Free Creating Characters: How to Build Story People by Dwight V. Swain

another. Or guilt. Or a private ethical standard that says you shouldn’t rise above your fellows. There may even have been a physical angle—ulcers, heart trouble, some nervous disorder.
    What about such “drifting” characters where your story is concerned?
    That depends. An individual who changes course with every passing breeze may prove perfectly adequate if cast in a bit part—playing a spear-bearer in the chorus, as it were. But at best he’ll prove a frail reed; count on it.
    Or, as Joseph Campbell has summed up the situation in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, “Often in actual life, and not infrequently in the myths and popular tales, we encounter the dull case of the call [to adventure] unanswered; for it is always possible to turn the ear to other interests. Refusal of the summons converts the adventure into its negative. Walled in by boredom, hard work, or ‘culture,’ the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved. . . . All he can do is create new problems for himself and await the gradual approach of his disintegration.”
    On the other hand, is it possible you can give a character—any character—drive?
    Yes. The trick is merely to decide on what Character cares about, what’s important to him—and whether he realizes it or not.
    Consider a character drifting through life who, without thinking about it, thinks of himself as being honest.
    Now, out of a clear blue sky, someone empties the cashbox where he works. Though there’s insufficient evidence to convict, circumstances point to Character. In the eyes of those who count (“significant others,” in the sociologists’ phrase), Character suddenly finds himself reclassified from decent person to probable thief.
    Does this bother Character? Of course it does—especially if you build it up properly. All at once it’s vital to his emotional well-being that he prove he’s innocent; and the only way he can do that is to catch the real thief. Whereupon he not only acquires a general goal but a drive to reach it.
    Let’s run that by again, a step at a time.
    To give a character drive:
    1. You devise something for him to care about, consciously or otherwise.
    2. You fit him out with a suitable goal, in view of the direction you’ve postulated for him.
    3. You threaten that goal, that something he cares about.
    4. You establish reasons for him not to quit, reasons to continue to fight against the threat and reach his goal.
    Reasons not to quit may be external, or internal, or both.
    You already know about external reasons: The boat is sinking; if Hero doesn’t bail or pump he’ll drown. Heroine’s brother is in the death house; unless she finds evidence to clear him he’ll be executed. Things like that.
    Internal reasons are the ones inside Character’s head. Pride: “I won’t crawl.” Its reverse, shame: “They mustn’t ever know.” Duty: “I couldn’t let the team down.” Gratitude: “He saved my life.” Loyalty: “She’s my mother.” Intense to the point of obsession, they won’t allow Character to rest.
    How does Character acquire these ideas? And yes, you do need to know. Not to keep you in suspense, they’re the product of lifelong conditioning, as explained in Chapter 8 .
4. ATTITUDE: CHARACTER PLUS HANGUP
    What do we mean by attitude ? To oversimplify, call it a feeling about some situation or subject; a consistent (yet quite possibly irrational) disposition that Character is reluctant to relinquish.
    In other words, an attitude is a hangup that’s hard to get rid of. A stripper in all likelihood will have one attitude towards men; a Carmelite nun, another. When a pedophiliac organization cries“Sex before eight or else it’s too late,” it reveals an attitude towards both sex and children that most of us find revolting.
    Similarly, Character may see the world as making steady progress or, contrarily, as going to hell in a handbasket. The younger generation is