I love the Hero’s Journey.

Finding it was my ‘rays of sunshine coming through the clouds’ moment.

After quite a while of just writing randomly, I felt that there must be some rules of thumb that could be used to ensure a story flowed, evolved and climaxed in a decent way – so I was overjoyed when I discovered it.

Quick aside - If you don’t know what the Hero’s Journey is – it’s a series of steps that the vast majority of satisfying stories go through, from introducing the protagonist’s world, through calling them to action, testing them, meeting with a mentor, through to final confrontation with the big bad. Read about this 'Universal Storyline' in more detail here.

It wasn’t so much invented as discovered, by Joseph Campbell as he researched the earliest stories ever passed down by word of mouth to modern stories. Most of the elements of the Hero’s Journey can be seen in the vast majority of bestselling novels and blockbuster movies.

However, I often come across an issue when gushing with excitement about the Hero’s Journey, and that is that people’s perception still seems to be heavily influenced by the word ‘Hero’ and to a lesser extent ‘Journey’.

These words make people feel that it only applies to fantasy adventure stories where there’s going to be a swashbuckler slaying dragons with a sword.

But of course this couldn’t be further from the truth. This set of stages can be applied to all genres, including romance, historical fiction, war, crime drama, etc etc .

I recently came across the utterly awesome blog of Allen Palmer – Cracking Yarns – where he has come up with an interesting way to try to ‘dispel notions that this amazing paradigm doesn’t apply to female protagonists, intimate dramas or romantic comedies.’

I highly recommend you go to his blog and read it cover to cover, but here I’m going to reiterate what he says in this particular post: http://www.crackingyarns.com.au/2011/04/04/a-new-character-driven-heros-journey-2/

Allen has come up with a ‘Character Driven Hero’s Journey’. This avoids a lot of the mythological vocabulary and also helps focus on the fact that while plot is of course important, it is transformation of character that moves us.

Here are the steps, with very brief descriptions:

 

Incomplete

Maps to – introduction to the hero’s world

The protagonist is unfulfilled in their normal life. There will be two things missing – one thing that they think they want (like money, fame, a Porsche – you get the idea) and another thing which they haven’t thought of, but is the real thing that will give them fulfilment. (compassion, self confidence, etc).

 

Unsettled

Maps to – Call to Adventure

The protagonist’s world becomes unsettled by an outside force. An invitation, threat or attack, perhaps.

 

Resistant

Maps to – Refusal of the call

The protagonist refuses to do the right thing. They are afraid, selfish or just have different priorities.

 

Encouraged

Maps to – Meeting the Mentor

The protagonist gets advice from someone. This meeting should push them on their way, but the advice isn’t necessarily good or the giver helpful – it may be an ultimatum or a challenge.

 

Committed

Maps to – Crossing the Threshold

Now the main character gets pro-active and does something about that thing that unsettled them. Ideally they should take some action that makes it impossible to go back to how they were in the first scene – some burning of bridges.

 

Disorientated

Maps to – Tests

Now the whole world is different as they try to navigate towards their goal and face unfamiliar challenges and new rules. They will probably fail several times at this stage.

 

Inauthentic

Maps to – The Approach

The protagonist is confronted with their flaw, but they refuse to address it.

 

Confronted

Maps to – The Ordeal

This is a slap in the face for the protagonist where they finally realise they have to face their flaw and do something about it or lose everything that is worth having.

 

Reborn

Maps to – The Reward

The lead character demonstrates that they are a changed person.

 

Desperate

Maps to – The Road Back

Remember right back at the beginning when we said that the character has two things missing from their life – the thing they want and the thing they need? Right here is where you make them face a choice between the two.

 

Decisive

Maps to – Resurrection

This is the climax of the story, where the protagonist must actively make their decision. They don’t have to choose right, but the consequences of their choice must be poetic.

 

Complete

Maps to – Return Home

The protagonist gets what they deserve. In the vast majority of cases, they will have correctly chosen what they need and will now be fulfilled in themselves.

If you’d like each of these steps described in more detail by the inventor, like I said, go to: http://www.crackingyarns.com.au/2011/04/04/a-new-character-driven-heros-journey-2/

Or if you have any thoughts, comments or feedback - let me know below! 

Cameo characters are minor characters who only have a very small part to play in your story, usually to facilitate the plot. 

