Witnessing = Observation + Imagination.

When I encounter a particularly stubborn character, one that insists upon being a part of the story yet veils him or herself from me, I go through the side door. I peek through the window or slide down the chimney and tiptoe. I observe my character when they are not looking and wonder about things slightly off-center to the story:

Does my character scratch their nose when they sneeze? Is it loud or delicate? Do they like scrambled eggs? Fried or poached? What is their dog's name? their cats or do they have a boa constrictor or a guinea pig? What is the last thing they do before they go to sleep at night, the first thing they do in the morning when they wake? Do they look for four-leaf clovers, smell grass growing? Do they stop to pull the stamen out of a honey suckle flower and sip the nectar? Do they have holes in their shoes? If they do, do they still polish them?

I let these idiosyncrasies melt into their dialogue, dialect, habits, ticks, and many times discover that they play crucial roles in my narrative.

A Rare Occurrence

On rare occasions, I find myself without much to say. After reading what my fellow potatoes have written about how to develop characters, this is one of those times.

What can I add that will not seem redundant? Not much, other than to say that for characters, as in real life, flaws can sometimes be the most interesting aspect of a personality. Flaws not only make a character “round,” they also spur action and influence decision-making, which in turn alters what happens to a character. Emotional needs and wants also do this. Therefore, knowing what a character wants and needs (not always the same thing!) is not only fundamental to “understanding” him/her, but also to developing your plot.

One other tidbit: let your characters make mistakes. Making mistakes makes a character more human, more believable, and more sympathetic to readers.

My other advice? Learn from what my fellow potatoes have written on this blog, and incorporate their advice into your own work. Do this and you will be well on your way to developing more fully-realized characters.

I guess I did have something to say after all!

Characters

Ten years ago, when I started writing books for young children, I thought that creating a character would be a piece of cake. Unfortunately, most of my stories ended up like my cakes, sunken in the middle and crusty on the edges.

Now, my stories, unlike my cakes, have half a chance of being tasty. Revision is huge to me, and each viewing of the story makes me ask more questions about the character's reactions to the dilemma he or she faces. If it's not a true feeling, then it has to be tossed. This could change the whole setting, or beginning or ending, and then it's back to the drawing board.

I think that characters take their sweet time in revealing themselves to the writer. Deadlines and house payments mean nothing to them, and all the cursing and begging and praying in the world aren't going to make them any more cooperative.

The good news is that they eventually, with blood, sweat and tears on the author's part, give one a glimpse into their worlds, and that's where the magic happens.

P.S. - If we ever all get together for potato salad, please do not ask me to bake. Thank you!

When the character takes over...

After my first round of revisions with my editor at Delacorte Press, she suggested I add a journal that my character Annie would be keeping over the course of the summer while her father was overseas in the Air Force. This journal, a gift from Annie's father, would add a more definite connection for the two of them, as well as a means for adding more internalization of Annie's emotions after the death of her baby sister. I agreed that the father/daughter relationship was tenuous because her father was not an active character throughout most of the story, and I had every intention of following through with this advice.

However, every time I tried to add a reference to the journal or an actual journal entry, I could not get it right. The results were stilted or seemed to interrupt the flow of the story and did not fit Annie's natural voice. It wasn't until after a number of failed attempts that I had one of those "aha" moments and realized why Annie couldn't write down her thoughts in the journal as her mother drifted deeper and deeper into depression. If she wrote those words down on paper, she was afraid that's how things would stay--her mother forever lost in the depths of depression and the entire family grieving over the loss of the baby. Life would never be normal again.

Once I realized the reason, I was able to follow my character Annie's lead and work her resistance to the journal into the plot of the story. In the end, Annie adds tangible bits and pieces of her summer to the journal like a scrapbook--a curl of a wood shaving from the cradle Grandpa was making, a sliver of shiny mica from the creek bed, a loop of green thread from the sampler she weaves, a blackberry jam thumbprint from the mess she cleans up in the kitchen, etc.--as memories to tell her father. And when he finally returns, Annie knows that Daddy will understand why she had to wait and tell him everything in person.

My advice to new writers: Get to know your characters so well that you can trust them to take over and lead the way.

Am I a Hidden Jew?

Some years ago my sister and I revisited Coamo, Puerto Rico, the town where most of the Bernier, including us, were born. We stopped cold at a building my grandfather had built. "Do you see what I see?" I asked my sister. Both of us had been interested in Sephardic music and the history of the Spanish Jews. And up there in that building was the Star of David! Could it be that we had Jewish ancestors and we didn't know it?

My grandfather was a Freemason, so we always thought that was the reason his casket wasn't allowed in the Catholic Church. The Church had announced that any parishioner who went to his funeral would be excommunicated. Later they dropped that because the whole town went to his funeral.

I hear the Satr of David is a Freemason's symbol as well as others. Still, I prefer to write a story in which a devout Catholic girl named Margaret finds out that her grandfather, who pretends to be Catholic, is really a Jew. So, I have been collecting information, not so much about Margaret, because I know what it's like to be a ten-year-old Catholic, but about her grandfather, Salomon Archuleta (Chuleta is the Spanish for pork chop).

I have a board with my Jewish neighbor's photo. His looks, beard and all, will be Archuleta's. The board also has photos of a spiral stairway to a Catholic pulpit which Margaret will learn to hate and a Catholic New Mexico cemetery that has a tomb with a stone on top--a Jewish tradition. At the center of the Easter lily there is Star of David.

Margaret, begins to suspect that something is wrong when on a Friday evening she and her girlfriends (who have done this for a while) peek by his ajar window and see Archuleta, towel on head, lighting candles and bowing.

She suspects but denies that her grandfather is a Jew, after all they tell her that the Archuleta's are not Jews. Oh! But his mother, Miriam Trujillo was! Women carry the Jewish tradition.

Character Journal

Last summer I heard a wonderful presentation by the talented children's author and illustrator Debra Frasier. She showed us that in preparation for a new book, she creates a journal on that book's theme. Her journals are filled with sketches, jottings, photos, and anything she finds that might relate to her future book. Her presentation excited and inspired everyone in attendance.

The next day I bought a large artist's sketchbook and began a journal for the middle grade novel I'm writing. In the journal I've included photos of the type of pet my character has, lists of things my character fears, and thoughts that my character might have on a wide range of topics. I've also pasted pictures from magazines and the Internet that relate to my character's family and school. This journal has given me insights that I would have never discovered otherwise, and has provided me with specific details that I can use in describing both the setting and other characters. I have found it to be an excellent way to help develop both the story and character.

Get into the act

Not only do I make faces in the mirror to study the way to illustrate convincing emotions, I actually develop sore muscles from maintaining various expressions the whole time I’m drawing or painting. I’m usually not aware of it until I hurt, but it’s a habit I can’t stop. I become my characters! I act out their movements too.

It was not surprising at a SCBWI workshop, that acting was recommended as a great way to help writers develop their characters. Presenters Caryn Yaciwitz and Betsy Franco (mother of actor James Franco—Freaks and Geeks, Spiderman, Milk) were taking acting classes through Stanford Continuing Education. They claimed the experience totally transformed the way they wrote. At the workshop we partnered up and acted out scenes provided. Taking on a character’s motivations, thoughts and feelings then, physically walking through a scene, was a telling way to discover what might come across as true or false.

Favorite stories provided the themes of our recreation when I was young. Friends and I took turns at being a hero/heroine and the remaining cast of a book. The author’s story then took on life unimagined and new chapters unfolded. This sense of play and discovery is at the heart of what we do when we bring life to the page through image and word. Perhaps we each might benefit by turning our writing groups into improvisational troupes!