When The Character Becomes Real

And the writer knows how to do it again.

How does a character become real?

Though the question is simple, there seem to be few places that give a straightforward answer — and of those that do, many find themselves describing results, rather than actions. It is little help to say that, for example, “a character becomes real when they make you feel as if you really know them”. It prompts one to ask the obvious follow-up question, and inevitably draws the seeker into a loop. Endless inquiries, countless lectures; never a straightforward answer of what to do.

It becomes exhausting, after a time. Often, the writer gets fed up and resorts to trial and error. They try making their own processes.

Six months later, the verb “to write” has evolved to mean making 15-page-long character templates that will never be used past completion. Then the pendulum swings the other way. Process is abandoned in favor of “vibes”.

And in the end we still don't know what makes a character real.

Look, it's true: intuition will always be the leading force for any master artist. “Vibes” exist for a reason; but intuition behaves not unlike a river. Where it goes, you can only follow, for resisting directly often kills the creative flow. But what if ideas go the wrong way? Or if there is a dam? To be consistent with your quality, you'll need ways to solve these disruptions. You'll need understanding, knowledge of the craft that can help redirect the stream of intuition. And keep the river of ink flowing on your page.

Let us cultivate that knowledge. Practically. Not as lofty outcomes born of unclear skill; but as precise, actionable goals which are guaranteed to generate the outcomes desired.

Still with me? Good. Then let's begin by asking a better question:

What makes people real?

Realism As A Result

First and foremost, there is need to clear a misconception. As writers, our task is not to simulate reality. We do not write illusions. Our task, instead, is to take the same seed that makes our world real, and plant it in the soil of imagination. Maybe tend to it a little. And then write down what it does.

This is not just a pretty metaphor, either. Or, well, it is, but the mechanism of cause-effect it describes is directly applicable to our craft.

As I mention in Karma Is The Simplest Way To Change, to make something lasting and earnest, you must understand that there is a difference between goals and outcomes. Your goal should never describe the outcome. It should be something that creates the outcome as a consequence. So, if you wish for characters who feel real enough to climb out of the page… what goal must you aim for?

I’ll give you the answer now: it is insight. Both as an experience and as a technique.

Let’s see why.

Chapter I: The Meaning of Life

I mentioned insight as an experience. What does that mean?

To my knowledge, there is no name for the emotion I call “insight”, and yet it is no exaggeration to say that it defines our very humanity. It nurtures our instinctual need for spirituality, for new things, for meaning. In fact, it is what stands veiled behind (or within) the ageless question of "What is the meaning of life?”. Most, I’m sure, have told you that there is no straight answer to it; some, perhaps, have given you an answer that seems true enough to not be obviously wrong. But both groups are incorrect.

“What is the meaning of life?” is an expression of pursuit. The pursuit of meaning. But what is “meaning”? Could it be some kind of knowledge? An understanding of life’s functioning and causes?

Certainly not. Contemporary life is blessed with the pervasive presence of science, and science answers those questions rather aptly. We know of chemistry and physics, and maths and engineering; we even know some of psychology, and the tentative relationship between the subjective and the objective. We have most of the answers, at least when it comes to the mundane. And yet, even scientists commit suicide to flee a life that seems bleak and meaningless. Even scientists pursue religion.

Clearly, though science describes life, this knowledge does little to sate our need for meaning, for justification. Or for purpose.

But if not knowledge, then what? What is “meaning”?

An emotion.

It’s an emotion. That’s why it is so difficult to pin with words.

I call it “insight”, because I think this best describes all of it: what it is, how it is, and what it feels like. Others call it “inspiration”. Either way, when meaning happens to us, we know it by the emotions that follow — and what they have in common.

It could come as tears. One final day spent in your home town, a scant few hours before you are separated from your closest friends — and in the twilight portending an uncertain tomorrow, you suddenly catch yourself crying. There is no specific reason. Your friends ask, and you do the impossible to answer. “I love you guys,” or “I’m just sentimental,” or “I’ll miss you”. No matter the words, it never encapsulates it exactly. All you know is, your heart is overflowing because of something. Something deeply, deeply meaningful.

It could come as joy. Your child said your name, for the first time. And you just… feel so happy, so proud! Countless people have mouthed your name before, and with infinitely better enunciation, yet it was that one garbled, babbled utterance that suddenly changed your very identity. For, now, you are a parent. A guardian, a bringer of life. A second sun blossoms on your child’s lips, only to mirror your own. And you laugh, and you cry, and you can never say exactly why, for the emotion — and something else, something that could only be described as a tingle that burns, an energy that fills you — overflows. Your child said your name. Nothing can matter more, because it is deeply, deeply meaningful.

