I've blogging about writing in a literary or meaningful manner. I'd heard before that good stories are driven by characters. As I've blogged previously, according to Orson Scott Card, you can theoretically drive a story through an interesting location (think Gulliver's Travels or, arguably, much of the Lord of the Rings trilogy), a question (pick a whodunnit kind of mystery, and you'll find the subgenre title speaks for itself), a plot (most sci-fi or fantasy plotlines where the story is king, and the characters are interchangeable, also arguably Lord of the Rings). However, some the most compelling fiction is driven by character because character is story.
I've heard from various sources that character-driven stories hinge on the dynamic between characters' desires and fears. Toward the end of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Lizzy's story exemplifies the desire to overcome fears that keep the two main character's apart. Standard romances from all eras and in all subgenres play out in that tension between fear--fear of rejection, of embarassment, of whatever, and the desire to get with the other character. Shakespeare's Macbeth showcases two main characters that desire power and fear losing it. Hamlet shows a protagonist paralyzed by fear and unable, without a lot of drama and death, to fulfill his father's desire for revenge. In Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, Val Jean, while in hiding, fears discovery by Javert and a return to his hellish existence in prison. However, his desire to see his adoptive daughter's happiness leads him to sacrifice and risk all to bring her that happiness. All of these characters' stories feature the tension between fear and desire.
In author Abbie Eamons's video "The Hidden Science behind Disney Movies," she adds to this depth of character with the dimension of a fundamental misunderstanding that a character must work through in order to achieve growth and become a more mature character. For instance, Lizzy thinks of Darcy as a rich jerk, proud and unbending. She thinks of herself, meanwhile, as someone who is a clear-eyed judge of character. It's only after she understands that she, too, deals with both pride and prejudice and that her judgement of him was somewhat hasty that the walls between the two can come down. Macbeth's misunderstanding is that he cannot be defeated or dethroned. Growth in characters throughout literature, from Shakespeare to Austen and beyond, characters start with a misunderstanding that needs to be overcome for that character to grow.
Eamons also recorded another video, "How to Write Great Dialogue" in which she further showed how each character will have patterns in their speech and a manner of manipulating people around them. As you create and write your characters, you can make sure each sounds unique. Understanding their hobbies, obsessions, jobs, etc. can help you tailor each character's speech patterns. A Medieval princess wouldn't use metaphors about modern tech unless she's a time traveler. As Eamons points out, a character who has never seen the ocean would not use oceanic metaphors for everything, however a fisherman would. If you were writing a book like Pride and Prejudice, you'd go through and make sure each of the main and minor characters have their own unique patterns of speech. If you go through and mark the dialogue of each of Lizzy's sisters, father, mother, aunt, and uncle, you'll find that you don't really need a dialogue tag to know any speeches about nerves would come from Lizzy's mom, melodrama and self-centeredness would come from Lydia, and self-sacrificing sweetness would come from Jane. Each character should sound unique.
As you go through your characters, figure out what their desires are vs. their fears. How does your plotline relate/play into those desires and fears? How can you make each chapter highlight that drama and struggle? What kind of misunderstanding does your character start with, and how do they overcome it? Does each character have his/her own unique isms/speech patterns? If the answer is no to any of these questions, it's time to look closer at your characters.
