Since I’ll be spending so much of November working on my
NaNoWriMo project, I thought I’d show you a bit of my prewriting process. This is what I did during October. This post is about creating characters.
Before I write, I have to have the idea of where the story
is going. And to do that, I have to know
who my characters are. My stories are
always focused on the characters, especially their journeys, since I write
YA.
This story is about Rowell, the son of my two main
characters from the Red WIP. He called
out to me in the previous story I wrote.
I’ve loved getting to know him, and it’s almost surreal writing Larzo
and Aydra as parents. They’ve all grown
up and changed, though I guess that’s to be expected.
While I do know most of the characters in the beginning of
the story – Rowell’s family and friends – once he starts his own journey, he
meets new people and makes new friends.
There are some secondary characters who have a very large
influence over Rowell, and to correctly portray them in the story, I need to
know where they come from. What’s their
motivation? And also, I need to know
what they look like. I can’t keep track of that stuff in my head. Mostly because I can’t visualize it at
all.
So I create character sheets.
Here’s an example of one of my characters in the early
stages.
She’s much more fleshed out now, but that’s what I began
with. I’m no artist, and I can’t draw
people at all, but at least now I can see a little bit of what Eni looks
like. I make sure I have hair color and
eye color at least. Since she’s one of
the main characters, she has a full sheet.
Some of the secondary characters, like Rowell’s sisters, have to share a
sheet.
Here’s the antagonist.
His name is Tadrol and at first, I couldn’t figure out what motivated
him. What was it that made him do the
terrible things he did? I tend to write
until I figure it out, exploring what kind of character he is. If I hadn’t set the time constraint
(finishing by November,) I probably would have written out character
sketches. But at least now I know how to
write him realistically.
How do you create your characters? What do you start with? Appearance or background?
I have a really bad habit of not describing my MC's, in fact I rarely describe people at all, other than their age and gender. A few of my beta's have pointed scalded me for it. I think the reason for that is I visualise them so much that I forget to show the reader what is in my head. How I see a character, his mannerisms and voice is determined by what actor I could most likely see in the role. Sounds a little silly I know but with my novel One Last Breath I pictured Mark Ruffalo as my MC from the very beginning, so to me he looks like that, I just have to remember to tell my readers that LOL.
ReplyDeleteI write character bios, starting with the villain, because I believe the bad guy is what drives the plot, the MC is subject to whatever the villain does, which is why the big bad always comes first when outlining anything. Then I start with the secondary characters and eventually I’ll tweak each bio so that they all match up and have a solid and reliable continuity.
Great post Krista:) and good luck with your project, sounds great :)
I have a difficulty describing my characters because I don't bother to imagine that. But after betas have gotten after me for that, I've learned to at least have a basic idea. With the Tadrol character above, I decided I wanted him to look like Mr. Clean. :) So I guess that I do sometimes picture actors/characters when creating a character of my own.
DeleteI didn't always realize that the bad guy needed a bio until recently. It really helps create a depth to the story when there's some kind of motivation behind what the bad guy does. Because probably from his point of view, he's not the bad guy.
Thanks for commenting!