Creative Writing 101 Week #2: Character Creation

Here we are, week number two! I hope you guys are ready, because we have a bit more to go through than last week. It's all about fleshing out your characters this week and prepping them for your story. In case you missed last week, here you go:

Week #1: What is a story?


Now that we have covered what a story is, it's time to look into what makes a story come to life. You want to know what every great story have in common? They all have great characters. Going off of last week, if your story is a tree, and the events are the branches, then the characters are the fruit. You know, the part of the tree that identifies it, and can make people love it, or hate it. Just like a tree, if your characters are dry and rotten, then people aren't going to stick around.

The key to a great character is all about creation. Every author had to think about each character they have made at one point or another, and if the character is a main one, spend a long time putting all the details in order. There are an infinite amount of characters out there for you to use, the real trick is narrowing down that list. The character you're looking to fill out is a spot trying to be claimed by thousands of actors. It's all on you to pick the one you think will make your story come alive. If you're looking for a family man who is warm and inviting, a guy who has face tattoos and goes around beating people up for fun probably isn't going to fill the role as well as some other characters can. Now, this is your story, so this could be the guy you're looking for, all I'm doing here is giving a few tips on how to go through this interview and find the perfect character.

First, you have to identify the role you're filling. Are they a single father? How about an elderly grandma? Either way, you have to know. Once you have that figured out, next comes their goal. Every story has an end goal that the author is constantly pushing the reader towards. What you need to figure out, is what that goal is. Next, comes the why. Why is the character reaching for this goal? What is their motive? All of these things are not only key to the characters, but for the plot as well. As you can see, the characters are woven into the plot itself. They aren't just picked up at random and placed on this path to see what would happen, they are deliberately picked by you, the writer.

Once you have the basics, here comes the fun part. The more detail you put into a character, the better. Remember, you won't be using all of this information in the story, but if the character is real to you, it has a better chance of coming through to the reader. Now that you have the skeleton of the character, it's time for the flesh. In other words, character traits. Please, for the love of all things writing, don't say that your character is "friendly", or "well liked". That literally means nothing. How friendly is your character? Would your character pick up a friend whose car broke down in a city two hours away? What if your character had to leave work to do it? Is your character so well liked that they get invited to every party in town? Do other characters buy things like coffee or Lamborghinis for your character? In other words, it's less about adjectives, and more about examples.

Now that you have started getting an idea on what your character's personality is like, it's time for even more detail. Since it can be challenging to come up with these all on your own, there's a few exercises you can do to help you come up with ideas. Have your character fill out a resume. This is extremely useful as you're covering things like education, job experience, contacts, and all sorts of different things. Now have your character make a resume for a job they aren't qualified for. Would they lie to get the job? Search up interview questions online and interrogate your character into spilling all of their secrets. Write a short story with the character going through the craziest things. When I say crazy, I mean it's raining highlighters in the middle of Macaroni Canyon as your character is white water rafting in the Milk and Cookies River crazy. Just go nuts. It's all about knowing your character inside and out.

Are you still with me? Great, we're almost done. Now, it's time for quirks. You know, those weird little traits that make people unique. These are incredibly important as they'll make your character break the mold of various stereotypes. I have a little theory about characters. I think it has some truth, but maybe you more experienced people can tell me if it's accurate or not. There's already a stereotype for every character you could possibly think of. No matter what, your character is going to fit perfectly inside one of these molds. The only way out of these molds, is through quirks. Does your character do something when they're angry? Do they have any irrational fears? How about hobbies? You don't want your character having too many quirks, as it will just make your character seem fake and turn off your reader, but you want a fair amount. It's all about getting the right balance. The amount is different for each character, so it's practically impossible to put an exact count on it, but it's easily noticed when you're way off.

Alright, that's just about it. All you have to do is follow those simple steps and you have your character. It's that easy!

