Hi, this is Mr. Sato. I'm going to explain characterization.
First, here's a definition: characterization is everything a writer does to create,
reveal and develop characters.
So let me ask a question: Who are you? Are you a hero or heroine, villain,
comic relief, center of attention, wallflower,
supporting cast? Do people instantly like or dislike you?
Are you deep? Superficial? Stuck in your ways, or constantly changing?
What do you look like? How do you dress?
Do you wear a silk top hat and go dancing around the school
singing songs from the 1930s?
(I so hope someone watching this says yes. Wouldn't that be funny?)
But I wonder. What do people say about you? Hm?
There are a lot of ways to describe different kinds of people.
In the same way, there are a bunch of words
to describe the different kinds of characters in a story and
the different qualities they can have. Here are some of them.
We'll talk about these terms in this video.
First up: protagonist. You probably know what a main character is.
He or she is the character the story is about,
and whom we are most interested in seeing if
he or she is successful. Some main characters,
but not all, are called protagonists. The protagonist is the "good guy."
Luke Skywalker in Star Wars is a protagonist.
We root for him and want him to defeat the Evil Empire.
Simba is a protagonist. Iron Man is a protagonist.
The opposite of the protagonist is the antagonist. The antagonist is
the "bad guy." He or she is what we might call the villain.
Darth Vader is an antagonist; Cruella deVille, in 101 Dalmatians?
She's definitely an antagonist.
Protagonists and antagonists are generally a matching pair,
so you would say that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's antagonist. That guy
with the electric tentacles is Iron Man's antagonist. One of them.
Get the concept? Protagonist: good guy. Antagonist: bad guy.
By the way, when you like a character, or want him or her to be successful,
we say that character is sympathetic.
So, a protagonist is generally sympathetic. Characters we don't
like or would love to see blown up in a huge fireball at the story's end,
like in the case of an antagonist, we say that character is unsympathetic.
But, here's the thing, not all main characters are protagonists.
A lot of fiction tries to reflect a more realistic
portrayal of people, and -- really -- people are never all good
or all evil. Real people are more complex than that. So in that case, you might have
one or more main characters and then several minor characters,
but no protagonists or antagonists at all.
Then, there's the foil. This term comes from the practice of
putting shiny foil on the bottom sides of gems,
so they reflect the light more and get all sparkly and pretty.
So, in terms of characterization, a foil is a character that contrasts
with the main character is such a way
that it makes us more aware of some important quality of the main character.
This could include the antagonist; I've seen people describe Darth Vader as Luke's foil
because they're such opposites, but I'm more inclined to think of his friend,
Han Solo, as his foil. Han's world-weary experience makes us more aware of
how eager and inexperienced Luke is.
Han's primary interest in money contrasts with Luke's idealism. Han makes us
understand Luke better because they contrast
with one another. That's what a foil does
for the main character.
The anti-hero is a weird hybrid. This is a sort of villain that we root for.
This character represents values we don't believe in --
like the way the Dark Knight version of Batman is a really brutal vigilante
who takes the law into his own hands, but we still root for him.
Or there was that movie about the guy who invented Facebook; he's horrible,
he's cold and conniving and walks over people who thought
they were his friends, but we're still interested in seeing him climb
towards the incredible success we know he'll attain.
We even want him to succeed, for Pete's sake,
which is the twisted part about anti-heroes.
And it's the fun part as well.
Now let's talk about dynamic characters versus static characters. This one's easy.
Dynamic characters change over the course of the story.
Luke is not the same person at the end of Star Wars
as he was at the beginning. Simba's personality has matured over the course of
the Lion King; remember, in the beginning he just wanted to play and have fun,
but at the end he's willing to do the hard things he needs to do
to live up to his responsibilities.
A lot of those stories are actually about the main characters' evolution from one step
to the next. They're about growing up, because all of us are
dynamic characters when you stop to think about it.
Static characters, on the other hand, are ones who
don't change over the course of the story. Easy.
Scar starts out bad in Lion King and he stays bad. In the Harry Potter series,
Hagrid is just as gentle and big-hearted when the series ends
as he was when we met him.
Those are static characters. Unlike dynamic characters, they don't change.
