Wattpad brings you a guest post from Angus Ecrivain, author of Tales from the Easter Quadrant.
Check out his writing tips on developing a story character:
Character Development
1. Let’s start off easy. First, you have to create your character. Come up with a name. Your character’s moniker is unimportant, yet at the same time it may well be the single most important thing about him/her. For argument’s sake, let’s say this character’s name is Jamie.
Boy or girl? Man or woman? The choice is yours but in this case, we’ll say Jamie is a twenty-two year old woman.
2. OK that’s the easy part over and done with. Now comes something slightly more difficult. What is it about Jamie that makes her special? Every single character you create needs a defining characteristic, no matter how small or insignificant it may be.
Does she have some kind of super power? Is she a witch? A werewolf? A vampire?
I hope the answer to all of the above questions is a definitive ‘no’. Don’t get me wrong, there really is nothing wrong with a chick possessing super powers, magical abilities, or being a creature of the night - I’ve used all of those myself, but so have a lot of other people. Use any of those in anything other than an already well established story and you’re in serious danger of writing a cliche.
Let’s say that Jamie’s primary defining characteristic is her OCD. Her routine is the same every single morning. She wakes up and has a cigarette whilst still being in bed. Once out of bed she makes her way downstairs, I’ll leave it to you to decide her attire, and has a coffee and another cigarette. You get the point? Good. Every day, always the same. Simple. Effective.
3. Now for the interesting part. As a twenty-two year old woman, it’s likely Jamie has a job, especially as she can afford cigarettes and coffee. So what does she do for a living? What profession would conflict with her OCD? All characters need conflict on some level or another. That’s what makes them interesting.
Jamie could be anything you want her to be. A Stripper? A Doctor? A Priest? A Teacher? A Taxi Driver?
All of the above would provide conflict with her OCD, and make life difficult for her. I don’t know about you, but I enjoy strong female characters so for that reason, we’ll say that Jamie is a Police Officer in the Metropolitan Police Force.
4. So now we have Jamie, an OCD-suffering Police Officer, twenty-two years of age.
Now you need to come up with a scenario to test Jamie. It can be anything at all.
Aliens invade London? Yeah… I like the sound of that. Surely that would be a test for anyone, never mind one suffering with OCD. Especially if these aliens are anything like those from the ‘Alien’ movie franchise. Chances are, a coffee and a cigarette when she wakes up in the morning will be the last thing on Jamie’s mind. Although I don’t know about you, even if I didn’t smoke, I’d likely take up the habit!
5. By now you’re well into your story. How’s that going? Are we winning, or are the aliens well and truly taking over? Either way, it doesn’t matter to me and makes no difference to the development of Jamie.
From this point you can go one of two ways.
a) Make her kick-ass.
b) Make her one of those whiny girls we all hate.
I have to say I’d go with option ‘a’ every single time, and that’s where even I fall prey to the cliche trap. But the thing is, no one wants to read about those whiny girls we all hate, they simply do not make believable heroines. Whereas a totally ass-kicking babe who overcame her OCD to save the world? Well… we’ll all buy into that.
Check out Angus Ecrivain’s stories on Wattpad!