Developing characters

One of the major factors that distinguish a well-written novel from a badly written novel is characterization. I have come across a number of books which fall flat on their faces inspite of having a promising plot, just because the characters were somehow not 'real enough'. Of course there are also cases when just the opposite thing happens; but this is the kind of bad writing that I have encountered most frequently.
So, what makes a character 'real enough'? Before answering let's make the question more specific and narrow in scope. Characters are usually classified as flat and round. Flat characters are those which can be quite easily labeled as 'good guys' or 'bad guys'. They are black-and-white characters. They are mostly found in fairy tales and other plot-driven narratives(think of the characters in 'Dracula' or in the Sherelock Holmes stories). Round characters, on the other hand, are not usually black-and-white but are various shades of gray. Some of their deeds are good, some are bad. They cannot be easily classified as good guys or bad guys. And most of the times(but not always) , the author takes us inside their heads, shows us how they think, to make us understand better why they do the things they do. What is usually called 'literature' is full of round characters. An alternative example is the character of Jason Bourne in the novels by Robert Ludlum. And of course, there are times when you are not sure whether you should call a character flat or round, because it seems to be a little of both.
In this post, we shall focus on flat characters. I plan to write another post concerning round characters later. The 2 essential qualities that go on to make a well-shaped flat character are, in my opinion, consistency and idiosyncracy. In fact what I'm going to write is also true for round characters, but there are a couple of extra qualities that need to be considered for them.
Plainly speaking, consistency means that your character always conforms to the attributes that it is supposed to have. That is to say, if your character is supposed to be a 70 year old frenchman, then he shouldn't speak or behave like a college sophomore. Sounds simple? Well, it is NOT. When you are writing a story, then the compulsion for putting in a witty remark or an interesting situation sometimes makes you blind to the fact that you are violating the consistency of your character; especially when you are a novice.Remeber, even if your characters are flat, they have a social,cultural and thus psychological context associated with them. So every time they are to respond to a situation it must be completely consistent with that context. The worst cases I have encountered are when the characters in a story are supposed to be from different backgrounds and still talk like they are twins.
Which brings us to our second point : idiosyncracy. A story becomes that much duller if you cannot tell Mr X from Mr Y. Take for example some Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple novel by Agatha Christie(I didn't say short stoies, because her short stories are short enough to be bearable). Usually there is a murder, and she fills the novel with a horde of flat characters to make the reader confused about the identity of the murderer. The problem is, most of her characters are nothing but a name and probably some physical appearance described somewhere. And it is not as if these characters play a 2-line role either. They are present throughout the novel. So in such cases, I usually had to flip back through the novel, trying to find out who exactly is Mr X and what is his relation to everybody else,everytime he made an appearance. Such characters are the ones that I say are not 'real enough'.As stated earlier, every character has a context associated with it. Now,all you have to make sure is that at least the characters that keep appearing throughout the novel have distict contexts and thus distinct personalities. Your character must make a distinct impression on the reader when he appears the first time, and that impression should be maintained, or should undergo a logical change whenever it reappears. In contrast, consider Dracula. There are many minor flat characters in Dracula that appear only once or twice, but they make a distict impression. In fact, there is one character that doesn't even make a direct appearance, but still leaves an impression. I still remember professor Van Helsing recounting his conversation with a seaman, saying, "He said many things with blood and bloom". What Bram Stoker has done here is quite brilliant. He is reinforcing the idiosyncracies of the Professor's character (civilized, old frenchman) by making him say this instead of something like, "He cussed a lot", and he is lending a distinct character to the seaman under discussion by pointing out his habit of saying 'bloody' and 'blooming' in almost every sentence.
So, to summarize, I would say that a well-shaped flat character must have a distinct personality, and his speech and actions throughout the story should be consistent with it. I will elaborate these points further, and discuss some more complex issues when I write the post about round characters.

