Over the years we’ve posted over 90 articles on character from who to how-to. Murderers, villains, lovers, enduring characters, shoes, shape shifters, hackers, dicks, and cannibal dwarves – we’ve got those covered! Then there’s the great how-to topics including how to build character through dialogue, using everyday inspiration, interactions, perspective, conflict and a touch of horror.

By the time you’re done reading through these, you’ll feel like you’ve attended a full workshop. So, pick and click and enjoy!

Indiana Jones and the Great Test of Character

On Cannibal Dwarves and Other Character Problems

Character Study – It’s All About Soles – Building a Character from the Ground Up

How to Build a Murderer

Take Note of Inspiration

Programmers, Hackers, and Technology

The Conflicts of Character Design

What Does Your Dialogue Say About Your Characters?

How to be a Better Tease

The Right Voice for a Dick

Love Your Cannon Fodder

Building Character : The Art of Genuine Interactions

Take Control – Please!

Characters: A Writer’s Best Friends or Bêtes Noire?

3 Dimensions of Character – A Review of Larry Brooks’ Character Development Technique

Complex Characters

Why do I like you when you’re standing in my way? The likable antagonist.

Villains, Villains, Everywhere-The Perfect Bad Guy For All Occasions

My Alien Being

Platonic Male-Female Relationships in Fiction (a.k.a. “The Glue”)

Shapeshifting: Mythical and Modern

The Outsider’s Perspective

A Secret History: The Real Stories Behind Literature’s Most Legendary Figures

Pirates of the Caribbean – The Curse of the Black Pearl

Mean Salvation

Bad Boys and Anti-heroes: Why the Gals Love Them

Making the Fear Personal

Making Murder Acceptable

Understanding Accents

Writing Who You’re Not

Hot Fun in the Summertime

The Not-So Likable Hero

What Makes Good Horror?

Valuing Your Characters or Maslow for Writers

Faith

Every Character Has a Role to Play

January 28, 2015

Colette Black

Character Colette Black No Comments

As you can tell, quite a few of us at Fictorians love David Farland’s workshops. I’m no exception, so I admit that this post is based on information I received at his outlining workshop. I won’t do him justice, but maybe my perspective on this topic will be of use.

(Btw, did they spell awesomeness wrong in the picture to the left? Not just me, right? OK, let’s move on.)

So, every story has a protagonist and an antagonist, right? The thing is, the best stories have so much more, though I’ll start with the basics:

Protagonist: Our protagonist is our main girl/guy, but remember that a story can have more than one protagonist. You can have a main protagonist and a secondary protagonist, both of whose stories weave together in synchronicity.

*In Harry Potter, though Ron and Hermione might be considered protagonists, the entire story is told from Harry’s pov, and the focus of the story is Harry. I see him as the only real protagonist.

Antagonist: The main bad dude/dudette. The person, place, or thing that stands in the way of our protagonist(s) achieving their goal(s). Yep, I said it, the antagonist does not have to be a person. It can be nature as in mountains in the middle of nowhere, crippling emotions, a monster, or any of a vast number of possibilities. Don’t limit yourself.

*Harry Potter: Duh, Voldemort.

Contagonist: I think of the contagonist as the antagonist’s knowing (or unknowing) minion. This is the one getting in the way, but not the one originally instigating the problems. Having a contagonist allows for plot twists and surprises. They’re a great way to lead the reader in one direction then twist them entirely around into another.

*Harry Potter: Some might say Malfoy, but I consider Severus Snape to be the main contagonist. We’re always unsure of his motives, and he makes himself entirely dislikable, so dying for Harry becomes a great reveal.

Heckler: The thorn in the protagonist’s side, always willing to jeer, taunt, make life difficult, and generally get in the way. Not necessarily against the protagonist’s goals, but always willing to take our protagonist down a peg or two.

*Harry Potter: Through most of the series, this role goes almost entirely to Draco Malfoy. And we love to hate him SO MUCH.

Love Interest: It’s meant to be! *insert pink and red hearts* This is the person your protagonist likes, comes to love, hates but can’t deny their attraction to. Whatever, this is the one who makes the sparks fly.

*Harry Potter: Ginny Weasley, though it sure takes them a while, and their kiss in the movie is beyond lame, in my personal opinion.

Seducer: This is the person who diverts the protagonist from the love interest, whether intentionally or otherwise. This helps the tension in the romantic subplot.

