5 W's & an H: Today WHO

I'll be starting a 6 part series today focusing on those 6 journalistic terms and the impact on your writing. These would be Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. I often find that when I am writing rejection letters to authors, the letters often address at least one of these issues.

Today, we consider WHO.

Obviously we are talking about characters here. For so many authors, they really don't take the time to understand who their characters are. Sure they may have idea boards over their computers or maybe they have gone digital and have pictures and ideas on a Pinterest account. While these are great, authors often only have a two-dimensional view of their characters.

They know what the characters look like and they fully get their "backstory" and their careers, but that is it. Essentially, all they have is a Wikipedia listing of this character. The effect is the readers will have absolutely no connection with the characters.

You have probably experienced this before. When you watch a movie or read a book and something terrible happens to a character. You should feel the pain with the character. You should express emotion as you live through the event with the character. Instead, you feel nothing. The reason is simply - you were not connected.

As an author, you have to really think about what drives that character of yours. What are going to be those things that have a huge impact on them? How will they react?

I was working with an author recently and she had a scene where the heroine was supposed to meet the hero. He shows up and she isn't there. He does this for three days and each time she isn't there. When we hit the third day, we realized we had some issues. The connection simply wasn't there. So we went back and looked at how he would react on each of the days. What emotions would be flowing through him.

•  Day 1 - He comes up with excuses. He can find a justified reason. He may be hurt, but he can overlook the ideas.
• Day 2 - Emotions are starting to go wild. Now he starts to think irrationally. 
• Day 3 - The reality sets in. She isn't coming and it is over.

On that day 3, if we have done our job right, his emotions won't be anger, but extreme sadness. It is over really is a big thing.

To accomplish this really meant understanding the character beyond simply two-dimensional feelings. 

You don't have to include all of these ideas in your story, but those ideas need to be fully in your head so you can tap into those emotions and feelings when you need to.