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My Philosophy
I strongly believe in the power that comes from learning to write with intention and control. To me, this often means bringing things we notice from the subconscious experience of reading and writing into the conscious part of the mind, learning how they function, and gaining control over them so that you can give your readers an accurate, powerful reading experience.
Lately, I've been talking a lot aboutflat-arc (also known as "steadfast") characters, but these are not to be confused with flat characters. A flat character is a simple, two-dimensional character. In contrast, a round character is a complex, three-dimensional character.
"Flat" and "round" are not technically, strictly tied to character arc--though there are some common combinations. For example, a flat character is more likely to be a flat-arc character. Today, let's define each character type in depth and explain how and when to use which. At the end, I'll relate it to character arcs.
I was once reading two story openings that were frankly amazing at conveying an established relationship in a matter of pages or even paragraphs. Many stories revolve around the protagonist meeting new people, such as in a typical Hero’s Journey plot. But perhaps even more stories (and often including even the Hero’s Journey to some extent) revolve around relationships that are established before the novel begins.
Many new writers have a difficult time conveying such relationships quickly, and to be honest, it can even be tricky for more experienced writers to figure out sometimes, especially if the relationship is very significant.
Whether you are working with best friends, significant others, parents and children, schoolmates, rivals, or downright enemies, here are several methods to help with that.
1. Communicate What’s Normal.
Every established relationship has been . . . well . . . established, meaning it has behaviors and attitudes that are typical in it. In one of the story openings I read, the protagonist had to deal with two, mean, cruel older sisters. First the meanness was rendered, and then validated through narration. In the second one, what was normal of two brothers was simply conveyed through the way they talked to one another. In both cases, I immediately had context for what was typical.
2. Refer to or Imply an Off-Page History.
Every established relationship has a history: how the characters met, what events have taken place between them, and how they got to where they are now. In some cases, they may have a “reoccurring history.” For example, every Saturday they happened to both be at the dog park, and that’s how they became friends (or enemies).
3. Have a Character Predict How the Other Will Behave or React.
This immediately conveys that these two people know each other very well. Again, it can be more reoccurring: “Samantha always got cranky when she ran out of chocolate.” Or a specific moment: “I could already picture Monica’s eye roll before I delivered the news.”
4. If the Relationship is Long-Term, Give Us a Sense of How it has Changed.
A lot can change between first falling in love and being married for ten years. Whether it’s a friendship, partnership, or even an enemy, naturally there will be some degree of growth or at least change. Give us a glimpse of how the relationship we see on the page now is different than it was before.
5. Round out Likeness with Foiling, or Opposition with Likeness.
One of the mistakes that is easy to make is to have participants in a positive relationship exactly the same, or participants in a negative relationship exactly opposites. But almost nothing can make a relationship feel more authentic and well-rounded quicker than having some of both. This means that even two best friends should disagree with or dislike each other to some extent, in some aspect. It’s better if you can even make them opposites in some way. On the other hand, with an enemy, there should be some similarity and likeness between the characters, maybe even admiration (even if the viewpoint character doesn’t want to admit it). This will immediately make the relationship feel more complex.
For a more in-depth look at these some of these points and at creating powerful positive relationships between characters, check out my article "Creating Relationships Readers Can't Resist."
Every once in a while, I work with a writer who tells me they are worried they have "too many characters" in their novel. In some cases, this might be true, but from my experience, most of the time, this is actually a slight misdiagnosis. The problem isn't the number of characters, it's how the characters are handled.
Readers can surprisingly remember a lot of characters. Like usual, I'm going to point to Harry Potter as an example (really, is anyone surprised? 🙃). Even if you are only looking at the first book (which is the shortest), the audience is still interacting with a lot of characters. You have not only Harry and his family, but his close friends, other students, the faculty, non-faculty residents of the castle (like Nearly Headless Nick and Firenze), the Weasleys, and even pets (Hedwig, Scabbers, Trevor, Fang, and Norbert), not to mention off-page characters, like Lily and James.
