WWMCD? What would my character do?

Conflicted, yet very driven main character? Check.

A taste of his past? Check.

A taste of personality? Check. 

Well now what? That's enough for the reader and a story, but is it enough for you as a writer trying to make the best story you can?

Character development is always hard and very tricky. Everything needs to make sense. Take me, for example. I am who I am because of events throughout my life. Pieces of

experiences have formed me to be who I am. So why is your character any different? That's why it's tricky. Creating a back story and whole history that the reader probably won't even know may sound like busy work but it's for your benefit, not theirs. Knowing your character on a personal level and not just something your writing, will help you write your story. If you know your character, you'll know the kinds of decisions they'll make with the different situations you'll put them in; otherwise, it'll be all over the place and won't make much sense to the reader.

1) Write a short story. I know a lot of people who want to write an amazing short story or novel and want expert advice (which I am certainly not certified to give) but writing a short story about just your character will help you understand. For your eyes only, if you will. Write about something that happened to them as kids that helped form who they are. Or a challenge they overcame to get where they are. Anything to give you a slight insight into the mind of the person you're creating. What's the harm? I'm attempting it and all I need is an idea for a novel to put him in. 

I said I was attempting it and I meant it. I don't want to give advice and not follow it. I'm writing a fantasy story about a young magician who gets caught in a war between good and evil. Anyways, I wrote a short story about when he was a kid and a traumatic event happened to him. I looked at how he felt, how it changed him, if it was the one thing that motivated him to do better. I was forced to get into the mind of my character. 

2) Of course, this isn't the only way to form your character. I've encountered many 'character sheets' that ask IN-DEPTH questions about your character. By 'In-Depth' I mean I had trouble answering or even improvising answers on the spot. The link I'm going to post is going to lead you to the National Novel Month Writing website forum's. It's not the forum I'm directing you to, it's the first response under the initial post. The response is a Character Sheet that someone posted and it asks a ridiculous amounts of questions about your character and, honestly, you won't even add most of it to your story. It's for you. The more you know and understand about your character, or characters, the better your story will be (depending on plot, but that's for another day).

Here's the link to the Character Questions and Sheets -----> National Novel Writing Month Character Sheet Forum

3) Another great, and a very fun and entertaining, way is to act it out. Walk, talk, and act how you want your character to act like. It makes it look at your character's personality. Is your character shy or one of those people that stands tall and asserts authority?  Act it out! Focus on how you talk and walk as the character and if you're like me, you're going to have a hard time remembering for when you do write it in the story, so take notes... even video yourself doing it. I actually video taped myself escaping from a chair that I was duct taped to to see how much time it took and how I did it so I could help my character do it. Needless to say, I had to keep doing it to make it more difficult.

So, to review, character sheets that ask a lot of questions that'll give you a headache, acting like Tom Cruise (without the crazy) or Jennifer Lawrence (for the ladies), and writing a story about your character FOR your story will help you in your journey to make your character (and, hopefully, your story) better!

Write On!

-Ian Faraway

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Check out my blog out every Tuesday for a new blog on writing tips, advice, stories, and so on!!!