Lady Dae Writes

So, since this week has hereby been dubbed character week, we’re going to go through the steps of creating a fictional character and after this post. I’ll even post some scans of the first incarnations of one of my main characters after this post. But first, down to the business of how to do this.

We could say that the basic process of making any character is the same and the basic process is pretty much the same, but the types of characters are different which changes the process just a little.  But before we get to talking about creating the Main Character, let’s list the types of character. It’s very simple really.

So let’s deal with the main character. First of all, what are the traits of a main character? That’s a little broad. Let me reword that. What is the purpose of the main character or main characters and what purpose will your main character serve? So let’s start with the basic stuff and work our way up.

It seems like you’d do this first, but the exact reason I went over roles and treating the creation of character like a casting director would cast actors for movies is because you have to build the character, especially the main character, based on what the character has to accomplish in your story. So my imaginary female protagonist has to:

So now that we know what she’s going to do, we have to build her personality to be able to do those things.

Personality: Personality actually entails quite a few things that I don’t have time to get into but will get into in later posts. There are the basics, like are they brave or fearless (yes there’s a difference), cowardly, determined, willful, stubborn, hot tempered, gentle souls etc… But here’s the thing about the MC, because they’re the one whose head the reader is going to be in most of the time, their personality has to be very distinguished and detailed so that they stand out amongst the rest of the character, especially if you have a large cast, which is why many MC’s have an outstanding characteristic that works as their greatest strength and also their greatest weakness. So here’s my character:

            My character is female, headstrong, very spoiled and used to getting what she wants, doesn’t let anyone stop her from doing anything she sets her mind to, and is a borderline feminist. Does that mean she thinks women are better? No. She thinks women have the same rights as men do and both play an important role in society. This means she’s stubborn and unfortunately because she’s so passionate, has a hot temper. Let’s say that her biggest weakness is that she has the tendency to be unsympathetic because of her strong personality.

This isn’t as detailed as it can be but hey, it works. Now on to the next part.

Age: This is very important. Choose your age wisely. Depending on what your character is doing, the degree of their personality, and the audience you’re going for determines the age. What would I look like writing a character like this, who has to defeat the sexist maniac, and she’s eleven years old? This isn’t manga where that kind of stuff happens. We need real world stuff. Manga’s allowed to do that. So I’m going to say that this character is… Seventeen. That works for the writer and that means we’re going to get a YA audience and we might get people a little older to reade if it’s written right.

Idiosyncrasies: Definitely give these to the main characters. These are things that will really distinguish the character from the other book characters (in your book and other books) that have similar personalities. I’m talking about that nervous habit like biting nail, being afraid of pigeons, liking spicy foods, being a fan of the Beatles etc… They can be the really odd ins and outs that maybe won’t even make it into your book but they make the character real and they’re even more fun if they seem to contrast with the personality.

Did that last one throw you for a loop? Yeah. I thought it would. The thing about characters is they’re like people and people sometimes like things that you would totally think they’d hate. You would think this character would hate Cinderella for obvious reasons. The whole prince and fairy god mother thing…

Special Skills and Abilities: First we have to know that this is not fantasy. So this means no magic, no flying carpets, no transformations, vampires, werewolves, or the like. But that doesn’t mean the character can’t have special skills and abilities. Maybe they’re a gymnast, athlete, spokesman, actor, typist etc. The list goes on forever. My character’s special skill? She has a way with words and I don’t mean she’s manipulative. I mean she knows the meanings of words and studies them and that’s a good skill to have if you need to say… insult the intelligence of the sexist maniac a few times.

Flaws: The characters always have to have a flaw. No human is perfect and flaws don’t have to obvious. The greatest strength can be the flaw. It can be physical, mental, morally, physical (I’m getting to that) whatever! I know my character’s fatal flaw right of the back. She’s an idealist. She thinks that everyone can somehow come to some form of agreement, that there’s always a compromise and in that sense, it also means she may be just a tad naïve.

Appearance: I did appearance darn near last for a reason. It’s down here because people tend to build a character on appearance sometimes and doing so can mess a writer up. Think of it like this, you’re only going to be able to describe your main character the way you see it. But the way you see it might not be the way the readers see it. They’re going to see the character based on the personality. But alas, the MC can look however you want them to look. As long as this person look like a seventeen year old girl, she can look like whatever… wait scratch that. The way she looks, not physically but the clothes the character wears and the bag they carry can be based on personality. My character can either be flashy, conservative or a mixture of both. But as for the stuff people are born with in genetics, that’s all free game.

Background check: This stuff may never pop up in your novel, but the writer needs to know the entire history of the main character. The past dictates the future. The character did something in the past that got them to where they are at the start of the story and the writer should at least be aware of that for continuity purposes of the novel and the character. The character might do things that the reader may think is off the fly, but if you have history to prove that the character would act that way it seals the deal.

Sympathy: The thing that distinguishes the MC from the other characters the most is this aspect. The MC has to be a character we can have sympathy for. If not, the reader can’t relate and the character risks not being likeable. We don’t necessarily have to like what the character does even. But we do have to understand it and it’s our job as the writer that we get this across about the MC in particular. So do you as the writer like the character? Is he/she meant to be a little dislikeable, but the motives are understood? Ask yourself these questions as you write, especially when your character does something that won’t be well received or might be a little out of character. Make sure you can make the reader understand.

