Quirks Are Character Life Support: Character Worksheet Part 3

by Martina Boone

Making a character true to life while simultaneously making her larger than life is one of the hardest tricks a writer has to pull off. Success requires balancing strengths and weaknesses, and introducing sympathy and lovable, memorable quirks. In the two earlier sections of our Character Worksheet series, I focused on building a novel-worthy character and making her quintessential. In this post, I’m going to describe how to use the worksheet to make the character unique and deeply essential to the action. That requires even deeper characterization and backstory.

The characters that stay with you, those who burrow into your heart and stay forever, not only have strengths and weaknesses, they also have passions, hobbies, and habits you will remember long after you finish reading. And the best characters, the ones that ring the truest, are usually those whose quirks, passions, strengths and weaknesses all work together in a way that drives the plot of the story.

Jane Austen deliciously carried character traits to just beyond extreme, and ensured that those traits directly led to problems. Beautiful Creatures, one of the richest YA novels I’ve read recently, has a whole cast of wonderfully quirky characters. The superstitions of Amma, the crossword puzzling, pencil-wielding housekeeper, turn out to be pivotal to the MC’s survival. Lena’s obsessive graffiti habit and the memory necklace that lets her take her childhood with her from place to place make her unique, but the graffiti also serves as a clock that ticks up the tension as you read toward the climax. Uncle Macon does a wonderful Cary Grant gone vampire/incubus, but he’s also brilliantly, dangerously self-sacrificing in a way that is pivotal to the story.

Events shouldn’t happen to your characters. Your characters must create events. And yes, that’s true even in a plot-driven novel.

To Create Essential Characteristics and Characters

Quirks and hobbies make your characters unique. Paddington Bear loves marmelade. Atticus Finch never lets himself be seen without a vest and tie. Traits like this help round out the characters, but you develop a quintessential character by picking one character trait required for the novel and heightening it, making it extreme. Harry Potter is the most famous young wizard. Eeyore is the most depressed donkey ever. Quintessential is about making a character superlative in some way. But all great quintessential characters are also essential.

An essential character is one whose chief characteristic drives the plot, and whose additional characteristics also contribute to the action. This is a layering process. It doesn’t happen in one pass. You develop your plot. You build your protagonist and antagonist and figure out what makes them tick. You go back to your plot and figure out how your character’s quirks, fears, and goals make them act, react, and oppose each other. How they endear one character to another. Then think about how adding different character traits could heighten the tension or introduce more complications.

Here are some things to ask yourself as you work through the items from the worksheet:

What is the character’s role in the story? What does she need to do? How does this conflict with her known goals and unconscious desires?
What characteristics and special abilities does she have to have to let her to play her role?
What characteristics would make filling that role almost impossible?
What is her family and childhood baggage? Who is whispering in her head?
Is she basically a dark character? How can you make her vulnerable and sympathetic?
Is she a happy character at heart? What dark secrets is she hiding?
What were her most spectacular failures, and how can those failure help her succeed or fail to succeed at a crucial moment in the story?
What was her most brilliant triumph, and how can it set her up for failure?
What mementos and keepsakes does she treasure? How can you make her lose them? How will she react?
What are her phobias and favorite places? How can you use them against her?
What are her hobbies? How can you make them essential to the plot? What do they teach the character that she couldn’t have learned in any other way?
What are her favorite foods? How does sharing those with other characters mark progress in the relationship between them?
How does she respond to her environment and face challenges or adversity?
What are her personality quirks? Does she lie compulsively? Does she never pass up a dare?
What are her pet peeves? Does she hate it when people misuse a particular word? Do people who talk a lot drive her nuts?
What are her goals, dreams, and greatest fears? What makes her work? What holds her back?
How does she see herself? How do others see her? Does she know there is a disconnect?
How does she react to the opposite sex?
What are her opposing traits? Does she love to read but hate to be alone? Is she family-oriented but can’t stand kids?

Answering these questions may seem like a lot of work, but time getting to know your characters is never wasted. The more time you spend building your characters before you write, the clearer, more consistent, and more essential your characters will be to your story.

Keeping track of everything on a worksheet or in a character bible and consulting that worksheet as you write can cut down on rewrites at the same time it will help you make your characters memorable and timeless. It also serves as a great resource while you’re editing.

Happy character building,

Martina

Additional information and resources:

Character Worksheet Part 1: Is Your Character Novel-Worthy?
Character Worksheet Part 2 Shrinking Your Characters to Enlarge Them
Download the Character Worksheet
Plot Complications Worksheet
100 Character Quirks You Can Steal from Me
Random Character Quirk Generator
The Phobia List
Quirks and Kinks
Quirky Characters — A Book List
Breathe Life into Your Characters
Character Driven or Action Driven?
When Characters Show Their Weakness
Secrets of Great Characters from 6 SF Authors
How the Four Elements of Fiction Are Related
Characters Inside
Writing Fiction: Developing Characters
Epiphany in Developing Character and Plot
All Characters Are 3 Dimensional, Right?
5 Secrets about Your Character’s Secrets
Creating Memorable Characters
20 Questions to Ask Floundering Characters
Developing Character Traits
9 Traits of Sympathetic Characters
Develop Increased Sympathy for Your Characters
15 Days to Stronger Characters

Next: Character Worksheet Part Four: Are Your Characters Walking & Talking (Body Language, Manerisms, and Habits of Speech.)

