[Kathy Swailes]

Some of you may know me from older posts, but for those who don’t — I approach writing from an editor’s point of view. Having said that, I love learning little bits and pieces about the art of writing which is why I read and post on this forum in addition to my own (PAE). Anyway, the point of this post is to share two books with you that I came across whilst working on a Developmental Editing course I’m taking. Namely: The Negative Trait Thesaurus and The Postive Trait Thesaurus, both by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.

The books are written in such a way that they appear to be designed to help writers shape their protagonists and antagonists to feel real, and to show what motivates them and how their flaws ultimately can lead to the final crisis and climax of your stories. From my point of view, the books help me to see where conflict is more likely to develop or not, even if I’ve not personally met people with the given set of characteristics.

I wondered whether you were familiar with those books, and what you thought of them? Do they help you write? Or are your characters grown directly from your imaginations alone? Conversely, do you create your plot, and then figure out the type of character that would drive that plot? Thanks in advance to anyone who cares to share their approach to help me understand better (and hopefully make me a better editor in the end 🙂 ).

[Tina Shaw]

Hi Kathy, I haven’t heard of these books! Thanks for posting, they sound useful. To answer one of your question, are your characters grown directly from your imaginations alone? I would have to say Mostly. Often characters seem to spring ready-made onto the page, while other times, I have to work on them, and this is when I might draw on people I know, or real stories I’ve heard.

[Kathy Swailes]

Hi Tina,

Thanks for your reply. I always thought that characters in books came from the minds of authors, but the bit that I thought might be particularly useful was the breakdown of opposing traits. What would be the best traits for an antagonist to have to get under the protagonist’s skin or thwart them in some way? The two books actually describe which traits would be most incompatible, as well as a wealth of other information. So, it occured to me that if anyone were stuck in trying to give their characters depth, these two books might help.

For anyone with access to Christchurch public library ebooks, the one on negative traits has been purchased by them and available to borrow (although having said that, I’ve got it at the moment, but will return it to the library soon).

[Tina Shaw]

Yes, and opposing traits is a good way of thinking about the antagonist in one’s story. The other thing about building or creating character is that this can also change – mainly at the second draft stage. Just because it’s come out of her head or inspiration, doesn’t mean that you can’t re-envision your character. Sometimes, it’s necessary, in fact.

With my character Freya in a YA book that’ll be published next year, I had to rethink some of her responses to the world to give her more personal power. She is blind, and I also needed to rework various of her scenes to make it more true to being blind.