So how do we make a big cast of characters work?
First, consider if your story actually benefits from a large cast of characters. Some genres and settings do not. You obviously don't want to put a lot of characters in Gary Paulsen's The Hatchet. It doesn't work with the premise and setting. Other stories and premises almost beg for a big cast--stories that have a lot of worldbuilding and societal aspects. But I think the average person can deduce whether their story could actually have (or needs) a large cast.
A lot of the tips in here can really apply to any size of cast of characters, but they are particularly important for large casts.
Pick the Right Character Names
For sure one of the best ways to confuse your audience with your large cast is to use names that are difficult to differentiate. After all, we are dealing with reading and writing, so that is visually what the audience is looking at.
Watch for these qualities:
Rhyming names - This might sound like a good idea (and you might even point at Tolkien as a reason to do it), but you should almost never use rhyming names. It makes it harder for the audience to see those characters as individuals. People may be tempted to do this with twins (which feeds into the "Twins as Clones Epidemic"), particularly if the twins are "clones," which in that case, they should probably be combined into one character anyway.
Look or Sound Similar - Beyond rhyming, you should really be watching out for any names that may be similar on the page. Cognitively, we often notice the first and last letters--and especially the first. Beyond that, we notice the length and syllables. If you introduce two side characters around the same time and they both have H-names that are short, like "Henry" and"Harry," it will be more difficult on the audience.
Too Many Common/Traditional Names - Some names are just common and traditional. Which isn't bad in and of itself of course, but they can sometimes be difficult to differentiate when there are a lot of them all at once for side or minor characters. "Tom," "John," "Joe," "Robert," "David," and "Michael" are some examples. Fine names, but if you have a bunch together, you'll need to differentiate using other methods.
Also:
Stick with the Same Name - If you are worried about people not keeping track of your characters, try to call the characters by the same name every time. For example, you might introduce one character as Alfred Johnson, and then sometimes call him Alfred and sometimes call him Johnson, and maybe he's also a fireman, so sometimes you call him "the fireman." Instead, almost always use one name, like Alfred. (Note: this may not be a problem with all stories, but it will help with a large cast in particular.)
Note: Use an usual name to make a character stand out. But also keep in mind that if it's too difficult to pronounce, it may also be difficult to remember, since the reader may just scan over it.
If you do have characters with similar names, make sure to differentiate other characteristics and try to introduce them in completely different scenes. Also, the more important the character, the more likely you can get away with similar names, because the more differentiated they will be.
Character tags are words or descriptions repeatedly used in association with a character. The great thing about character tags is that, for the reader, they immediately bring that specific character back into their mind, with very little work. In A Series of Unfortunate Events, Count Olaf is tagged with having a unibrow, shiny eyes, and a tattoo of an eye on his ankle. All of his henchmen are tagged too. One has two hooks for hands. One is androgynous. Another is bald. The sisters use white powder on their faces. In fact, in the series, most of the characters are over-tagged simplistically to make them more into caricatures, which suits the kind of "unreality" the author is working in. But this sort of thing works of any kind of story.
For a tag to be effective, make sure it is specific and not generic or vague. For example, you probably don't want to tag a female character with long hair--a lot of women have long hair, so it's not memorable (unless in the worldbuilding long hair isn't allowed). The best details to pick as tags are the things that are most noticeable about that character--that's what the viewpoint character is going to notice first anyway. This post talks all about picking the right details.
Note: Character tags don't always have to be physical descriptions. They can be demeanors or dominating personality traits--you may use words like "cute," "greedy," "whiny," but almost always the tags include some physical description. In Harry Potter, Ernie Macmillan is tagged with the word "pompous." But this brings me to the next section . . .
Choose Specific Demeanors and Dominating Emotions
There are some people in the world who walk in the room, talk to you for a few minutes, and you immediately get a sense of who they are. This effect can be especially helpful with large casts. Some of you may remember Disney's remake of the movie Tron. Like it or hate it, in it there is a side character who does this exact thing, Zuse. I remember talking to my family member about how even though that character wasn't in the movie much, the actor immediately told me what kind of person he was.
