Character Development
November 6th 2006 11:08
Okay, ‘The godless ones’, What’s it all about?
Well, I’m building characters, from scratch as it were. And as I write what is commonly, these days, referred to as speculative fiction, I tend to mix scifi and fantasy.
Writing such little stories allows one to play with characters. In other words, put them through the ringer and see how they hold up.
I never know how the story will turn out as it is not planed. I just want to see what develops. Often the story will be the back story of a character. The back story is that character’s life before he or she wound up in a novel.
That back story, being the characters past history, may or may not be told in the novel.
I hear you ask,“If you’re not going to use it in the novel, why bother?
Well, for a number of reasons. One is that, as a writer of fiction, I am asking readers to suspend their belief for the time they are reading my story, so it has to be believable, for at least while being read.
This leads to a second reason for such character development. Everyone has a past that makes them what they are today. The characters in a novel are no different, They need a past to be real. They need that past so I know who they are, what motivates them today.
Another reason is that if the character has a defined past then it is easy to keep them in character for the length of a novel.
If your character is portrayed as a person with little education through fifteen chapters of your novel then opens the sixteenth chapter quoting Einstein’s theory of relativity, correctly, then there has to be a reason he can. Otherwise the readers suspension of belief collapses in a heap.
I keep a data base of characters, I know how old they are, the colour of their eyes and hair, how tall they are, their religion (if any), their parents names, whether or not their parents are still alive. Some of my characters have quite extensive biographies. Some only have a sketchy outline, if the character becomes more important or I need to give him more back ground during the story I make sure that I update that characters data base card so I don’t contradict myself in later chapters.
A word of caution. If you opt to use this system you have to remember that the data base is not cast in stone, if need be you can alter your characters bio, taking care not to cause conflict with what you have already written.
Back to the godless ones. The two characters of interest. The bar tender and the god at the end of the bar.
Well, I’m building characters, from scratch as it were. And as I write what is commonly, these days, referred to as speculative fiction, I tend to mix scifi and fantasy.
Writing such little stories allows one to play with characters. In other words, put them through the ringer and see how they hold up.
I never know how the story will turn out as it is not planed. I just want to see what develops. Often the story will be the back story of a character. The back story is that character’s life before he or she wound up in a novel.
That back story, being the characters past history, may or may not be told in the novel.
I hear you ask,“If you’re not going to use it in the novel, why bother?
Well, for a number of reasons. One is that, as a writer of fiction, I am asking readers to suspend their belief for the time they are reading my story, so it has to be believable, for at least while being read.
This leads to a second reason for such character development. Everyone has a past that makes them what they are today. The characters in a novel are no different, They need a past to be real. They need that past so I know who they are, what motivates them today.
Another reason is that if the character has a defined past then it is easy to keep them in character for the length of a novel.
If your character is portrayed as a person with little education through fifteen chapters of your novel then opens the sixteenth chapter quoting Einstein’s theory of relativity, correctly, then there has to be a reason he can. Otherwise the readers suspension of belief collapses in a heap.
I keep a data base of characters, I know how old they are, the colour of their eyes and hair, how tall they are, their religion (if any), their parents names, whether or not their parents are still alive. Some of my characters have quite extensive biographies. Some only have a sketchy outline, if the character becomes more important or I need to give him more back ground during the story I make sure that I update that characters data base card so I don’t contradict myself in later chapters.
A word of caution. If you opt to use this system you have to remember that the data base is not cast in stone, if need be you can alter your characters bio, taking care not to cause conflict with what you have already written.
Back to the godless ones. The two characters of interest. The bar tender and the god at the end of the bar.
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Comment by Adele
Lost Fanatic
Day Break TV
Comment by Bullamakanka
Hughie's Ziff
Bagman's Gazette
Too well in fact sometimes. I started a novel, still working on it, the trouble is that while I was writing up back story for the characters I found that there were two novels that needed to be put in front of the one I started with. That's not the worst of it though, I found that there are another two novels to follow after the third (which was actually the first) so now I have to write five.
Comment by Adele
Lost Fanatic
Day Break TV