Okay, so it's not easy. Remember my analogy about the actors? Just like in an actual audition, you'll most likely narrow the field down into a few actors you can't decide between. At this point, you have to take a step back and look at your story. Throw all bias out of the window, because this is where the fate of your story hangs in the balance. Really look into the cracks and crevices of your story, which traits will help the character proceed along the storyline, and which ones will hinder it. Give it some thought, and I guarantee that you'll be able to select your character.

Now, I learn best with examples, so let's dissect a character and see what we can uncover. Since this is a pokemon forum, I think it's only appropriate that we choose Ash. Love him or hate him, let's begin.

We look at Ash, and we see the stereotypical protagonist that rushes into things without thinking first, and has an unwavering sense of justice. I don't know about you, but that sounds like a lot of main characters on a lot of different shows. Great! We have our stereotype. What makes Ash different is his quirks. From the show, it's plainly obvious to me that he doesn't like school. Anything that's not hands- on and interactive, Ash can't concentrate. Okay, a lot of the protagonists on different shows share that trait, so let's go deeper. One thing that makes Ash stand out is his willingness to put himself in harm's way for a friend. A lot of protagonists have this trait as well, but not to the extent that Ash takes it. He's been electrocuted dozens of times, and has slammed into countless walls just so his friends won't have to. Heck, he even jumped off of the Eifel Tower to save a yellow rat. That's something not a lot of characters would do. All of that added onto the fact that Ash has a really weird obsession with hats, and you come up with a one of a kind character that can only lead to Ash Ketchum.

I'm going to be honest, in order to do a thorough job, you need to spend a lot of time on this. Will you use everything you come up with? Heck no, and if you do, you either haven't thought about it enough, or are trying to make too much of an effort to do so. This can be a lot of fun. Personally, it's my favorite part about writing a story. I could spend forever doing this, it's all about having the right attitude. Once you have the patience to really flesh out a character, the character will come alive. It's like you're now in charge of your own living being. It's really great, and I sure have a lot of fun doing it.

Just remember to take your time. You have a lot of characters to go through, and it won't help anything if you rush through it. The entire point of this is to know your character inside and out. If the character is real to you, that's going to translate to your readers. Characters are the fruit of your story tree. It's your job to nurture and grow these fruits into characters your readers fall in love with (or hate, depending on the character). If you want your character to stand out, it's all about quirks. But beware, don't go overboard. Above all else, have fun with it. If you're not having fun, then why are you doing this in the first place?

Homework Assignment:
I would like all of you to start fleshing out a character. Hopefully, you have some sort of personality in mind, because I'm going to be interviewing your characters. Well, one of them at least. If you have the time and motivation, I want you to fill out your character's responses for the following questions, preferably in first person, but it doesn't have to be, and then send them to me via PM, or post them in the comments below. The reason that I want you to send these in via PM, is so that I can then use your answers to come up with one more round of interview questions to help you even further. I would also encourage you to post your answers in the comments and read through a few others. Heck, you can even ask your own interview questions if the urge hits you.

Anyway, here are the questions. And yes Ray, I did steal these from your old thread:

Nice tutorial as ever! :D I'm gonna post here and I'll PM you too.

I thought I would post this here, but I already PMed you so... XD

Some of my friends at the BS wanted to see my writing. So I've decided to post it here...

These profiles have been interesting to read, yyyyyyy'allllllllllllllllllll...

Here is my one. Continuing from before with the main character from the idea I posted the previous lesson.

I'll post this here to if anyones interested, also borrowing from last weeks lesson.

Here's my homework, delivered just before it's due.

And here's part two of my homework! In case anyone's interested, I suppose. I suppose this also works as a preview in a way... but first I have to write out the rest of the darn story. :V

Really really late but I managed to get this done. Will be reading the other profiles during the weekend.

What is your full name?
Ah… I'm Thom. Thom Eisenhorth Mahller.

When and where were you born?
I was born fourteen years ago, on November 3rd, and that was in the town of Crespa. It's just a gathering of houses and markets off the trainroad to the forests, but it's nice.

