: Re: How to use sociological and/or psychological studies in character building? A story I’m trying to write have several characters who have been raised in foster families. None of them have been

@Megan928

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I had a similar problem with my current novel project. The first draft was quite horrible, exactly due to the fact that my characters felt like stereotypes cut and pasted from my literature research. I had several episodes in mind that I read about and wanted to include in the novel - say, for example, the story of a couple in the 60s: The husband is at sea living an extravagant life in the flourishing homosexual sub-culture of the British merchant navy. His wife stays at home; she know about his lifestyle and supports it, welcoming his partners at her home, even including them in her family as "uncles" and "cousins" of her kids. - That was a cute episode and I wanted it told. So I took a minor character and plastered the episode on to him. Result: The episode stuck out. The character did not. I was left feeling that I was dealing with a rainbow-colored mannequin -- smartly dressed, but otherwise utterly forgettable.

The problem, I found, was that I had put too much emphasis on the research and neglected actual character development. My characters were placeholders for roles.

What I did is: Character development. I took the piece of information that I wanted to include in the novel and formed a character around it. I usually do this by just writing the character. There is many ways to do this: Sketch a biography, do an imaginary interview with your character, write scenes from his or her perspective. All of these techniques help you to get a better feel for your character. Personally, I prefer to write more or less elaborate characters biographies and tell the novel plot from their point of view. None of this goes into the novel itself, but it gives me the great opportunity to listen to anything that my character wants to tell me. Where does s/he come from? What does s/he do for pleasure and fun? Which relatives are his/her favourites? Is s/he a good cook, painter, watchmaker, ruthless manager? Has s/he a soft spot for kittens or turtles, does s/he collect shells, coins, or spontaneous laughter (guess the movie here)? Which party does s/he vote for? And so on. By writing the character for a few pages, I get to know all of these details. I usually deliberately include a few character traits that seem to be at odds with a major characteristic of the character. Let a body builder foster adoration for chihuahuas (here: guess the actor), give a caring mother a talent for electronics and so on. In the end, all of these small traits have to add up to a character that feels rounded to you. If you feel that s/he is still nothing more than a collection of clichés -- keep digging. At some point, at least for me, the pieces start to fall into place and form a personality that is more than just a placeholder for a role.

In the case of my novel project, I started out by envisioning a character that is flippant, well-dressed and sharp-tongued. These were traits that came up again and again in my literature research, and they do make sense in the setting I am describing. However, they are also clichés. I felt that my main character was too shallow. So I wrote him -- gave him a family background, a flat for rent in Liverpool, an independent-minded wife, hobbies, past affairs, friends, an adorable boss, passion for theatre, no talent for cooking whatsoever, a precarious affair with alcohol, latent weariness of short-term flings, and a pretty divided relationship with the sea. I could go on for paragraphs trying to put him into a handful of sentences. That, however, would not work. I feel that he outgrew the stage in which it was sufficient to label him with "This is XYZ. He's part of the homosexual subculture of the British merchant navy in the 60s and has a cool wife."

tl;dr: Researching the psychological background of your characters is essential and an excellent point to start your character development. Once you have a good feel of what the average human being would act like in your character's situation, do the specific character development. Write about him or her. However, avoid to give your character all traits that are associated with his/her general situation. That's how averages work: They are representative of a large collection of subjects, but hardly of the individual. Throw in traits that have nothing to do with his/her situation at all and even seem to be at odds with it. Physicists -- even the theoretical ones -- can be well-spoken womanizers. (I've witnessed this.) Players of the national soccer team can study for their degree in philology. And yes, please: Any woman can aspire to be more than a mother -- in the same way that any husband can aspire to be more than the provider to his beautiful wife and adorable children.

In short: Think outside the box.

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