Tag: name

Character In-Depth

Hello and welcome back! Last week I talked about a method for outlining the pertinent information on the primary characters of your story. The PCs include the main character, the main antagonist, and anyone else who has a major impact on the main story points in the outline. The very basics of information about them included their name and personality traits, what drives them, their goal, and the overall role they play in the story. With this information, it will be easier to map out paragraphs or lists containing ideas for not only what they will do when confronted with whatever issues you throw their way, but also how they will consistently interact with other characters. This step is very important for the writing process, even if you are not writing an outline for your entire story. I know characters don’t always start out their best, in fact it’s better in most cases if they don’t, so if you want to keep track of where they will end up at the end of the story that is a good thing to do.

Physical Description

Most stories, contain a physical description for their primary characters. Putting a name with a face can help the readers to become more invested in your character by making them seem more tangible. This information can also help to pinpoint how they will act or be treated in certain situations. If a war breaks out, a six-year-old girl and a sixteen-year-old boy will be treated very differently by everyone around them so it is important to have each of these in mind even if they are ultimately never in the work.

Here’s a list of things to consider for your description:

  • Age
  • Race
  • Ethnicity
  • Religion
  • Physical or Mental Handicaps
  • Skin, hair, and eye color
  • Height and weight

Once you have those important things listed, I suggest taking a moment to think about how your character feels about these parts of him or herself. Does he hate his hair color? Is she only still a member of her religion due to her parents? Does he obsess about his image? Does she feel there is a disadvantage to how she was born? This will all effect how they interact with others and how they treat themselves.

As an example, one of my female characters grew up in a home where old and new ideas about gender have clashed in an unhealthy way. She’s had to listen to her father complain that the women need to maintain jobs while in the same breath stating that housework is women’s work. She has spent many hours wondering if her family would have been better off if she, the eldest, was born male. This means she has a tendency to push herself to do what she feels a man would be able to do without any regard for if that makes any sense. Did she get stabbed? That’s not so bad! Her dad worked on his job all day with stitches in his hand once!

Personality Description

This step takes the primary trait from the last step and expands upon it do to the information in the personal description. If your character is a jokester, and has a background of depression stemming from losing his parents at a young age and being passed around foster homes, it’s possible that he’s sarcastic and uses dark humor to cover up how he actually feels. Or, maybe he’s more optimistic in spite of his past woes and has a bubbly sense of humor that lights up the whole room, though he might not have the best sense of timing in what others would consider serious situations. You will have to decide which option best fits the character you’re going for and stick with it.

When you’re talking about the main character or one of the “good guys” some writers are tempted to shy away from anything other than messy hair and makeup for personality flaws with these individuals. This makes for a flat and boring character without any room to grow. It’s fine for your character to be somewhat unpleasant at the beginning of the story, even your protagonist. The only thing you need to worry about is making sure they are not completely unlikable. The vast majority of people are not going to feel sorry for a serial rapist no matter how sympathetic the rest of their character arc is.

Your villain, on the other hand, is a trap for the exact opposite problem. I love a well-written villain with the potential to be saved: however, I don’t care for a wimp who shouldn’t really be a villain in the first place. So, don’t be afraid to let your villain kick puppies every once in a while to drive home that this is a vile piece of creation that your reader should be worried about. If you decide to redeem them, they can log some community service hours at the local shelter to learn their lesson but again, that’s after their character growth.

Voice Description

Some of the information for this was discussed in the personal description part. Where they are from and who they are make up the bulk of their voice. There are still a few nuanced things to think about when it comes to their interactions with others. For this section think things that are more personal than their demographics. Think of hobbies they have, the type of friend they normally spend time with, their job, things that excite or scare them. These are all things that will be carried out in their interactions with the plot and other characters. If your main character usually hangs out around the boys and is most comfortable in a classical “teen guy” type environment, he would most likely not be cool when his new stepsister needs him to make an emergency run for some tampons and Midol.

I hope you find these different steps helpful. Even if you don’t get as deep as say, the last example, knowing where your character is comfortable will help remind you when they shouldn’t be. These kinds of character outlines I, and others like me, have found to be helpful in keeping on character when writing a character so you don’t have one chapter where your character seems off script. Thank you so much for reading! Comment any questions you have and have a great day!

