Casting for Contrast, Part One

It sounds really obvious, but I’m continually amazed at the number of aspiring fiction writers who don’t seem to pay enough attention to helping their readers tell one character from another. This is really basic if you want to produce a page turner that requires no unnecessary effort or confusion on the part of the reader.

Some of the items below may indeed go without saying, while others might bear a bit more thought and planning. Yet all of them, I think, are well worth considering.

Names

If you have two characters named William Edwards and Edward Williams, or Helen Ross and Ellen Rose, you definitely have a problem — or more accurately the reader does. First and last names, like other aspects of a character, should be distinct and readily identifiable. They can also help to define the character’s nature (e.g. Ashley Wilkes and Rhett Butler). Nicknames can be especially useful in this latter regard (Butch Cassidy; Billy the Kid; Robert Parker’s Hawk).

Physical Characteristics

While some striking defect or “wart” such as a scar, a glass eye or a noticeable limp may help to establish a memorable character (especially a villain), this can easily be overdone and may even become a cliché. Strive for subtlety and originality. Often, a simple difference in height or coloring can be sufficient (e.g. Helena and Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream).

Whether large or small, physical characteristics may well have an effect on the character’s inner psyche, and this deserves thought on the part of the writer. Is a blonde really likely to “have more fun,” or a big hulking brute to be surprisingly gentle and a short person to be openly aggressive, etc.? For an extreme example, review the opening speech in Shakespeare’s Richard III.

Mannerisms

Everybody has little quirks or tics which make them distinctive individuals — either unconscious habits or some particular way of doing something. Whether it’s rearranging knick-knacks on a shelf (a la Hercule Poirot) or feeding toilet paper from the top or the bottom of a roll, these can be used to establish a character as unique, and often tell us something about him or her. But as always, the number of these should be strictly limited, and introduced as subtly as possible.

Ways of Talking

I’ll save that for Part II, as I have a fair amount to say about it, including slang, dialects, and personal iidiosyncrasies. But suffice to say it’s another tool for distinguishing among characters, as well as making them come alive.