A morning walk

This happened the day before yesterday. I have come to Hyderabad for my summer intern. My guest house is located on Road no.-3 on Banjara hills while the place I'm working at is at Road no.-2. And while it may look like a very easy reference, the so called 'roads' are a bit circuitous with many twists and turns and cul-de-sacs which usually hide one or more buildings. So anyway, I was to start my training from day before yesterday and I had slept so much the previous day, that I woke up at 5 AM. And, after a leisurely bath, I decided to scout the area and try to find my office, which wouldn't open till 10:00 AM. It didn't seem like a bad idea then, as the morning air was quite inviting ... and I had been reading Lord of the Rings for the seventh time, after which such promenades look sort of heroic.
I had some idea of the general direction to Road no-2, so I set off finding a path to it (I know, reeks of LOTR). There was an old man walking ahead of me. As soon as he noticed me, he gave a smile and started talking to me ... in telugu; which I don't understand at all. For a couple of minutes I just gave him a smile, as I thought he was probably commenting on the beautiful morning or the birds chirping or something like that... or just saying 'good morning', and would shut up once he saw my appropriate response. It seems my response was exactly the kind he wanted, because after that he got even more enthusiastic and chattered away quite happily. I considered telling him that I can’t understand a word of what he was saying, but I guess I hesitated a moment too long. I mean, you let a man talk to you for 5 minutes and then you tell him you didn’t get a word sounds like you were playing a prank. So, I kept quiet, deciding to part ways with him on the next crossroads. But just before I could do that, he gave another smile, said something, and then looked expectantly at me. I was supposed to say something! So, I fished around for some neutral response. What I ended up saying was, “Could you please repeat that in English?” What he said next was again telugu, and from his gestures and facial expressions I could tell that he was telling me he doesn’t understand English. And automatically, I said, “I can’t understand what you’re saying.” He seemed to get the message. The smile disappeared and he swiftly walked away. Poor guy; he looked really put off.

Two days ago, when the walk was still fresh in my mind, this would have made a longer post, as I talked to a number of people and pondered over a number of things while walking. But, most of it has slipped away. There is only one, rather scatological incident that I remember. The place is a hill, as I mentioned before. So there was this big patch of land, that was fenced with barbed wire and there was a sign there saying, “Government property. Trespassers will be prosecuted.” And on the other side of the fence, half-hidden behind a bush, a man was shitting on the government property. I wondered if he knew he was making a very explicit political statement. And what about the ‘trespassers will be prosecuted’ thing? Wasn’t there anybody to even guard the property? And suppose there was someone who ‘prosecuted’ the guy, wouldn’t that make headlines? It would be something like :

Shot while shitting

A zealot was killed in an encounter while defiling government property today on Banjara hills. The guard on duty says that he found the alleged anarchist defecating on the land reserved by the government for its new weapons research facility. Even after repeated warnings from the guard, the man did not stop his sabotaging activities; instead he proceeded to do it faster. When the guard fired a warning shot he started jumping about, no doubt intending to defile as much land as possible before getting caught. Seeing no other choice, the guard shot the saboteur.

It is not clear whether the investigators suspect the hand of terrorist organizations behind this incident. A statement from the police department has yet to be issued. Meanwhile the chief minister has issued a statement stating that the enemies of the state shall be dealt with harshly. The security of all the government properties has been beefed up. While the heroic guard, Mr P.K. Margaye, has been nominated for gold medal.

My God! I never thought I’d ever write bullshit like that, much less publish it on my blog. But I enjoyed writing it. I guess a little BS now and then is quite all right.

Ah well, must wrap up all loose ends. Yes, I did find the building I was looking for; but not before I had traveled the whole length of Road no-2 in one direction, which stretches a couple of kilometers, and back the same way. It was hidden in one of the cul-de-sacs I was talking about. I was a little tired by then, and the sun had climbed up. It had taken me about 2 hours of walking around to hit the spot.

So after I had had my breakfast and cooled my heels in the guest house for about an hour, I walked to the place again, intent on reaching on time, trying to make a good impression. So what happened was that I reached the place 15 minutes before time, and the HR guy I was supposed to meet came half an hour late that day. Then, he told me to go and meet my project manager, who was also late and hadn’t arrived in office yet. After another hour’s wait, I finally met him. Then he told me to wait until my desk was set up by the IT guys. Another hour’s wait. And of all days, I chose this day to refrain from bringing any book or notebook with me. So I had absolutely nothing to do for about 3 hours I spent in the office. And when my desk was finally set up, I fell asleep on it. Hell of a first day. But at least I’ve learned to keep some contingency plans for such situations in the future.