When it comes to writing, we try and describe our characters in such ways that the reader will come to love or hate them. This description comes in two fundamental forms, physical attributes, and actions.
As authors, we get to pick and choose how we match up the physical with the action. It isn’t likely that the portly short man with heavy jowls, will pull Kung-Fu moves on someone. On the other hand, the lean, chiseled, square-jawed man with the tan you can shine with Brasso doesn’t surprise you when he cleans some’s clock or changes a diaper. Surprisingly, the tough guy gets a greater range of emotion.
These characteristics we use in our writing come about because of our contact with the entertainment industry that feeds us stereotypes and our connection with the real world by taking in the news and knowing the histories of friends and family. Thus, to hear Uncle Lewis relate taking up the 50 Cal when the sailor was shot out of the seat on the landing craft rushing onto Omaha Beach, if not surprising, is at the very least fascinating. Then to hear the landing craft was so riddled with bullets that it barely made it back to the launch ship before it sank was an eye-opener.
Take all this information gleaned and write your characters. There is a component implied, that is believability. In editing, we ferret out all the stuff where we find no one will believe our character would do what they do in that scene. Although in real life, they might.
That takes us to the realm of understanding how people work. Not many writers are psychologists. We observe, converse about what we see and hear to gain an understanding of how people operate in the world so we can write that into our stories. Generally, we exaggerate a trait or two for our character to give them a bigger than life persona. It also helps us to direct the characters believability for the reader.
It helps us to understand what is going on in the world. As a writer, there is more to understanding than knowing victim number forty stepped forward today accusing Harvey Weinstein of sexual molestation. As a writer, why number forty? What happened with number one victim twenty plus years ago? There is something we need to know if we are to incorporate such a character in our story as to how things are the way they are and be believable. In this particular instance, here is an article that is well put on the topic. https://longreads.com/2017/10/23/weinstein-women-and-the-language-of-lunacy/
If we can come to understand the inner workings of stuff like Weinstein’s situation, we are able to translate that into behaviors in other cases. For instance, see the parallels between the sexual antics of Weinstein, Cosby and Wiener and the political scene with Fast and Furious, Benghazi, Uranium One or Trump Jr. and Russian lawyers or the hacking of the DNC. Could Bill Clinton gotten away with his sexual antics today or would we be listing his name along with the rest of notable offenders of today? I don’t know, but when we write our characters, we can use what we see and hear to infuse our stories with the same kind of confusion and tension we see around us. Makes one wonder, what’s going to happen? As has been said, you can’t make this stuff up. But, we can certainly use it.
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