Podcast Summary:

Podcast: How I Write
Host: David Perell
Guest: Jonathan Franzen
Episode: "How to Write Truly Great Characters"
Release Date: November 26, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, acclaimed novelist Jonathan Franzen sits down with David Perell to discuss the nuanced process of crafting memorable characters, the psychological excavation essential to writing, and why humor, pleasure, and “distance” are fundamental to his approach. Franzen reflects on his evolution as a writer, the pitfalls younger writers face, and the transformation of his creative priorities over the span of his career. The conversation traverses the intersection of art, psychology, society, and even birdwatching, with a signature blend of wit and candor.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Building Great Characters

• Problem at the Core: Franzen emphasizes that character-building begins with discovering a problem to anchor the character’s desires.
  • "It could be reduced to, I am looking for a sentence that describes a problem for the character... I'm looking for a comic problem. It doesn't have to be a big problem." (01:00)
• The Power of Trivial Stakes:
  • “The smaller the problem, the funnier it is. Because if it really, really matters to the character and it’s also really small, that in itself is funny.” (01:40)
• Essence Over Biography:
  • Franzen is less interested in a character's backstory and more in their driving conflict: “I’m not talking about the history of a character... It’s going for the story essence.” (02:27)

2. Humor and Comic Distance

• Making Seriousness Playful:
  • “I don’t want to be the writer who is tremblingly serious and earnest... It’s like, I don’t trust that guy if I read his book because it will usually say to me, that person hasn’t really gotten the right distance on this. Distance is really, really critical.” (03:45)
• Authorial Laughing:
  • “One of the best indicators of distance on a main character... is the author able to laugh at that person?” (04:14)
• On Victim Narratives:
  • Franzen warns against sticking too close to characters cast solely as victims, which narrows a novel’s appeal: “If you stick close to a character who the author is convinced is a victim... you will appeal to people who feel victimized in the same way, and that’s kind of the end of your appeal.” (05:19)

3. Self-Examination & Shame

• Why Investigate Yourself?
  • “The goal is to create a character who’s so completely not Me that I can pour all of myself into that person.” (07:02)
• Navigating Shame:
  • “There’s no technical solution to shame levels in a writer. You have to go into the shame and figure out why am I so ashamed?” (08:15)
  • He recounts grappling with shame while writing The Corrections and transforming personal discomfort into humor.
• Celestial Distance:
  • “Once you can laugh, [the character] can still be feeling shame himself, but if you are liberated from shame, then you can see it objectively.” (09:45)

4. Difference Between ‘Trauma Dumping’ and Artistic Excavation

• Protecting Reader-Writer Trust:
  • “I want you to know my loyalties are actually just as much to you, reader, probably more than they are with the characters.” (13:20)
• Multiplying Suffering as Comedy:
  • “One person venting like that, complaining like that, suffering like that—well, that’s a tragedy. But eight of them, that’s a comedy.” (14:23)

5. The Purpose of Writing: Pleasure, Play, and Connection

• Shifting Motivations:
  • “I used to think it was to change the world... In the old age, it really doesn’t. The only thing that makes sense is I write for pleasure and I write to provide pleasure.” (15:30)
• Fun as Political Statement:
  • “To make a claim that something being fun is justification enough, especially if you’re... in politically fraught times... that takes on a weird political valence.” (16:59)
• On Language Play:
  • “I have fun using words that you don’t encounter very much... Or writing sentences whose structures are a little unfamiliar.” (18:06)

6. Process & ‘Unfolding’ Versus Planning

• Organic Development:
  • “A book that was too fully planned is likely to read like a book that was too fully planned... If you can outline it, what’s the point in writing it?” (34:22)
• Surprise and Attentiveness:
  • “If there’s a surprise for the writer, there will be a surprise for the reader.” (35:42)
• On Extreme Choices:
  • “You always should be pushing it. And four times out of five, you say, that would never work... But one out of five times it’s like, whoa. That would be cool.” (37:20)

7. Texture, Cliché, and the Vivid Dream

• Avoiding Over-Detailing:
  • “You don’t need that many details... It really doesn’t take much. They have to be the right things, of course.” (22:35)
• Cliché as Creative Sin:
  • “In my opinion, you get at most one cliche per book... It bespeaks laziness and laziness there tells me there’s probably laziness.” (25:16)
• Creating the Reader’s Experience:
  • “What you are trying to do is get people into that vivid dream as expeditiously as possible to establish your trustworthiness as a writer.” (26:49)
  • “You want to stay in that experience. You know, ‘Honey, it’s time to turn out the light.’ ‘Five more pages. Five more pages.’” (28:43)

8. Noticing, Observation, and Human Truths

• Reading People Over Note-Taking:
  • “I think what I was good at, I was good at reading people, always... I learned how to read what was happening between these characters really early on.” (29:29)
• Using Humor as Insight:
  • “Even as a kid I wanted one of the highest goods was getting a laugh. Not in a stand-up way, but just from observing something and framing it in such a way that it reads is really hilarious.” (31:19)