People have their own worldviews, lifestyles, voices, and emotions. Try to convey that with how your character presents herself. Again, if you need to differentiate them, try to make it specific. I love the story of how Johnny Depp came up with Jack Sparrow's demeanor--he actually took two unusual people (one fictional) and smashed them together to create something new. I did a post on that and demeanors here.
If you pay attention, you'll notice most people in the real world have certain dominating emotions. Some people always seem miserable and whiny. Others might be too optimistic. Some smug. In reality, we all have a dominating range of emotions--and our characters should too. You can learn more about that here.
Note: Other than specific, special circumstances, make sure that you don't give the same demeanors to multiple characters. And even if they are similar, for example, both are arrogant, try to find a way arrogance manifests differently in each character.
Remind the Audience of When the Character was Last on the Page
This is pretty self-explanatory. Sometimes you need to jog the audience's memory of a side character they met who hasn't been on the page for a while. The above techniques can help, but sometimes you'll want to slide in a bit more. For example, if the protagonist meets Jennifer and learns Jennifer rescues wild birds, you might slide in a line like this when she returns to the page later: "I wondered how the injured robin was doing."
What you don't want to do is spend a lot of words backtracking to when we last saw that character (unless it's important to the story of course). Find some words or a line that associates the current moment to the last to jog the audience's memory and help them place the character.
Focus the Story and Limit the Viewpoints
Sometimes the writer has a big cast of characters and they like so many of them, their perspectives and personal stories, that they try to write more plot and viewpoints than fit the story.
You can absolutely include more than one plot (in fact, you should, in some sense) and more than one viewpoint, but they need to work together to focus and clarify the main point of the story, not muddy it.
In rare books, you can have loads of viewpoints. In college, I read Brownsville by Oscar Casares, which basically has a different viewpoint for every chapter, but it works because the book is really about the city, Brownsville, rather than the characters.
But most stories, especially commercial stories, aren't like that. Focus on a few main viewpoint characters. In some cases, you can still sprinkle in scenes from other viewpoints, but almost always the scene needs to have a function beyond just giving that character's view.
Remember that just because one character's view and personal story line doesn't fully play out on the page doesn't mean it's nonexistent. In fact, having that is an important part of writing authentic side characters. Not to mention that it's helpful for you as an author to know it.
Anyway, with side characters, sometimes "less is more" when it comes to helping the audience make a meaningful connection with them. Often a smart line of subtext that suggests a traumatic past is more effective than putting the whole backstory on the page. Let the audience fill in the blanks so they become more invested in the character. (You can also consider putting the information elsewhere, like on your website, so that readers who want to learn more, can.)
Choose the plots that speak to the main elements of the novel. To some degree, this is based on your own judgment and vision for the story, but other elements, like considering your target audience and the appeals of your novel, are helpful too.
One of the most effective ways to focus a novel with a large cast of characters is to consider the theme and ask which character stories best relate to it. In Hamilton, almost every "character story" explored relates back to the theme of legacy: Hamilton, Burr, Eliza, Angelica, Washington, Lafayette, Hercules--and provides different manifestations and views of it. More on that here.
In the end, the main thing is to focus the story and differentiate the characters. If you have a large cast of characters, the audience will likely need more of the narrator's guiding hand to keep things straight. Focus on the most important characters and let the side characters be side characters. You can learn more about crafting great side characters in this post.
I recently was asked about writing dialogue for young characters, and in the process of answering that, it morphed into this blog post about writing young characters in general.
Keep in mind that this is not a post about how to write middle grade or YA fiction. It's more of an article to help adults write young characters, when they are having trouble. It might help when writing to younger audiences, but please keep in mind that the approaches differ.
So, here are some questions to consider that might help.
How old is the character?
You know, a five-year-old is a lot different than a sixteen-year-old. They have different attitudes, perspectives, interests, and in some ways, feelings.