Martina Boone

Martina Boone is the award-winning author of the romantic southern gothic Heirs of Watson Island series, starting with COMPULSION from Simon & Schuster, Simon Pulse and the Celtic Legends Collection of novels set in Scotland, Cornwall, and Ireland beginning with LAKE OF DESTINY. She’s passionate about improving lives through literacy and the love of books, and she runs the Compulsion For Reading program to distribute books to underserved schools and libraries.

She lives with her husband, children, Shetland Sheepdog Phinney, and Zoey the lopsided cat, and she enjoys writing contemporary romantic fiction with a hint of magic set in small towns and beautiful places. When she isn’t writing, she’s addicted to travel, horses, skiing, chocolate flavored tea, and anything with Nutella on it.

Post © Martina Boone and/or Adventures in YA Publishing. All rights reserved.

Posted: May 18, 2010

Category: Imported from AYAP

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The first slide is an animation of a science/magic room in a castle. A cartoon character of a mad-scientist looking man in in the foreground says: “Hello! Dr. Frankenstein here to say, Well Done on kid lit zombie week! I’m an expert at reviving the dead, and let me assure you, with a little spark, you can bring dead projects to life. Especially if you dig up parts from other dead things. I’ll even let you have a sneak peek at my laboratory’s store room to consider potential parts for your dead project. If you see something with a yellow glow, that means you should click it. Have fun!”

He points to the right side of the screen and a new scene slides in of a castle science/magic storage room. There are various cartoon Frankenstein body parts scattered around. Some of them have a yellow glow. If you click on them, the images below appear (I’ve added alt text to them, so I hope it works).

The Heart of your story is the main character. The protagonist is the beating core that truly brings your story to life. If your MC doesn't make kids (and their grown-ups) care within the first few pages, your story will flatline. </p>
<p>Your main character needs to be:<br />
• Relatable enough for kids to see themselves<br />
• Unique enough to stand out in the slush pile<br />
• Active enough to drive the story<br />
• Memorable enough to survive multiple readings at bedtime</p>
<p>Where do you find this amazing donor heart? It might be the very thing you loved so much about the manuscript you want to revive. It might be the younger sister from your shelved YA novel. Or maybe it’s the hilarious kid you blogged about meeting at a school visit. Find a character beating with potential and place it in the center of your story.<br />

The Brain of your story is the theme or central message. The theme is the big idea that controls everything else. Picture books are more than stories - they're tiny life lessons disguised with humor and heart.</p>
<p>But your theme needs to be:<br />
• Subtle enough not to trigger the dreaded "didactic" rejection<br />
• Clear enough for a four-year-old to grasp<br />
• Universal enough to speak to both kids and adults<br />
• Fresh enough to prevent agents and editors from responding with "Not another sharing/bedtime/first-day story!"</p>
<p>Check your other dead manuscripts to see if there is a recurring theme, something that really seems to be speaking to you. Find the bit of poetry you scribbled on the back of a receipt to see what theme inspired it. Reread the pep talk you texted your critique partner at 1am. Pick the theme that will drive your story, giving it purpose, direction, and deeper meaning.<br />

The Legs of your story is the plot. Not to be confused with a grave plot.🤪 The plot is what keeps everything upright and moving, as well as providing support for all the other elements. You have very few words to use in a picture book, so you need to do a lot with each plot point.</p>
<p>In general, your plot should:<br />
• Hook readers fast<br />
• Build tension that a child can follow<br />
• Create page turns that feel natural<br />
• Wrap up in a way that satisfies</p>
<p>You can borrow a plot twist (a leg) from one manuscript and the opening (the other leg) from a different manuscript. Consider if the subplot of the middle grade novel you trunked would work better as a picture book. Or maybe your Facebook post about a disastrous camping trip could become a story for kids. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other until you have your storyline.

The Arms of your story are the side characters.

The Torso of your story is the setting. Setting helps a story breathe and connects all the elements of the story. It isn't just where your story lives, it's what makes your story ALIVE. It's the difference between "this happened in a park" and "this happened in that park, the one with the twisty slide that burns your legs and the creaky swing that sounds like a baby crying.”</p>
<p>Your setting should:<br />
• Make your character's world feel real<br />
• Contain your story in a way that makes sense to young readers<br />
• Connect different scenes and moments organically<br />
• Give your illustrator enough room to add visual subplots</p>
<p>Half-finished manuscripts are a great place to dig up settings, since you worked out the place details before the plot petered out. Or maybe you had to cut a second fantastic location from your chapter book. You can also revisit the detailed caption from your Instagram carousel documenting your tour of that delish candy shop. Disinter a robust setting that can house all of your story's vital organs.

After you press the Click When Done circle button, the lights flash with the sound of electricity buzzing. Then the screen goes black and lightning zaps across the screen with the sound of thunder.

The screen then lights up to show the storage room, and all the Frankenstein pieces have been assembled into the whole monster. An upbeat song plays in the background. Then a speech bubble pops up with the words, “I’m alive! I’M ALIVE!” Then the screen goes to black.

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