What’s in a name? You should have been thinking about this the whole time and actually you can do this anytime something comes to you. But be very careful when you do this. Choose a name that you as the writer can like, not learn to like, but likes. I don’t know why this happened, but I hated the name I chose for my MC and because of that I couldn’t flesh out her personality like I wanted and at first I didn’t know what was wrong. I figured it out when I started cringing every time I saw the name and as soon as I found something better, the story wrote easier and she gained the personality I had imagined when I conceived her years ago. So yes. A name does matter and usually I shop around on the internet for names. But because I don’t have the time, I’ll just randomly name her Kiana.

So that’s the MC and the premise is pretty much the same for all the other characters accept… well, I’ll get to that tomorrow. They don’t have to be as detailed or stand out as much. The MC is like the bride in a wedding. All eyes are on them, but the bridesmaids and the groom and the groomsmen look nice too. But I’ll get to that tomorrow. Lol.

I was just reading over the list of rules for writing an essay to turn in to my professor and scoffed at half the rules because many of them are rules I break when I work on my novels. It’s so hard to transition back to being formal when all you do is creative writing. Then I thought of all the things I do in writing that my English teacher in grade school (or my mother) would have surely marked with red ink and took off a point for. Lol. Well I say, “O yea writers! Rules are meant to be broken!” And these are definitely five rules I quite often throw out the door in creative writing.

This was one of the first things every child learned when forming sentences. Every sentence should have a subject and a predicate and there are only for sentence structures; the simple, compound, complex, and the compound-complex sentence (I’ll make a post on that later if I lost you). And then there was the run-on and the fragment which should never ever be used… in formal writing people, and even then I have a problem. Adding Run-ons and fragments give the writing an informal feel, the story feeling. Being so proper can make the story sound stuffy and like those research articles I have to find for my essays in school. It’s a story, and it’s for entertainment, so occasionally it’s fine to have a run-on or a fragment here and there. It’s one of the things that makes a reader relate and makes the story sound real. I mean, all thoughts don’t flow in perfect sentences. Sometimes, they run-on and sometimes it’s fragmented (which was the point of the modernists, but moving on). And fragments… You gotta love ‘em. They sometimes just make the perfect punch when you need them, and I mean the short phrases, not the long run-on fragments. Correct those. But the short one to three word phrase? Perfect.

 These two sentence structures also help the story rhythm. Using all six sentence structures give the story a musical feel and makes it flow so the reader keeps reading. Don’t believe me? Ask Rick Moody. He said it to everyone at a writer’s conference.

Let me tell you something. If it makes the story sound good, the writer can use any word they damn well please at the beginning of a sentence. If it keeps the flow use it and if the writer thinks it can be done without, hey, that’s what revising is for. But seriously, don’t stress over the use of conjunctions and other words that aren’t supposed to be at the beginning of sentences. Formal writing is about being proper. Informal writing is about flow and keeping the reader reading. It’s alright. I do it all the time to create effect and so do many other writers. It’s okay every now and then.

I get in trouble for this in my school essays all the time. I keep saying it, and it makes me wonder why in grade school there weren’t two separate English classes; the creative English class and the formal English class. Tell me this? How many people in real life do we know that don’t ever speak with contractions? There are a few, but not many. Not using contractions, especially in a fictional entertainment work set in modern times where the characters aren’t part of some aristocracy, can alienate the reader because the voice sounds stuffy and not down to earth or real, especially in dialogue. People use contractions. So when writing dialogue, unless it’s just that type of character, use the contraction. Even use them in description if that’s what the voice and style of the novel call for. Voice and Style... That’s an entirely different post I’ll get to later. Anyway, the point is that this rule was and is for formal writing.

How many of us know what a preposition is anyway…? Just kidding and if someone doesn’t know, email me or Google it. Anyway, this is the same case with “and” and “but” at the beginning of a sentence. It works sometimes and it’s okay to use it at the end of a sentence. I think I used ‘for’ up there once. It’s not necessary and usually, the preposition at the end can be crossed out and the sentence reads fine, but it can be used for flow and style.

Now this is a new one for me that I learned in my World Lit. Class. Apparently, I’m not allowed to use the words it, this, these, those, that etc. in my writing, even if I make clear what it’s referring to. Again, my essays for college are formal writings, although I wonder how formal a person can get when they’re twenty-something years old and a sophomore in college. Really? If you haven’t heard of this rule, continue to act like you haven’t heard of it. As long as it’s clear what’s being referred to, ambiguous pronouns like these are fine. Hell, even if it’s not clear what’s being referred to, it’s fine if it’s being used as a creative device to convey a certain feeling.

In fact, the breaking of all the above ‘rules’ is simply the use of creative devices to propel the story, and keep the reader reading. They’re fine to use, but again, like all creative devises, just use them in moderation, like one would use salt and pepper in food. It gives the writing flavor and keeps readers entertained. So if you ever need a person to edit your work, get someone who understands creative writing devices, not someone like my mother who’s a stickler for formal writing.