Really young kids are still learning how to talk, so they're going to have simpler words. "Mama," "Dada," "Uh-oh," and such. Then of course we move on to full sentences. For the most part, kids talk in rather simple sentence structures. The younger, the shorter the sentence.
The good thing about the internet is that even if you don't have access to children, preteens, or teens of a particular age, you can easily hop on Youtube and find some to listen to. For really young children, you'll be looking for videos their parents uploaded. Older kids might have their own channel. Keep in mind that talking to a camera is still somewhat different than talking candidly, so ideally, look for videos that are more candid, though into-the-camera videos will provide their own kind of insight.
You can also research online to see how a child's speech changes as they grow. But also look at what their perspective and interests might be for their age. For example, a six-year-old girl may be interested in playing with dolls, but an eleven-year-old is typically no longer interested.
Younger kids typically can't stay still when they are talking, so you'll see them playing with sticks, or shuffling their feet. They generally have fewer inhibitions and haven't yet learned how to censor their thoughts and feelings.
When they get older, like many teens, the opposite may be true. They may have too many inhibitions and lots of thoughts and feelings they don't share, especially with adults. It can sometimes be very difficult to know how they feel about something because they've learned to keep their expressions a blank slate (sometimes this relates to inhibitions, sometimes not). Also, for some, they begin defining themselves based on dislikes, and it's not cool (or "safe") to like certain things. It's way easier to go through life disliking everything.
Teens obviously use more slang. In my opinion, it's usually better to use longstanding slang than the current trends. "Cool" will be around for ages. "Totes cray cray" probably won't.
How well can they communicate and express themselves?
Kids yell. Cry. Throw tantrums. Can you imagine what it would be like if adults did that?
Oh wait, you don't have to. Someone already did something similar.
When we get older, we learn how to communicate better while also learning how to censor our thoughts and manage emotions.
Kids haven't learned those things yet.
If they are mad, they may throw their plate on the floor or go hit the dog. That's how they are communicating and expressing themselves.
What do they hear and see others say and do?
A lot of what kids say and do is based on something they've heard or seen (even if they don't realize it). If you spend time with kids, you'll know this is true. When I was a kid, I knew some girls who were always gossiping about other people (something I didn't care about), but guess what? Their mom was the exact same way. If an adult tells them something, they might go say something similar to someone younger than them if given the opportunity.
Other influences may come from older kids or fictional role models. (I've heard multiple stories of girls quoting Ariel from Little Mermaid to their parents when mad--"I'm 16 years old. I'm not a child!")
Keep in mind that what they repeat may not be in the exact same words (though if it's short, it might), and what they retell may not be exactly accurate.
For one of my nephews, just about everything is like a video game, or relates to a video game (I love that kid). Also, play includes humming epic music for dramatic effect.
So consider how the character sees and experiences the world. Sometimes this is affected by their physical body. A child that is sensitive to sound may view the world differently than one who isn't.
When I was a child, I watched a scary movie (when I wasn't supposed to) and for months I was terrified of mirrors, convinced someone might come out of them.
Children haven't yet experienced enough life be able to clearly discern fiction from fact, and they also have active imaginations, which influences how they perceive the world.
Children tend to have intense interests. They'll listen to "Let it Go" until you want to bang your head against the wall. They'll learn every name of every shark in the ocean, or recite every available fact of a frontman in a band.
Children like repetition more than adults. They'll want you to read the same book every night. I'm not an expert, but I heard this is because they are still developing and learning patterns and enjoy predictability (when they are still trying to figure out so much of the world).
Interests, likes and dislikes, can be very important for kids, to the extent that some define themselves by that.
What are their social skills and interactions like?
I was helping out at a nursery several weeks ago (kids ages 1-3) and within a few minutes one of the girls decided I was her best friend. In fact, she got a little bossy telling me how I had to sit and play with her. Other children are too shy to come up to or even look at strangers. Still others are in their own little world and are simply not interested. One of the boys played cars and barely talked to anyone, and when he did, it was only one word.
