Who (That Is, Character)

Whatever the category of fiction—short story, novella, novel—there are common elements; and one might as well begin with character (who). Imaginative writing usually deals with problems of personality, and human emotion. Because readers are interested in the people of a work—their qualities; likes, dislikes; how they live; what they do; what they think—they are interested in character: the sum total of such traits.

To study character, one can ask further questions:

1. What are the qualities — the characteristics — of the characters of the work?

   Some will be only types, stereotypes, representatives, symbols or allegorical figures. Others will be more complex, deeper (not shallow or superficial), multi-dimensional, rounded. They may even be non-human (e.g. animals, nature).

2. How has the work indicated these qualities?

   The author may describe the person; make a direct statement; picture the surroundings; give him dialogue; give his thoughts or the opinion of others; show the person's action and behaviour.

3. What is the character’s function in the work?

   They will have a relationship to the plot, to the other characters, to the surroundings.  They may be active and changing, or inactive and static. They may generate action, or cause conflict.

4. Does the character change? In what way(s)? Why? What motivates the character to action or inaction?

The major character in a work is usually the protagonist, i.e., the leading character or principal figure, but he or she may be the antagonist, i.e., the one who opposes and actively competes with another character.

The main character is central to the action. A hero, loosely speaking, is a main character, but in literary terms a classical hero, a hero in epic or tragedy is a main character with special qualities. Because fiction involves happenings, characters do things. Most often inter-relationships among happenings occur as a result of character.  Thus characters may have functions in a work of fiction, especially minor characters:

• A character may prepare for a particular action. (The introduction of a dishonest character, e.g., may prepare for a deception, a crime, etc.)

• A character may prepare for a change — a reversal — which is at the heart of the pattern of happenings.

• A character may offer signs of the progress and the completion of the narrative pattern.

• A character may carry out a necessary function in the story.

Some qualities are given merely to make a character "lifelike"; some characters may be given traits which make them attractive or unattractive to the reader, 'better than' the reader, or 'worse than' the reader. One goal of the writer may be to have the reader identify with the character, or to see in the character someone the reader knows. But whatever qualities the character has, they have been deliberately given by the author to give meaning to the total work. In some short stories, characterization is the purpose of the author.

More often a writer tries to direct the reader into involvement with the characters, to identify as self, or through someone we know. The writer directs us through a relationship of actions. The concern is both isolated and integrated. And so we have a story. Characters make plots. Plot is moving action. "The most interesting stories start with action."