Characters

            If you’re following along, I’ve outlined how to go from a basic idea for a story to a full skeleton outline. That’s a lot of work and, in some short stories, that might be all you need to get your project underway. However, often times in novels you will need more to flesh out your pieces and that normally falls to side plots. So how do you choose side plots? The first thing to consider is your characters.

            The main plot is your main character interacting with the antagonist and the objective they are trying to solve. In many stories, your character can’t do it by themselves and needs help from others. While making your skeleton for the main plot, you most likely realized that there were characters, or needed to be characters, at certain points in the story. Maybe it’s a best friend, maybe it’s a mentor, or maybe it’s the guys being paid to help with the scheme. Though they touch into the main part of the story, they probably wouldn’t have enough room to be introduced and grow without a few side happenings. How do we know what scenes we need to add to keep the plot moving believably?

            First, we need to meet the characters. By this point you should already have some idea who your primary characters are. Even if you don’t have names, you should at least have some place holders like: male hero, evil wizard, protagonist’s mom, friend who wants out of the friendzone, etc. Just like in the real world, these are all different people who will have different ideas, beliefs, goals, and motivations. Knowing what all of these are will be the key to crafting a realistic set of side plots to help get everyone to the final goal.

            For this exercise, you’re going to want to stick to the main characters who are going to impact the main plot line. These I’ll refer to as Primary characters. Later, you’ll need to think through Secondary characters, those who only affect a side quest in a significant way, and Background characters, those who are there but could really be swapped out for anyone without change. But for now, we’re concerned with the big guns and not Drunk Guy Randy who lives at the local tavern because Martha left him for shoving 15 peanuts up his nose whenever he gets drunk. Unless Randy knows where the magic amulet of liver health rests. Then you can worry about him now.

            Take out a note book or a piece of paper or a Microsoft word sheet. Got it? Good. Because now it’s time to figure out who is going to be in this story and write… you guessed it: a sentence to let us know who we’re dealing with. Don’t worry, this will be expanded upon later.

Sentence should contain

            First, we need to decide your PM’s name because that’s important. No more place holders for you! Behind the name is a great tool and doesn’t carry the stigma of a sixteen-year-old girl walking into the bookstore to buy a baby name book. I swear, I’m just working on a book! Remember, unless your society is weird, parents choose names for their babies. The rich, white, Europeans are not going to name their child after an anime character and the nerdy anime cosplayers who live on minimum wage are not going to name their kid Sir Reginald III. So, make sure your name matches what their parents would have chosen, as well as your character.

            Next, we need to come up with each PM’s defining trait. How would people who know them describe them? Idealist? Jokester? Happy? Sad? Shouty? This is a snap shot of how the world perceives them that will dictate how they tend to act. If a character is going to tell jokes and play pranks, they’re a jokester or trickster. If they are a sunny ball of happiness, they are an optimist. If they think things should be done a certain way to lead to the best outcome, they are an idealist. You will want to choose something that will be easy to show at all times, unless something major happens to pull them out of their typical mood. I won’t list any dos or don’ts here because it completely depends on your own style and talent to decide what is and isn’t reasonable for you.

            Now that we know what the PM acts like, what drives them? Why do they do what they do? Is your character a dad fighting to make the world a better place for his children? Is your character like my MC: a dreamer who has a vision of a better future and wants to act on it? For your main character, this is what will get them to accept the main quest. For your villain, it will be why they are evil, even if it’s just because they want to be evil. For PMs who aren’t the MC or the villain, why do they help or hinder the hero? What do they hope to gain or are afraid to lose?

            Different from their drive, what is your PM’s main goal? This is what they are heading towards. The villain is evil because of his drive. His goal is what he hopes to achieve with his evil. The children are their father’s drive, but his goal is to topple the evil regime and make the world better.

            What is the character’s role in the story? Are they the main character? Main villain? The love interest? The Mentor? A minor villain? Why do they deserve to be in this story at all and what makes them count as a PM?

            And those are our pieces! With this, you should be ready to craft a killer one to two sentence character description that will help you know how to move forward with your story. Next Monday, I’ll talk about fleshing out those sentences and Wednesday I’ll cover creating the side plots. In the meantime, I’ll see you Friday with another bestiary entry and leave you with an example sentence. Thank you for reading and liking! Feel free to comment with any questions or other methods that you have found that work for you on each subject.

James Mooney, a hardworking immigrant with a dark sense of humor, wants to lift his family out of poverty and away from the scaffolding that his brother died working on by making quick money with good moonshine and teaching others how to do the same.