Or it could come as inspiration. That moment… when it happens. Staring at the canvas, at the page; at the marble, at the console. You see it. What no one else can. And suddenly all distractions fade, consumed by the raw passion, the single-minded determination to give birth to that which revealed itself to your eyes, and your eyes only. A frenzy. A desperation. You overflow, emotions unnameable, passion indescribable, to the point even of self-destruction. There is no other way to say it. In that moment, only this act matters. It is more meaningful than the world.

… And it could come as anything else. A thousand emotions, a thousand poetic ways to describe them; but the one thing that these experiences all share is that distinct overflowing. And that’s how you know. You found meaning.

And then it fades.

It is funny, how that happens. Catch meaning, and you feel transformed. You swear to never forget it, yet eventually, you do. Only an echo remains; a gentle breeze of recollection where once the typhoon of insight raged. It is by that storm that we know when meaning finds us; and it is by its faded echo that we know we need it again.

Yes, the meaning of life is not an answer, but an emotion. “The Meaning of Life”... is its name. The moment of insight that surges through your chest and burns you with a gentle warmth — and the only moment you truly feel alive.

That emotion is what the word “life” means. The meaning of “life”.

But it has a counterpart.

Chapter II: Hunger, and the Audience

Hunger, you surely know, is a primal force that moves us toward its own satedness. Physiological hunger we understand well, thanks to iron-clad survival instincts. But the hunger for insight is a hunger of the heart, and those waters are significantly murkier. We still have instincts to guide us, but they’re vague. We seek companions, relationships; we hop between careers, or move abroad. Like nomads, our hearts skitter in search of meaning following the faintest of hints; a flawed compass, merely gesturing toward a general direction.

It is no different for our readers, in fact. It is the faintest of hints that brought them to your book. Maybe a blurb at the back, or an enigmatic recommendation from a friend; or if it is a game you are writing, then just the vague promise of some kind of journey. And yet, the audience hungers, and endures anything you feed it as long as the belief holds that a morsel of meaning will, eventually, be found.

Only the betrayal of that hope is truly difficult to stomach. If no meaning is found in the work, there are those who would cope by instead fabricating an identity out of reading, in hopes of filling the void and justifying their tepid disappointment. But I digress.

Hunger, we can observe, is irrational. Just a driving force of wanton need, and the hungers of the heart are doubly so; but hunger is also the source of deepest satisfaction, if sated. We can read on and on, lost in the deluge of mediocre books and almost-greats, but the moment we find, buried between the words and pages, a fragment of true insight; the moment that feeling of overflowing besets us, we pause. We chew on it. We smile, sated, and rest. Suddenly, there is no more need to move on to the next book. In fact, we need the opposite. A break.

It is neither characters nor story that give us this experience, but insight. Story could create it, sure, but it never is what provides it. Ever and always, the feeling of insight is what nourishes the heart.

Only because of this, does the reader return.

So as writers, we must never lose sight of this fact. What we write matters only if it carries meaning. All else is a secondary boon.

Characters, you'll soon see, are no different. Even if they're real.

Chapter III: Insight, a Technique

So far, this article has been little more than an essay. I apologise for that; the context was necessary. We must know what the needs of our readers are if we're to satisfy them, just as we must know what real humans are if we're to make them. At the root of both, the experience of insight was found.

Now, it is finally time: Let's learn how to make it.

Insight is derived from the contrast between two things, when placed beside each other.

The name for this technique: juxtaposition.

Look, and you will find examples of this everywhere, and in all fields which relate to communication. In speech: one’s words, contrasted against their body language and tone. One’s actions contrasted against the context. In movies: one camera shot, contrasted against the next.

You can also find juxtaposition in the example scenes I used to describe meaning as an emotion. Let's look at them again, with fresh eyes.

The example of meaning as an onset of sadness was a juxtaposition between closeness and the inevitability of separation. This expressed the meaning of “friend-love” (particularly with its context), but as an insight — rich in all its subtleties, and joy, and sadness, and tension and peace. This richness, in fact, is why the heart overflows. The emotion becomes a thing beyond words, for words describe mere threads, and never the tapestry they've woven.

The example with joy was the juxtaposition of mundaneness with the monumental, implied belonging in the child’s words. But it is also a juxtaposition between the child’s inherent otherness, its silliness and naivete, and its uncanny intellect folded in its choice to speak. Even deprived of context, this situation carries multiple such contrasts in it, and each is an unfathomable myriad of relationships and emotions, surging all at once.

And the example with inspiration — well, that one is the very concept of a juxtaposition itself. A moment of insight that overflows into creative action often comes from a change of perspective. The same set of problems become redefined when viewed differently. Suddenly, the white on the page isn’t an issue; it’s the shade of a cloud. The empty canvas becomes a sky, obscured by fluffy white; this is the invention of a juxtaposition, one of imagination and reality, if there ever was one. The meaning of “opportunity”.

