for a pivotal scene, you’ve probably got some major rewriting to do. But even for side issues, you may need to go back and weave a character’s motivation into the story.
You can’t wait until the moment you need a character to behave a certain way to provide the motivation for that behavior. Not for crucial or turning-point moments in a story.
Lay the groundwork ahead of time by showing a character doing something that will allow readers to understand motivation. Then when the character acts as a result of that motivation, readers won’t doubt the response.
Keep character behavior logical based on all the elements you’ve introduced. And be mindful of what you haven’t introduced. If the story needs to use them, character motivations need to make it to the page.
Keep readers enjoying the story and keep them lost in the fiction. While you might want readers talking about your stories, you probably won’t want them complaining to a stranger about your story in a grocery aisle in the middle of the night.
Posted in: Writing Tips
The reader will focus on what stands out. Turn the reader's attention where you want it to go.
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Write well. Write often. Edit wisely.
Thank you so much for this post Beth. Lately it seems that it’s been my stumbling block with every contemporary book I’ve tried to read (no luck, I guess). I wonder if the lack of care we see on TV or even in many Hollywood hit movies doesn’t contribute in large part to the lack of care in books too. The need to produce fast seems to be prevalent and what we see is that many famous writers don’t care, so why care then?
I had a conversation with my mom earlier today about Tolstoy, and even though we both read him in two different languages (none of them Russian) we were both raving how he was able to make characters not only alive but multidimensional. That care into making a well-rounded character that acts according to his/her personality the whole way transcended language.
Maybe there is something to be said about studying old classics, even when what we write has nothing to do with their type of language or stories.
Thanks again for the list of things to watch for. It is very useful. A good reminder of what to look for. Happy to see a new blog too. Brings a smile on my face.
Thanks, Catherine.
There are so many, many parts to a story that it’s not surprising that some items are overlooked, but you’d think that character behavior and motivation, along with logical plotting, would get a second look not only by authors but by editors and other readers. You’re right that maybe the speed to get products out to the public is part of the problem.
Everything is about the characters. Characters aren’t props. Characters are the reason the story exists. A story is just a recounting of events that happened to or were done by or reacted against or for by a person. We call people in books “characters.”
If you don’t respect your characters and who they are, you need to be writing non-fiction. If the story isn’t working unless your character is suddenly someone else, your story is broken. You fix the plot. If you ask your characters, they’ll tell you how.
Character is everything.
These are excellent observations. As a reader, I am frustrated by the low quality of books served (and enabled) by Amazon and as a debut author, I am fascinated by how much craft and skill goes into writing. Seeing parts of that craft picked apart cogently is interesting and inspirational.
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As per my conclusion what readers notice the most is the cover of a novel. So, while publishing the book my main focus is to make the book cover more attractive and add images that please readers.
So true. Readers do indeed notice. Thanks for this post 🙏
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I appreciate you bringing up the fact that readers do consider the plot and characters in a book. The reading experience is crucial, and if you want your book to stand out, you need to pay attention to every aspect of the characters.
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