Writing Wednesdays - Background Characters

So, last week we were looking at main characters and their development over a piece.  Today, I'm going to build on that, by looking at background characters: The individuals who populate the world that your characters inhabit, and that your characters interact with.  Background characters are an entire spectrum - from your protagonist's trusted best friend to a shop keeper who is only in a single scene.

There is one key tip to keep in mind when writing background characters: They don't know that they are background characters.  As far as they are concerned, they are the key character in their life, and they have their own needs and concerns.  They might only feature temporarily in your story, but they are just as developed in their own minds as any other person, including you.  They might be scared of spiders, dream of being a professional dancer, be allergic to peanuts - they have thoughts and feelings, dreams and goals.

That doesn't mean you need to include all of this information in your novel: If you're writing a brief exchange with a shop keeper, you don't want to write a long paragraph explaining their family situation or their ambitions - a slight description of their appearance or tone of voice will be enough.  But knowing that they have these things matters.

When it comes to a background character who repeatedly appears, then you can develop them in the same way you would develop your main character.  For example, if you're writing in a combat zone, the reality of war won't only change how your main character thinks, how they look at the world.  The characters around them, the men and women they are working alongside, would be affected as well, and in a variety of ways: Perhaps some become more confident, others quieter, some suffering from PTSD.  Perhaps one is physically injured, or loses their ability to trust, or has their faith in humanity restored.

Having background characters who are not just cardboard cut outs or caricatures but are instead people makes your writing a lot more interesting to read.   Having them developed also leaves the way open to their use in sequels and further pieces - if they are developed and interesting, then the people reading your story will become invested in them, and want to know what happens to them...

Let’s take Harry Potter as an example of background characters that do fairly well - over the books they grow and develop.  Your main characters are Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco, Voldemort, perhaps a few others.  But  offer those who enjoy the stories the chance to read about what happens next to Neville, or to Luna, and many will be delighted at the opportunity - they care about these characters just as much as the 'stars' of the book.

Next week, I'm going to build on the idea I just mentioned, to look not at your own characters but other peoples', as I take a look at writing fanfiction.  I'll see you then!

Writing Wednesdays - Character Development

We're starting with some more shameless advertising - but this time it is for a free flash fiction anthology: http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=195&products_id=4244.  Go there, and you can download a series of short stories based on the theme of "Please Don't Feed the Alligators".  I've got a short story in there, and so have some other wonderful authors, and it's entirely free, so go and take a look, in case you find something that you'd like.

Advertising out of the way, today we are going to look at the idea of character development.  This is the personal journey your characters take over the course of the story - how they mature, and their personality develops, whilst still staying the same person beneath it all.

A good way to look at it is to consider some examples:

- Bilbo Baggins, the simple Hobbit at the start of the book who wants nothing more than a quiet life, ends up becoming more confident, having an adventure and doing a lot of things that he never dreamed he would have been capable of doing.

- Harry Potter goes over the course from a mistreated, unwanted and lonely boy to a warrior and hero who is willing to sacrifice himself, and is surrounded by friends whose loyalty he has earned.  He bears the mental scars from his journey, but he is far stronger at the end of the books than he was at the beginning.

- Ana Steele goes from an abused virgin being manipulated by the abusive and violent Mister Grey to a coldhearted murderess, able to get rid of her tormentor and take his wealth for herself

... alright, so possibly the last of those didn't happen, but a girl can dream right?

Regardless, people don't want to read about characters that are the same at the start of your story as they are at the end.  They need to have grown and changed in some way - even if it is simply that they have a renewed appreciation of their life and a greater understanding of those around them.

One of the best ways to develop your characters, and to make your stories more interesting, is to make your characters' lives difficult.  If you challenge them, and make them rise to defeat problems, you can help them grow.  Even the challenges that they can't conquer, and which they aren't able to tackle, will enable them to develop - perhaps a lost fight will give them determination, or being unable to help in an accident will inspire them to learn first aid.  Giving your characters an easy life isn't only not as engaging to read, it doesn't let the characters develop in response.

