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In this lesson, the teacher is going to focus on “characters” – the types of people we meet in stories. Without seeing them in person like in a movie or on stage in a play, all we have are the words the writer puts together.

Also, we’ll lay the groundwork to begin applying knowledge about the characters we meet in fiction to our later novel study and for one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays - Macbeth.  When we examine how we can discuss a character’s qualities – physical and otherwise. For that purpose, we use the word characterization

In Glossary 3.2, characterization is defined as the creation or construction of a fictional character all their qualities: physical, psychological, emotional. Characterization is a description of the distinctive nature or features of someone living or otherwise referred to in a story.

Preferably, there must be living beings in every story (unless it’s a GHOST STORY or it’s an allegory that may use animals to represent humans and their behaviour – Animal Farm is one of the most famous. As children the stories most often read to us involve animals – they have to be interesting or children won’t want to read them over and over again.

The characters in a story must think or act in dramatic and interesting ways in order to keep the story going. They must seem like living and feeling individuals in order for us to feel strongly about them. 

The worst thing that could happen for a writer is when we, the readers, feel indifferent toward the characters – indifferent means not caring. If we don’t care for the characters, we are not inclined to keep reading. 

So, creating three dimensional characters who seem real on a two-dimensional page is a big concern for all writers. In fact, a writer knows their character is alive when they refuse to do what the writer wants. 

Huh? 

Yes. Many writers have described the experience of a character refusing to do certain things which have been planned out by the writer in their drafts. 

If a writer can give life to a character in a story - I have experienced this myself – the character will say and do what comes natural to them. 

The British playwright Harold Pinter wrote a play titled The Birthday Party. In the first scene a man named Petey enters a room carrying a newspaper and sits. When he began writing that first scene Pinter said he had no idea what would happen next.  Would the phone ring? Someone knocks on the door? Who? Pinter sat there at his desk waiting. Suddenly he hears a woman’s voice speaking from another room – the kitchen.  The woman starts talking to Petey and Pinter says he just wrote down what they said to each other for the next minute or two.

Pinter Quote: “I have usually begun a play in quite a simple manner; I found a couple of characters in a particular context, I’ve thrown them together and listened to what they said, keeping my nose to the ground.”

So pay close attention throughout today’s lesson to how the writers in these stories  make their characters seem real by what they say .