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Category Archives: Building Characters
Characters Have Two Jobs
Characters have two jobs. One, they must respond as real people so we can identify with them. Two, they must function as part of your plot to they contribute to the message. Characters who don’t ring true drop your readers … Continue reading
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Have Your Characters Write Their Own Life Stories
For your characters to be compelling, your readers will need to think of them as real people, not just dramatic functionaries or collections of traits. To help make this happen, have each of your characters write a short one-page autobiographical … Continue reading
Posted in Building Characters, Creative Writing, Novel Writing, Practical Tips
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What’s in a Name?
What’s in a name? Choosing names for your characters can be perfunctory or can provide your readers or audience with insight into your characters’ natures, add humor or surprise, or even at the very least break out of ordinary monikers … Continue reading
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Your Influence Character is the Heart of Your Story
What is an Influence Character? It is the one who has an opposite philosophy, morality, or personal code to that of the Main Character. Over the course of a story, the Influence Character continually pressures the Main Character’s core beliefs, … Continue reading
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Characters: Cogs in the Machine?
From a structural standpoint, characters are just cogs in the machine. They have a job to do in the story as a protagonist, antagonist or any one of the functional roles that must be filled for the story to make … Continue reading
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Writing Con Men, Shady Businessmen, and Seedy Politicians
Characters, as with real people such as con men, shady businessmen, and seedy politicians, will often use statistics to paint a false, yet plausible, picture. For example, one such character might state that 12% of all high-school dropouts were beaten … Continue reading
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Creating Characters from Plot
Introduction If you already have a story idea, it is a simple matter to create a whole cast of characters that will grow out of your plot. In this lesson we’re going to lay out a method of developing characters … Continue reading
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Creating Characters from Scratch
Where Do Characters Come From? When we speak of characters from a structural standpoint, there are very specific guidelines that determine what is a character and what is not. But when we think of characters in every day life, they … Continue reading
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Fire Your Protagonist
Many authors start with a Protagonist and then build a cast of characters around him or her. But as a story develops, it may turn out that one of the other characters becomes more suited for that role. Sticking with … Continue reading
Posted in Building Characters, Writing Tip of the Day
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Creating Characters: The Villain
A villain is the dramatic antithesis of a hero, and therefore has the following four attributes: He is the Antagonist He is the Influence Character He is second in prominence to the Central Character He is a Bad Guy By … Continue reading
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