If you’re a dedicated novelist, you’ll usually write a great deal of detail and back story about all your characters, including history, ancestry, education, preferences, characteristics, what’s in their fridge and all that.

But is that really necessary to that for every single character that appears?

My view is that it’s not, and also that it’s also not necessary to make such an effort make sure all cameo characters are completely unique, balanced and whole human beings (or aliens or hamsters of whatever).

Your main characters have to be filled with conflicts and contradictions and not just fall into the tired old tropes or people will get bored. However, it’s not necessary to do the same with minor or supporting characters, and in fact there are arguments for keeping these characters simple.

The fact is that in real life, we don’t get to know all the nuances and conflicts that are contained within everyone, and we often will put them in one stereotype box or another for ease of reference, and then move on. Obviously, if we get to know them better, we will learn that there is far more to everyone. At that point they cease to become passing acquaintances (or supporting / minor characters) and start to become friends (or major characters).

If you try to make every supporting character too complex, your readers will start to get exhausted trying to keep up with all the nuances, and may lose the plot.

One last thing to say about cameo characters – it is a great opportunity to come up with totally over the top characters for light relief. If a main character is too much of a caricature, then they will probably become tiresome after a while and stop feeling real. But with a supporting character you can give them all kinds of eccentricities, because they’ll only be there long enough to amuse and then they will shuffle off on their way, their bit part complete.

If you're writing a novel and found this article useful, you might want to take a look at our novel writing software. It's completely free to try for 30 days. Click here to visit the novel writing software website and find out more. 

This short writing exercise is based on one suggested by Margaret Geraghty in her excellent book – The five-minute Writer, which we highly recommend.

Sometimes the hardest thing about being a writer is just knuckling down and writing. And many writers live in fear of the dreaded blank page.

Writing exercises can help get the juices flowing and will also help hone your writing skills, preparing them for when you want to apply them to short stories, novels, or whatever else it is you write.

Writing about rituals

Rituals are not just all about religion and festivals, we all have all kinds of rituals in everyday life, many of which we’re probably completely unaware of – until they become interrupted and we find ourselves feeling unsettled or irritable.

When we read stories, the worlds and characters described on the page are not built entirely by the words that are supplied by the author, we use our life experience so far to fill out the details. If this didn’t happen, then authors would need to write reams of words in order to build an entire character or setting. As it is, they can use a few broad brushstrokes and know that the reader will apply stereotypes and personal life experience to fill in the rest.

We can use rituals to the same effect, by describing a common ritual that somebody might be familiar with, such as morning ablutions or making a first cup of coffee. It might be gathering all the things required for a yoga class or a dog walk, or preparing for a short or long trip.

The way in which the character carries out a common ritual will provide the reader with impressions of their character, as well as tone and atmosphere of the scene.

For example:

Janice bounds out of bed and splashes refreshing ice cold water on her face. She hums as she brushes her teeth and sweeps a bit of light make-up on, before heading downstairs for a crunchy breakfast of muesli and bananas with skimmed milk.

Nicole drags herself out of bed and swears at the perpetually flickering bare bathroom light bulb that she still hasn’t got round to fixing. She grimaces at herself in the mirror, squeezing spots of blood out of her gums. There’s no time for breakfast, as usual, so she slams the door behind her, stomach grumbling as she jogs down the road, not noticing the stain on the leg of her jeans.

A short writing exercise about rituals:

Think about the rituals you do in your life – this can be anything you do regularly, you don’t have to feel spiritual about it, or particularly attached, it’s just something routine. It may have a calming effect, but it may not. Write for fifteen minutes about your ritual. 

Try to write with specific detail, but there’s no need to over describe. For example, rather than saying ‘the dog lead’ say ‘the steel choker chain’ but don’t write 500 words when 300 will do.

Bring to mind someone you have strong feelings for, someone you’re indifferent to and someone you hate. Try to think of what kind of circumstances could swap those positions around.


For example, you’re out for dinner with your spouse (loved one, hopefully) when they tell you that they’ve been cheating on you – with the waiter (who you were indifferent to, but now hate). Your overbearing boss (hated one) happens to be in the same restaurant and comes over, whisking you away and comforting you with brandy and kind words. Huddled on their sofa under blankets, you notice for the first time that your boss actually has the most beautiful sparkling eyes, and seems to have the exact same love of jazz as you…

Now you try.

