Six Steps; May 31 2020
We’re a day away from June, and it’s harder than ever to remain positive. There’s a lot to be horrified about, from continued police brutality against black Americans to new waves of Covid-19 to adoptive parents ‘re-homing’ their children like pets. If you haven’t heard of any of the above and you’re in a good enough mental place to handle the world at its worst, I’ve included links to the above examples. Please don’t read if you’re feeling sensitive or overwhelmed – got to take care of yourselves first and foremost.
As always, I’m looking ahead. If you’re a fellow writer doing the same, you might be gearing up for #PitMad on June 4th. PitMad is a novel pitching event that I’ve talked about in this post, so I won’t go over what it is again. I just hope that if possible, you’ll check the hashtag throughout the day and retweet pitches you want to support!
I want to talk this week about something I touched on in my last blog post. I mentioned that I start character creation based on voice first, so I thought I’d expand on that!
As you might know, most industry professionals refer to ‘voice’ as the way a character expresses themselves inwardly and outwardly. This has to be consistent, no exceptions.
So, when I start thinking of characters, it always forms around a concept, a sentence, a feeling. I’ll be using the protagonist of my fantasy novel, Kanae, as an example. I was sixteen and wanted to see a character that reflected how I felt about other people and the world, which boiled down to one sentence:
‘Please let me help.’
Kanae’s foundation was born from that sentence. I knew that she was an altruistic, idealistic person, determined to do right by the world. Doing something small-scale wasn’t enough for her. She was the kind of person who couldn’t rest until she’d enacted major change. I was certain she didn’t know how, though, and that she was equally ignorant of the impact she could have. She didn’t know what she was worth.
I started creating the world based on one girl having enormous potential, and decided it was a fantasy world in order to give myself more control over how that potential could manifest. I knew she was naive and had to give her a backstory to skew her view of right and wrong, give her something to question as her journey progressed. I was also fascinated with geisha at the time, so I liked the idea of Kanae being a member of this elegant group of artists. In combining the idea of priestesses with that of geisha, courtesans (they are different things, if you didn’t happen to know that! A Western misconception led to the belief that oiran and geisha are the same thing) and assassins, I created the Ornaments. And really, the courtesan element was included just because I figured it was easier to assassinate someone while seducing them.
So now I had some key worldbuilding done, and a character halfway realized! Kanae is an Ornament, skilled in the art of entertaining, trained to kill, and trying desperately to be good.
If you have your world and genre already, take a step back and look at the setting to see where this character will fit best. It doesn’t make sense, for example, to make your protagonist the King of a fantastical country if your concept was ‘I want things to go back to normal’ - unless it does! Maybe you’re forming a story around the idea of a reluctant sovereign whose crowning has brought about terrible personal upheaval! Just make it make sense. If you don’t have your world yet, you can use what you know about your new character to create a setting, and you’ll find that the more you learn about your protagonist, the more worldbuilding will snowball.
I decided that if she was going to have trouble with her sense of worth and what she could do for the world, she had to struggle with being an Ornament to some degree. She’s an excellent dancer, but sometimes a little thoughtless and reluctant to do what ‘needs to be done’. She needed to think her sect killed in the name of good, and that meant some of the seeds of plot were being sown while I was working on Kanae’s character. The Ornaments kill soldiers who come to them for entertainment and company, and these soldiers are led by a ruthless dictator.
The story was taking shape! But there was still more to Kanae, and I needed to nail down her relationships before I felt confident in writing her. Naturally, I also wanted to have at least a vague idea of what she looked like as well, but that was just sort of happening along the way. Cherry red hair (dyed to be that colour), grey eyes, petite and graceful.
Kanae felt like the sort of person with a lot of love for everyone, who thought the best of people. She couldn’t have kept her chin up as an Ornament – a taxing job, I was certain – without a friend or lover in the sect. I also wanted her to humanize the soldiers when others might demonize them instead, so I knew she would befriend a soldier. Then I needed a civilian, someone affected by the tyrant’s behaviour in ways Kanae wouldn’t necessarily know about. Ymi, Niac, and Quin were needed, and I knew what role they were each going to fill, but I needed voice to actually start creating them. I had to start the character building process from square one with each one.
If you’re having trouble following, this is how it all boiled down in step-by-step format.
Find a concept to build around – it can be a sentiment, a phrase, anything that evokes emotion and makes you think.
Create ‘voice’ by threading that concept into personality, self-image, and goals. Make sure it’s consistent!
Find where your character fits in your setting!
Ground your character in reality through misconceptions. Conflict and character development happen when your characters’ idea of the truth changes.
What kind of backstory would lead to your character being who they are at the beginning?
Who do they know, how do they treat them, and how do they feel about them?
There you have it – the steps I followed, simplified, to create all my characters!
Of course, there’s a little more to it than even those steps. The more you write and think about the character, the more you’ll nail down who they are.
How do you like to develop characters, fellow writers?