Since this month’s theme is about how other arts influence our writing, today I’m reposting about how to reveal character traits through music. A character’s relationship to music is a less common way to show parts of their personality and can freshen your character descriptions.
You are Your Music
My teen detective Rae Riley is, first and foremost, an amateur photographer. It’s the way she sees the world. But, like a lot of creative people, she enjoys other arts. She played drums in her high school marching band and jazz band. Making her a drummer gives her personality another layer. She’s playing an instrument that leans more toward males, so some might see her choice as unusual or offbeat (ha!).
When I was in band, certain personalities tended to pick certain instruments. The Type A, straight arrows played flute and trumpet. The clarinet was the everyman or woman of the band. The more quirky kids picked trombone, saxophone, or percussion. My character’s choice of instrument can say a lot about who he or she is.
If you need to draw disparate characters together, making them all musicians gives them a common interest and a plausible reason for people who might not normally associate with each other to interact. In A Shadow on the Snow, Rae joins three young police officers in jam sessions because they play outlaw country music for fun and didn’t have a drummer. (Yes, it’s supposed to be funny that cops like outlaw country.)
The fact that these Gen Z cops are playing music from the 70’s says something about their personalities. Houston, who sings lead and plays lead guitar, explains how he can’t stand current country music. His love for outlaw country can mean any number of things. Maybe he’s not concerned with following popular trends. Or he doesn’t like how big business takes over an art form; he likes art for art’s sake. Or he just likes to be different, to stand out from the crowd.
When Rae and the cops take a break from jamming, they play songs from their playlists. I can use their choices to say something about their characters. Since Rae doesn’t know the three young men well, she hesitates over her selections because her playlist contains what she considers some pretty obscure songs. So she picks more popular songs. Her choice shows her uncertainty in this new social situation. Out of the four characters. the bass player is the only one to pick instrumental pieces instead of songs. I can use that deviation from the other characters to reveal something about him.
Now it’s your turn. Have you written or read about characters who love music? How did the author use music to show character?
It’s been awhile but historical fiction author Tamera Lynn Kraft is back with a guest blog, “Let’s Be Friends: Writing about Friendship.” Tamera isn’t only an author. She owns and manages Mt Zion Ridge Press and has designed all the fabulous covers for my Rae Riley novels. So glad you to have you back, Tamera, with your latest novel!
I’ve written many novels that include friendships. In my latest novel, THE AFTERMATH, Betsy and Lavena’s friendship is a major part of the story. It’s easy to show friendship in a novel if you add these elements.
5 Keys to Friendship
Friendships in novels, as well as real life, need to include shared experience. The friends need to have a past together. You can incorporate these shared experiences within the novel if the friendship is just starting to develop, but if you want to show a deep friendship, there needs to be a backstory of what these friends have been through together. In THE AFTERMATH, Betsy and Lavena were friends long before the story began. They were roommates at Oberlin College, and they had an apartment together when Betsy’s husband was fighting the Civil War.
Friendships in novels should always include shared values. Friends can be completely different when it comes to temperament and personality, but friendships that remain through the years must have shared values. For instance, in THE AFTERMATH, Betsy and Lavena are both strong Christians who believe in helping those who are forgotten by society. Lavena wants to have a career and “save” the world, and Betsy is more concerned with being a homemaker and mother and saving her marriage, but they both will do whatever it takes to share the love of God with others. That is their shared value.
Vulnerability is important in friendships. Even if you have a strong character who is independent, that character needs to have a friend she can go to when she is going through difficulty, someone she can be vulnerable with. And her friend needs to be willing to listen and help when needed. Sometimes a friend will see the need even before the main character shares it and will coax the friend to share. In THE AFTERMATH, Lavena tells Betsy she knows something is wrong, before Betsy opens up and shares that her husband is a drunk. This is a great device to use so the main character doesn’t coming across as whining about her problems. Instead, her friend is encouraging her to open up. It’s also a great device to show your main character’s perspective and how she feels about what she is going through.
In life, and in novels, friends have an easy and relaxed communication style. They understand each other and talk about shared experiences easily. Avoid having stilted conversation between friends because it won’t be believable. The formal, stilted conversations should be reserved for conversations with people your characters don’t know well or don’t trust.
