Put No Limits on your Characters

Happy 8^th birthday, Seekerville!! 

Hope we’re all reaching high, embracing Seekerville’s No Limits birthday theme. With our Great God, there’s no reason to think small when it comes to our dreams.

Today I also want to encourage writers, myself included, to think big when creating characters. Characters can be—should be—far more than ordinary people.   

Little kids often aspire to be whatever captures their fancy. They want to be astronauts, actresses, ballerinas and race car drivers. With maturity comes an understanding of what those aspirations entail. Some discover they’re terrible at science, cowardly at heart, are tongue tied with stage fright, and are unwilling to endure painful feet. Most then look at their talents and pursue goals that suit who they are. That’s a good thing!   

But our story people have no such limits. We can create characters to do anything we can imagine. Sure, they’ll have to surmount obstacles to reach their goals, but they can succeed, as long as we give them proper skills and strong motivations.

When writing heroes and heroines, most of us aren't going for cartoon superheroes. But a hero is no milquetoast. So let’s remove those limits and make our characters—heroes, heroines and villains—larger than life.   

Eight tips for creating larger than life characters

• Don’t limit your hero and heroine’s first meeting. Whether these two are drawn to each other or in conflict, make sparks fly and start the story with a bang. Not necessarily gunfire—don’t tell Mary I said that—but make something happen that will grab readers and keep them turning pages.  

Conflict isn't arguing though it may cause arguments

• Don’t limit your characters’ goals, motivations and conflicts. 

Goals: Make their goals big, at least, big to them. Make them book-length. What our characters want should matter enough that they’ll doggedly pursue it through the entire book. Each scene should see them working toward that end.

Motivations: The reason for wanting the goal should be compelling to the character and to the reader. Nothing is scarier than a strongly motivated villain. Without strong motivations for risking their lives, say in a tornado, characters may appear too stupid to live. 

Conflicts: When possible put the hero and heroine’s goals in conflict. Keep them scrambling for footing with rising stakes that fit the story and their need for growth. Make sure your characters drive the plot and aren’t helpless victims of others' actions. Not all conflict comes from bad stuff. When the hero’s an obstacle to the heroine’s goal and he’s kind to her, his kindness makes her ambivalent about her feelings toward him, which raises the stakes for her. 

• Don’t limit back story. The pain and failure in their pasts impact their lives now. The past can be the motivation for the characters' goal. We can even keep them unaware of why they’re behaving as they are until their growth enables them to face and overcome what’s holding them back from happiness.

This guy has a strong goal he's pursuing. 

• Don’t limit what your characters say and do. 

Dialogue: Make them say what you’d never say. Or allow them to understate events or emotions. Make their words matter. If they’re open about their pasts, they’re vulnerable and that carries a risk so they won't willingly spill their guts, especially to the one they’re starting to love. The love interest or some other character can force the other character to admit what’s hidden until now.

Actions. Allow them to do the surprising thing. Allow them to save the day. Maybe flip the usual scenario and have the heroine save the hero. Allow them to sacrifice their strong goal for the sake of another. Better yet, make them do what they don’t want to do, what they fear most.

This strong heroine has what it takes to save the day. 

• Don’t limit your characters inner life. 

Introspection: Make characters look at themselves and face a painful truth. Let their thoughts reveal their vulnerability, their hopes and hurts—their heart and soul. Upon occasion show their behavior and words contradicts their thoughts. 

Setting: How characters see the setting depends on their mood, the trouble, the memories the setting evokes. Use their reactions to the setting to heighten emotion in them and in the reader. Don’t sidestep putting their pain on the page, even when writing emotion is hard.

• Don’t limit your characters strengths and weaknesses. Writing strong characters with admirable qualities is fun. But without weaknesses they have no reason to change. Sometimes a weakness is a strength carried to extreme. A hero with a strong protective nature can go too far protecting the feisty heroine, which stifles her independence and ups the conflict between them.

In comparison to this hero, the heroine may be fragile but she may teach him that she won't tolerate his interference.

• Don’t limit the consequences. Let the worst that can happen, happen. Let characters pay for their actions and decisions. Let them suffer before they’re victorious. 

• Don’t limit your characters struggle to change. If you’ve ever tried to overcome a bad habit, you know change is hard. No matter how desperately they need to change, characters won’t volunteer. I believe Jeff Gerke said the purpose of the external plot is to force the characters’ inner change. Let’s not make that change easy or premature. Give them the happy ending only when they've grown and changed. 

A word of warning: No Limits can be carried too far. Obnoxious, unrealistic, wimpy characters will turn off readers. But some of us may play it way too safe. Let’s think big!

I brought a limitless pot of coffee, a variety of tea bags and a breakfast buffet of fruit, omelets, oatmeal, sausage gravy and biscuits, bacon, lox and bagels and every pastry imaginable. What we select may be determined by our back story, our goals and motivations. If you were forced to eat oatmeal as a child, you probably won’t grab a bowl now. If you’ve had an allergic reaction to salmon, you’ll avoid lox like the plague. If you’re determined to lose five pounds, you may bypass the pastries and gravy. Our pasts impact life now, even our food choices. 

Share an unforgettable, bigger than life character. Perhaps in a story you’ve read or a character you’ve written. What about that character made him or her defy limits?

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