Hey guys! I am so sorry that this post was a few days late. But I kind of expected it. Developing a new series takes me a while, but this one was harder than most. I had to calculate how many posts I would have till I left and then decide on what order the topics should be in to make the most sense. I had to come up with creative titles for each post and then I had to make all the banners. Overall I think this series took the most time so far to build up. So, I guess this week you’ll get double posts. You will be getting a post on Monday (today) and a post on Friday. Yay! Hopefully you’ll enjoy this series as I have some great stuff planned. So without further ado the first post of the new series.
Building Better Characters: Wait… Who?
As any writer would tell you. The character is the lifeblood of your story. Without a good character your story isn’t really complete. If your character is simply a female/male protagonist with no motivation and no fears and no weaknesses and no relationships of any sort then your plot seems pretty ridiculous no matter how good it seems. If I’m writing Tokyo Ghoul (refer to my secrets of plot exposition part 3 post if you don’t know what I’m talking about or google it. Either or) and I didn’t give Kaneki Ken any sort of relationship then the story would seem pretty ridiculous. Why would Kaneki go on that fateful date if he didn’t have any motivation to do so? The rest of the story wouldn’t make any sense without any motivation. Why would he be trying to save others if he didn’t have any sort of motivation to have relationships with other people?
But even if your character has a great personality and a wonderfully thought out backstory that effects their motivation people won’t remember your character as a stand-alone being if they don’t have a good name, a good nickname (if you so desire), a great character trait or a certain style. Every great character has something that helps them be remembered. Harry Potter has a lightning bolt scar, Percy Jackson had black hair and sea green eyes, Katniss always had a braid. Small things like that make a character memorable and easy for your reader to recall on demand.
I wrote a book called Savior of Danterra. I lost the story after a while and it remains in my unfinished stories vault. But the one thing about this story that I have always remembered is the fact that my main character was blind. Blind from birth. The first four chapters are written from her four other senses. It was really really really really hard to write. But this gave her a memorable quirk and the few beta readers I had loved the story and the character. She was memorable.
Sometimes a character’s memorable feature isn’t their looks particularly. Sometimes it’s the small little quirks that they have. A characters quirks or way of talking can indicate who they are and make them just as memorable as a physical characteristic. Sherlock Holmes has a very specific way of speaking, one of my favorite side characters is a webtoon I read is never seen without a certain mug, Wax from Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series is always trading one thing for another. These little quirks make a character memorable.
Sometimes a character memorable trait is a piece of clothing or a certain style of dress. These items sometimes refer a person back to the characters history, introduce a new depth or simply hint at a character’s deep personality. Kaz Brekker from the Six of Crows series always has his gloves on, Prim always has the back of her shirt untucked, Cinder is always covered in grease because of her mechanical parts and her job. All of these characters are memorable because of their clothing.
The secret to making a good character a great character is making them human/well-rounded and memorable. In this series I hope to give some tips on how to make a character both of these things and I’m hoping to use a few more quotes then usual and a few more examples from my own writing. We’re going to make these posts just as memorable as your characters. 😊
So that’s all I have for this week guys. I hope that I’ll be able to see you all soon. On Friday hopefully with the next post for this series! Yay! And as usual,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!