Bringing a Character to Life
The prologue--or first chapter, depending on how a story is structured--is perhaps the most critical point in a story. Last week, we discussed the literary merits to a story, and why it intrigues us. There are a few more elements to the prologue that need to be studied, though. This week, we'll focus on the characters.
Pick a single character from a novel. Any one will do, as long as they're a protagonist in a story. Now think about why you're drawn to that character. Is it the way they speak, whether it's deadpan snark or endearing sweetness? Is it their description, whether written as an edgy self-insert character or a blank template as far from the author as physically possible? Is it even their interactions with the world around them, their motivations towards why they do what they do? There are thousands of things that can be said about characters. Some of these traits, like character development, we'll cover in later entries. For now, let's look at the three things that best introduce a character to the reader: appearance, behavior, and motivators.
Appearance is, as you can probably tell, the reader's main window into creating a vivid picture of the character in their minds. Characters have to have a defined form for them to interact with the rest of the setting. It's even hardwired into our brains; we rely on sight more than any other sense, even our relatively sensitive senses of taste and smell. Naturally, a creature who experiences most of the world through their eyes would describe a character using visible appearance first. This doesn't just include visible traits, however. A character's appearance is unique, a signature solely reproduced by them. What a character feels or feels like, what they sound like, even what they smell like. All of these things are necessary for establishing a character's "fingerprint". Having a number of descriptors for a character makes the character feel alive, almost present in the reader's mind.
Keep in mind, though, that lumping all those descriptors into one paragraph can be disastrously written. The writer needs to learn to balance pacing with description. Instead of looking at an existing novel for this, let's write a character out ourselves. Here is the chunk of descriptors:
"Hadrian looked into the mirror. He had brown, almost black eyes that matched his stringy hair. His skin was pale. A faint stubble ran across his face. He adjusted his red shirt and olive jacket before reaching into a drawer."
It's serviceable. It's a bunch of descriptors. However, it's not really that good. All we get are visual cues, and the writing itself feels bland. Compare it to something like this:
"Hadrian glanced in the mirror as he set out. His brown eyes, piercingly intense in the dim candlelight, sent a shiver down his own spine. Even the faint sheen of stubble across his face stood on end. A quiet scent, almost indistinguishable from the dryness of the room, graced his nose. He sniffed deeply. Sandalwood, and his own cologne at that. With a sigh and a silent admonishment, he raked a hand through his stringy brown hair. The sensation of fingers ghosting over his scalp and near-silent rustling of his hair against his cheeks did little to soothe his frayed nerves."
It's longer, but longer isn't necessarily a bad thing (nor is it necessarily the best thing, depending on the situation, but we'll get to that in another post). In the second scene, Hadrian feels so much more alive! He can smell, he can hear, he can feel. He does all the pointless little motions that the Hadrian of the first paragraph did, but in the second scene they have weight. There's a certain liveliness to the second Hadrian that the second just can't reproduce. It also introduces us to the second part of character that we're discussing today: motivators.
Motivators are the reasons why a character does what they do. We already saw one: Hadrian ran his fingers through his hair as a reaction to the little jump-scare he caused himself. Not all motivators are revealed in the prologue. We only need look at the acclaimed children's novel Inkheart for an example. The first chapter revolves around three characters: Meggie, Dustfinger, and Mo. Meggie, the eavesdropper, has a relatively minor motivation compared to the driving force behind her actions in the rest of the book. Her curiosity drives her in the beginning. Dustfinger and Mo, on the other hand, are completely mysterious. Their motivations are hidden from the reader from the beginning, only to be revealed as the story advances. This is the essence of the character. We don't immediately expect a character to reveal their life story in the very beginning, but we do expect some explanation as to why they're tagging along with the wise old man on a grand adventure. Minor motivators can evolve into a character's driving force, but it's certain events that pop up along the journey that eventually become a character's drive.
Our final aspect for a good initial impression is a character's behavior. Who is Hadrian, for example? Is he skittish and shy, is he cheerful and carefree? Why does he jump--was he truly frightened by his own eyes, or was it just a reaction to a long-standing history of abuse? Even more than appearances, it is behavior that makes or breaks a character. We rely on vivid visuals to paint an image of a character, but no matter how lifelike you make a character in the reader's mind, your efforts are useless unless you animate that character with personality. Again, this blurs into character development, which will be covered in detail at a later date, but a character has to at least be partially developed by the time the story starts. In a sense, the character and the story are separate; the story might have just started, but it features characters that have lived for years and years before that. Their behavior reflects the history that they already have. Hadrian could be a teenage boy hiding in a secret room with a mysterious journal, or he could be an old man looking in the mirror and seeing a Japanese soldier staring back at him. The character has to have a personality, and it's this initial personality that character development builds from to create a wonderfully complex character.
So there we have it: the three most important parts of introducing a character in the prologue. Next week, we'll lean away from the prologue and look through the next few chapters.
