(I apologize if this post is poorly written. I’m in the throes of pneumonia, but really wanted to share this thought. Evidently pneumonia steals your brain’s ability to function and put words together cohesively. Ugh. Hope you enjoy anyway.)

I just reached the end of the Supernatural (a CW show you should check out if you haven’t seen it) five year story arc, with great satisfaction.

As I bask in the afterglow of a story well told, I’ve been thinking about what makes the show so engaging; what makes it work so extremely well. I’m sure everyone likes a show like this for different reasons, but the most compelling thing about it, for me, is the characters. All the characters have their strong points, but Sam and Dean (the main characters) are amazing.

Looking at them from a writer’s perspective, recognizing how well they work together and how well that dynamic drives the story (even through the sticky bits), I’ve been wondering what I can learn from their character design and development, that I could put into my own writing. The question, really, is What makes a character really, really good?

The first thing that I think makes Sam and Dean such dynamic characters is that we know what drives them. The writers of Supernatural make sure that we know very early on that Dean is motivated by loyalty to family, while Sam wants to do what’s right. Basic character motivations, perhaps, but a great foundation on which the creators then spend over a hundred episodes building.

The motivations are filled in, like colors within a coloring book outline and, while we always know what drives them, we don’t always know how it will play out. Does Sam’s desire to do what’s right make him decide that the ends justify the means? Will Dean’s loyalty to his family cause him to allow innocent people to die so his brother will survive? How far does loyalty go? How do you find right when all your options seem wrong?

Secondly, Sam and Dean are very, very real. Their weaknesses are evident from the beginning (Dean’s especially), and their brokenness is never hidden. Their personalities and motivations are clearly understood by the writers, and their responses to shared experiences (often vastly different responses) make sense within their personalities and motivations.

The oldest of five children, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to see how a sibling’s age, personality and experiences can cause two people to come through the same experience with completely different baggage, something that recurs frequently through the episodes. And the beauty of these character’s development is just that—the writers put very real characters up against situations completely outside of our experience (I’ve never fought a genie, or come head to head with a really pissed-off pagan god) and yet, in the midst of experiences we could never have, the characters have responses, struggles, weaknesses and strengths that we can understand—because we have experienced them. We celebrate Sam and Dean’s victories because we hope that we, in the same situation, would do as well as they do. We grieve their failures because we understand how easily we would make the same mistake. We have sympathy for their pain, because we recognize their brokenness in ourselves.

Third, the characters are deeply consistent. Clearly defined motives and carefully crafted personalities mean that we, the “reader” if you will, know what Sam is likely to do, in a particular situation. We know how Dean would respond when faced with a certain challenge. We know, because we know what we would do. We see ourselves in them, because they are so real.

And then, the writers keep their characters within the motives and personalities they have created so that we never find ourselves saying “Dean would never do that!!” Not only that, but because the characters are so believable—so real—we never even find ourselves saying “Well, I would never do that!” We know, because of how the characters are built, that if we were in that situation…with those experiences under our belt…we are just as likely to make exactly the same choice.

So, I’ve been thinking about my own characters; their motivations, their personalities, the experiences through which they filter the world. I’m wondering if I’ve made these parts of them clear enough. I wonder if I understand them well enough myself. I wonder how I can make them even more real, more accessible, more…sympathetic. Because, when all’s said and done, I want my readers to close my book with a feeling of satisfaction because they hope that, if they had ended up in that place, facing that situation, they would have been strong enough to make the same choice my character did. I want them to know their own weaknesses and brokenness through my characters, and I want them to conquer them with my characters.

If I can accomplish that…I will feel I have succeeded.

--Tesi