creating characters tagged posts

Welcome to day three, guys! Yesterday, we created some of your main characters. Remember, they should all have a first name and a distinction. This is important. For today’s work, it’s imperative to know whether you’re dealing with an antihero or an antagonist.

It’s time to start building your plot, and that’s going to happen via character development. Remember how you wrote down a super simple plotline on day one? It’s time to grab that document.

Each character plays a role in the success of your plot, or else they are a worthless character to have in your story. The way to determine the significance of each character to your plot is to draft a short synopsis for them.

Let’s take a look at my character Blythe Washington from the Belle Âme Chronicles series...

One of the hardest yet most crucial things to deduce for one’s prose is how to structure the plot. Whereas each individual genre has its own form of structure–a thriller is structured differently than a drama, and both are structured differently than a comedy–, all genres tend to follow The Hero’s Journey.

The Hero’s Journey is a 12-step process commonly seen in Hollywood movies, memoirs, and even (gasp!) religious tomes. If you have absolutely no clue how to start your prose, take your main character, and have them follow this arc.

1. The Ordinary World – What does the Hero do before he has any inkling about his quest? What is his life like? Where is his safe place? What does he love? What does he hate? This is your chance to introduce us to our Hero and show us why we should like him...

In our last installment, I mentioned how believable characters are the key to writing success. Whether it is starting your prose or continuing your prose or hoping that your readers enjoy your prose, your characters will make or break your prose in general.

So, the question becomes…how do I create believable characters?

Many websites feature 100-200 question “interviews” to give to each of your characters. The purpose of these interviews is the belief that–once you are done filling it out–you will know everything there is to know about that character: where they came from, who they are, their hopes, their fears, their strengths, and their faults. And this logic is not wrong, as you will know virtually everything that there is to know about that character after answering every questi...

In my last blog post, I discussed how to make it past “writer’s block” to continue crafting your prose and create prose with less filler. But then arises the question of How do you keep your momentum?

Even if you don’t hit a wall of writer’s block and not know where to go, how do you prevent just…well…just not caring about the prose anymore? How do you prevent yourself from finding everything and anything else more desireable to do than sitting down and typing out words? How do you ensure that your words just flow from your fingertips in rapid speed without dragging along for page after page?

One word:

Characters.

Think about your favourite books, television shows, comic book characters, movies, etc. What do you like best about them? I’ll bet you just thought of a character...