{"id":1759,"date":"2020-10-06T12:29:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-06T18:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/?p=1759"},"modified":"2021-01-08T12:39:03","modified_gmt":"2021-01-08T19:39:03","slug":"how-to-create-an-engaging-character","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/2020\/10\/06\/how-to-create-an-engaging-character\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Create An Engaging Character"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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https:\/\/www.deviantart.com\/starvedgoat\/art\/PC-240518-746409820<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Hey guys! Today I\u2019m going to talk about how I create characters in 7 easy steps.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Step One: Base Traits<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For Jade, this was as follows: She\u2019s stubborn, she\u2019s a hothead, and she\u2019s incredibly good in combat. That gives you a rough outline as to what the character is and what they\u2019re like.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Step Two: Contradictions <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Next, dive into that and make some contradictions. One of the things I like to do is actively push away from what I first think of. For Jade, while she\u2019s excellent in war and fighting, she\u2019s terrible with leading others or organizing an attack, and she\u2019s awful in interpersonal relationships. She really struggles making and keeping connections due to her bull-headedness. This means that despite being a valuable asset, her arrogance has kept her from really developing many emotional ties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This creates conflict, which is important when creating a character. You want conflict to seep into most everything you write, and this includes the character. So think about what other conflicts the character might have with the world and the people around them. For Jade, the world\u2019s caste system deems that she\u2019s demonic, and must be eradicated. This means that not only is she fighting a war for people that want to kill her, but she has to hide who she truly is to keep from being hurt and killed. You can tie that into her struggle to have personal relationships, and that can make for an interesting character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Step Three: Endear Them To Us<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Of course, not everything a character can do is conflict and contradictions. You should at least make them endearing to the reader in some way – and if your plan isn\u2019t that, make them engaging enough that the reader can enjoy their story. You can make them sarcastic, snarky, or brash, but give them that one crutch that shows a softer side. For Jade, her main goal was to escape her enemy\u2019s clutches in order to return home. And home, to her, is her best friend Aris. You see her deeply care for this woman during her struggle in the Viridis Series, and that helps a reader sympathize with the character as she makes her way through the world. Her determination and ferocity to survive can also be endearing to readers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Step Four: Motivations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Give them a motivation. This one should be a given, but it\u2019s completely necessary you give your character a drive and goal. Even better if their goal conflicts with those around them. For Jade, her initial goal is to survive the war, but when she is captured by enemy forces, her goals shift. Not only must she escape, but when she learns her enemy has a superweapon that could easily kill her best friend, Aris, she has to juggle staying behind enemy lines to stop them, and running home to warn her friend.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Step Five: Limitations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Make sure they have limits. As suggested with some of the earlier points, giving the character flaws is important and that\u2019s what makes them human. For Jade, she can\u2019t make friends easily, she\u2019s not able to organize well-thought out attacks on enemy forces, and, due to some torture at the hand of the enemy years before, she also suffers vivid hallucinations. They shouldn\u2019t be able to surmount each obstacle they come against, either, as you don\u2019t want to accidentally make a Mary Sue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Step Six: Representation & Accuracy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Lastly, make sure your character represents the group you\u2019re talking about well. I think it\u2019s incredibly important to ensure that if your character is something other than you – say, a different race, or suffers from an illness you do not – then you need to do your research and talk to people who have experiences in that group. You don\u2019t want to write something that misrepresents the people you\u2019re talking about.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And those are some of my tips! I know it\u2019s not a fully comprehensive list, but hopefully it helps you start brainstorming. I\u2019ve included some links to character questionnaire sheets that have helped me get started with a character in the past<\/a>, though I\u2019ll admit, I almost never finish them. I enjoy learning about the character more as I write them, and though this means I have to rewrite many scenes afterwards, it makes the process of storytelling much more exciting and exploratory for me. I hope you guys enjoyed this video, and stay tuned for more tea reviews and writing discussions!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stay safe out there!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey guys! Today I\u2019m going to talk about how I create characters in 7 easy steps.\u00a0 Step One: Base Traits For Jade, this was as follows: She\u2019s stubborn, she\u2019s a hothead, and she\u2019s incredibly good in combat. That gives you a rough outline as to what the character is and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[629],"tags":[559,569,567,568,570,533,37,566],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27tjX-sn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1759"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1987,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759\/revisions\/1987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}