Finally, forgiveness is an important part of friendship. If there is conflict between friends in your story, the relationship needs to be restored at some point even if the friendship has changed in some way if you are to have a satisfying ending.
Close friendships enrich our lives. This is true with fiction as well, even if the friendship is not the main plot of the story. It can enrich the development of your characters. Deep friendships portrayed in a novel can make the reader feel like she’s a part of that friendship and that the main character is her friend as well.
Betsy loves her husband, Nate, but losing his leg in the Civil War has changed him. He never touched alcohol before the war, but now he’s turning into a drunk. She doesn’t know how to help him, but to save their marriage she’s going to do everything she can. If only she can figure out how.
Tormented by the loss of his leg, Nate feels worthless. His drinking only makes things worse, but he can’t stop. It’s only a matter of time before he drives Betsy away. Why did God allow this to happen? What does he owe God now, after this betrayal?
Nate’s anger and bitterness are building a wall that neither he nor Betsy can break down or climb over. Only God can help them, but Nate is no longer on speaking terms with the Lord. Is there any hope for them?
Meet the Ladies of Oberlin, the causes they’re willing to fight for, and the men who capture their hearts.
*****
In her spare time, Tamera Lynn Kraft loves to watch classic movies, drink quality teas, and ride on roller coasters, but not while drinking tea. She does drink tea while writing and working as managing editor for Mt Zion Ridge Press, a traditional Christian publishing company. She has always loved adventures and loves to write historical fiction set in the United States because
Tamera has been married for a very long time to the love of her life, Rick, and has two married adult children and the most adorable and smartest grandchildren in the world. She was a children’s pastor for over 20 years. She is now the leader of a ministry called Revival Fire for Kids where she mentors and coaches children’s leaders, teaches workshops, and is a children’s ministry consultant and children’s evangelist. She has written children’s church curriculum including Building Foundations and is a recipient of the 2007 National Children’s Leaders Association Shepherd’s Cup for lifetime achievement in children’s ministry.
With all the advice about developing characters who are wounded, flawed, conflicted, or tragic, tips on how to create happy characters may seem out of place in 21st century books. But such characters are needed. There are happy people in this world, and to cram our stories only with bitter, cynical, desperate, or just plain mean characters isn’t accurately reflecting reality, which we writers attempt to do.
What is a Happy Character?
I don’t mean a characters who is always upbeat, even when a grizzly is chewing off her leg. Such ridiculously sunny characters aren’t believable. They’re also annoying enough to make me quite reading. I also don’t mean the relentlessly happy character, who is “cured” of his naivete when the real worlds hits him and he can’t handle it and falls apart.
A major character, who is generally happy, must have the same detailed backstory as any other major character. The happy character must have problems and works to solve them. She could have had a tragedy in her past. It’s just that this character’s temperament usually handles life with a smile.
Happy Characters in A Storm of Doubts
I have two characters in my Rae Riley mystery series that I would classify as happy characters–Rae’s grandmother Lydia and her uncle Hank, who’s married to her father’s sister. I use two different approaches to creating their happy personalities.
Lydia has seen her share of heartache. At 33, she was a widow with 3 kids. Now she’s raising her 3 grandsons with her only son because he’s a widower. But Lydia is the most contented person in my series. Rae says her grandmother’s dark blue eyes are “as clear and calm as the sky above us.” She rarely gets upset or raises her voice. If one of her grandsons misbehaves, she corrects firmly but not loudly or with hysterics. She doesn’t rattle easily, but when she does, like when Rae’s con man uncle returns to the county, then Rae knows the issue is serious.
It’s a lot of fun to right such a calm, contented character because she’s such a contrast to my other characters, who are more intense or anxious.
Rae’ uncle Hank Norris is the family storyteller and an extrovert, who loves to joke and tease. That kind of character can quickly become tiresome unless I show that there’s more to him than another punchline. I did that in A Storm of Doubts. When his older daughter gets into trouble while driving, Hank becomes stern and dishes out discipline. When there’s a crisis, he can become serious, but he will also alleviate the tension for others with a wisecrack. This is another character who’s fun to write because he balances other characters and plays well off them.