Challenges for your characters don't need to be anything particularly gigantic - it doesn't need to be a world-ending, or life or death situation.  Having to decide if they will quit a job they hate, or respond to a flirtatious word when they have been hurt before, can help to slowly move your character from who they are at the start of your writing to who they are at the ending.

One thing that a lot of new writers get criticized for is making their characters too perfect.  Whilst this isn't necessarily true; see Batman or Iron Man (both billionaire geniuses with a long list of romantic conquests, a tragic past and amazing technology), giving your characters flaws helps them to be more real.  Over the course of the story, they can come to realize these flaws, and work to tackle them, even if they don't solve them entirely.

If you are writing a romance story, or a story in which romance features, you have two main characters who will develop over the course of the story - revealing sides of themselves that perhaps wouldn't have been so obvious at the start.  A famous example of this would be the relationship between Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy within Pride and Prejudice, as over the course of the book their views of each other are transformed and hatred gives way to love.

All characters within your story will be affected by the events that happen around them, and background characters will have their own lives as well that will be developing.  It might not be possible to show the development that is happening to minor characters, but if they are caught up in anything that you think would change them keep that in mind.  Next week we will be looking at background characters more closely, so I'll see you then.

Argen Description

On Wednesday, we went through an explanation of the character creation process, and now I'm going through it in more detail, with an example.

I used a character generator to get a basic idea, and that is the character I'll be designing.  The suggestion I got was "he's an Albino whore on the wrong side of the law".  As he's going to be an albino, he will have white hair, red eyes and translucent skin.  The fact he's broken the law suggests that he's had a harsh life, meaning he will be short, and underweight - his cheeks are hollow, and he has long eyelashes and pouty lips. 

I decided to call him Argen, from the heraldic word for white, Argent.  This far, I'd decided last time.  The only additional idea I've had about his appearance was that he was going to be wiry - he is quite small, and at risk of violence, so he's learned to be strong and to fight dirty.

What he wears would be dependent upon the world they are in - his profession implies that he might not be wearing much, or at least less than standard, but the climate that he is in will have an impact, as is what would be expected in the society.

 Now, I need to develop him more, making him into a person with his own thoughts, needs and desires.  You need to think about the reasoning behind a character’s actions and decisions, without making them a stereotype.  Think about the people that you know, how different and interesting they are - your characters can be just as varied.  There's no rules limiting what you can create, just as long as they're people that you are interested in, people that you want to write.

Looking at the description, three obvious questions stand out:

1. What is the impact of albinism on his life?

2. Why is he a whore?

3. Why is he on the wrong side of the law - because he's an albino, because he's a whore, because of the poverty he lives in, or something else?

Question number 1 ties back to the statement about the world - how an albino would be treated by the society that he is in.  If he faces discrimination and hatred that could mean he has no work other than prostitution (2) push him into lawbreaking (3), and would further make his life difficult.  If there isn't that prejudice, his job is likely to be more a case of either poverty, or choice - possibly a mixture of the two.

Having considered these, I need to make some actual decisions, and I've decided that Argen may face prejudice, but certainly no legal ramifications for his albinism.  Having been raised in poverty and poorly educated (parents cold towards him), he turned to prostitution as a reliable source of income when there was little else available. 

I have also decided that this is going to be a slightly fantasy-based world - with Argen being a human within a human settlement, but elves and other beings further from the settlements.  He may be part-elf.  This gives me some idea of Argen's clothes - probably fairly pale fabrics, that drape around his waist, with him having tight shirts.  His hair is to his mid-back, tied into a plait with a black piece of string around the end. 

Now onto Argen's personality: things like likes and dislikes, free time, intelligence, habits, family, friends, beliefs, hopes, dreams, fears, memories and secrets.  This is a lot to keep in mind, but I can build on what I already have - his relationship with his family is difficult as they were poor and he was felt to be a burden.  With a rough past and criminal life, he is afraid of being caught and punished - imprisoned, or worse, depending on the legal system of their world.  He may have a goal of luxury and certain clothes or jewelry that he longs to own, along with wanting his life to be far better than it currently is.  His lack of education means that he knows very little, but the fact he has managed to survive on the wrong side of the law implies that he has a lot of street smarts and common sense - probably also a good sense for people, regardless of whether or not he likes them.

