Ask Sally #26 - Writing well-defined characters

A question from Ally.

... when I was told that 'the characters were not well enough drawn to be readily identifiable'

what does that mean exactly?

It's great when editors give feedback, isn't it? It can be really helpful. Unless they don't actually give an example to show what they mean! I'm not entirely sure what she meant either, as I haven't seen your story, so I can only give examples about what I think she means and how you might be able to put it right (assuming it needs putting right, more of which later).

If the characters are not readily identifiable, it could mean that you have too many characters of similar age, sex and race. This doesn't mean you should populate your short story with the entire cast of Eastenders. But you could try to vary them or find ways to bring out their personalities.

Use dialogue: What you might just need to do, for example if your story includes two housewives in their forties, is to give them different speech patterns. I did an extensive 'Ask Sally' on Writing Dialogue which might be some help, but I'll encapsulate some of it here. Try and imagine how your characters speak in different situations. What verbal tics to they have? For example, I have an annoying (even to me) tendency to say 'you know?' every few words. This could get annoying in a story, but you could just use it once or twice for a character. Think about how characters of different ages might speak. How do teenagers speak? How do the elderly speak? How do a couple of girls working the tills at Tescos speak (but be careful not to stereotype).

Make it clear who your main character is: If your characters aren't easily identifiable, it might be that you haven't made it clear who your main character is. Think about who the story is about, and stick with them. Don't bring in subplots about other characters as 1) there's not enough room in a short story and 2) it might not then be clear who the reader is supposed to be following.

Make your characters pro-active instead of reactive: It's a good idea to have your main character 'doing' something rather than having things done to them. That way it becomes clearer who the story is about and what they've done to solve their problem.

Vary their gender: It can get very confusing if you have a story about three women and then have to say 'she said this' and 'she said that', or use their names all the time. I read a story in Best last week where by the end of the story there were three women and I had to read back a bit to work out who was who. It's not up to me of course, but I think the final confusion could have been avoided by making one of the characters a man.

Vary their names: Be very careful that you're not giving characters similar sounding names, which makes it hard for the reader to identify them. Shirley, Sue and Sandy in a story could get very confusing, as could John, Jack and Joe. Always ensure their names start with different letters of the alphabet. I know real life is not like this. All my aunts' and uncles' names start with either an S or a J, as did their sister, Joan, my mum. But in fiction it needs to be a bit clearer. So if you use an S for one name, use a J for another, then a B for another and so on.

Give them different and distinctive personalities: This is difficult to bring about in a short story, but try and give each character a strong personality, so that the reader can tell who, for example, is the optimist, who's the moody one, who's the one always there with tea and sympathy? As stated before, this can be done through dialogue, rather than saying 'Sam was moody' or 'Jane was cheerful'.

Finally, remember that this is only one person's opinion, and whilst it's good to get feedback and a good idea to take it on board, your story might appear differently to someone else. Jane Wenham-Jones book Wannabe a Writer has a great chapter on the many variable thing said about a novel that did the rounds of the agents. I've had it happen to me too. A story that recently won me a prize was turned down somewhere else because it was felt some of the jargon I used wouldn't be understood by the readership.

So the thing to do is read your story, see if you can see what the editor means and think about how you can improve it, or leave it as it is and try it elsewhere.