The difference between character and characterization
centers around conflict.
Characterization is the
cumulative affect of things you assign your character: eye
and hair color, height and weight, attitude, disposition.
Character is what he's really made of; what
oozes out of his pores once he's squeezed by conflict.
A
character without conflict isn't a character at all, just
a place holder. While that might suffice for those quickie
stand ins--the waitress, the gas station attendant, the
next door neighbor--it won't work for anyone in your plot
that matters. Namely your hero, your heroine and your
villain.
Villain's are as important as your hero/heroine. Arguably,
even moreso. (I'm talking Romantic Suspense here, since
that's what I write.) I, personally, don't like that idea,
because, as I mentioned in my last post, I don't
particularly like creating villains. Or, I should say
deep villains. For me, staying on the surface is much
more comfortable.
But comfortable isn't enough for memorable, compelling
villains.
So toss as much conflict at your villain as you do your
hero and heroine. And make it complex.
Your villain's external goals/wants will make him
identifiable to a wide audience--money, power, position,
professional success, the attentions of someone, the
possession of something.
Most of your villain's external conflict will stem from
your hero's actions in deflecting your villain's progress
toward his goals, or your hero somehow standing in your
villain's way of reaching those goals. I'll talk about
this in the third part of this series.
Your villain's internal goals/wants will make him
sympathetic--love, respect, comfort, understanding, sense
of self.
And this is where you can deepen and complicate your
villain into a truly memorable character.
Most of your villain's internal goals/wants will stem from
his past and his personality. As I discussed in the last
post, each one of us in unique--created from a complex
blend of situations, attitudes, preferences, experiences
from our youth.
Some people spin their life lessons in a positive way,
some spin them in a negative way. Your villain, like all
your other characters, has to do both.
Donald Maass' book:
Writing the Breakout Novel
Workbook gives several suggestions for doing this.
I've taken those suggestions and given a few examples.
Donald Maass suggests giving your character two deep and
opposing wants.
- For example: the desire to be both feared and loved.
To deepen that conflict, make the opposing items
mutually exclusive.
- For example: A man who wants to portray both
reasonable flexibility, yet maintain ultimate control.
Maass also suggests defining your antagonist's deepest
character trait, then the opposite of that trait and
finding moments when your antagonist must display the
opposite trait to achieve his goal.
- Here I'll use an example from my ms Safe: Saul's
(villain) defining character trait is the need to
maintain total control. His goal is to become the most
successful terrorist smuggler in Baja. Because he
doesn't have the necessary contacts and one of his
employees (Rio/hero) does, Saul must acquiesce to some
of his employee's demands or risk losing him, and
consequently the smuggling operation, until Saul has
developed his own contacts and no longer needs Rio.
Which ties in with another technique Maass suggests:
naming several things your villain would never say, think
or do, then create situations where he must say, think and
do them to reach his goal.
- Again, in my ms Safe, my villain has to (say)
apologize (never--he's always right), (think)
decide on an alternate plan (never--no one challenges
him), (do) play mind games with the heroine
(never--he wouldn't stoop so low). All three of these
things he must to do get around the roadblocks created
by the hero and heroine in the story.