I can build up information for him like that, developing a full person.  When I have one developed character, I need to make those to be around him.  As I tend to write romance, Argen is going to need a boyfriend.  I could use either a generator, or build someone who fits them, and I tend to go for the latter so that I can make a good match for them.  I decided to go for another heraldic term, and went past azure (blue) and vert (green) before settling on vair - a word used for a pattern based on squirrel fur, in bell shapes of blue/grey and white.  I changed the name a little to Vairel.   Then I had to decide on his personality, and his relationship with Argen - is he a client, a friend, or something else?  I continue to develop him in the same way I did Argen.

Writing Wednesdays - Character Design

Alright, technically this is a Writing Thursday, but we're going to pretend it's a Wednesday because that makes me look much more organised.  I got a little caught up in nerf warfare earlier in the day, but now I am blogging like I am meant to.

So, we've looked so far at getting ideas, planning a story, and programs we can use to help with the writing, but today we're going to look in detail at what is to me the most important part - characters. 

Characters are what populate your story, and bring it to life.  If your characters are terrible, then it doesn't matter how wonderful your plot is, people are going to turn away.  People care about people, and how they are affected by events, rather than the events themselves - and when you're designing characters, this has to be kept in mind.

So what is it for a character to be terrible? I'm sure you can think of characters you haven't liked.  For me, its always characters that have been one dimensional, or boring, or simply unrepeatable.  I'm drawing a distinction here between characters you don't like, and characters you dislike - you can hate a character, with them still being an interesting and well rounded character.  A character you dislike may be a villain, or an antagonist, but they're still interesting people - you want to read  more about them, just to find out what they do and see them get their comeuppance.

Now that you have some idea of what makes a bad character, you can start to think about how to make a character that isn't bad.  We don't need to list every single detail about their backstory and life, if they have allergies, their school report grades - but it's a good idea if they're alive enough to you that you have some idea of the answers to these questions for them.  If you don't know more details about a character than you're putting on the page, I'd say you probably need to develop them more.

One of the best pieces of advice I've seen is someone saying that rather than describing the color of a character's eyes, you should instead describe what they are like - are they sunken, haunted, bright, sparkling? Are they surrounded by makeup? Do they wear glasses, or is it contacts for them because their glasses got broken by a bully when they were younger and they can't face wearing them any more... See what I mean? Any of this information tells you a lot more about the person you are creating to write with than the color of their eyes.

When I start with my character, I tend to have a sentence or so in mind.  If you can't think of a sentence, how about looking at http://theyfightcrime.net/ and then seeing if something there inspires you.  Just as a random selection, I got "he's an Albino whore on the wrong side of the law".

I love drawing, and I will often sketch out a quick idea of what I think a character looks like - probably including notes around it for things that the drawing isn't to capture.  I also try and think of a name early on, because it helps to get it out of the way - even if it's just a placeholder.  For my whore, I'll call him Argen, from Argent, the heraldic word for white.

Now, we have Argen - and as he's an albino I know he has white hair, red eyes, and translucent skin - and he's probably in a fantasy-based world.  The fact he's on the wrong side of the law implies that he might have been having a harsh life, and therefore I see him being short and underweight - his cheeks hollow, with long eyelashes and pouty lips. 

Next, I need to consider what Argen is like as a person - what he likes and dislikes, what he does in his free time, how intelligent he is, habits, nervous tics, relationship with family, beliefs, education - what was his childhood like? Is he in a relationship? What are his dreams, his hopes, his fears? What is his most precious memory, and his deepest secret? What would he wear?  How does he talk - and how does this vary when he's talking to different people?  What are his flaws, and his greatest points, and who inspires him?

Once I've answered all of these questions, I have a character who is ready to take his place in the world. 

To show the process in practice, I'm going to write a description of Argen, which I will post in the next few days.