As a kid, I usually felt okay interacting with other kids, but I was always afraid of interacting with adult instructors--whether school teachers, dance teachers, gymnastic teachers, whatever. I was just terrified for some reason.
Some people may want to think that kids are the most innocent and non-biased beings in the universe, and in some ways, that is true.
For example, months ago, this story was in the news about how this boy wanted to shave his head so that his teacher couldn't tell him apart from his best friend.
Here is what they look like:
From my experience, most children are rather "color blind." I know I was.
Other times kids can be surprisingly biased. In my fourth grade glass, pretty much everyone hated this one specific kid. Looking back, I'm not sure why we hated him. He wasn't mean or anything. I think it might have been just based on his looks and behaviors. I've known other kids who wouldn't play with a peer because they were "fat." Kids can be incredibly rude to each other. Sure, they can be rude to adults, but they usually don't have much power in comparison to adults, so it's not the same effect.
What is their gender? And how typical are they of it?
This is the part where I get hateful comments. Some people believe gender is a complete social construct. Others believe everything about gender is biological. Personally, I'm somewhere in the middle. I think a lot of our human understanding of gender is based on culture and society. I mean, back in the day, makeup, high heels, and dance was for men. You can also go to other countries and see how men and women act different based on their culture and society. However, there are studies that also suggest it's biological.
When I was helping out in a nursery weeks ago, there were 8-9 children. We got the toys out and immediately ALL the girls were playing with dolls and pretend kitchens and ALL the boys were playing with cars. Studies have been done with apes in the wild that had never seen toys before. Scientists gave them dolls and cars. Guess what? SAME results.
This is not to say girls can't play with cars and boys can't play with kitchens (and eventually two of the kids in the nursery did swap toys for a short amount of time). Heck, I preferred action figures. Robocop and Batman were my favorites. But there are typical behaviors based on gender. How much does the child adhere to those?
Whether it is cultural or biological, the reality is typical differences exist. And whether a child adheres to or is different from that affects their experiences. I'm not saying they can't be different, but again, it affects their experiences of the world.
To me, Disney Princesses were boring. But I was obsessed with Lion King. I showed Lion King once to my niece years ago. She could have cared less, which surprised me at the time.
What is their personality and emotional range?
Beyond gender and age and interests: children aren't the same. Not any more than adults are all the same. Even babies are different!
I know people as adults that I knew as teens and children. Guess what? They still have many of the same qualities. They just manifest differently now that they are older. My friend who loved being the center of attention and performing (even when we played pretend) went on into the entertainment industry.
We all have different emotional ranges and spectrums that we are prone to. Typically, I'm a pretty easygoing person. And my mom tells me I was an easy baby.
Some people have tempers. Some people are very sensitive. Some are cautious. And some never seem to look before they leap.
Sure, some things do change. Someone might overcome their temper by adulthood. But often I wonder--did they really "overcome" it? Or just learn how to manage it?
I could go on, but I hope this helps when it comes to writing children. It might be helpful to base your character on a few specific children to get you started.
One of the most important things, especially if you are writing to children is to not ever write down to them. Don't patronize them. You aren't writing about children. You are writing about people who happen to be young. And I really believe this. Children are people, and should be respected. They just happen to have tendencies and behaviors that relate to their development. Heck, we all do. But for some reason when we are adults, we are off the hook (probably because we don't have a person in higher authority hovering over us constantly).
Now if you are writing to these age groups, you are going to approach this differently, though some of these may still be helpful.
What are your tips for writing children? What have you noticed about kids that may help some writers out? Leave them in the comments.
Weeks ago, I did this post on the difference between tension and conflict. As a short recap, I mentioned that tension is not necessarily conflict, and I like to think of it as the promise of conflict, that anticipation and worry of what will happen.
As writers, we should definitely take advantage at the elements in our plot, world, and (yes) our conflicts to create tension. But over the years I've noticed that some smart writers really hike up the tension of a book through the traits of their viewpoint characters.