For more articles about creative writing and novel writing, visit The Novel Factory website.

If you're having trouble coming up with a good idea for plot, or if you're just starting out writing and you're not sure what constitutes a decent plot - one option is to take an existing story that you like, and transpose it.

This gives you a proven working formula for your novel, meaning you can concentrate on learning skills such as character development and writing tight prose. And by using one of the greats, you can learn a lot about the elements that are involved in a good plot on the way.

What do you mean by 'transpose a novel'

When talking about transposing a novel, we usually mean changing the location or era (though there are no laws, so you could switch the genders of all the characters, or turn them into ferret colony). Most commonly, an old classic such as something by Shakespeare will be moved into the modern day.

Transposing a story in this way brings a variety of challenges and opportunities. When using an established plot, you'll still want to make it your own, and to do so, you can take advantage of elements that exist in the new surroundings, that wouldn't have in the original. It can be fun to look for parallels between the two worlds, and if you're really smart, you can make interesting insights about how the world has changed or stayed the same...

For example, the rich feuding families ancient Verona in Romeo and Juliet were morphed into warring gangs in modern day New York in West Side Story (see below for more examples).

Remember that if you chose to follow this route, you're not bound by any rules about what you have to stick to and what you can change - it's completely up to you. You can be as faithful or deviant as you like. You could even change the ending to one you find more satisfying. The main objective is to ensure you breathe new life and flavour into the story, don't simply create a weak copy with only the names of places changed. Be ambitious and create something unique from the ingredients.

Examples of novels and movies that have been transposed:

Probably the most well known story to have been transposed many times is Romeo and Juliet, which has been brought into modern New York Gangland with West Side Story, as well as the Disney movie, High School Musical.


Sherlock Holmes has recently been rebooted by the BBC, who have taken the unusual step of retaining the exact names and characters and simply plopping them down in modern day England. The stories have remained somewhat faithful, but with the addition of modern knwoledge of science technological advancements and some bowing to the local customs (thich less hallucinogenic drugs).


Tess of the D'urbevilles was wrenched out of its rural English home and replanted in modern India, where it flourished as the film, Trishna.

Suggestions for further transpositions:

• Star Wars in a medieval village
• The Hobbit in modern day London
• Les Miserables in futuristic space

What are your favourite modern adaptations of old classics? Do you have any suggestions for transpositions you'd like to read?

If you liked this article, you're love our novel writing software - click here for a free trial.

Picking the right names for your characters can make a big difference to the feel of your story.

There are some names from literature which are unique and feel imprinted on our memories, such as Heathcliff, Hannibal, Simba and even Cinderella. Would these names immediately bring to mind a single entity if they were Jack, Peter, Mohammed or Claire?

Here are a few tips to help you find the perfect fit name:

Reflect the character's personality in the name

You can be obvious about this (surnames like Moody, Love, Nice and Right all exist in real life), but you may want to be a bit more subtle. This is a lot easier if your character is from a foreign country. It's great fun to use a meaning of name website (these are often in the guise of baby name websites, even though adults have names too) and search for a trait you feel is strong in your character. This is much harder when it comes to villains, because there are far fewer names around that deliberately invoke negative characteristics. If there aren't any real names, then make one up.

Make sure they aren't too similar

There's nothing more frustrating for a reader than getting mixed up between characters and having to go back and reread to check who really did what. Use first letters, length and contours to make sure the names are instantly visibly distinguishable.

Research the era and location

If your book is set in a particular time or place, then make sure you do your research and not accidentally use an innappropriate name - for example a Chinese name instead of a Japanese one, or a name that didn't exist in that period.

Or, if you're really not having any luck, then give up and use a character name generator.

If you want more help in developing characters, seeing the story from their point of view and general novel writing advice - then click here.

When you're creating characters for a novel, it's a good idea to pin down their history in as much detail as possible.

For the most part none of this information will actually be directly shared with your readers, but the very knowing of it will make your character seem much more solid when you write about their actions and dialogue.

Personally, I like to push myself into going into as much detail as possible by breaking it down into the following sections:

• Baby
• Toddler
• Child
• Teenager
• 20 - 30
• 30 - 40
• 40 -50
• 50 - 60
• Etc - up the age that they are, obviously.

You may feel this is overkill, but creating characters that feel like real people is one of the hardest parts of writing a novel, and when you take the time to get to know your characters in this much depth, they begin to take on a life of their own.

