Novice storytellers spend more time focusing on story-structure than developing their characters for two reasons. First, they think that character-development is only for fiction writers. Second, it’s infinitely easier to partition a sequence of events into beginning, middle, and end than it is to uncover the motivations of people who participate in those events.
People are the wildcards of any story because two seemingly contradictory things can be true at the same time. One person can react in such a way that’s totally consistent with their personality, while a third-party observer can see those reactions as odd. For example, if a child is presented with a plate of warm chocolate-chip cookies, more likely than not, he or she will swipe a cookie or three. However, if the child does something unexpected, like cry, toss the plate on the floor, or pour barbecue sauce on them, the storyteller has now put a question in the listener’s mind. “Why did the child do that?”
Character development starts with studying everyday people. How do they react when they’re happy, sad, or under pressure? What are their belief systems? What gets them out of bed in the morning? The more you study, the more opportunity you have to find something unique enough to build a story around it.
Today, I wanted to share a little character development exercise. Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to create the next Han Solo or Wonder Woman. Instead, I want you to think of the most influential people in your life. Perhaps it’s a family member, a sports legend, an author, or a leader.
Start by creating a table with three columns. Put the name of someone that you admire in the first column, followed by the role they played in your life in the second, and a lesson that you learned from them in the final column.
I’ve created the following one as an example.
| Name | Role | Lesson | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Art | Father | Healthy skepticism produces a healthy outlook |
| 2 | Ralph | Grandfather | The best way to understand human nature is to study the actions of others |
| 3 | Flora | Grandmother | You only feel as old as the people you hang around with |
| 4 | Stan | Grandfather | Chess is life |
| 5 | Fred | Uncle | Creativity is seeing something in an object that others can’t |
| 6 | Richard Feynman | Physicist | If you can’t explain it to someone with a high school education, you don’t understand it yourself |
| 7 | Arthur | Billionaire friend | Good management is better than good luck |
| 8 | Mr. Reich | Neighbor | There are always two sides to every story |
| 9 | Mother Antonia | Nun | Don’t own too many things because they eventually own you |
| 10 | Wally Shirrah | Astronaut | Pushing the envelope is relative |
Finally, think about that next story, presentation, or talk that you need to make. What do you need to accomplish with it? Go one-by-one through your table and see if there is something that you can use from the ten characters that you just listed.
Photo Credit: Characters in the new piece now poforming [sic] at the Theatre Royal Cotten Garden. England, 1820. London: Pub by John Marshall Junr. 24 Little St. Martins Lane, Nov. 6. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2005676991/.