Welcome to the world of UpOnWriting.com, a new community for writers who are committed to indulging our imaginations and creating stories that take us to another world! Our stories speak first and foremost to our own hearts, and our audiences are drawn accordingly.
The Writer’s Toolkit is a series of workbooks that constitute writing workshops. Part I guides you through the fundamentals of developing your character. Use this tool to anchor down the elements and personal touches that create a bond between the two of you. You must be invested in your character! If you can feel what he or she feels when laughing, crying, or facing peril, you’ve got a keeper!
In this workbook, you will define your character’s personality and personal history so that you can embed him or her in your subconscious and write for him or her without hesitation. Through this exercise you create the character canon of your story.
Activities and Tools:
The Character Map - use this tool for each and every character you introduce into your story.
Defining the Who of Your Character - an exercise to help you put yourself in your character’s head
Conversations With A SpecialistTM - an exercise of writing your character into a therapy session, an interrogation, or an interview.
Commitment to Character Canon - an exercise of writing your character into an unlikely scenario... a challenge to stay true to the canon you have created for him or her.
The Character Map
Introduction
When you conceptualize a story, you likely begin to conceive the characters, the dynamics between them, and the overall plot that guides their journey. Each character has a history that began before your story will begin, and this history has made him or her the person he or she is today. It is vital to pinpoint certain factors about attributes and personality before you write very far into the story. Regardless of how many characters you have in mind, you need to know specifics about each person that is introduced by you into your plot. If you don’t have a preconceived notion of their overall humanity, how can you write them consistently?
The Character Map is a tool that I have used for as long as I can remember. I tend to create characters before story, so I have always been inclined to map out all of these details before I even figure out what they’ll be getting themselves into. The sources of tension, joy, attraction, distraction, desperation, etc., are the things I like to imagine the most. Knowing what makes each of my characters tick makes the storytelling all the more rewarding. It makes the story flow from a place that feels unconscious because I know these people so well already. And with this practice, I get to experience the story the same way my readers do: as a discovery. The Character Map helps you to know what inspires, angers, saddens, and threatens your character.
It helps to have a visual image for each person you create. I have always based my characters’ physical appearance on a real person, regardless of whether or not the personality matches. I’ve chosen pictures from magazines, actors from television and film, and people that I’ve known in my life to be the physical embodiment of my characters. This way, when I imagine the story, I’ve got not only a visual, but a strong conviction of this character’s personality and humanity. And, as it is
inevitable that some element of me resides in each of my characters, I can feel them as I write. Sometimes I feel them when I’m away from the page, walking with me through my day, reacting to the goings-on around me, and reinforcing what I’ve already imagined for them as a personality.
The cool thing about designing your characters this way is that they become a part of you and you develop instincts about the way they live and who they love. God, I love to write!
Exercise:
Write thorough and in-depth descriptions for each of the following details about your character:
PART I: GENERAL BACKGROUND
1) Full name and age:
2) Place of birth / Date of birth / Astrological sign:
3) Sex / Marital status / Sexual preference / Self-image in relation to these:
4) Height / Weight / Self-image in relation to these:
5) Race / Ethnic identity / Self-image in relation to these:
6) Fashion sense (or lack of):
7) Past socioeconomic status / Present socioeconomic status:
8) Past occupation(s) / Present occupation / Self-image in relation to present occupation:
9) Spiritual beliefs / Religion versus philosophical leanings and/or conflicts:
10) Political views:
11) Family history - include any or all of the following:
a) parents marital status
b) sibling relationships/rivalries
c) family tragedies
d) history of abuse or dysfunction
e) cities of residence during childhood/formative years
12) Past event(s) that have had a profound impact:
13) Types of people he or she befriends: professional/athletic/artistic/wealthy and well-connected
PART II: PERSONALITY TRAITS
1) Physical weaknesses / strengths:
2) Areas of emotional vulnerability... what pushes his/her buttons?
3) Traits that others perceive as powerful about him/her:
4) Unique skills and/or abilities:
5) Likes:
a) music
b) physical activities
c) favorite color
d) creative outlets
e) entertainment
f) food/drink
g) dogs or cats? hugs or kisses?
6) Dislikes:
a) pet peeves
b) traits that he/she finds disagreeable in other people
7) Quirky habits:
a) favorite saying
b) nervous “tick” type behavior
8) How does your character handle emotional conflict with another person?
9) How does your character handle emotional conflict within him- or herself?
10) What does he or she truly desire in life at the present moment?
11) Is he or she dependent on anyone in any capacity? Is he or she responsible in any capacity for anyone else?
PART III: PHYSICAL LIVING SPACE/ENVIRONMENT
1) Where is home? City/Type of dwelling/Neighborhood
2) Who does your character live with? Who else has access to their private space? Is privacy an issue (none versus too much)?
3) Relationship to neighbors?
4) Relative security of home environment?
