As we quickly rush towards November, I wanted to touch on three things that I have found helpful while trying to tackle the NaNoWriMo challenge. NaNoWriMo is about progress, 50,000 words in 30 days leaves little time for idle thoughts, so I wanted to touch on things that tend to trip us up while writing, namely Setting, Character and Plot. I am at heart, a planner, spontaneity is great but I like to have a bit of structure before trying to write a book. The point of these prep talks is not to give individual pointers so much as it is to get us thinking about the importance of each element, not individually but blended together, and how they will form the basis of the stories we tell . That said, let’s get to it!
So last week I mentioned that we should develop our settings as if we were developing our characters. I am sure some of you asked “Well how do I develop a good character?” Well I am glad you asked, lets try and answer that shall we! To write good characters you have to know what they are composed of. Most of our literary heroes are brave, selfless, good with a sword, trustworthy and graceful, others heroes tend to be exact opposites of these. A good character is a very subjective thing, ask a table of ten writers who their favorite literary protagonists are and you will get ten very different responses. This is because a good character is as complex as anyone you might meet on the street one day. There is no set of attributes that will automatically make your hero come alive. There is no magic formula for making perfect characters.
So how do we go about it? It’s really going to depend on your creative method. Some people journal, some people use detailed character worksheets. Others of us like to draw their characters, some just ask basic questions. Before you begin sprinting down the road with your characters in November, it will be vital to know them. What is their favorite food? What do they believe about the world? How they relate to the world and the other characters around them? You should strive to find out who are they? What do they dream about? Questions vital to our understanding of ourselves and those around us. As Carl Sandberg once said:
“It is necessary now and then for a man to go away by himself and experience loneliness; to sit on a rock in the forest and to ask of himself, ‘Who am I, and where have I been, and where am I going?’”
These questions help answer the basic characteristics of my personality and the same can be said of any character you are looking to create. Start with the basics. Who are they?
For this question I like to start off with a name, and if not a name then at least some sort of title. Up and Coming Business Woman, is not a really great name but it is something I can work with until I find a name that is perfect. But this question goes beyond a name. Who are you? I am sure you would not say, “I am Teller, nothing more to see here.” I am much more than a few lines of dialogue, I have feelings. I have beliefs. I have favorite foods. So do your characters.
Where has your character been? Our pasts have shaped us into the people we are today and the same is true for our characters. You don’t have to go back to the time your character was birthed (unless it is important to the story). If you can pick out just a few important moments in your characters past that defined them you will be on your way to making a more interesting character.
Where is your character going? I think a lot of people get this question wrong. They think of the character and their place in the story and where they are going to end up. I don’t care about that. What this question is about is where do your characters think they are going before the events of the story occur (we will talk more about why the plot wrecks lives next week). We all have hopes and dreams that we are striving to see completed. The same can be said of any character you write. If they don’t want to achieve anything, then they are boring.
However you develop your characters it is important to realize that almost everyone in your book should be somebody. Your hero’s best friend has different reasons for being there than the hero. Your villain needs to be as equally developed as your heroine and just just a bad person…because. The setting will take care of minor interactions; say between your characters and a shoe peddler who has nothing to do with the plot. But if that shoe peddler is in fact a spy who will come back later, you need to think about who they are and why they do what they do.
Again, there is no right or wrong way to develop a character, just so long as the task gets done. Do a simple google search and you will find a thousand variations on character worksheets. Some authors develop their plot and character together. Some develop their setting first. I usually build my villain and my hero at the same time as I try and figure out why they are at such odds with one another. One character I had to journal (in her voice) to discover her true identity. Another I sat down for an interview and grilled him about his life. Either way the result is the same, a short bio for each major character I will be using. Who they are, where they came from, and where they are going.