Over the winter Holidays, my sister-in-law and I watched Les Miserables. It was her first time seeing the latest film. And when it was over she said, "Every character in that movie made an emotional connection to the audience." She's right. Valjean, Eponine, Cosette, Marius, even Javert--we felt something for all of them.
Later, I was watching this show called Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and my brother asked me how it was. "It's getting so crazy," I said. "There are like 12 main characters (I might have exaggerated a bit for effect), and they're all in different battles at the same time. And they all have different goals."
"12? I thought it was just that guy in the red coat who was the main character," he said.
"Well, it started out that way, and then changes as he meets more people."
Not gonna lie. When I started Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood and met some of the characters, I wasn't impressed with them. But by the climax of the story, I was in love with all of them! I wanted everyone to win, even though some of their goals completely contradicted each other's. Like my sister-in-law said, by that point, "Every character made an emotional connection to the audience." It's not just the protagonist's story anymore. It's everyone's.
How do you create that? In the writing world, authors often talk about making characters "likeable." We have to like the person before we are going to connect with them on an emotional level. Here are 10 ways to make your character likeable, with examples of each from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.
When Breaking Dawn
by Stephenie Meyer released, my friend and I discussed that someone should die
in the last third, to make the story more interesting. But I think, somewhere, a
part of me knew it wouldn’t happen. Meyer doesn’t kill good guys in the Twilight saga. Sure, Harry Clearwater
has a heart attack, but I mean killing characters fans are emotionally attached to, like
Alice, Emmett, or at least Seth. I’ve wondered if Meyer liked her characters
too much to kill them.
In contrast, when I read The
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and The
Runelords by David Farland, I found myself questioning whether the authors
loved their characters much at all. In The
Hunger Games, characters not only die, but are burned, poisoned, tortured,
have limbs amputated, are forced into prostitution, and even brainwashed. Young, old, male, female,
likable, unlikable, good guys, bad guys, named, nameless all suffered at
Collins’ hands. Likewise in The Runelords,
a stunning princess turns hideous, a stately King becomes mentally handicapped and can't even control his own bowels, and often strong,
intelligent people are reduced to insanity and then murdered.
Sometimes in these novels, as a reader, I felt the authors
had no limits. And I was scared. What could possibly happen next? Was anyone
safe? Would the King ever regain his status, or was he doomed to die in his own
filth? I had to read to find out.
Not all stories need to be as limitless as The Hunger Games and The Runelords to be good stories and to
keep people reading, but notice that what Collins and Farland did added more
tension to their novels. Also note that early in their stories, they let the
reader know that nothing is safe. So as a reader, you have the whole series to
worry.
And of course, putting your characters through heck doesn’t
necessarily mean that you don’t love them or that you harm them senselessly.
J.K. Rowling loved all the “good guys” she killed. In New York she said she hated writing a particular death scene for The Casual Vacancy, but felt it had
to be there for thematic purposes. Collins and Farland didn’t harm their
characters for the sake of it either. In their cases, their characters’
ailments came with the backdrop of the story—horrible things happen in the
worlds and societies their protagonists live in.
Should Meyer have killed a likeable character in Breaking Dawn? Maybe not in the way we
would see in The Hunger Games or The Runelords—the Twilight story didn’t call for it. But perhaps a different death or
misfortune may have fit and added tension. Or maybe I’m just twisted and like to see
characters suffer and die. Or both.
Whatever the case, when we write, perhaps we should consider
what our stories’ limits are and how early to alert our readers to them. Giving
your reader a heads up not only makes them worry and adds tension, but if
anything horrific is going to happen to a main character, they need a warning. Our readers grow attached to our characters,
and if we do something awful to the protagonist without any kind of foreshadowing,
they’ll feel betrayed.
(Imagine, for example, if in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the main characters was suddenly hit and killed by a random car. Readers would say "Hey! That's not what I signed up for! I wanted a happy ending!" That incident doesn't fit with the limits the story set up.)
