Real People vs. Characters

fictionwritingtips:

As a writer, one of your main jobs is to get your readers to believe in the illusion you’re creating in your story. Deep down, we know that characters aren’t real people, but we suspend our disbelief to really put ourselves inside a fictional world. While characters can also be layered and complex, there’s a big difference—they’re not real people.

Here are a few differences to consider when building your own characters:

Characters are simpler than real people

I know, I know. How can I say that your favorite character from your favorite book series isn’t as complex as your next door neighbor? You know a lot more about your favorite character because you’ve followed their ups and downs for like 5 books now.

But the truth is your next door neighbor has a very real and very complex life and they’ll always have more depth than any character in a fiction novel. Authors only tend to focus on certain traits of a character; ones that pertain to the story and help drive the novel forward. Adding a lot more detail could bog the story down and feel unnecessary. Like I said before, characters can be complex and layered, but we’re only experiencing a powerful illusion. This is actually helpful for writers because it helps manipulate your readers’ emotions depending on what story you’re trying to tell. You get to guide your characters and where they’re going.

You’re only sharing a slice of life

Most of the time when you’re writing about a character, you’re only sharing the most dramatic moments of their existence. There’s a reason you’re telling the story and it’s not just them living their normal day-to-day lives. There’s usually the stasis that moves on to the inciting incident that gets them away from what they’re used to. We all know that real life can be tedious and boring for the most part. I’m not saying nothing exciting happens to real people, but we do work and go to school and sleep every night…the boring parts are usually cut out of fiction (depending on your story)

Again, obviously this all depends on your story, but there’s usually some excitement that pops up in stories that doesn’t always happen to real people. We are reading about what’s most representative of your character’s life.

You never know exactly what real people are thinking

This is one of the biggest differences between characters and real people. In novels, if the writer chooses to do so, the innermost thoughts of characters can be revealed. In real life, it’s impossible for us to know what someone else is thinking. They might tell us, but we’ll never have that sort of deep insight we’d have in a work of fiction.

Use this to your advantage as a writer because it doesn’t happen in real life.  Share your protagonist’s thoughts if you think it will help develop your story.

-Kris Noel