Hello. I hope you noticed that it took us a while to get here. That was completely on purpose. As writers, we want to jump headfirst into plotting and character development, without first looking at the universe we are creating. Now that we have asked ourselves some REALLY hard questions about our characters world, we can finally round out who they are. If you have missed my previous posts in this series, I strongly urge you start with my posts on Worldbuilding, Pinterest mood boards, and basic plotting. If you haven’t picked up your copy of my quick to read guide to how I won the 2014 NaNo five days early, you can get it HERE.
What are we covering in this post?
- Embrace the Anti Hero!
- Flaws and Quirks
- Know the Generic Character Types
- Resources! Resources! Resources!
Embrace the Anti Hero!
Contrary to common belief, the knight in shining armor wont cut it anymore in literature. It is a trope that has been beaten to death, and dissected for its flaws in narrative in the world we live in today. When we think of the knight in shining armor, walking into the dragons den, sword at the ready we think of bravery – until we look closer at the common storyline. A knight falls in love with a princess. The princesse’s father, the king orders the knight to go and rescue the delicate and beautiful princess and kill the dragon, bring her home. As a reward he is going to receive the Princess as his new bride, and everybody lives happily ever after. ::SNORES LOUDLY:: This story may have worked in the middle ages, but not in todays world. HOWEVER if we applied this story to modern day, it would probably go a little like this:
In a corrupt columbian village a very wealthy man ( works for a deep secret part of the government) hires a new bodyguard for his fourteen year old daughter after a slew of abduction attempts. As the daughter goes about her days he is there, watching as he slowly falls for her, but does not want to incur daddy’s wrath of making a pass at her. One day after a successful kidnapping, the father instructs the bodyguard to retrieve his daughter.
Bodyguard is all too happy to bring her home safe, the secret love of his life. So he goes and tracks down where the daughter is being held captive – a drug lords mansion. Then he learns “The Dragon” ( heh – what a fitting Drug Lord Name) and the daughter have been in love for some time now, and this isn’t a kidnapping – they eloped.
::insert dramatic Soap Opera music::
I’ll end the story there, so you can think of the MANY different endings that story could have. So, why did I do that? I snuck in a very real flaw for a grown man to have. He was in love with his bosses daughter – who it is implied is WAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY too young for him. Just that ONE flaw created interest. I kept the same age bracket there would have traditionally been between the two in the original fairytale.
The Anti Hero is SUCH A POWERFUL character to have. One of the most famous renditions of this is the legendary Tony Soprano ( Obviously from HBO’s (AHMAYZING!) Hit, The Soprano’s). Here we have an evil mob boss. We see all the dark and depraved things he does, and we justify it. Why? Because he’s depressed. The family of ducks that he was caring for grew up and flew away. So, because of that one REALLY bad day, we forgave him for everything. Let me rephrase that. A sadistic adulterous, greedy, mob boss’s cute little ducks flew away, so he is allowed to kill people now.
We do this because instead of highlighting only the murderous side of his business, the perspective is switched and you see a loving family man, who is doing his best for his family, feathered or otherwise. Creating a simple shift in perspective for your readers is an instant attention grabber. So, NEVER underestimate making your main character the villain in someone else’s story.
Flaws and Quirks
Oh me OH MY. This is a beast of a subject. Thankfully, after talking about Anti Heroes, it is much easier. Here the name of the game is to create conflict within the characters so they have the means to change and grow along thier own character arcs. Picking flaws is actually a lot easier than it seems. It can be as simple as listing all of your characters positive traits, then assinging them the direct opposite in flaws.
Or we can give them all the good characteristics, but none of them are applicable to reaching thier goal. As long as we are doing our best to keep our characters the underdogs of thier arc ( Neville Longbottom in Harry Potter), when they do defeat thier challenge, the reader is moved to cheer.
Know the Generic Character Types
I will start this portion by saying, it is in your best interest to purchase The Writers Guide to Character Traits. It was my first real writers purchase, and it is the holy grail of unlocking your characters psychosis. With that being said, I will take some Types directly from this book, however this is not in any way a comprehensive list. If you want a comprehensive list, buy the book.
- The Adventurer
- The Conformist
- The Dependent
- The Fall guy/girl
- The Loner ( Old Man Logan, aka Wolverine)
- The Manipulator
- The Victim Type
Use these templates to give conflicting traits to. I promise it will be worth all of the work. This is the pre writing that makes writing 50 thousand words a piece of cake.
Resources Resources! Resources!
(Besides The Writers Guide to Character Traits by SURPRISE SURPRISE, Writers Digest Books)
Malicious Intent: Writer’s Guide to How Criminals Think (Howdunit Writing) by Mactire, Sean P. published by Writer’s Digest Books
Book In A Month – Writers Digest Books
The Marshall Plan Workbook – Marshall
Master Lists For Writers – Bryn Donovan
How To Write a Novella in 24 Hours – Andrew Mayne
Writers Craft Power Pack – Rayne Hall
9 ingredients to Character Development – Writers Digest
Texas A&M Writing Center on Character Development
NaNoWriMo Character Cafe Forum
Anything else I missed? Be sure to post it in the comments!!!
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