I believe that creating characters is one of the most DIFFICULT, TIME-CONSUMING THINGS you will ever dwell on while writing a story.
For example, when creating a character you should always create their personality before anything else (appearance, friends, etc.). However, while doing this, you should always make their personality contribute to the story and, most importantly, accommodate to the value they will have in the story. For example, I might want my character to have a role in a play during the course of my story, then succeed in getting the part she/he wants. That means she would have to be one of these:
- good at acting
- a cheater
- the only person who wanted the role.
The choice you make will also shape your character’s personality. If you chose the first one, this shows that they are true to what they want to do and passionate about it, so much so that it wins them the role. If you chose the second one you’re probably the kind of person who likes character development. What I mean is that, if your character was a bad character already, it would show just how willing they are to do things for their own benefit at the expense of others. However, if they were depicted as a good character earlier on, this could show another side to them or a change in their personality. If you chose the third option, your character’s personality is not shown so clearly by your choice. They could either be a person who doesn’t want to fight with the crowd for a popular position, so gives up what they want just so they could choose the easier option, or they could be someone who stands apart form the crowd by going for a position that is perhaps seen as too difficult, easy, boring or unimportant by other characters. By making this choice, your character is showing that they don’t care what others think about them. Either way, choosing the third option shows that your character doesn’t like to make choices in the middle. They’re now or never kind of person.I hope this helps you grasp the idea of what I mean by a character’s personality accommodating to the story.
Once you’ve finished with all of that, you need to think about something I mentioned earlier. Relationships with other characters; whether they are family, friends or love, your character’s personality will need to change to fit in with their relationships. I mean, have you ever read a story about someone who hates humans who has a million best friends and is close with his family? That’s right. If your character hates humans, he doesn’t want to spend time with humans. If your character is a person who is fatally allergic to dogs, he isn’t going to have a dog. Why? Because he will have DIED before you are finished reading the contents page. Now you may be thinking, “My character isn’t any of these! Plus, these are all unlikely situations to happen in a book.” Well you know what, you’re right; they don’t happen in books. For the reasons I have given you. See, this is why we don’t ever see books called Jim Jimham and the Cornflake Company. And I’ll tell you why that is; because that book is about a certain Jim Jimham who hates cornflakes, but is best friends with a man who owns an international cornflake company. Doesn’t work.
Now that we’re done talking about personality, let’s move onto appearance. Most of the time I try to make what my character looks like match their personality as best as I can. Let’s use Kiwi and Candie as an example. Candie is half a cat, so she has cat ears and a tail. Kiwi loves to make food, therefore I gave her an apron and chef hat. These are very basic examples. Did you know in Disney’s original Beauty and the Beast movie, it was made sure that Belle always had a strand of hair escaping down to her forehead to signify that she’s not perfect? You could try things as simple as that! It just adds all the more to your character.
With all that being said, I’m not saying your character should be completely and fully planned out at the very beginning. I changed Candie’s character significantly during my story. At the beginning she was self-absorbed and stubborn. She was designed to be a trying and tedious character who would play a bigger part later on. However, later on in the story I utilized her strength to be of use to the other characters. This greatly impacted her personality. I began to continue using her for these kinds of tasks, such as volunteering to look ahead for danger. I gradually began to like her more. She was no longer the lazy, arrogant character that she was when I designed the base for a love-hate character for my story. She was funny and loyal, though her protective attitude would lead to problems later on- big problems….
Anyway, my point is that it’s OK for a character to change and develop over time, just like a drawing. At its base you can barely see a fraction of its potential.
