The long anticipated post that is so late. I would have done
this earlier but I have been a hump, and stuck with designing one of my
characters.
As I noted in another post far in the past, characters can sometimes
be crafted by events and sometimes events are crafted by the characters. You must
decide this beforehand. Chase two rabbits at the same time and you end up
catching neither. Work on either a character or event first before doing the
other.
I have noticed growing up and writing with my friends that
characters are designed in two ways:
Based on a person
Or
Based on an archetype with a few tweaks
Both are dictated by the type of
story you are writing and the tone you are aiming for. Do not forget this!
Both methods are sound and can yield some interesting
characters worthy of development. I personally favour a mix of both. Some of my
characters are based on my friends and family personality wise, while some look
like people I see on the streets.
In terms of my book Elohim I have come up with a system. This
system can be adapted for any fantasy book, and is easy to organise, by race or
affiliation.
Name/ true name / Title
Age
Race / species (in the case of demons and animals)
Physical description:
Life details
Noted abilities
Of course it started with my main characters. At the moment I
have six main protagonist but the story follows Ichiro mainly. They are the
ones to which the main conflict revolves around. That makes all others
supporting cast, however some of these characters are not intrinsic and are
only seen once or twice to prompt particular actions from characters or provoke
thought in readers. Without saying too much about the complex nature of my
narrative as well as keeping things simple, the characters, much like the words
on the page, are implements or tools in moulding the narrative, so their
application must be precise. As they say in drama and theatre “there are no
small parts, just small actors” (if I got that wrong please tell me).
The majority of my characters are archetypes with various tweaks.
All of my main protagonist bar one have two sides, two demeanours that are
shown in different situations. This makes them complex but not necessarily 3 dimensional
or any deeper than a kitchen sink. It takes work and careful thought. Just more
to bear in mind. Of course I am talking from experience.
Sometimes characters pop up while in the flow. I have had it
happen a few times. Doesn’t mean they cannot be there. Always take the time to think about what kind
of person/character you want them to be and the rest will fall in to place.
For me the hardest part of character designing is visualizing
how they look and developing their speech. The latter is far harder and is the
way readers distinguish between characters, but this will be covered in a
future post about writing dialogue and speech.
Aesthetics are an important part of character design, as the
way you describe how a character looks aids in the reader’s visualization of
the story. So naturally giving every characters a distinguishing feature in
their form or dress is the best bet. For
example my main characters all have something that sets them apart from each other
and their race. Like Xanxas:
Xanxas prefers to maintain much
of his demonic features in his human form, which includes his heavily muscular
body, white hair and beard, red eyes, sharp canines and slightly blue tint to
his skin. Like his angel counterpart (Lucifel) he looks roughly in his early
20s. In his demonic form Xanxas has four
arms, sharp protrusions from the elbows, large horns on the head, a tail and
tattoos all over his arms.
Taken from his physical description in my notes.
These features will be mentioned every so often to remind
readers who the characters is and what he looks like. Any mention of his defining features will
alert readers to his presence.
Coming back full circle. All characters have a history, a
back story and personal experiences. They are not completely blank, they have
lived a life that you as the writer must create. So their backgrounds influence what they say
and do. Another thing to bear in mind.
I think that somewhat brings this to a close. I hope I was
helpful, if I was not, I will step up my game!
But I have to be told how. So please comment.
As always thank you for reading. Nurture every thought and watch it blossom! Please support my Writers guild, Fields of Thought.
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The next post is undecided and will have to wait till late
may after my exams are complete. Hope you my dear readership and wait that
long.