Flat characters are not very complicated. Luke Skywalker is a flat character.
He's morally good but impulsive. That's about it.
And there's nothing wrong with that if that's what you
need for the story. Pretty much all of the Disney characters are flat as a cardboard
cut-out. We know about what they say, do, and look like -- all that's called external
reality -- but what's going on inside? - we don't know that much.
Flatness or roundness depends on
how simple or complicated a character is,
and because they're written for kids, Disney characters are pretty simple.
Round characters, then, are complicated. They may be a little good and a little bad.
They might have conflicting motives.
We know more about their thoughts and feelings, what's called internal reality,
so they're more realistic. Like the person who's quiet and shy in class,
but outrageous and funny outside school with her friends and family.
In Louis Sachar's novel, Holes, the main character, Stanley, is a round character.
In the beginning of the book, we learn that
he's overweight, quiet, and gets bullied at school.
But, if the author had stopped there, Stanley wouldn't be a round character;
he'd be a flat one. But he didn't stop there --the author added
more depth and internal reality; we learn that
Stanley is kind of passive because he thinks his family has been cursed
and there's nothing he can do about it.
His self-esteem is in the toilet. But he's protective of his mom so when he
writes her a letter, he lies about how awful camp is so she doesn't worry.
He's smart and strategic enough to figure out how to spin things to his advantage,
like when he finds something the warden wants.
See how that's way more complicated than just the quiet kid who gets bullied?
That-- the extra depth and detail -- makes Stanley a round character.
And a round character is a more realistic one.
OK, one quick comment on stereotypes. If you're a student in middle or high school,
you already know about sterotypes;
the brain, the jock, the computer nerd the dumb blonde, the immigrant,
the loner, the bully, the mean girl, the weird kid. These are offensive diminishments of
the full complexity of real people. Even if a stereotype is a positive one -- like this
racial group is always good at that sort of activity -- that stereotype is still
obnoxious and insulting.
They're an excuse not to really see somebody, who they really are as
individuals. Avoid stereotypes at all costs.
But in writing, many writers find it convenient to use stereotypes to describe
flat, minor characters: you might have the town drunk, the motorcycle riding
boyfriend, the humorless bureaucrat, the nagging mother.
Sometimes, they're called stock characters. The best
writers don't resort to this kind of unoriginal shortcut, or if they do, they start with the
stereotype, but then fill in the character with more detail and dimension than is usual,
like the bully in Bridge to Terabithia. But there's a word for it,
and that word is: stereotype.
Lastly, there's direct and indirect characterization. This one's easy too.
If the author straight out tells you what a character is like,
it's direct characterization. So if the author
tells you that Scrooge is a miserable old miser, then that's direct characterization.
He has directly told you.
But if the author reveals what the character is like by what that character says, does,
and how others react to him or her, that's indirect characterization. We can see that
he's a miserable old miser by seeing how he treats others, his appearance,
and how everyone reacts when they see him coming.
So direct is when the author tells you directly
Indirect is when you figure out what the character is like indirectly,
using your powers of observation.
There are lots of other words to describe characters but they're the same ones
we use to describe real people: funny, shy, conflicted, principled, obsessed,
angry, a leader, a follower, and so on.
Characterization is one of the most important elements of fiction, because a
story can have all the dramatic events in the world, the most interesting setting,
but no one will pay attention
if they don't care about the character to whom those events
are happening. So, when reading a story,
look closely at the people in it. Using these characterization
terms, you now have the words to describe what they are like. With these terms,
you now have the tools to make important distinctions between characters.
This one's dynamic; that one's a protagonist;
this other one has a lot of internal reality.
And in real life, look closely at the people you meet.
There's always, always more than meets the eye;
there's always another layer below the one you see at first.
And just because a person acts one way now,
it doesn't mean he or she can't change in the future.
And if your friend describes you as his wingman or her sidekick,
you might decide you aren't interested in being
the foil in somebody else's narrative. You don't exist to make someone
else look good. You're a main character too.
If you learn how to figure out characters in a story, you can figure them out in the
story you're in, the one you're living, as well.
So, have fun getting to know your characters -- and each other.