Our local chapter of the Maryland Writers Association heard an excellent answer to an essential question for writers: how to create engaging characters? We all ask ourselves this question, and many of us plod along without system, rhyme or reason. I’ve addressed this in a previous post about the importance of characters, and of course, every writer believes they’ve created characters everyone will enjoy reading about. But I learned a few tips from Eman Quotah this month that really hit home with me.
Learning From the Expert
Eman Quotah is a author whose novel, Bride of the Sea, was named best debut novel of 2021 by Booklist. Her writing has appeared in several publications including the Washington Post and USA Today among others. She was cited as creating compelling characters, and directing them to explore thorny and challenging issues. What better person to help us learn how to create engaging characters than her?
You Gotta Have a System
Eman isn’t the first author I’ve listened to who speaks about having a system for developing their characters. Several authors at conferences I’ve attended have shared their own methods. They’ve shown how they develop back stories, quirks, and the inner conflicts that make readers want to learn more. All of these methods have helped me, as has the simple act of “interviewing” your characters. That’s the process of asking your characters a series of questions that help you frame what makes them tick. By going through this exercise, authors can think of ways to distinguish their characters from those of other authors.
One of Eman’s important questions is: “what is the character hiding?” I’d not thought of that before, but I realized that one of my protagonists—Stephanie Hart—was hiding something, at least in the first novel. That secret is a central reason of Hart left the Army and moved across the country. What was important for the Hart character was deciding when—if at all—to reveal that secret. Score one for Eman!
Another of her ten character dimensions is language. That may refer to the slang used by some characters, or how the amount of profanity someone uses. But beyond that, language can bring people together, or create barriers among them. I reflected on this dimension regarding my characters, and found that each of my protagonists had a distinct way of communicating. That was also the case for my primary antagonists, and I was pleased to see that!
I won’t reveal any more of Eman’s tips for here, but recommend her method highly. If you want to learn how to create engaging characters, you have only to ask the expert.