Who are/were your parents?
Dad and Mom… when they show up, you mean? That'd be Nolan and Alvilda.

…

Oh? If I dislike them? (raises hands defensively) No, I just… I just don't see them often, it's my own fault, travelling too much. They are a much more homely people. Dad is state road guard but he's not working right now, he's on a sick leave; Mom works at home for a risk mitigation company, but I still don't understand exactly just what does she do.

Do you have any family other than your parents?
Ah. Brothers. Hum.... I have one older brother, Ravir, who is basically everything an older version of what my parents don't want me to be, they say. We had another brother with us, but he got sick and he's, uhm, not with me anylonger.

Any story from the past you'd like to share with us?
Yes. Now I wonder which… well, the first time I found my Nincada watching TV. That was really creepy, I woke up in the middle of the night at home because I heard noises and when I walked down the stairs there he was, on the table, watching the TV that I have no idea how the heck did he manage to turn on. And he kept screeching to the weathercast announcer, as if she was to speak back to him.

Where do you live in, and with whom? Describe the person/people.
Well I'm in the middle of a "Journey" now so I more or less live on the road, on this Pokécenter or the next. My team of three is always with me, so I guess they and the random Trainers sharing the road count as the people I'm living with. Croconaw is my Starter and he's well behaved… at least for what you can expect of his species. Nincada and Braviary are my other current partners, they are young and somewhat inexperienced Pokémon and they seem to rely on Croconaw for most of the everyday stuff that is not battling.

What do you do for a living?
Beat random people's Pokémon to an inch of their lives for prize money Right now I go from town to town looking for small Team Tasks to apply for. I've been a caravan escort (man those jobs are awful), a publicity stunt and a proxy fighter.

I hope to get enough money by the summer to apply for entry as a Gym Trainer in one of the local facilities though.

Do you have any special abilities?
…Huh? Like what?

I've read of people with strange soul-based powers, some arcane tricks people call Aura, not to mention psychics, channelers and people who somehow seem to understand Pokémon speak and even speak on their tongue. But those are weird things if not just crazy stories; I have nothing of the sort.

Tell us more of your appearance. Height, weight, race, hair and eye color, style of dress, any tattoos, scars, or distinguishing marks, these kind of things.
I'm a boy, to begin with. Doctors are always asking that for some reason. I have light blue hair, it's a bit on the messy side and spiky on the front but not like those characters you see on the videogames with spiky hair and big swords. My eyes are blue-ish to match, my brothers and I took that from Mom.

I only have one scar but it's a surgery scar, on the side of my hand, and it's because I, uhm... took a little bit to understand back when I was ten how not to play with a Totodile. Even if he's your starter.


To which social class do you belong?
I'm just… from a town. We're not rich or poor, no one in the town is, really. Looking around at how people live in other towns and seeing pictures of places like Castelia on TV I guess I could say I am a middle-class young boy?

Do you have any allergies, diseases or physical weaknesses?
Besides some discomfort on my hand when it's too cold well, no, not really. I'm not allergic to anything that I know of, but since I've never been overseas I guess I haven't tried to be "out there" much either.

What does your voice sound like?
Ugh… don't ask me that. I thought I knew what my voice sounded like up until a couple of years ago, then my parents showed me a clip of myself on TV from a battle. That was so embarrassing. And that's not counting that my voice kinda changed completely a bit before that. I would be only mildly surprised if it ends up I sound like a Squirtle...

What do you have in your pockets?
Uhm… Telephone. Yeah, I know, bad place to keep your phone in but I just don't feel comfortable wearing it anywhere else. Then there's the Trainer card, Government healthcare card, hunting permit card, some money, some road tickers I had to pay some of the money for. Most of everything else is on the bag.

Do you admit to having any quirks, strange mannerisms, annoying habits, or other defining characteristics?
I-uhm, no? (blushes a bit) Not that anyone's told me... I just tend to sleep all sprawled on the bed and wreck everything over. Why? What did I just do?

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