Notice what is actually happening in all these examples. That which is actually being said has nothing to do with the words used. “Friend-love”, “parenthood”, “opportunity”. The words which expressed these insights were merely tools to create two ideas, and then juxtapose them to say the third thing, the actual meaning of the moment. To the reader, that takes the form of an emotion they intuit — or are overwhelmed by, if your work is great. And so they remember that. Not the details, not the words.

Ask yourself: though the examples I gave were incredibly simplistic, do you remember the words in them? Or even a phrase? I certainly don’t.

This is the foundation of all literature, and indeed, all of communication. This is the source of all misunderstandings, of all double entendres, of all jokes, of all poetry. And it is what we must master if we wish to be understood and celebrated as writers.

What is said is never the main message. And what is remembered, is precisely what remains unspoken.

Because the mind is what reads the lines. And so, the heart can only read between them.

But there’s another name for this phenomenon: “Show, don’t tell.”

You might have heard of it.

Chapter IV: The “Show, Don’t Tell” Conundrum

It takes one look at the contents of a modern bookstore to reach a tragic conclusion: clearly, next to no one has any idea how “show, don’t tell” is supposed to be applied.

Some take to “showing” us their characters with excessively verbose, or forcibly eloquent descriptions. Descriptions! What can be more “telling” than literally listing off facts of attire, or gesture, or action? Meanwhile, others seem to observe this inherent contradiction, and so go for the avant-garde narration techniques, using poetic spacing, or visual art, or whatnot, and end up simply dressing their meaningless text in even more meaningless pretentiousness.

This is not the way.

I have some rather strong feelings about this state of affairs, as you can tell. The issue seems to stem from the very maxim meant to cure it, and its unfortunate wording. If so, let me rephrase it, and attempt to lay a foundation anew:

Forget “show, don’t tell”.

Take what you want to say, but do not say it.
Instead convey it indirectly, through meaningful juxtapositions.

That is what the maxim actually means.

If you want to express how a character is beautiful, for example, you neither state it outright, nor do you describe their appearance. That would be meaningless. You also do not go about flaunting some typesetting trickery by writing “she was so…” and then leaving two blank pages, thinking it’s a witty way to show the character at a loss for words. While either of these could be used in certain constructions to convey meaning, in of themselves meaning they are not.

Insight comes from contrast; insight is the contrast. So, write contrast.

This is how it is done: you take a moment in silence with yourself, and you become the character who in this example observes the beauty. And you ask two guiding questions of yourself: What do I feel? And what do I notice to feel that way?

An envious individual, for example, might look at the beautiful character and notice only how unfair it is that she was so blessed — aha! “Blessings”! That is what the one of envy sees! You take a mental note. This will be your message.

Likewise, if the observer is instead besotted with the beauty (i.e. that’s the message — that he is immediately lovestruck), what does he notice? Perhaps it’s not the beauty at all. Perhaps he notices how “bright” she is, beyond any measure he thought possible. Like the Sun; that could be one element of the juxtaposition. But the other? Perhaps his reaction, picked for contrast:

‘She was the Sun; and blinded by her noon I could only look away.’

This conveys the meaning of a tender yearning, yet a flaming conviction; a sense of unworthiness which simultaneously exalts her brilliant presence. Then, with some editing you could arrive on this:

‘She was the Sun; and in her noon I was a shadow, compelled to turn away.’

Or simply:

‘I saw a sun that night. A sun that shone like two green eyes.’

Or any number of other iterations and interpretations. Sometimes, the act of distilling meaning requires a lot of rewriting, and trying different angles. Do not worry; your struggle is proof of your skill. Such is the irony of writing.

Still, even though my examples are cobbled together (and noticeably not in a genre I often write in), it should be plain why this is the better way to write regardless. “Respect the intelligence of your audience,” some say, and this is what they mean. Allow the reader’s heart to glimpse the actual message, the so-called subtext, and just give them a few clues. Two things from which to derive the third. They’ll gladly walk the rest of the way, and thank you for it.

All the while, the process you follow to produce that result tends to resemble a negotiation. Your excitement wants to write something awesome, and you go to great pains to ensure that you never write it. Instead, you imply. Convey through contrasts, gesture at meaning. Do not worry about using the correct words, either; so long as you know them, all sorts of creative phrasings will spew forth from your diligent refusal to describe facts. Trust the process, and allow yourself to refine your intuition through this practice. The rest will follow.

It’s the essence of writing, really. The difference between poetry and prose dissolves when one sees that are just words to name the wonder that is life.

But that still doesn’t answer our question, now, does it?