For example, when thinking about the childhood of your main character, you note down that they once fell into a bush of stinging nettles, and now they hate walking through the woods. The stinging nettle story may never come up, but if your character is forced to walk through a forest, they might react nervously. On the other hand, another main character, who spent their childhood climbing trees and being active, relishes the walk through the woods.

Of course, you could have created this conflict and contrast from thin air - i.e. just decided with your godlike powers that one of them likes the woods and the other doesn't - but knowing why just makes it feel more solid, and that will show in subtle ways in the prose.

Furthermore, as you're forced to think about each stage, you'll get a better grip of their career trajectory (or whatever) and you'll get to know more about the peripheral people and influences in their lives, such as their first boss, the guy that sits next to them in the office, their first crush on that Russian. It forces us to justify the elements of their lives - such as why they live in a two bedroom apartment. Does that actually fit with their parentage and current earnings?

Another advantage of this is that you'll find incidents occur to you that really will end up informing their behaviour throughout your book, and some of them may even make it as scenes - but be careful of including a scene from their childhood just because you've become emotionally attached to how awesome is.

Even worse, don't even think about giving a low down of the history of the character in chapter one.

Knowing your character's history is your business, just like knowing your own. Elements of it will naturally come up in conversation with people at appropriate moments, but you wouldn't meet someone and immediately tell them your life story. Keep it subtle and your characters will come across as real people with full lives independent of this particular story that they're currently taking part in.

Congratulations! You’ve finished your first draft! You deserve a big cigar, glass of champagne or whatever it is you celebrate these things with. Feel free to take a few days or a week off, you’ve earned it.

But then, back to work! You may think that now you’ve thrashed out a first draft, the hard part is over, and you’re reaching the finish line. Afraid not. There’s a whole lot more slog to go. But don’t be disheartened! You’re still further then 80% of people who say they’re going to write a book. Don’t give up!

Most of the large scale structure of your book should be relatively fixed by now – if you planned well, it will mean less serious redrafting is needed (for example cutting out entire chapters of characters), so you can focus on fine tuning.

We’ve already looked at some of the mistakes that will instantly mark you out as an amateur, now let’s take a look at a few aspects of writing that you can perfect to take your writing from mediocre to excellent.

Note - if you're looking for a guide to the various different drafts of a novel, you might be interested in this article.

Have you over explained your characters?

The core of this is the good old ‘show, don’t tell’. Make sure you’re not explaining the character’s personality to your readers, as they’re likely to find it dull and distancing.

Compare:

‘Jane was a slob. She hadn’t tidied up in months.’

‘Jane kicked the mouldy plate off the bed and rummaged around for the least stiff pair of jeans from the piles strewn on the floor.’

In the first example, the author makes a statement about a character, and then backs it up with a little evidence, but they’re still just giving their word. In the second example, the author is keeping out of it, just describing the action and letting the reader draw their own conclusions about the cleanliness habits of Jane.

Also, new writers often feel they need to give the entire life story of a character early on, but this isn’t a good idea. It stalls the action, and anyway, it’s more natural to get to know people in a slower, more gradual way. When you meet someone new, you don’t immediately learn everything about them, that happens over time.

By just giving consistent broad brushstrokes, you allow your reader to use their imagination and fill in the gaps, in many cases creating a character with more layers than even you thought of.

Another useful technique for building character is to use what your character notices to give information about them. When they enter a room, do they notice all the pretty girls; the stains on the carpet; or do they note all the exits and times to reach them? What they notice tells us a great deal about their outlook and priorities.

Is the Point of View clear?

A nice way of thinking about point of view is ‘whose skin are you in?’ 

This doesn’t mean that you need to write your story from the 1^st person (using ‘I’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘she’), or even that you have to use the same character’s point of view through the whole book (although the latter may not be a bad idea if it’s your first book – learn to walk before you run).

However, it is critical that the reader knows whose point of view they are following in any given scene, and this shouldn’t change within a scene.

This is because changing point of view character within a scene is very disorientating for the reader and it breaks their suspension of disbelief, as they have to mentally adjust.

Writing from a particular character’s point of view is more than just where they are standing; it’s also about what they notice. As mentioned above in the section on characters, different characters will have completely different experiences from exactly the same environment. 

