It's been a long time since I've talked about creative writing. My last post on the subject focussed on the overall novel writing process; getting from the beginning to the end of a story. I always planned for this to be a series of posts, and wanted the succeeding posts to go into more specific areas of creative writing. Following up on this plan, I will start by discussing ways to create characters for a novel. Once again, bear in mind that I am not an expert, but these are techniques that I have found useful, so hopefully others will too.
When it comes to stories, I have always found that I am often much more willing to excuse a weak story if it has strong characters, than a strong story with weak characters. I find it hard to get into a story, no matter how well-written, if I don't care about the people involved in it. The characters are the ones to whom the events of the story are occurring, so the more we care about the people they are happening to, the more we will carew about these events. So I feel it's really important to make sure that the characters stand out, and really bring to life the tale that is being told.
The first thing to do when you put your story together is decide roughly how many characters you want to work with. The cast will be divided into three main categories; protagonists, antagonists and the supporting cast. The protagonists will be the main focus of the story – the characters who take the lead, who the reader is supposed to root for. The antagonists will be the providers of conflict – the ones who create obstacles for the heroes to overcome. The supporting cast will be the remaining characters the reader will encounter – those who contribute to the story without necessarily being the main focus. It's important to decide how many of each type you want to have, and how they will all fit together. As an example, my first novel had a fairly small main cast, but a huge supporting cast and a number of villains, giving the potential for a lot of interactions with a wide variety of different characters. My sister's first novel, on the other hand, had a larger main cast but a much smaller supporting cast and one main villain. This allowed her to focus much more on the relationships of the main cast, and how the whole group blended together. The decisions we made were based on the story we each wanted to tell. Hers was mostly focused on the characters' goal, whereas for mine I wanted to paint a picture of the world the main characters lived in. Likewise, you will need to decide how many characters you will need to tell the tale you want, and balance your cast accordingly.
To start building a cast of characters, I find the easiest thing to do is start with a very technical question – what purpose will the character serve? My characters generally start as a function (hero, love interest, best friend, tech guy, mentor, etc.), and their personalities are formed later. This might seem cold and unemotional, but I feel it gives the character a reason to be there, so they will contribute that much more to the overall story. This also helps stop you from going overboard. It's quite easy to get carried away creating a huge cast of characters, but if you don't want the story to feel cluttered or thinly spread. A quick example; a lot of people promote Final Fantasy VI by saying that it has the largest cast of characters of any game in the franchise. This is true, but I don't think that's a selling point. I personally found that Final Fantasy VI had more characters than it knew what to do with, and most of the cast were underdeveloped as a result. In a way, Hollywood has the right idea when it comes to character creation – never have two characters where one will suffice. I don't think novels have to be as strict as films in this regard, but it's important to be sure that every character has something unique to offer.
Now I should be specific – when I say the character is created to serve a purpose, this purpose shouldn't define who they are, it should give you justification for creating them. Once they have a purpose, you need to build them up. Start with the basics – are they male or female? Roughly what age are they? What sort of personality do they have? Are they light-hearted or serious, friendly or stoic? Do they have selfish tendencies? Do they get upset easily? I generally like to write up a basic character list with the character's name, age, any other important details, followed by a few sentences describing their backstory and basic characteristics. These will give you a rough idea of their personality and history, so you will know how to write them when you put them into the story. Ultimately, it's difficult to get the characters personality completely down in a character list – it will come out when you start writing them, but you still need a starting point.
One way to add depth to your characters is to give each of them a history, a life, a family. Even little bits of trivia like their middle name, their birthday or their favourite food can really flesh out a character. In your mind, these things should say a lot about the character and how they act. This doesn't mean all this trivia should be included in the story – most readers won't care what the character's favourite subject at school was, if it doesn't contribute in any way to the plot. As an example of this, remember when J.K. Rowling said that Dumbledore was gay? This was never mentioned in the novels, because Dumbledore wasn't a romantic character, so his sexual orientation wasn't important to the story. But this piece of trivia would have influenced the way Rowling wrote the character, so it forms a part of his identity without ever actually being said. I refer you to the following blog post from Mel's Ramblings on why sometimes, less is more.
The next thing to think about is character arcs. What development are you going to give your characters over the course of the story? What trials will they face? How will it change them? I remember reading in a creative writing book once that a character arc is like sitting your character in a tree and throwing stones at them until they fall down. The person who comes down from the tree will be a different person from the one who went up. While this is a particularly violent image, it shows the principle of character development – test their limits. If you're not sure how to challenge them, I learned another useful skill at University. When you create a basic character with a backstory and personality, map out all the possible directions that character could take, based on what you know of them. If the character claims not to care for anyone, challenge that. If the character is unconditionally nice to everyone they meet, challenge that. If your character doesn't believe in the supernatural, challenge that. How will they face the challenge? Will it change them or make their beliefs even stronger? If it breaks them down, will they piece themselves back together, or fall apart completely? I've found that character development can almost create two different characters – one before the trials, and one after. Not all characters in the story will need to develop – static characters can still be entertaining, and you probably won't have time to give every cast member an arc, but it's important to have at least a few character arcs in your story.
Another thing to bear in mind is character relationships – how will your characters interact with each other? Which characters are the best of friends? Which ones can't stand each other? Which characters will start out indifferent but become inseparable by the end? Get a basic idea of the dynamics of your characters, as this will help you to decide how you are going to write them. Often character relationships are integrated into their story arcs, so plan how certain events in the story will affect how the characters behave to one another.
Once you have created a cast of characters, there's nothing to do but let them run loose in the story. You'll have some ideas how how their journey will go, but as I have previously said, they may very well surprise you. I've found myself concentrating on relationships that I never really dwelled upon in my plans, and given full story arcs to characters who were originally intended to be one-shots. Something to remember is that early on you may not be entirely sure how you are writing the character, so when it comes to the second draft you will probably need to revise the earlier chapters. Don't do this as you go, or you will never finish your story. Ultimately, characters are almost like children – you give them life, you watch them grow, and it's almost sad when you finish a story, when you have written everything for them that you can.
There are a lot of finer details that could be delved into, but probably need their own posts to do so. I'll probably cover some of the more basic aspects of writing, and then later go into the specifics. There are so many aspects to creative writing, I'm starting to realise it will take a long time to cover them all. I'm hoping this should give people a rough idea of how you can put characters together. It's a lot of fun to create characters, but the best part is actually writing them in the story.
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