Wednesday, May 9, 2012
How to create a Fictional Character in magezine
1. The type of character you create determines how the story
will arc. If the main
character/s are closely aligned
with their setting, the arc will begin shallowly, and the
character will tend to blend in
with their surroundings and the other characters around
them. If they're diametrically
opposed, dramatic conflict will unfold from the very
beginning, and will have to work
itself out from there.
2. Decide if you want to create a protagonist (hero) or
antagonist (villain). Maybe you
need a secondary character such
as a henchman, a best friend, or a
boyfriend/girlfriend. Do
subtleties in character or alleigance affect the way events
play out? You might need
anti-heroes (Spike from Buffy), sympathetic villains
(Frankenstein's monster), wild
cards (Jack Sparrow), treacherous friends (Iago from
Othello), or a trickster guide
(Smeagol/Gollum).
Determine whether the character is male or female, and the
approximate age. Age can
3. show the reader minute details
about your character. For example, an older, wise
villain could be portrayed as an
aging, lonely man. A naive, enthusiastic hero could be
shown as a young teenage girl or
boy. Sometimes these can be
contradictory; Don Quixote was a
crotchety old man who'd spent his life in a room
reading chivalry novels, and as
naive as they come; it was this naivety that drove him
out to seek adventure and make it
up when it was nowhere to be found.
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As a creative writing major, I would have to agree that you need to create interesting and dynamic characters in order to make a good story. I don't think it's always necessary to have these kinds of archetypes, but it's a good place to start if you are having trouble creating characters.
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