For example, you’d be unlikely to have a teenager commenting on the ancient gothic architecture (unless that’s a strong part of their character), and an old lady might notice a gang of louts hanging on a corner, but have no idea what the gang bands on their arms represented.

Also, remember that you may be able to mind-read the Point of View character even if you’re writing from the third person, but you absolutely cannot read the minds of anyone else (unless your PoV character happens to be psychic), so you’ll have to get across their opinions through what they say, how they say it, actions and body language.

How proportionate is your plot?

How does your prose balance? How much is action, dialogue or description?

In general, no sentence should be included if it isn’t critical to the plot, but this doesn’t mean there’s no time to stop and smell the roses. As long as the roses have some relevance to atmosphere, and they are described in a way that reflects the mood of the scene.

If you’re going to spend a lot of lines describing something, make sure it’s relevant. For example, don’t spend two pages describing the interior of one building and two lines on another, unless the first building is central to the plot. Because you can be sure your readers are going to think it is.

Likewise, if your character is doing something, such as cooking, or fixing a saddle, don’t describe it in too much detail unless it’s important to the plot or builds atmosphere. Just because you find a hobby interesting, doesn’t mean your readers will.

On the other hand, if there’s an action scene which is central to the plot, shows key aspects of a main character and throbs with atmosphere – then break it down into moment by moment detail.

Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules to follow about how much description to have and how much detail to include in a particular spot – it’s all about balance.

With the second draft in the bag you can see the finish line. It's time for Step 14: Refining the Final Draft of your novel.

For more guidance on novel writing, click here.

Even if you’re telling the whole story from one character’s viewpoint, it’s a great idea to walk through the story from each character’s viewpoint.

This can highlight continuity errors, and also add dimensions to your characters.

For each character, make a note of the scenes they appear in, then walk through that list - ignoring the scenes they’re not in. Make sure their appearances make sense from their point of view, and then imagine what the character is doing while they’re not present in a scene.

This helps you avoid ‘teacher syndrome’ where pupils assume teachers only exist during school hours with the idea of them having lives of their own being quite unimaginable. By filling in the gaps in your character’s existence, you give them their own life and realistic motivations.

This can add flavour to your story, for example, outside of a story a character may have just had a fight with their partner, so when your lead turns up they’re in no mood to chat. This adds more realism and interest than every character your lead encounters being in a neutral mood.

Note - If you’re nifty with excel, and have followed the previous step you can create a new column for each character, mark the corresponding box that lines up with each scene, create a table, then filter by character to do this in a power-user type of way. But if you didn’t follow any of that, don’t worry about it – you can generate the same results by hand.

Read more about this character viewpoint technique here.

Ready for Step 11? Blocking is the last step before you are ready to write your first draft. 

The Novel Formula - A Novel Writing Method: Step Seven

Full Character Profiles - Character Questionnaire

By now, you should already have a basic character profile for each of your main characters - comprising name, age, motivation, a single sentence summary of their role in the story, and a single paragraph summary of their role in the story. Also, you'll have completed an initial investigation into what makes each character tick.

If you don't have these things -click here.

Next, we're going to complete a detailed questionnaire about each major character. This is useful because it makes you look at  them from all kinds of angles you might not have thought of - such as: what do they have in their pockets? Or, how do they treat people worse off than them? And these little insights and details may help add interesting twists and layers to your plot.

If things occur to you while you're completing the questionnaires, it's a good idea to note the changes on your synopses - it should be a working document, constantly being updated and fine tuned as new strokes of genius occur to you.

Even the answers you discover that have no direct impact on your plot are invaluable. The information will help round out the character in your mind, and when you write from their perspective - this will come out, whether you notice it or not.

It's best not to try to complete the questionnaires for all characters at the same time - do each character at least one day apart, otherwise you'll rush it and burn out.

Another reason it's good to spread these out over a little time, is to give you a chance to people-watch in between. With the questions fresh in your mind, observe all the people around you - family, friends, colleagues, strangers - watch them all, and see what inspiration you get to supply interesting answers to the questions.

Completing these questionnaires should also highlight if any of your characters are too similar. If you're finding yourself writing too many of the same or similar answers then your characters may not be unique enough, and it may be worth doing more to make them stand apart.

