Writing Structure: Character Development

Continuing on good practices in writing, I wanted to talk about writing characters and character development. Last week I talked about the Hero's Journey, and how it can help with the plot of your story, and your main character's development throughout the story.

What about everyone else though? The mentor that leads them into this new world? Their friends? Family? All the characters in your story should be just as important as the main protagonist. These are just some "rules" that I came across in my education, and from other people in the writing community as I work to better my writing.

Character Creation:

Photo by Magda Ehlers from Pexels

When I start creating my characters, the first thing I think about is who is this person that I created? I'm a visual person, so a lot of my early character creation involves a lot of sketching of concept art. Once I know the characters features, I begin to explore them more. How did they get that scar? Why are they shy? Why do they not trust anyone?

An exercise that my script writing professor had us do, was to write the character's backstory from the time they were born, to the point where the story begins. I feel this was the BEST advice I was ever given in story development.

(I guess David Hayter agrees? lol)

(For the record, I probably got overly excited from this interaction, but it will forever be a highlight for me.)

Does doing this method take more time to begin writing the story? Yes. The reward is worth it though. Many times when deep diving into a characters past, it's like I'm learning new things about them. I learn about their childhood friends, their family. The different events that molded them into the person they are. This has helped me with finding new plot ideas to develop, especially if I'm writing a series.

I wouldn't do this method for all your characters in full detail, but definitely for your main protagonists. If your story has your protagonist that travels with a group of people on their journey, then I would do this. You can be more detailed with your main character, but don't forget to think about the back story of the supporting cast. I feel I can write a series of novels on some of my supporting cast of my querying novels, because they are all interesting people.

Remember, like your main character, your side characters have their own wishes and dreams that you can exploit for interesting plot twists. Like the ally that betrays everyone in the end, because they were being blackmailed for something that happened ten years prior to the story.

People Have Rules, So Do Your Characters:

Photo by Joshua Miranda from Pexels

One thing that annoys me the most when watching a movie or TV show, or even reading a book, is when a character acts completely out of their established persona. It takes me right out of a story, and leaves me feeling upset with the material.

Take a moment and think about yourself. There are things in the day to day world that you will, and will not do. I'm not talking about obvious things, like breaking the law. I'm talking about things that your past have defined for you. For example, a person that almost drowned as a child, who ended up becoming an adult afraid of water. A person like this isn't going to willingly dive into a dark pool without hesitation just because you need them to for the story.

I think of my characters as people. For the person to make a change, there has to be a reason. Let's return to the person scared of water. There has to be something that will make them want to jump in, that is more important to them than their own life. From their childhood experience, they classify the water with death. They aren't going to jump in just because you're the writer and you say so. You have to develop why. Whether with internal dialogue, or putting a stake in front of them they need to overcome.

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This post was pretty short, but it's just a basic run through of character development that I use when I'm writing. One thing that people have always said when reading my work, is how believable the characters are. That they all feel real. I think it's because I dedicate myself to these simple methods. I focus on discovering my characters in my world building, before I even begin writing. I have pages and documents of just backstory on characters that I have created. Who knows, maybe after I'm published I can use these backstories to create new stories in my established universes? (That would be fun!)

If when you finish writing a story, and writing "The End," leaves you with a sense of accomplishment and sadness, I think you have created great characters. Every time I finish a book that had great characters, I feel sad, because there will be no more adventures for them. You want that feeling in your readers I think, because they will love the people you created as much as you do.

Now for a shameless plug, lol. As I mentioned, I draw character sketches for my stories so I can better visualize them as I write. If you would like see them, follow me here on instagram. Here are a few that I have done in the past.