*Harry Potter: Cho Chang, though their Valentine’s date made me a bit nauseous.

Sidekick: This is the supporting character, there when the hero(ine) needs them, giving advice, an extra hand, or just moral support.

*Harry Potter: This is where Ron and Hermione really come in. Chess anyone?

Jester: The funny one. In every book, we need someone to make us laugh, lighten the mood when the drama gets too intense, or just play slapstick.

*Harry Potter: Neville Longbottom, though he definitely grew out of this role as the series progressed.

Mentor: The one who takes our protagonist’s hand, teaches him the ropes, protects him in the early stages, and almost always dies. The mentor gets our protagonist started until he/she can stand on their own.

*Harry Potter: Dumbledore, so of course he had to die.

I’m sure the list could go on, but these are the ones that stuck out to me. You see, I think the best stories have all of these character aspects. One person can embody more than one. The contagonist can also be the heckler. The seducer can also be the jester. But if you have multiple characters playing multiple roles in one story, then you might have some unnecessary characters. And if you don’t have anyone playing one of these roles then you might seriously consider, why not?

Each of these roles, whether their participation is highlighted or in the background, brings depth to a story. You might ask why I used Harry Potter as my example; because it is so easy to spot these roles in the Harry Potter stories and because they change as the story progresses. And remember, people aren’t the only ones able to play some of these roles. In the last couple of books, Harry’s seducer is his quest, pulling him away from Ginny.

And one of the funnest aspects of these character roles, is how they can change over the course of a book or a series. A sidekick may turn out to be a contagonist, the seducer may end up being the true love after all. The possibilities, just as the characters who play them, are endless.

Beyond the Nightlight

January 27, 2015

mary

Horror Marketing Mary Pletsch No Comments

There’s nothing to be afraid of. Childhood fears fade as the years pass. They are never as real as they were when you were a child.

Unless they are.

“Beyond the Nightlight” is an anthology for adult readers about the terrors of childhood boogeymen. My contribution, “Big Boy,” is based on the earliest childhood fear I can remember. I wasn’t afraid of monsters under the bed, creatures in my closet or the dark shadows in the corners of my room. I was afraid…of the light.

More specifically, I was afraid of the light cast by trucks going by on the highway outside. Their powerful headlights reflected through my window and created an illuminated square that crawled over my wall and disappeared right above my headboard.

My goal, in writing this scary story, was to show readers, firsthand, what’s so scary about light on a wall. Most people are familiar with common tropes like boogey men and monsters under the bed. And, because those tropes are common, writing a story about them demands a fresh twist or some new insight into the reasons those concepts became tropes in the first place. I decided I’d rather take my uncommon fear and show readers why that moving light kept me awake late into the night, watching it come creeping towards me.

To do that, one of the things I had to do was put myself in the mindset of a three-year-old. I remember arguing with my dad that headlights shone straight ahead on the road, not sideways and up into people’s windows, so how could a truck cause that scary moving square? The square, of course, was caused by the shape of my window, and the light moved as the truck moved on the highway, appearing when the vehicle came into range and disappearing when it passed by. My father tried very patiently to explain this to me, but my child’s logic didn’t think it made sense. Moving patches of light aren’t scary to adults. I had to describe this scene through a child’s eyes.

Next, I asked myself what I remembered the most about this childhood fear. Why do I still remember being scared of the light over three decades later, when I’ve long forgotten why I was ever afraid of other childhood boogeys? (I remember the Sphynx and sprouty potatoes being other terrors of mine). I thought back, and realized that my other fears could be easily escaped: I just closed the book on Ancient Egypt, or put the lid back on the potato barrel. With that light, though, all I could do was lie very still and hope it didn’t notice me. I remember calling for my parents, not knowing if they’d come or not, knowing the light would reappear sooner or later after they left. That feeling of being alone, possibly abandoned, holding very still in the dark and watching the light come crawling my way…that feeling lasted. That was the feeling I wanted to convey to my readers: the feeling of being there with the three-year-old protagonist, small and young and all alone in the dark, wondering if your parent would come…or if the light would get you first.

Thankfully for me (and unfortunately for my main character), “Beyond the Nightlight” falls into the horror component of speculative fiction. That means that I wasn’t bound to write a story that conformed to my reality (which always involved the illuminated square of light vanishing harmlessly once the truck moved out of range). No, in fiction I’m free to describe exactly what three-year-old me was so afraid might happen if I fell asleep with that light on my wall.