If you have two characters that both have wild hair, sharp blue eyes and a cocky, outgoing personality, you've got to ask yourself, do you really need both of them? Could their actions be merged, streamlined into one? (Compare the Trainspotting film and book for interesting examples of how this can be done). More importantly, if your characters are too similar, your readers might get confused between them, and that's a sure-fire way to ruin your carefully thought out plot.

The questions in the character questionnaire are deliberately vague, they are meant to be open to a bit of interpretation.

One final note - don't get too dogmatic about it - if you want to skip a question, skip it. It's not an exam.

So, here's the character questionnaire:
Update - Click here for the new updated Ultimate Character Questionnaire

1.            First name:

2.            Surname:

3.            Middle name:

4.            Nicknames:

5.            Date of birth:

6.            Age:      

7.            Height:  

8.            Weight:  

9.            Hair:

10.          Eyes: 

15.          Skin:

20.          Hands:

21.          Scars, handicaps: 

24.          Family:

29.          Best friend:

34.          Other friends:

39.          Acquaintances:

44.          What makes them laugh:

45.          Ambitions:

46.          Philosophy of life:

47.          Hobbies:

48.          Music, art, reading preferred:

49.          Style of dressing:

50.          Favourite colour:

51.          What is in her purse or his wallet: 

56.          What is in their pockets:

57.          Favourite food:

58.          Allergies:

63.          What is in their fridge:

68.          Possessions:

69.          Most treasured possession:

70.          Educational background:

71.          Work experience/occupation: 

72.          Enemies and why:

73.          Description of home:

74.          Description of bedroom:

75.          Strongest character trait:

76.          Weakest character trait:

77.          Sees self as:

78.          Seen by others as:

79.          How do they treat people better than them:

84.          How do they treat people worse than them:

85.          Strongest childhood memory:

88.          How do they react to praise:

91.          How do they react to adversity:

Ready for the next step - Structuring a novel plot? Click here.

The Novel Formula - A Novel Writing Method: Step Five

Character Viewpoints

This is a really fun step, in which you get inside the skin of your characters, discover if there are any impossibilities in your plot and give the story a level of depth that you just couldn't get by coming at it from your omnipotent author viewpoint.

What you're going to do, is write a synopsis of the story from the point of view of each of the major characters - taking about a page for each. You should let you imagination loose at this point, so don't worry too much if you run over, just don't burn out before you've done them all!

If your story is primarily told from the point of view of the lead character, you will have to be really strict about their synopsis - if you're getting to the point where you have five pages and you're still in the early stages - it's getting out of hand.

Do your best to try to really get into each individual character; speaking as they would speak, noticing what they would notice and even using metaphors that they would. Does your character use a lot of long words or a lot of slang? Do they immediately scope out the decor of a room, the people in it, or the escape routes? Do they use a lot of sporting metaphors or sea ones, or sensory ones?

Personally, I like to imagine the character sitting on a stool in the middle of a room, being asked to explain what happened - but you don't have to do it that way.

Before you write each character story synopsis, make sure you check over the notes you already have to remind yourself of what you've already learned about your character. This will help you keep it consistent and also inspire the synopsis.

The character story synopsis should not tell the entire history of the character, starting when they were a child (unless that's relevant), but should start at the first relevant point to the story. This may, however, be before the story begins for the lead.

Think about what the character is doing in-between encounters with other characters and appearances in the story. You don't have to know every single detail, but they should never vanish from existence.

By doing this sort of synopsis, not only will you get to know your characters better, but you will make them seem much more real, as it forces you to think about what they're doing when they're not in your main narrative. This starts to give them their own lives, and can affect how they behave when they are in the main narrative.

For example, if you haven't thought about what a character has been doing immediately before your lead encounters them, they may tend to be in a neutral mood, and just hanging around doing nothing, or doing something vague. Once you've walked through the story in their shoes though, you might know that they've just had an argument with their sister, or just received a long awaited letter, or simply just stubbed their toe. How will this affect how they receive your lead?

In this way you can add more interesting complications and conflict, adding depth and realism.

So go ahead and get started on your character story synopses.

Click here for the next step in the Novel Formula - extending your synopsis.

The Novel Formula - A Novel Writing Method: Step Three

Character Introductions

Note - if you haven't already, you may wish to read the previous steps of the first novel writer's method: step one or step two.

Now you've got a basic grasp on your plot, it's time to bring in the cast.