Defining the Who of Your Character
Introduction
One of the ruling principals in the UpOnWriting.com philosophy is to write what you know. It is inevitable that every character you write, even the villains, will have elements of you embedded in their personalities. In many instances, however, it is completely likely that you will develop a character based on a combination of people you know, or on characters you’ve read or seen on film. If someone else’s character made enough of an impression on you to inspire you to write those traits into your own creations, it is because you identified in some capacity with that individual. Understanding the inspiration for certain aspects of your character’s personality is key to staying in your character’s head.
Exercise:
Use the following mini-character map to breakdown the sources of the personality traits for your character:
1) Who do you see when you picture your character?
2) Whose voice do you hear when your character speaks?
3) In moments of fear, who does your character’s reaction remind you of?
4) In moments of humor, who does your character’s reaction remind you of?
5) When engaged in intelligent dialogue, whose “smarts” does your character tap into?
6) When threatened emotionally, whose emotions guide your character’s reactions?
7) When threatened physically, who responds on your character’s behalf?
8) In moments of sheer happiness and/or confidence, who does your character’s behavior remind you of?
9) In moments of clarity, whose wisdom creates your character’s awareness?
10) Could you trade places with your character?
Conversations With A SpecialistTM
Introduction: Taking your character into a contained environment
Now that you’ve got your character “mapped,” take him or her into a closed room with a person of authority. Keep the setting simple: a nondescript room with two chairs and a table. Your character and the Specialist will remain inside the room, but the topics and the information shared is not protected. Anything your character says can and will be used against him or her, until you rewrite the scene!
The Specialist can be a fictitious character, or someone real to you, who will ask the seemingly random questions. Let your Specialist have an air of authority and be all knowing, even if you yourself have no idea what he or she really knows. And your character interviewee will be as vulnerable, gullible, and/or open and truthful as you choose.
This is a good way to get a momentum going with writing dialogue, because you are free forming and just seeing what happens. If you have a criminal element in your idea for your story, submit your criminal character for interrogation. Don’t hold anything back. Think Law & Order, SVU. The detectives ask leading questions, and watch for “tells” that give away dishonest responses. Your character may be aware of this, and it can be a source of serious anxiety for him or her during the interview. Perhaps your character is a detective, in that case, for the sake of this exercise, put him or her into a room with the commanding officer.
Exercise:
Write a Conversation With A SpecialistTM for your character. This tool can simply serve as a building block to your character’s overall development, or ultimately turn into content for your story. (But rename it if you insert it as a chapter - I’ve trademarked Conversations With A Specialist!)
Some hints for getting started:
• Don’t worry about describing the setting
• Open the dialogue with something like the following: “So, (insert character name), why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”
• Insert an “uhmm hmmm” or an “I see. And how does that make you feel?” when you get stuck. Insert pauses in dialogue and describe what that does to your character’s state of mind. Is it empowering or nerve-wracking?
• Repeat as often as you can - and have fun!
Need an example? Here is a Conversation With A SpecialistTM that I wrote for a character of mine named Morgan Christopher (from my novel, Participants of the Project).
Commitment to Character Canon
Introduction: The Benefits of Fan Fiction
Like all who love to write, I have a very active imagination. For as long as I can remember, I have been creating in my mind what I now know to be fan fiction. It started when I would regularly watch episodes of the original Star Trek TV Show when I was about three or four years old. In my imagination, I would be beamed aboard the Starship Enterprise to help Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock with some strange mystery that only a small child from my time on earth could solve. Fortunately for me, I never wrote down and posted my tales online, as the practice of inserting oneself into one’s “fan fic” is deeply frowned upon in fan fiction culture. Such a practice is known as "writing in a Mary Sue." How embarrassing!
A very powerful way to completely fix within your subconscious the very essence of your character is to put your character among a foreign ensemble in out-of-the-ordinary circumstances and imagine not only how your character handles the situation, but how he or she interrelates with the other characters.
If you write fan fiction in any context, you probably already do this to some extent. If you’ve never even heard of fan fiction, I highly recommend a jaunt over to www.fanfiction.net. This final exercise is based on the practice of writing fan fiction.
Exercise:
Challenge yourself to stay true to your character’s canon by writing him or her into a scenario based on a crisis situation from an episode of a show with a cast of characters that you know very well from television or film. (My personal favorites: Harry Potter, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, CSI Miami, Law&Order SVU) This can also be done with a scene from a novel that you know very well.
Write On! Writing for the Pure Joy of Self Entertainment
Writer’s Toolkit - PART I - Characters You Can Get Obsessed With
Copyright © 2012 by D.S. Kirchen
Conversations With A Specialis is trademarked (TM) 2012 by D.S. Kirchen
All rights reserved. No part of this content may be reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form without explicit written permission from D.S. Kirchen. (contact: cre8tvdeb@gmail.com for information). The Write On! Writer’s Toolkits - PARTs I through IV, The Write On! Writer’s Workshops, and UpOnWriting.com are all the property of D.S. Kirchen and Creative EnDEBers. Published by Creative EnDEBers Publishing. Design by D.S. Kirchen
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