When a beta reader told me, “I like Hank. He’s jolly,” I knew he was doing the job I hoped for when I created him.
I take issue with the opening line from Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike; all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way.” I think a happy family is happy in their own, unique way. But I understand Mr. Tolstoy’s point. Writing about a nice family that’s not boring can be more challenging than writing about a miserable one. Writers think they have more to work with when they create unhappy characters within a family. But as long as the kind members of a family aren’t perfect, and writers don’t shield them from unhappy events, nice families can prove just as interesting as unhappy families. I’ve learned this writing about the Malinowski family in my Rae Riley mystery series.
Not Every Member of a Family Always Gets Along
Even when they love each other. You know from your own experience that there are times when you’re in conflict with some relative. Creating believable conflicts between loving characters adds a lot of interest and tension to a story.
My amateur detective Rae Riley has recently found her father, Mal, and his family. Her father’s mother, sisters, and brother-in-law have been very warm and welcoming. But … in my latest mystery, A Storm of Doubts, Rae’s Aunt Carrie, Mal’s younger sister, is angry at her brother. She’s angry with him for keeping such a huge secret as fathering a child in high school. She’s angry because she feels like she doesn’t know him any more. But more than that, Carrie’s angry that there’s more to Rae’s story that she and Mal aren’t revealing.
So although the siblings love each other, they have a giant problem to resolve that is subplot for my mystery. And because of that love, neither one of them can go off the deep end and do something like spread lies about the other. They may hurt each other, but the family love keeps them trying to fix their problem, instead of sabotaging each other.
In my other Rae Riley mysteries, I’ve established the close relationships Rae is developing with Mal. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have conflict. A major plot line in A Storm of Doubts is Rae’s habit of feeling sorry for people in trouble and trying to help them. Since Mal is the sheriff and seen a lot of life’s ugly side as a cop, he wants her to stay safe.
Their conflict not only makes their relationship real, it also underlines their love. If Mal didn’t care for Rae, he’d let her help whoever she wanted and leave her to clean up her own mess when it goes wrong.
As an author who loves music, it would be lovely if I could include a soundtrack with my books and stories. Do publishers ever do that with audiobooks? I would put songs or tunes that had inspired characters or scenes. Or my publisher could hire someone to write original music. Since those dreams will have to stay dreams, I have to include music in my stories the best way I can. Using music to show character is a fresher, more novel way for readers to get to know my characters than physical description and dialogue.
A Main Character Who’s Also a Musician
My teen detective Rae Riley is, first and foremost, an amateur photographer. It’s the way she sees the world. But, like a lot of creative people, she enjoys other arts. She played drums in her high school marching band and jazz band. Making her a drummer gives her personality another layer. She’s playing an instrument that leans more toward males, so some might see her choice as unusual or offbeat (ha!).
When I was in band, certain personalities tended to pick certain instruments. The Type A, straight arrows played flute and trumpet. The clarinet was the everyman or woman of the band. The more quirky kids picked trombone, saxophone, or percussion. My character’s choice of instrument can say a lot about who he or she is.
If you need to draw disparate characters together, making them all musicians gives them a common interest and a plausible reason for people who might not normally associate with each other to interact. Rae joins three young police officers in jam sessions because they play outlaw country music for fun and didn’t have a drummer. (Yes, it’s supposed to be funny that cops like outlaw country.)
Favorite Music Reveals Character Traits
The fact that these millennial cops are playing music from the 70’s says something about their personalities. Houston, who sings lead and plays lead guitar, explains how he can’t stand current country music. His love for outlaw country can mean any number of things. Maybe he’s not concerned with following popular trends. Or he doesn’t like how big business takes over an art form; he likes art for art’s sake. Or he just likes to be different, to stand out from the crowd.
When Rae and the cops take a break from jamming, they play songs from their playlists. I can use their choices to say something about their characters. Since Rae doesn’t know the three young men well, she hesitates over her selections because her playlist contains what she considers some pretty obscure songs. So she picks more popular songs. Her choice shows her uncertainty in this new social situation. Out of the four characters. the bass player is the only one to pick instrumental pieces instead of songs. I can use that deviation from the other characters to reveal something about him.
Now it’s your turn. Have you written or read about characters who love music? How did the author use music to show character?
