Revising for Character: The Four C’s - Part 2
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A couple blog posts ago, I talked about the Four C’s—a framework that you can use to revise your novel at a structural level. Then, I talked about methods for analyzing conflict, the first of the four C’s, in your novel. In this post, I’m back to talk about the next C: character.
First, a quick recap. The Four C’s are four critical elements of your story that need to be addressed in revision so that you can get your novel right. These four elements help you hook readers on page one and keep them flipping pages until they reach the end.
They are:
Conflict
Character
Cause/Effect
Change
In this blog post, I’m focusing on character. Specifically, the intersection between character and plot.
Characters are crucial. When we read a novel, we live the story through the characters. We process plot developments by registering the characters’ emotions. We feel what they feel—good or bad.
But that’s only if you put those feelings on the page for readers to experience. And those emotions will only resonate if readers see a direct connection between the story and your characters’ reactions.
Your characters have to come alive on the page through the events of your plot. Plot and character aren’t separate. They’re inextricably connected.
Your plot will challenge your characters (if you’ve built enough conflict in, of course) and through those experiences, they will change. The key is to create moments that demonstrate who your characters are through their actions and reactions.
Let’s dive in!
Revising for Character
The characterization work you do before writing your draft is important, but it’s not enough. Once the story is drafted, you have to ensure that the characteristics you created in the planning phase have come across on the page.
More importantly, you have to make sure that your character is changed by the events of the story (for better or worse) in an organic, realistic way.
Here are four questions that you can use to assess the character development in your novel:
Question #1: Are your character’s most important traits demonstrated on the page? Where?
It’s not enough for you to know what your main character is like. You have to show readers who they are through their actions and reactions. The key is to demonstrate those traits. You can’t just tell readers what they are like. Show us through everything they say, do, think, and feel (assuming we’re in their POV).
Put your characters in tense, conflict-laden situations. Let their true selves come out in moments of heightened emotion—whether that’s fear, anger, passion, or a combination of the above.
For example:
Don’t tell us that your main character is sad and lonely after her husband’s disappearance. Show her child, coming in to her room and asking her to come down for breakfast. Show her staring at the wall ,unable to even answer. Show her rolling over once the kid walks out, catching a whiff of her husband’s sent still lingering in the pillow and crying herself to sleep because she feels utterly hopeless and alone. Then, show us the transformation as she claws her way out of the darkness (or spirals further into madness as she investigates her husband’s fate…).
Don’t tell readers that your character hates cats, but doesn’t want his new boyfriend to find out. Show him shoving his partner’s cat out of the way with his foot and then covering up his actions when his boyfriend hears the cat yowling in protest.
Then, by the end of the novel, maybe your character ends up snuggling with the cat representing the way they’ve learned to open their heart to others. Or, maybe it’s a fall arc and your character ends up standing outside their ex-boyfriend’s apartment watching them snuggle while they’re stuck in the cold.
Don’t tell readers that your main character is becoming dangerously addicted to magic. Show them sneaking into their mentor’s workroom late at night, the illicit thrill when she taps into her power, the mix of excitement and guilt when she finishes the spell and cleans up to cover her tracks. Whether she chooses to give in to her darkness or not, we can see her make increasingly erratic choices to hide her growing addiction and the eventual breakdown of her relationship with her mentor as a result.
Little moments like the examples I’ve described build up on each other over the course of a novel, allowing readers to see who your character is at the beginning and who they become as the conflicts of your novel continue to test them and force them to grow.
For more on creating an emotional journey for both characters and readers, I recommend Donald Maass’s book The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface.
Question #2: Are your main character’s motivations made clear? Are those motivations connected to the plot?
In the same way that you have to bring your characters’ traits across on the page, you have to make sure their motivations are made clear as well.
More importantly, your characters motivations need to make sense in the context of the plot. When you characters are hit with plot developments, have them react and decide how to move forward. Then, have those decisions impact subsequent plot developments. Cue, another round of reactions and decisions from your character. Then, another round of plot developments that result from those choices. Then repeat. Again. And again.
This cycle of actions, reactions, and decisions creates a novel that feels purposeful and cohesive. The kind of novel that propels readers from page one all the way to “the end.”
For more on creating your character’s motivations (among many other crucial characterization lessons), I recommend Marc Boutros’s book The Craft of Character: How to create deep and engaging characters your audience will never forget.
Question #3: Does the conflict in your novel cause your character to change?
At the beginning of the novel, your character will most likely have a flaw that they need to overcome. Something holding them back and keeping them from becoming their best self. Then, the inciting incident comes in and hits them like a ton of bricks.
If you’ve designed your conflicts properly, your characters will be changed by the experience. In a positive change arc, your character will learn the necessary lessons and become a better, happier person. In a negative change arc, your character won’t learn their lesson. They’ll hold even tighter to the flawed version of themselves and end up worse off than when they started.
They key is that the the conflict of your story needs to catalyze that change. Make sure that the struggles your character goes through on the page are directly related to the key lessons they need to learn.
For more on this topic, I highly recommend K.M. Weiland’s book Creating Character Arcs: The Masterful Author’s Guide to Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development.
Question #4: Are all of your supporting characters essential to the plot?
The first three questions focused on your main character. Now, we’re shifting gears to focus on the supporting characters.
Supporting characters are wonderful. They make a world feel lived in, they help us see new facets of the characters’ personalities, and they can exacerbate the conflict in myriad ways. But it’s possible to go too far.
It can be tempting to pack your novel with all kinds of secondary characters and stuff in as much backstory information about them as possible, but readers can get overwhelmed if there are too many names and too many backstories to remember.
As you revise your novel, be really careful about the number of named characters you develop on the page. I’m not going to give you a specific number of characters to include because it’s different for every novel. Think about it: a 250,000 word epic-fantasy novel has more space to support a big cast than say a 64,000 word contemporary romance.
Lean on feedback from critique partners, editors, and beta readers to make sure that your cast size hits the sweet spot between too sparse and too packed.
For more on creating side characters, I recommend Sacha Black’s book 8 Steps to Side Characters: How to Craft Supporting Roles with Intention, Purpose, and Power.
I hope these four questions (and the recommended resources) help you analyze the relationship between plot and character in your novel.
In my next blog post, I’m focusing on the next of the four C’s: Cause/Effect.
In the meantime, happy writing!
FYI: This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something, we may earn a commission. For more information, click here and thanks, as always, for your support!
