Carl Hiaasen On Character Development

00:08 [Carl Hiaasen] Character development is a difficult thing, and I'm not sure it's even something that can be taught. I think there are certain warnings that you can give the people, and one of them is that in this generation in particular that's grown up watching television and going to the movies is that there aren't -- those media are not necessarily

00:30 famous for presenting multidimensional characters. In writing you have to do a lot more -- when you're watching a movie and Robert Redford comes on the screen, that's Robert Redford and you don't need to do a lot of character development because that's why people are paying their money, to sit in seats and watch Robert Redford. You will not see him playing a child molester in a movie. You will not see him playing an ax murderer. You will probably not see him playing a

01:00 vicious prison escapee. He's pretty much Bob Redford, and that's what you're getting, and it's good. But you don't have that luxury in a book. I can't in my novels say, okay, here's this character and he looks and he acts and he's as good as Robert Redford is. I mean, it doesn't work. You're starting with a blank page and you've got to sell the character to your reader, good or bad. Just because, again, my background in journalism and I've spent 20 odd years doing interviews with people,

01:30 listening to the way people talk, learning about the way they really are, reading rap sheets, talking to criminals, talking to good guys -- you pretty much figure out right away there aren't all good people, and there aren't people who are all evil. There may be, but most of your characters you want to people your novel with should have some ambivalence to them. There should be some question marks and mysteries there because I've never met anybody who was all good

02:00 and perfect. I mean, my uncle's a priest and I can say that. He's a great guy, but I don't think he's perfect and I'm sure he doesn't think I am—I mean, it's too easy to put John Wayne in your books, and it's too easy to put Charlie Manson as your villain. But the fact is that everybody's pretty complex, and for me the, the fun of writing is in the characters. And I don't want my characters

02:30 so simple that I understand them entirely myself until I'm done with the book, and even then some of them I don't get, just like people I've known. I mean, you have to make them real, and in real life how well do you really know anybody? Your short stories or in your novels or whatever you're writing, your poetry. That's what makes it fun.