Character Delineation

Never begin a story unless you know your characters thoroughly well; for character makes events, and events are what you are writing about. The scope of such an investigation is world-wide, and the importance absolute to the story-writer.

Much of the fiction of the day, however, does not deal with real character, but with individuality and personality. It may be true as fictive art, but as real and substantial literature it is hardly entitled to the high place of real character delineation ; the essence of which is a real character to delineate.

Personality is revealed in the spontaneous expression of thought or feeling, as well as by the closer attributes of bodily impressions found in manner of speech, attitudes, bearing, gesture, and even dress. It is what people take on easily by association, what they touch lightly by environment, and these are unloaded upon every one as easily discovered traits. The effect of association and environment upon the emotional nature may be said to be the strongest impress made on the disc of personality.

Less spontaneous, yet often revealed by some certain of the attributes of personality, usually one, or at least not many, and these strongly marked, highly exaggerated, is individuality. It is what makes one man different from another; giving to one an odd appearance, to another an unusual mental or moral development or deficiency. In excess it makes freaks, outcasts, and criminals; for no man can be too highly individualized and retain his status as a natural citizen. A real and stable element in the social institutions must not be a creature of widely antagonistic opinions and actions.

Individuality may be or not be revealed in dress, manner of speech, or in expression of feeling. If it is, it must be unusual, accentuated, and strongly marked by contrast with others. It generally finds expression, however, in the pursuit of some peculiar occupation, or in the holding of strange and unaccountable opinions, together with living and acting in opposition or contrast to the ways of those with whom they are associated.

Character is, however, not so strongly marked. It may, indeed, never become visible, but through the happening of certain unusual incidents or events. It is usually what people get from their ancestors, for "blood will tell." It may also be developed by long-continued thought and feeling, or even by intense concentration. It may or may not be shown in the general appearance. It differs from personality in strength and reliability, and from individuality in the lack of ostentation.

Of the portrayal of personality many modern writers are excellent exponents. They seek in the higher phases of human experience to avoid the sombre, the heavy, the didactic; and to

enliven the sad old world by gaiety, passing emotions, and easy expressions of life. The Van Bibber stories of Richard Harding Davis are good illustrations of the delineation, the delightful delineation of personality.

Of the darker phases of fictive art, the, photographing of strange and unbalanced individuals, the works of Tolstoy, Ibsen, and Zola, furnish great types. These are remarkable in many respects, and will always be interesting to the student of pathology in crime; but as monuments of literature they are wanting in that first great element of kinship in emotional instincts. It is this kinship which unites all great works like the story of Ulysses and Penelope, old though they may be, with the present, and will always keep them fresh and dear to the heart of humanity.

Such works as these constitute the real wonder-books of character delineation. They are never old. Shakespeare has much of this in his plays; and many of the modern writers cling to the portrayal of real worth, and avoid the exaggerated— supposedly realistic and intense—portrayal, though it has been remarked by critics that there seems to be a decadence of really good writers in that direction.

Such a falling down may be tolerated—for a while—in those of established reputation, but for the healthy young aspirant there is nothing in it. He must seek to know character as well as personality and leave the morbid and highly accentuated developments to the clinics of the psychologist.

He will find a true means of investigation right at his elbow. Let him analyze his brother, his sister, his mother, his wife, his friends, or his acquaintances. Write these analyses out in full, watch their expression in the life of the one analyzed. Verification of all hypotheses will not always be found with the first efforts; but as each error is discovered it should be corrected and brought to a perfect index of character.

The student may then determine whether such dispositions will be likely to go of their own accord, and how they would act if uncontrolled by influence of other stronger minds and compelling environment. Write these conclusions out in full; verify them by constant reference to the complete analysis.

The character should now be placed in different positions, under strong circumstances, with powers brought to bear that shall well-nigh eclipse the individual light; and then study the first delineation for results.

There will be a temptation here to grow rash and radical; to indulge in the sensational and emotional; but if this is overcome and the writer will calmly hold himself down to the proposition stated in his theorem of character, he will make a piece of good literature.

It is of no use to frame incidents and events first and then put the characters in afterward, for the characters make the situations and these make the crises of action. The world without people would be soul-lost and void. Study, then, the elements of true character; character shaded by all the peculiar and endearing forms of personality, but unclouded with morose forms of freakishness, and your work will be filled with the elements of enduring greatness.