(Picking up where I left off…)
Possibly the most important part of you writing are
3. The Characters
Your characters are what drives you plot. Everything they are, everything they do influence how the problems your characters come across are dealt with. Thus, creating a character will help you to shape the direction your piece goes in.
Personally, my writing most commonly starts with the creation of one or more characters, which I keep track of on separate sheets of paper from my actual work, which I can look back at to reference during my writing process.
How, then, do you create a believeable character?
When you begin to write, you must think of your person as three-dimensional and real. What are they like? What do they do? What do they look like? You should know everything about them, even if that doesn’t all find its way into your writing. Knowing these things will help you shape a believeable character.
Personality: What does your character act like? Are they a happy person, upbeat all the time and smiling? Or are they more subdued, and prefer listening to music and reading a good book? All of these things should be decided before you start writing, so it doesn’t appear like your character has had an abrupt mood change halfway through your piece if you decide that they are a more spirited person than a calm person.
Activity: Character Sketch
—> Fill out the following (feel free to add to it) to ‘get to know your character’ better. Even things that don’t relate to your piece should be filled in, since it will make your character seem like a real person to you. Be imaginitive! If you were this person, your _______ would be like _________….etc.
NAME:
AGE:
HEIGHT: (approximately)
WEIGHT: (approximately)
BODY TYPE: (body shape)
FACE TYPE: (shape)
COMPLEXION: (color)
EYES: (color, shape)
HAIR: (color, style)
CLOTHING STYLE:
SPEAKING STYLE:
GENERAL DEMEANOR: (attitude, emotions)
CAREER: (job)
PREJUDICES: (what do they HATE?)
BEST QUALITIES:
WORST QUALITIES:
WEAKNESSES:
HOBBIES:
TALENTS:
Favorite saying?
Method of transportation?
Immediate plan?
Long-range goal?
Kind of education?
What kind of house/home/apartment?
What city/country/location?
Does he/she have a pet? What kind?
Best friend?
Favourite food?
Financial situation?
Hobby?
Skill?
Moral attitude?
Philosophical attitude?
Favourite book?
Last-read book?
What is the bedroom like?
Spouse/mate/steady date/significant other? Why/why not?
Parents? Siblings? Kids?
Emotions: Your characters emotions will cause her/him to act differently in different situations, and as a writer, you should know how your character will react. If your character is sad, are they melancholy, or do they snap at other people and yell a lot? If someone was to ask them a question while they were sad, would they ignore the question, or tell the other person off? This will develop your character’s ability to confront the conflict in your story. If they get angry quickly, this will make it harder for them to work with the other characters to reach a solution, and will change how you write the story.
Activity: Arguments
—> Put your character in a situation in which he or she faces a problem: arguing with another character. Based on the character sketch you’ve created, you should be able to judge how they will react to different things- if they hate people getting in their face, someone doing this in an argument will cause them to react accordingly. If they burst into tears when they don’t get their way, this is the perfect time to show this trait.
Other things to keep in mind when writing are your character’s habits, accents, and mannerisms. Are they liars? Or do they normally tell the truth? (Are they bad liars? How can you tell?) Do they normally insert, like, the word, like, like inbetween, like, every other word, like, like this? (How does everyone else, like, react?) When they’re nervous, do they run their hand through their hair or bite their lip?
This will make your characters seem very realistic to the reader.
Activity: Dialogue only
—> Pick a ‘problem’ and write a piece in which your characters solve the problem, using only dialogue to tell the story. The problem can be as small as missing the bus or losing a coat, but you must develop the main character’s personality in order to tell a story through the conversations they have with the other characters. Keep in mind- the dialogue should sound realistic. For instance, if your characters are best friends, they are not going to greet each other by name when they first run into each other during your piece. They already know the other person’s name. Similarly, they will not necessarily ask what the other person was doing; if one character is on the school soccer team and at practice after school, their best friend (should) know this, and know where this first character came from. This forces you, the writer, to be creative in writing this piece and develops your skills in writing dialogue. Remember to include things like habits in this piece- do they stutter when they’re scared? Does it annoy them when the other paces, to the point where they have to point it out?
Once you’ve done all these things, you should have a three dimensional character.
Yes, I said SHOULD.
Once in a while, either as a reader or a writer, you will come across a
MARY SUE
or a
GARY STU.
These are characters that are perfect in every way.
-> “Starlight Rose Moonbeam was the most popular girl at school, with black hair to her knees and brilliant blue eyes. She was best friends with all the girls, and all the boys wanted to go out with her, so she went on dates with them one at a time so no one would be jealous, because she was so nice like that. She also threw the best parties every weekend with her allowance, which was really big, because her super rich parents wanted her to be happy. In her free time, when she was not saving the environment and advising the president of the united states, she talked to her per tiger Delilah and her tame hawk, and her ten horses, who all had flowing silver manes, because she had magic and could talk to animals. When she wasn’t flying.”*
That is a Mary Sue. *(slightly exaggerated. Many authors, however, don’t realize they’re doing this, though.)She defies all laws of everything, and if you met her in real life, she would be so sickly sweet that you would want to punch her in the face.
Mary Sues (or Gary Stu, if they’re a perfect guy,) occur when a character has no faults whatsoever, or when an author writes themselves as a main character and makes themselves perfect. (Hint: Don’t write a story where you’re the main character). They’re painful for everyone involved, the reader and the writer, if the writer can acknowledge the fact that they have, in fact, written a Mary Sue.
How can you identify if your character is a Mary Sue?
Well, most stories that feature a Mary Sue start and end something like this.
->”Starlight Rose Moonbeam was chatting with her tiger in her room when the Department of Homeland Security called her house. They needed her to save the world (again). Of course Starlight said yes, because saving the world meant saving all the adorable kittens too. She flew out her window (because she can fly) and stopped the alien invaders with one wave of her magical flower fairy dust wand, which wrapped the aliens in twizzlers and sent them back to their home planet after she nicely asked them to leave. The End.”
Most Mary Sues are so perfect that when a problem arises, they can solve it within minutes (or they develop magical powers that then solve the problem within minutes). The problem with this is:
Without a problem, there is no story.
It’s not interesting to watch someone be perfect, it just makes us all sick. (Literally.)
So: when creating a character, make sure they have some faults. make sure they have some things that make them angry, and make sure to have them make mistakes. They are, after all, only human.
