Do my characters need to have different mannerisms in order to be perceived as different?
My editor returned to me with her initial critique of my novel, saying some characters were too similar, and that they had the same likes and dislikes and flaws.
The characters she mentioned were exactly the characters whose personalities were more shown through their actions throughout the story, rather than dialog and me (the narrator) flat out pointing it out to the reader.
Who's in the right here? Am I just delusional or something, or do people really not catch on more subtle differences that aren't cartooney and extreme. Is it really true I can't have two characters be, for example both jolly or both stern and serious because then people think they're the same even though their motivations, goals, and more subtle aspects of the personalities are completely different?
I wrote this book keeping in mind that people thought I was treating my audience like idiots, constantly spelling things out for them and overexplaining. Now that I finally tried to back away from that, it backlashes.
I'm not sure what or who to believe anymore.
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Showing personality instead of saying personality can be great when done well. I agree with Cloudchaser's answer of getting another opinion.
I'd also recommend going back through and reading it yourself. Maybe not the whole thing, but focusing on just on those two characters and look to see if you can notice differences and similarities between the two of them. Try and figure out where they overlap and where they are different. Then differentiate between the two and make those personalities pieces more defined.
What you're trying to avoid by highlighting those differences is confusing your reader on who is the character in your scene. It should be natural for them to pick up on who it is, even if it isn't ever expressly stated. They can have a lot of the same motivations, but two people go about things differently, so two people who have the same flaws are going to be different, same with likes and dislikes.
For example:
Jane looked at the frozen yogurt in the window and at her reflection. It looked so tasty but she knew she shouldn't spend any more money on frozen yogurt this week. That didn't matter, it had been a bad day, she was going to get some.
John knew that the frozen yogurt shop was on the other side of the street. There was a specific reason that he was on the opposite side of the street. If he walked in front of the shop on a bad day, he knew he would go in and get some frozen yogurt.
This is a really small example, but we have two characters who have a weakness/like of frozen yogurt. The way I was trying to write it, not sure if it fully came across in the quick example, is that with John you can build on avoiding an issue or self-discipline that make him unique from Jane who might be more apt to give into temptation. The frozen yogurt piece, temptation by it and love of it, is the same, but you can create two different experiences with it that make the characters separate. Then you expound upon those differences in other scenes.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36006. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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I'll side with your editor. Why do you need two jolly characters, or two stern characters? I wouldn't worry about mannerisms, I am more interested in purpose, intent, attitude and conflict.
I think you make it hard for two characters to be in conflict, and hard for two characters to have plausibly complementary skills (for synergy and needing each other) if they are too alike. Minor difference don't count.
You don't need to hammer readers over the head if you make them distinct. Roll your jolly characters into one; roll your cynics into one. A cynic and a jolly character can have synergy, at times one succeeds in a negotiation, at other times the stern cynic will succeed when friendly banter fails. At times brains beats brawn, at times brawn pummels brains.
Also, if your crew has only one of each type, disabling the one causes them hardships through the loss of that talent, an obstacle to overcome.
Your story should be efficient, only as many talents as you need and no more, and no duplicates. If you have a lot of the same type of character (eg "soldiers") then I'd keep them nameless and faceless until you need a specific one.
Also, rolling two same-talent same-personality characters into one will let you paint a richer picture of that one; instead of splitting time between two shallow versions of the same thing (and causing confusion).
You have the right idea to show personality through action. Do not avoid showing it through dialogue; much of personality is opinions, sometimes intelligence revealed through word choice or the complexity of sentences. Just keep any explicit statements (tellings) of life philosophy to a minimum, or somewhat cryptic: "Yeah, well, I don't believe in that. It's wrong." Without expansion or explanation. The kinds of things we actually say.
Characters do not always have to be extreme to make them different. IRL some are liberal, some are conservative, some are politically ignorant. Some are atheists, some are devout, some (male or female) are more promiscuous than others, more outgoing or shy, more selfless or selfish, more shallow-thinking or deep thinking, more analytic or more reactive, more talkative or quiet. More or less educated, more or less talented, more or less wealthy. Just make them distinct.
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