We're going to use a technique to quickly build a basic character and then will build on that foundation in later steps to ensure each character is layered with depth, inner values and mannerisms.

As you write your story, you will probably find that the characters will change the plot from what you envisioned and characteristics will emerge as you put them in different situations.

So we're not going to try to proscribe and pin down every aspect of each character right from the start. 

We'll begin with a broad brushstroke, then slowly fill in the detail and dig down into the character's persona until we discover what really drives them, then we'll keep adding spices and surprises until we have a fully formed, contradiction prone character with history, values and motivations.

Carry out the following steps for each of your major characters:

 

Layer One: The gameshow introduction.

Write a gameshow style  introduction for your character, a single sentence. This can be fairly flexible, so it'll probably be easiest to demonstrate the right kind of thing with examples:

·         

• A depressed housewife whose closest friend is her little terrier.
• A geography teacher with sweaty armpits and lots of nicknames.
• A naive young prince with a good heart.

Good - so far so shallow, right?

 

Layer Two: picking apart the overview

Now take each word or cluster of words in the gameshow introduction and ask and answer as many questions about it as you can think of.

 

A depressed housewife whose closest friend is her little terrier.

Depressed - How does it manifest? Is she actually on medication? How long has this been going on? Does she confide in anyone about it? 

Housewife - Does she have children? If so, how many? How big is her house? Where is her house? What does her husband do? Is it a loving marriage? Does she enjoy being a housewife? Is she a good housewife or a bad one?  How long has she been a housewife?

Closest friend is her little terrier - What kind of terrier? How long has she had him? How did she get him? What do they do together? Are they ever apart?

 

A geography teacher with sweaty armpits and lots of nicknames.

Geography Teacher - Is he a good teacher? Did he always want to be a teacher? What age does he teach? What sort of school does he teach at? What sort of methods does he use? What sort of geography doe he teach?

Sweaty armpits - Why does he have sweaty armpits? Is it a medical problem? Does he wear too many layers of clothes (why?)? Do they smell? Does he exercise on the way to school?

Lots of nicknames - What are they? How many kids use them? Do the teachers use them as well? His wife (is he married?)?

 

A naive young prince with a good heart.

Naive - Why is he naive? Is it a lack of education? A lack of experience? Is he deliberately sheltered? Or is he simply a bit slow? Or maybe just optimistic about people?

Young - How old? Does he act young for his age?

Prince - Prince of where? Where is he in line to the throne? Does he have servants doign everything for him? Does he have brother to temper how well he's treated? Is he being lined up for responsibility? Being groomed to be King?

Good heart - How does he show he has a good heart?

By the end of this process you should be starting to get an idea of your character. To tidy up the loose ends, also make the following notes about each character:

• ·         Full Name
• ·         Age
• ·         What motivates this character?
• ·         Single sentence summary of character's role in story
• ·         Single paragraph summary of the character's role in story

Great! Now your characters are starting to take shape,  it's time to paint a bit more detail into your story. To avoid creating a rambling first draft, most of which will need to be cut later, we're going to slowly build our story, ensuring all the necessary elements are in place, and that we're not creating any blind alleys or irrelevant waffle.




Click here for step four - writing a short synopsis.

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A friend of mine is fond of saying 'character is plot' and the arching his eyebrow meaningfully.

Does he mean plot is meaningless? No, just that almost all plots have been used, but that doesn't matter as long as your characters appeal to the sensibilities of your reader.

Whether it be adventure, romance or crime, there are only so many situations that can take place, but like in real life it doesn't matter if it's happened a hundred times before if your, personal, emotional well-being counts on the outcome.

So you'll have your reader on the edge of their seat if they believe in your character and care about what happens to them.

That's all very well, but show to develop a three dimensional, believable character?

What follows is one way of developing a character with multiple layers and internal personality conflicts. 

It is by no means the only, or necessarily even the best way to build a character - everybody will have their own preferences. For some people, characters naturally spring to life of their own accord, and others base their creations on real life people.

But those of us that only have one personality residing in our heads, and wish to avoid law suits and huffy friends, a guide can be an invaluable starting point to get the process going.

This post is heavily inspired by Brandylin Collins - Getting into Character, and we highly recommend you buy it and read it cover to cover.

Layer One - The One Liner

Start with a  single line description of the character you have in mind, think of it like a blind date introduction (you can even say it out loud in the dulcet tones of 'Our Graham if you like). 

