Character Creation

Character Creation

So last week, we looked a little at developing a character--kind of my spaghetti train of thought as I considered things for the character. 

Since I'm scheduling these posts in advance (that's the only way to make sure they happen) and I'm waiting on the comments to get a last name for my protagonist, I wanted to sidebar and look into character creation as a whole. 

There's a lot of resources out there...

Yep. Tons. And it makes sense because, as I said last week, the characters really do make or break the story. 

I come from a different place than a lot of writers, however, because I have a background in acting and theater. What has always been REALLY cool to me is how much overlap there is. The biggest difference is that for an actor the information is there for the character, they just interpret it, whereas for the writer, we have to come up with everything from scratch.

So I started compiling my resources.

Some of my favorite parts of acting class were the portions dedicated to character development. We got all sorts of sketches, worksheets, and other materials to help us develop our characters. My favorite was probably where we did a study--we picked a person who we wanted to base the character off of, and (sometimes covertly) studied how the person breathed, walked, moved, everything. It was really cool, and it definitely helps you get physically into the character. 

Anyways, I looked through all these notes, and compiled them with some other resources I found on the Internet to make a master spreadsheet. 

If you want to download your own copy, use this link.

It's so cool (yes, I am a nerd). You can expand or collapse categories as needed, and by the time you get all the information together, you have a fully fleshed character. 

I'm going to start working on that now, with the plan of sharing a few other characters while I wait for the winning post with an awesome last name for Carrigan. 

Comment below!

As with all these posts, commenting frequently can earn you a free copy of this book once it's out! If you're an author, you can share your favorite character building tools...and if you're a reader, share some of your favorite characters!