Are You Using All Five Layers Of Characterization?

In my freshman college writing classes, I ask my students to understand 10 literary terms and identify them in the readings we go through during the term. 

Those basic terms are theme, protagonist, antagonist, character, characterization, conflict, image, symbol, setting, and dialogue. I ask them to read my Mall Demons Urban Fantasy Series, as well as, The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. 

As a literary element, characterization is a powerful tool for writers. I'm convinced that readers will love your story if they understand and appreciate your characters. Readers can't understand or appreciate your characters if you don't do the work to fully characterize them. 

Here are five layers of characterization to help you flesh out your characters whether they are protagonists, antagonists or supporting characters.

First of all, characterization is how you, the writer, describe or develop your characters. The five layers to do that are to show the character's appearance, describe the character's actions, reveal the character's thoughts, allow the character to speak, and display how other characters react to the said character.

What does all that look like? My next blog will provide examples.

Using Psychology To Build Your Characters

One of the great advantages to working at a college is that you have access to its library resources. Today I spent a little time flipping through magazines and found an interesting article on character in Psychology Today.


It's called 6 Clues To Character and appeared in the June 2011 issue of the magazine. The first thing I thought of as a writer was my characters - of course. The six areas the article mentioned were intelligence, drive, happiness, goodness, friendship and intimacy.


Although the article was talking about how you can measure your mate or your child, I was thinking how I could measure my protagonists, antagonists, etc. One line in particular stands out:


"But psychology knows that the future grows out of the past, and both tend to be built on observable aspects of character and behavior."


Doesn't that get you excited! When you want to ensure a character's future makes sense, include some tie to his or her past. How do you do that? Clues again in the quote above: build scenes where readers can observe your character's behavior. You want readers to see your characters do stuff or be exposed to stuff that makes them who they are.


For example, if your character has a certain tendency for moral ambiguity, then have a scene from his childhood where his mother is cheating on her taxes or where a sibling is shoplifting and recruits your character as a lookout. Even a mere suggestion of such past experiences can help with characterization.


Check out the article and let me know what wisdom you gathered from it.