Don't Shoot the Messenger! (Adventures of a Critic)

Character's and Their Development (part one)

Hello, nice to see you back at Critic Land, are you enjoying your stay? 

Anyways, this chapter is going to focus solely on characters and how to critique how they are. This will be helpful for everyone; readers, writers, and critics alike. 

So, what's the skinny on characters, you ask? Why are they so important, you ask? 

Because the character is the drive of the book. Almost all books have a character, even if they're not physically seen. Technically, I am the character of this book, and I am speaking to you-which in a way makes you a character too. 

Clearly this is not a typical book, we will be looking at typical stories with plots and usual characters and whatnot

So, characters, here we go. 

Depending on how many chapters you critique, there are various things you will look at with the character. If you critique an entire novel, you're going to want to look EXTREMELY into if the character changes and develops throughout the story. 

First, let's just look at the basic character. 

A 3-D character is a character who is consistent, who is flawed, and who has redeeming qualities (even an evil character has redeeming qualities-whether it be actual compassion or something like they're intelligent). Their personalities are developed and fairly consistent (so they do not have it so one moment they say they're incredibly stupid when it comes to computers but the next second they're decoding a computer message). A 3-D character is someone who you can believe in-and I don't mean that they have to be someone you'd meet in every day real life, but they SHOULD be someone that you could meet somewhere. It takes all kinds to make up a world, so there can be really outlandish personalities and STILL there's realism there. Characters should be as dynamic and intricate as a person you'd meet everyday. Just because this is fiction doesn't mean that your character can have a constantly contradicting personality (unless they have a disorder but that is a whole other matter). 

A character is like a person you meet everyday. Even at a glance, you can usually tell something about them. Are they holding their head high? Do they raise their hand every five seconds with a question-or to answer the questions? Do they bite their fingernails? Do they sit with a notebook in their hands and write all the time? Do they have doodles over their pages of notes? Do they run their hands through their hair? Do they have a constantly angry face? 

Your first impression can be wrong even about a character, but you should be able to have a first impression of the character. 

Also, a character should have some quirks that they come with. 

A character will also have some baggage, like everyone else. This does not mean you go into the overly cliche "dramatic past" and "secret" that they don't want a certain person to know yet everyone else around them knows. Baggage can be as simple as the fact that they were bullied in elementary school, or maybe they made the wrong friend a long time ago. The baggage doesn't even have to be described, but it's in why they are the way they are. Sometimes the baggage isn't even said in the story, but the character themselves know what it is. 

You don't know everything about a person, your readers will not know everything about your character. The only person who knows your character through and through is YOU. 

There are other elements to a 3-D character, but honestly, there are hundreds of sites and stuff on that so I am going to allow you guys to research that yourself. This is more just a guideline-critics, this is the kind of stuff you should be looking for. 

Second, how do other characters react to the MC? Is it how they should be reacting?

Biggest mistakes I see in a lot of novels nowadays is a writer who is trying too hard to make the character cool and funny. They try to give the character witty and dry humor and make them funny with actions-but it comes off as cruel. Even moreso everyone else is laughing.