Thoughts? Do you like reading limitless books? Can you think of anymore examples?
In my last post, I explained how Les Misérables evokes strong emotions, contains powerful themes, tells two kinds of truth, and uses all five types of conflict. If you missed it, you can read that post here.
But Les Misérables accomplishes a lot more than all that. Here is part two of my dissection.
Explores Complex Character Relationships
Les Misérables is loaded with complex relationships.
When Valjean takes in Cosette, he is suddenly awakened to what it is like to have someone to love and to have someone love him. And he’s “afraid of failing” her. Their relationship is so precious to him that he doesn’t want to mess it up, so, he refuses to tell Cosette about his past, afraid she will think less of him, that it would somehow ruin what they have. Sure, Valjean gives other excuses for not telling her, but they’re just cover ups.
I get the strong impression that Cosette wouldn’t mind so much about his past, after all, he was stealing bread to save a starving child. Valjean is far more self-conscious and ashamed of his origins than Cosette would ever be. So he hides it from her. This makes his death scene all the more powerful because he hears Marius, one of the only people who knows his true life story, tell Cosette that he is saint. Not a thief. Not a convict. A saint.
But even then, even then, he still can’t bear to tell Cosette his backstory. He asks her to read it after he has passed away.
Lately I've been talking a little about dialogue, but you know what? Almost ALL of communication is nonverbal. Another writer, John Harper wrote this article on nonverbal communication in response to my blog post. If you haven't invested much time into thinking about body language in your writing, hopefully you will after you read this:
93% of all communication is not spoken. It is in the hand gestures, the facial expressions, and the body position where most communication happens.
Just think about this for a moment. 93%. If you spoke seven sentences you would have communicated 93 times through other forms. That is a lot. That is almost all of it. In fact, in some circumstances in fiction, dialogue may not be needed at all to convey character emotion and thoughts. More than likely, however, the verbal communication will instead be backed up by a host of nonverbal communication.
So what does that mean for us writers? Well if you aren't writing about the nonverbal communication then you are ignoring 93% of the information available, and giving the reader only 7% of what is 'happening' in the conversation. Obviously you are not going to write every single piece of nonverbal communication that occurs in a conversation, but ignoring it completely will be at your peril. You should be providing enough detail to allow the reader to gauge the emotion of the conversationalists.
Consider a party: lots of people, lots of conversation, but only 7% of information is being conveyed through spoken words - the content of the conversation. How it was delivered, how the person feels about what they are saying, this is all communication that people can see and pick up on, but it is all nonverbal. It provides subtext by reinforcing what the person is saying or acting as juxtaposition, showing they don't believe what they are saying. It also conveys the relationship between the conversationalists (e.g. alpha male, domineering boss, secret lover, etc).
Nonverbal communication is often subconscious. We do it without thinking. It just happens, an autonomous response to stimuli. Often we try to control our nonverbal communication, e.g. by hiding our surprise or anger. But hiding a response is a conscious decision. Reacting to a stimulus is subconscious, so even if you try to cover up your reaction you will more than likely have a brief flash of true communication before you smother it with something else.
Body language is all the movements we make as well as involuntary reactions that show our reactions when we communicate. It is a large part of nonverbal communication and can be separated into the following groups:
1) Communication by Touch
Touching can often occur during conversation. Touch may be friendly, coercive or dominating. It can communicate understanding, comfort, encouragement, flirtation, pleasure, threats, manipulations and assault.
Some people touch frequently, like kids and older people. Those that have been abused are very anti-touch and will likely have strong physical reactions to being touched.
What is your character's background? Why do they touch (or not)? Will the reader understand the touch or misconstrue it?
Sometimes I scare people with my enthusiasm for writing.
I have worked in the fiction-writing industry for over ten years, editing for both award-winning and best-selling authors as well as beginning writers. I am also writing a YA fantasy series. Read about me.
Some may say I need to get a social life. It'd be easier if my fictional one wasn't so interesting.
SeptemberCFawkes[at]gmail.com
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