The Originality Illusion

It's come to my attention that, in the online amateur writing scene, no one seems to understand the proper role of characters in conjunction with plot.  

From what I have been able to observe, literally everyone tries to create characters outside of plot by outlining what they look like, what they eat for dinner, and what bands they absolutely abhor.  That's the law on how it's done.  The amount of "character survey sheets" containing a never-ending list of questions for prospective characters is ridiculous--and sad, because determining these things will in no way help you create a good character or, more importantly, a good story (which I define as an account of a character's actions within a given plot).

In reality, your character is not going to comb his hair, sit down to the dinner table, or workout in the gym with his iPod during the erupting mayhem of your story.  If he does, it's because you've invested way too much time in randomly selecting the unimportant likes of your character rather than developing and understanding his physical and emotional needs and the why, what, and how that actually drive a story forward, and this fact is glaring in such scenes.

Knowing what a character likes and dislike is pointless unless you understand the reason behind it.  That reason is the core of character, and if you understand the way your character thinks and why, you won't need to list every detail about him.  If and when the situation arises in your story where you need to know one of those things, you'll be able to deduce the answer because you understand him.  

Now I'd like to debunk a phenomenon I've discovered since I began loitering around the dA writing scene: the Mary Sue.  Do you know what a Mary Sue is?  I sure didn't.  Then I read about ten thousand articles describing her as, simply put, the ultimate cliché.  

Let's set one thing straight right here and now.  Writing a story about a character--any character--is the ultimate cliché.  Ever read a story without a character?  If you did, you're probably bald now from pulling out your hair.  If you don't want to be cliché, become an engineer and patent something.  Otherwise, you're just going to have to live with the fact that there is nothing new under the sun.

That's a liberating statement, don't you think?  You're off the hook!  You don't have to lose sleep over not being original enough, because there's no such thing as true originality!  Now, now, I know what you're thinking.  "Wait!  What?  No such thing as originality?  Then what the heck have I been slaving over all this time?  Should I just ditch that and go copy the latest movie?  That would be so much easier!"

In short, no.  Screenwriters already do that, and you don't want to become one of them and move to Los Angeles, located in the Communist State of California.  But if there's no such thing as originality, how can you write anything--dare I say--fresh?  It's a cute little trick I call "mix and match."  Some sophisticated quacks call it "research," the fine art of remembering what you see and hear but forgetting its source.  Pretty nifty, huh?  Not to get ahead of myself.  More on this miraculous phenomenon later.

The purpose of a story is not to be original or new.  Rather, the core of a story is conflict, the record of a fight that is continually moving and escalating toward an explosive climax.  The same conflict can be repeated over and over again and still grip readers.  Likewise, a character who successfully drives the conflict of a story to its climax can be endlessly repeated with riveting results each time.  

A character's likes and dislikes have nothing to do with this process.  If your character's favorite color is blue, does this add tension to your story or drive it forward in any way?  How about if his favorite color is red instead of blue?  Does that add to the conflict?  No?  So what's the point of even knowing such things?  There isn't one, so stop wasting your time.

OK, so favorite color might be meaningless.  But what about other stuff such as personality type?  Let me put it this way.  Can you create a new personality type?  No.  Can you invent a nervous habit no one's ever had before?  Not likely.  How about a new hair color?  No.  Stop trying.

As a note, I'd like to make the quick point that character sheets can be a useful tool to help keep your characters consistent.  You don't want to say your character hates coffee in one chapter and then have him guzzling it down in the next.  Writing these preferences down somewhere for a reference, if you must, isn't a bad idea.  However, these things are not what drive a story and should not come before understanding the why of your character and his actions.  After all, a story is about action and reaction, conflict and emotion--not what your character likes or dislikes.

Moving on, I'm not saying you should just give up and slap your character into a generic stereo-type. I'm saying formula plots and characters work for a reason.  Doggedly determined cops make great protagonist and psychopathic murders make great antagonists because conflict between them is inevitable.  It's logic, right?  If you try to reinvent the wheel by being "original" to the extreme, you'll most likely end up with characters who aren't really at odds with each other, and you won't have any conflict.  You need to stay inside a system that works and use it to your advantage.  Trust me, there's plenty of room for fresh twists.  

Originality in the form of something utterly new is an illusion.  It doesn't really exist because, no matter how hard you wrack your brain for an idea that's never been done before, it has been.  You may not know about it, but it exists.  I'm saying that's OK.  The world is not about to run out of stories just because every possible idea has already been used.  Let me illustrate this and how it applies to creating characters with two examples.

Example one: NCIS.  You've all heard about it, and if you've seen the show, you'll know that every main character fits perfectly into a generic stereo-type.  Goth, geek, player, eccentric, aggressive female, demanding authority figure.  But somehow, it manages to be one of the most popular shows on TV.  Why?  Because each character is perfectly designed to fill his or her role in the story.  Also, because of the vast differences in the characters, they are always in conflict with one another.  I'd like to point out that NCIS has mostly plot-driven storylines.  This means that the characters were designed to drive and serve the plot.

Example two: Life.  This show is less popular than NCIS, I'm guessing due to the drastically reduced amount of C4 used in production.  That aside, meet Charlie Crews.  He's a cop who spent twelve years in prison for a triple homicide he didn't commit and then met a pretty lawyer who managed to get him out with a settlement of fifty million dollars and the return of his old L.A.P.D. detective job.  Now he drives a Maserati (complete with bullet holes he shot into it), constantly snacks on fruit, practices Zen, and uses his money and job to unravel the conspiracy that sent him to prison.

Pretty original, huh?  Wrong.  Have stories about cops been written before?  In mass.  How about innocent people who went to prison?  Check.  Got out after a long time?  Check.  Rich people?  Check.  Sports cars?   Check.  Bullet holes?  Check.  People who like fruit?  Check.  Zen?  Check.  Revenge?  Check.  Conspiracies?  Check.  Charlie Crews is not original in any way.  Instead, he is fresh because the particular combination of unoriginal traits that make up his character is relatively hard to come by.  Hence why I said the trick to a fresh story is to mix and match old ideas in new ways.

Also to note, Life has a mostly character-driven plot.  This means that the majority of plot progression, especially the parts where he's searching for the people who ruined his life, is an obstacle course designed especially for Charlie Crews.

All that to say, instead of trying to create the ultimate anti-Mary Sue hunk of originality, focus on picking and choosing existing human traits for your character that best suit the needs of your story and its conflict.  If your character is an assassin, he'll need a certain physical build, personality type, and worldview.  If his goal is to save the world, same deal.  

Once you know what traits he needs (because his role in your story dictates why he needs them), determine how he came to have these traits.  A character is who he is because of his past, so determining backstory, even if you never mention it in the actual text, is an important aspects of character development.  You must understand not just who your character is but why he is that way.

Enter logic.  Character survey sheets follow very little, if any, form of logic.  They are random and disconnected (can anyone say product of the public education system?), but stories are fundamentally based upon and built with logic.  Want to create a good plot?  Use logic.  Want to create good characters?  Use logic.  What to create a good story?  Use logic.

I can't really get into any more detail on how to actually develop your character without going into a lot more detail about plot, so I'll do that next and then come back to characters.  After all, the two are so intertwined that it would be wrong to separate them.