Are you scared yet? No? Are you….curious?

You can order your own copy of “Beyond the Nightlight” in paperback or ebook here.

Shine your light on twenty-four terrifying stories for grown-up readers about the horrors that lurk in a child’s imagination.

That Extra Touch

January 26, 2015

fictorians

Character Guest Posts Narrative Voice World-building Writing Tools No Comments

Guest Post by Josh Morrey.

We’ve read in several articles this month that characters are what drive a story. Characters are why we read fiction. Very few people want to read a fictitious science or economics textbook. (Though I’m sure they exist, and someone reads them). For the most part readers require plot and conflict, neither of which we can have without characters to overcome those conflicts or drive that plot.

But a good story requires more than just a warm body to go through the motions. Characters have to be interesting, intriguing. We don’t want just some Joe Schmoe cardboard cutout to destroy the One Ring and defeat Sauron; we want terrified, tender, Frodo Baggins, smallest of all the heroes, to show his incredible bravery as he faces down an enemy that entire armies couldn’t stop. We want Neo, who absolutely knows he’s not “The One”, to stop running and face down Smith and the other Agents and be The One.

So how do we create interesting characters? This is something I’ve spent a lot of time on recently. See, I’m in the process of developing a space opera web comic in the vein of Howard Taylor’s Schlock Mercenary. It’s about a small, intergalactic shipping company. Part of the developmental process is creating an interesting cast of characters to crew my ship.

One thing I like to see in characters, that I think makes them vastly more interesting, is contradictory traits. Actions or personalities that belie their outer appearance, or challenge their stereotype. For example, one of my main characters is an 8’ tall living rock with the strength and toughness of ten men. So, what’s the stereotype of a character like this? Muscle, enforcer, tough guy, brute.

This character, Argnik, is the best friend and confidant of my main character, Dax, and by all appearances is absolutely Dax’s brawn, like Chewbacca for Han Solo, Little John for Robin Hood, or Fezzik for Inigo Montoya. And these are all great characters. But if I merely make Argnik Dax’s brute force, he loses a little originality and is thereby little less interesting. So how do I change that? First, I made Argnik an accountant. And then I made him a pacifist. Argnik wouldn’t hurt the proverbial fly, and wants nothing more than to lose himself in the endless calculations of shipping manifests and invoices. Now, Dax’s enemies don’t know that, so they, like everyone else, just assume that Argnik is nothing but dumb muscle. An illusion Dax is in no hurry to contradict.

Another way to create interesting characters is internal conflict. As Jace pointed out at the beginning of the month, no character should be all good, or all bad. The world isn’t black and white. It’s full of grays and a myriad colors. Just because someone is makes good choices, doesn’t mean they won’t be tempted to make bad ones, and vice versa. We all make mistakes, some more often, or much larger, than others.

People are complex creatures. Your characters should be as well. Don’t make them the sentient being equivalent of Star Wars planets. Planets in Star Wars tend to have only one biome; the forest moon of Endor, the ice planet of Hoth, the desert planet of Tattooine. Earth, on the other hand, has no fewer than five biomes, and as many as fourteen, depending on who you ask and how they’re classified. And many of those biomes are completely opposite to each other; desert vs jungle, tropic vs arctic. Your characters should have just as many biomes in the form of personality and physical traits, and many of those should be at odds with each other. Those create conflict, which, in turn, makes for more interesting characters.

Think about some of your favorite conflicted or contradictory characters. What deep desires does their exterior façade hide? What inner conflicts do they struggle with? Like the ruffians from the movie Tangled, does your hook-handed thug yearn to be concert pianist?

Maybe he should.

Guest Writer Bio: Josh Morrey is a writer, artist, gamer, husband, and father, Josh has been writing fiction for nearly ten years. He is a member of the Word Vomit Writers Group, which group blogs at The Writer’s Ramble. Josh has one story published in Issue 2 of Promptly and has earned three Honorable Mentions and a Semi-Finalist in the L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future contest. He is currently developing a space opera webcomic based on a short story he wrote for NaNoWriMo 2012. It will eventually be seen at www.lostintransitcomic.com. Josh lives in Utah with his amazing wife, two beautiful kids, and two tiny dogs.