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Key learning points

When writing, one of the most important elements to consider is the characters.

Characterisation enables writers to weave stories that are believable, purposeful and relatable. This can be achieved through a character’s narrative arc, how they change (or not) and the context of the text.

Many characters are completely unique and created from a writer’s imagination. Others are based on archetypes.

In literature, a character is the being that drives the plot through their dialogue, action, thoughts and motives. A being can be a person, animal, object, alien, nature, a god, in fact anything that you can conceive of as a character.

Characters in literature can be real or imaginary. For example:

• A real person who has been imagined in a work of fiction, for example Thomas Cromwell and King Henry VIII in Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.
• Characters who link to real people but don't use their names, for example many of the animals in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
• Characters based on the author, for example Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl.
• Imaginary characters, such as Iorek Byrnison in His Dark Materials or Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games.

There are no strict rules on creating characters, each writer has their own creative approach.

As you read a story, it is useful to think like a writer and examine how the author creates their characters. How does the writer use description, dialogue and action? What is the character’s effect on, or reaction to, others, and how does it help a reader to understand them?

To help you to understand characters in fiction, think about their:

• background or backstory
• purpose and motivation
• personality
• voice
• physical attributes
• social connections to other characters

Thinking about all these things will help you to form a deeper understanding of the characters, and why the writer may have made these choices when creating them.

Sometimes writers use character arcs to map a character’s journey from the start to the end of the story.

Character arcs are plot sequences that allow writers to visualise how their characters will change throughout their story. You can imagine arcs as the falls (failures) and rises (successes) of a character.

Story arcs can be very basic, for example a character’s behaviour (a cause) creates a reaction (an effect). Or a story arc could be more complex, for example how a character behaves, thinks, feels and changes over time can also be an arc. For instance, transformations can include how a shy character becomes confident, or how a bully becomes more compassionate. Both these examples have similar arcs – characters start from a low point, experience hardship, learn important skills and lessons and then come out the other side a better person. Arcs can go up or down or head in any direction the writer chooses.

A typical character arc includes:

• Exposition – the beginning of the arc when characters are introduced and we learn of any conflict they may have to endure.
• Rising action – the events that occur which complicate the character’s story.
• Climax – the turning point for the character, when they will have to make decisions which influence their development in the story.
• Falling action – an event or development that will lead to the character's eventual resolution.
• Resolution – the ending of the story, where the character's problems are resolved for better or for worse.

To help understand how an arc works, click on the image below that shows the story of the fairy tale Cinderella:

Arcs can go up or down or head in any direction the writer chooses. The most important parts of arcs and characterisations is the storytelling itself. This is the action, the experiences and the journey – the stuff in-between the start and the ending.

Places can just be setting or location in which characters act out their journey. Or they can reflect the nature of the characters and become symbolic of themes in the book. By connecting characters to specific places, writers have more ways to explore characters’ feelings, personalities and traits.

Writers can also put characters into new settings to represent change or to reveal how they are ‘outsiders’, who cannot fit in or are not allowed to.

There's lots of memorable setting in literature that engage with characters in interesting ways. For example:

• In The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, Bilbo Baggins’ character is reflected in The Shire – both his character and the place he comes from are small, good-natured and innocent.
• In Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, freezing, foggy London changes to a place of Christmas celebration as Scrooge’s character transforms from heartless and cold to loving and warm.

An archetype is a character with known qualities, behaviours and motives.Examples include:

• hero
• villain
• popular person
• victim
• rascal
• odd one out
• explorer
• lover
• caregiver
• joker or jester

Archetypes have a long history in storytelling and it is an interesting way to think about the connections between different characters in different stories. For example, the hero Luke Skywalker from Star Wars is a similar hero to Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games because they are both fighting to overthrow evil empires.

Sometimes a writer uses an archetype as a short cut to understanding character – readers enjoy recognising the type of character and knowing what is likely to happen to them. For example, brave, beautiful children escaping their evil stepmother is a common theme in fairy tales. However, sometimes writers enjoy playing with expectations by having unexpected twists, for example, when the archetypal evil genius turns out to be good!

Within a piece of writing, context helps to define characters: their behaviours, appearances, motives and beliefs. Context, can be something broad, such as:

• historical setting – the past, present or future
• physical environments – far-off planets, foreign countries, cities
• cultures – both real and imaginary

Context can also be something smaller, such as a character’s personal experiences, situations and purposes.

A writer's use of context can be influenced by the genre or purpose of their work. For example, characters in a romance are likely to exist within a recognisable, romantic context. There will be a main love story, and usually a number of obstacles in the lovers’ path to happiness.

The context of the time a writer was living in can add a whole deeper layer of understanding and appreciation of the characters they create. Knowing that George Orwell was worried about politics and society, and particularly how dreams of a better future can be ruined by greedy, selfish leaders, adds to our understanding of his novel Animal Farm. Not knowing this wider context would mean that many of the parallels between his book and the real life events of the Russian Revolution would be lost.