9. On Technology, Society, and the Good Life

• Distrust of Consumer Capitalism:
  • “I was very political back then and I had a deep distrust and nameable and often named distrust of consumer capitalism and the large corporate interests that profited from it.” (44:07)
• Media, Money, and Technology—Lessons from Carl Krauss:
  • “There is an evil troika of powers, basically media, money and technology. And he had an extremely sophisticated critique of all of that.” (46:53)
• On Honesty vs. Hype:
  • “What really bugged me even in the 90s was not the evil corporations... it was the lies. It was the ludicrous lies.” (49:54)
• Loving eBay:
  • “eBay rocks. I’m a fan of eBay, I would, you know, I’m a fan of Wikipedia, but there are lots of things online that I’m a fan of.” (51:22)

10. Writing Routine and Environment

• Homebody Writers:
  • “I think more good work has been done by people who stay home... Hemingway, not inconsiderable, there he is out in the world. He needed to have experiences. So if somebody needs to, like, blow up their life... It can work. I. I think more good work has been done by people who stay at home.” (52:58)
• Writing Tools and Rituals:
  • Franzen shares about his devotion to quiet and focus—earplugs, early mornings, methodical rewriting. “I spend most of my existence in earplugs... It’s usually after having brought the previous day’s work up to such a polish that I feel like, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, I’m a writer.” (55:24, 56:41)

11. On Tone and Unlocking a Work

• Tone as the North Star:
  • “The point is just to keep making pages where I’m proud of every sentence and someone’s going to have a good time reading it... Once I get it, I got it. I got the tone. The tone is really, really, really important.” (57:52, 58:30)
  • “It’s above all, tone.” (59:30)

12. Birdwatching and Beauty

• Taste for the Subtle:
  • Franzen relates birdwatching to his aesthetic philosophy: “The bird I prize, among all others, is considered by many... to be one of the ugliest birds in America... And I think it is the most beautiful bird in the world. Its name is the California toey. If you think that is an ugly bird, it is because you have not looked.” (59:59, 60:56)
• Revelation in Close Observation:
  • “The more you look at the birds around you, the more you see these, these beauties of behavior, beauties of subtle plumage... There’s no bird that isn’t amazing when you look carefully at it. And it’s nature there every day outside your window saying, hey, we’re still here, we’re still here.” (63:03, 63:54)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “All of my novels have principal characters, and those are the ones who get the most attention from me... The main characters are a whole different thing.” —Jonathan Franzen (00:13)
• “If the character really, really wants it, that’s enough. Because that will then set in motion everything else.” —Franzen (01:55)
• “It’s a mistake young writers make. They think they know who’s right and who’s wrong and they think they’re among the right ones.” —Franzen (05:47)
• “The job is to try to put as much of your own self and much of your own subjectivity as you can into all of these characters, which means that there’s a constant kind of psychological process whereby you are coming to terms with parts of yourself unearthed by the process of trying to write the damn novel.” —Franzen (10:22)
• “A book that was too fully planned is likely to read like a book that was too fully planned.” —Franzen (34:22)
• “You always should be pushing it... but one out of five times it’s like, whoa. That would be cool.” —Franzen (37:20)
• “What you are trying to do is get people into that vivid dream as expeditiously as possible to establish your trustworthiness as a writer.” —Franzen (26:49)
• “The bird I prize, among all others, is considered by many... to be one of the ugliest birds in America... And I think it is the most beautiful bird in the world. Its name is the California toey. If you think that is an ugly bird, it is because you have not looked.” —Franzen (59:59, 60:56)

Important Timestamps

• 00:13 — Franzen on building character through comic problems
• 02:47 — Why humor and comedy matter in serious fiction
• 06:58 — The necessity of self-examination in writing
• 12:23 — Distinction between trauma dumping and meaningful excavation
• 15:06 — Franzen’s evolving justifications for writing
• 22:35 — How few details are needed to bring characters to life
• 25:16 — The creative danger of cliché
• 26:49 — Creating the “vivid dream” for readers
• 34:22 — Perils of over-planning fiction
• 38:18 — The importance of pushing for "extreme" choices within mundane contexts
• 44:07 — On early skepticism toward digital technology
• 46:53 — Lessons from Carl Krauss on media, money, and tech
• 52:58 — The “stay at home” vs. the “blow up your life” writer
• 55:24 — Franzen’s writing rituals: earplugs, polish, early mornings
• 57:52 — The primacy of tone in writing
• 59:59 — On the beauty of the California toey and the joy of birdwatching

Tone & Final Thoughts

The episode is a masterclass in writing with Franzen’s signature blend of acerbic clarity, humility, and humor. Listeners will leave with a deeper understanding of how to craft authentic characters, why laughter is a sign of truth, and the value of seeing—whether on the page or at the bird feeder—what others dismiss as ordinary. Franzen’s closing thoughts on subtlety, pleasure, and the beauty of “low-stakes,” both in fiction and birdwatching, encapsulate his worldview as a writer and observer of life.

For anyone aspiring to write—or simply to understand how serious literature works—this conversation is a treasure trove of wisdom, wry honesty, and practical advice.