Here are some examples:

·         A depressed housewife whose closest friend is her little terrier.

·         A geography teacher with sweaty armpits and lots of nicknames.

·         A naive young prince with a good heart.

Good - so far so shallow, right?

Layer Two: picking apart the overview

Now take each word or cluster of words in the gameshow introduction and ask and answer as many questions about it as you can think of. 

For example:

A depressed housewife whose closest friend is her little terrier.

Depressed - How does it manifest? Is she actually on medication? How long has this been going on? Does she confide in anyone about it?

Housewife - Does she have children? If so, how many? How big is her house? Where is her house? What does her husband do? Is it a loving marriage? Does she enjoy being a housewife? Is she a good housewife or a bad one?  How long has she been a housewife?

Closest friend is her little terrier - What kind of terrier? How long has she had him? How did she get him? What do they do together? Are they ever apart? 

A geography teacher with sweaty armpits and lots of nicknames.

Geography Teacher - Is he a good teacher? Did he always want to be a teacher? What age does he teach? What sort of school does he teach at? What sort of methods does he use? What sort of geography doe he teach?

Sweaty armpits - Why does he have sweaty armpits? Is it a medical problem? Does he wear too many layers of clothes (why?)? Do they smell? Does he exercise on the way to school?

Lots of nicknames - What are they? How many kids use them? Do the teachers use them as well? His wife (is he married?)

A naive young prince with a good heart.

Naive - Why is he naive? Is it a lack of education? A lack of experience? Is he deliberately sheltered? Or is he simply a bit slow? Or maybe just optimistic about people?

Young - How old? Does he act young for his age?

Prince - Prince of where? Where is he in line to the throne? Does he have servants doign everything for him? Does he have brother to temper how well he's treated? Is he being lined up for responsibility? Being groomed to be King?

Good heart - How does he show he has a good heart?

Layer Three: Inner Values and Mannerisms

It starts to get a bit trickier here, as you're going to have to make more judgement calls. But bear with it, and you'll get the hang of it. 

Imagine you are a psychologist interviewing your character. You're going to ask them a questions, then stubbornly keep asking then: Why? Why? Why? Until they really can't go any further. At that point you'll have found an inner value or trait of your character. 

Then you can use that inner value to inspire a mannerism to go with it. That way your character's mannerisms will feel genuine and not forced (hopefully).

Let me show you what I mean, we'll start with our depressed housewife.

Why are you depressed?

Oh, I don't know - there's nothing to be happy about?

Why?

Oh, I just don't have anything expect Archie.

Why?

Because my husband owns everything.

Why?

Because he earns the money, he's always earned very well, and made a lot of money.

Why?

Well, he's very smart, he worked hard at school and he works hard now.

Why?

He loves his work. It's the most important thing in his life.

Now we've discovered something. She thinks her husband cares more about her work then about her. OK, it's not exactly the most original inner value, but then humans often are quite stereotypical.

If you think you've got it, go ahead and have a go.

Once you've found one inner value, start again from the beginning with a different question and see where you end up. 

The next step is to pit your values against each other - hopefully finding some inner conflict!

For example, we may have discovered that as well as feeling she's worthless to her husband, our housewife loves the lifestyle in which his money keeps her, and also that she'd do anything for her terrier.

So we try to come up with a really difficult question for her. For example:

What if your husband told you he'd had enouhg of the dog and it had to go?

Would she finally get some self respect and leave him? Or would the lifestyle win out over both her self -esteem and her beloved pooch? How your character answers these difficult questions will start to really give them depth.

You may feel that our example (and possible your own character) follows too much of a stereotype to a be a truly unique and original character. Well, being original does not necessarily mean avoiding stereotypes with a vengence. 

If you try to a create a character doesn't follow any stereotypes, not only will you find yourself fighting a losing battle, but if you succeed, what you end up with is likely to be a disjointed and jarring character. Stereotypes exist for a reason. The key is not to create a character that is completely original in every way, but to take a stereotype and twist it a bit, add flavour and uniqueness to it until you have something which feels like a real person, with depth.

Read more about stereotypes and how to make the most of them here. 

Layer Four: Enrichening Detail

OK, after that challenge, things are getting a bit more straightforward for a while. Simply answer the a detailed questionnaire from the point of view of your character.

You can find a character questionnaire here.