Skip navigation

Use possessions to develop your fictional character

A man and his carYou can use possessions to help develop your fictional character. Lets take the example of the characters car. What kind of car does your character drive? How can we use a typical possession such as the characters car to develop the character further?
 
In making the movie 48 Hours, there was very little script or rehearsal. The movie was mostly shot in sequence and the story grew and changed as it progressed. Early in the filming, there was a scene where Nick Nolte walked out of his girlfriend’s house to get into his car. The director, Walter Hill, had parked an old beat-up Cadillac convertible in the street with one wheel up on the curb. Seeing that car and how it was parked told Nolte more about his character than any direction would have.
 
The same is true of the characters in the stories we write. We can are often show much about them without telling the reader directly. While there are many visual clues we could give our readers as to the personality and status of our characters, few can say as much about them as the car that they drive. Is it old or new? Well kept or a beater? Is it an expensive status symbol or the cheapest thing with wheels?
 
Travis Mcgee a fictional character created by mystery writer John D MacDonald had two modes of transportation – a houseboat named the 'Busted Flush' that he won in a poker game, and a purple painted Rolls-Royce that has been converted to a pickup truck called 'Miss Agnes’. If that were all you knew about this character, you would still know a lot.  
 
Kinsey Millhone a fictional character who was created by Sue Grafton drives a battered VW that befits her style as a near pauper. However this is the antithesis of many male private detectives who often drive flashy sports cars, thus setting her character up in a completely different mold to the regular fictional detectives.
 
We are never sure what, if any, car is driven by Spenser a fictional character by the American mystery writer Robert B Parker. And certainly a car is not necessary in helping to develop your stories characters and sometimes might not even be of use. There are many other ways to let your readers see your stories characters. However few ways that I can think of can say so much about a stories character, as the timely description of their car.
 
Next time you are in or by a parking lot, look at the cars parked there. Many, if not most, are nondescript and forgettable. Those aren’t the types cars that would be of use in a characters description. The types of cars that are of use are those that grab your attention and say something about the personality and status of the person who is driving them. For example;
  • the truck that is set so high on large tires you need a ladder to get in
  • the expensive sports car parked out on the edge of the lot
  • the older cars with character - both the pristine antiques that show meticulous care, and the old rust buckets that are barely hanging together 
Each of the above examples allows you to give the reader some deep insights into the your stories character.
 
Consider these sentences, which all describe the same scene;
  • Dave Johnson got into his car.
  • Dave Johnson climbed up into his rig, the oversized tires spattered with a coating of mud.
  • Dave Johnson clicked the remote unlocking and starting his silver Maybach.
  • Dave Johnson pried open the door of his 1963 Dodge, hoping the rusty hinges would hold together one more time.
The same guy getting into a car. The first one tells us nothing, while the next three tell us a great deal about who this character is in a single sentence.  
 
Your characters car description can be especially useful in first person narratives. Writers are frequently at a loss on how to get readers to ‘see’ a character that is the first person narrator. One can’t say, “I’m Dave Johnson, and I’m rich.” Well, they could, but it sounds clumsy. Better to have the character describe something about himself. The type and condition of his or her car can tell the reader a great deal.
 
The same concept can then be extended to other possessions the character owns to either backup the readers perception of the character developed from the car, or to even conflict with this perception to make the character seem more complicated.

Copyright © Gotter on NiceAnswers.com 2017

Editor's Note: Here are some additional resource links that you may find helpful in relation to developing fictional characters and descriptive writing;
Creating a fictional character from scratch
Writing an effective character description
Tips on descriptive writing
Tips on writing first person narratives

Rating

Unrated
Edited