It's that time of year again, and I don't mean Halloween. (although I'm loving this autumn weather!) November is almost here! And that means hundreds of writers everywhere are getting prepped for a month of NaNo aka writing 50k words in one month. I've got my outline written for my own story. Finally! However, my biggest fear is that my story will end up like last years NaNo project. While the story itself was a wonderful idea, my main character felt too bland. For some reason, I struggled to portray her in a way that would have had my readers caught up in the feels. I wanted them to feel sympathetic to the hardships that she faced in losing people close to her, but also feel entertained as they experienced this new and magical world through her eyes. Yet, even myself, the writer, was more attached to my side characters. I partially blame this on my own fangirling over my male characters. (can authors fangirl over love interests they created?) It distracted me from my main character. I ended up spending more time on them, yes, than my own main girl! But there were other reasons why she felt two dimensional and just boring...Which I am about to explain.
After NaNo was over, I did a writer's workshop that winter. It was a workshop on world building, and it taught me a lot! This year as I started to prep for NaNo, I realized that my own MC, Lydia, was starting to become just as bland as my MC from last year. However, with the help of the writing workshop and some experience from this past year, I knew just what I needed to do to make her more believable and lovable. It isn't exactly what I did wrong, but what I just did not do at all....I'm probably sounding confusing by now. You can write, but then you CAN WRITE! You can go that extra step, when creating your characters. So this is what I learned:
Your character is bland and flat because YOU DON'T KNOW THEM PERSONALLY!
That's it. Simple yet true! How is a reader supposed to know your character, if you do not know them? I started a spreadsheet to chart all the basics of each character. (Age, Height, Hair and Eye Color, Hogwarts House, Myers Briggs Personality Type, Zodiac, Short Questions, Where They Live)
If you have been around me long enough, you'll know that I am a detail oriented person. It isn't good enough for me just to know that my character is fifteen years old and has red hair. I want to know what her favorite food is, what was her first memory of rebelling against her parents, when did she learn to read, who taught her, does she like sweets, what is she afraid of?
Now I'm not saying that you have to do this with each character! I usually do this with the top characters in my story specifically the ones that have the most limelight. Just doing this with the main character helps bring them to life. Later on, when characters question them, you won't have to sit debating how they'll react. You'll already know them. Think about your best friend, or someone you knew well in the past. If someone said, 'hey what do they like on their pizza', you most likely would be able to give them a decent answer. You should feel like this with your main character. You should feel as close to them as you would a best friend.
Think of it this way...If you were to sit down with your main character and prove to them that you created them, you would have to tell them all the secrets and little details of their life to prove to them that you are the author of their story. You would need to tell them things that no one knows except for them. This may give you a god like standing, but really that is what all authors are, when we take on the role of writer. A mini god making up worlds and people that may not exist to others, but certainly do in our minds.
Now how do you become besties with someone who doesn't exist? Someone who you are literally creating? You start by asking questions. They can be really deep questions, but I say just start with simple questions. I'll give you some examples of questions that I asked my main character, Lydia.
What is your favorite season?
Winter is my favorite.
Now you can just have them answer with a simple Winter, Spring, Autumn, or Summer. However, to really understand your character better, ask them why that season is their favorite. This was Lydia's reasoning to why Winter was her favorite season.
Winter reminds me of when my father would come home for Christmas. His dragon, Ghost, was always so warm to stand and lay against, when the air was bitter cold. Ghost's scales are gray and white. When we were little, he would hide in the snow, and we would play hide and seek. Sometimes, my father would put us on his back or tie a sled to him to pull us around the yard. We would come inside our faces red and numb, and my mother would hang our clothes by the fire. Then, we would sit underneath the Christmas tree and wait up for Santa. Though, we always fell asleep within minutes of waiting for him. My father was always coming and going to serve the king, but at Christmas he always stayed for at least two days sometimes longer. And those were the happiest times of our lives.
You can see the difference between the short answer and her long description. Now we have a better idea and a look into to my characters background. So in the future, if she gets upset at a Christmas party, it might be because something reminded her of her childhood with her father. You can't know a characters future without knowing their past. Now we can see that she lives in a place that experiences all the seasons, and her father apparently has a dragon! Just by asking a simple question, you can draw out so much from one person. I will give you another example.
What is your favorite outfit?
My mother makes me wear dresses. Long skirts that are solid green to match my eyes and stupid orange shawls that blend into my ridiculous orange curls. Honestly, I hate them! I end up looking like a Christmas tree most of the time all red and green. Arlo laughed at me once for it, when I was in the village. He laughed at my ridiculous attire and said that I needed some berries to complete the look. He threw a necklace of red berries over my head from his mother's basket. I was already cross at my brother Devlin for getting to fly with my father on Ghost, while I had to endure the markets with mother. Arlo's teasing set me off, and before he could duck, I slammed my fist into his nose. He bled all down his mouth, and our mothers had to pull us apart. He never teased me for my clothes again.
Not long after, I stole some men's clothes from from the village. I'm really horrible with sewing, but under pressure and with determination, I can do whatever I set my mind to. So, I altered the clothes to the best of my abilities to fit my own measurements. I would put them on underneath my dresses. Then, when I went out into the forest to play or go on a walk, I would slip off my dress and romp around in them freely. My father built me a tree house out in the forest years ago. I took the clothes to a stream with a bar of soap that I snatched as well and washed them. I would hang them up on the branches by the tree house. It became my special hiding place to be alone. I think my mother knows about the clothes now, but she tolerates them only because I wear them, when I am out in the woods. I would never wear them in our house. It would give my sisters a bad impression and bad ideas.
This one gives me sooooo much more insight to Lydia's character! Just by asking about her clothing revealed so much! I learned that she has a brother and sisters. She has orange hair, well red, but I know people call bright red hair orange sometimes. She has green eyes, and there is a boy in the village named Arlo. And, she is not shy it would seem. I'm assuming this since she did not hesitate to punch him in the nose. The fact that they had to be pulled apart means that she went on to fight him. She has some anger about her but also some bravery maybe and spirit that is strong. I'll remember that, when writing about her in the future. I also learn that she secretly wears men's clothes when playing in the woods by her house. Her father built her a tree house, her secret place to be alone. And she is resourceful...as in not below stealing. Or I'm sure in her mind taking things that probably won't be missed.
So as you can see getting to know Lydia through these type of questions gives her more life and color! It makes her seem much more interesting. Why do I think that this will help your characters? Well, honestly, because I did not do this up until this year, and suddenly my own characters are starting to come to life in a way that I did not think was possible. I have another story that I have worked on this year, and I worked on their backgrounds. One of my main characters I figured out that his favorite sweet is toffee dipped in chocolate and he loves cozy sweaters. Just these small details makes them seem human, realistic, and believable. That's when I started to make aesthetic collages on Pinterest for these characters. That's when I realized that they could be brought to life merely by diving deeper into their personalities and their backgrounds.
Are you planning on writing for NaNo? I would love to hear about the story you have planned! If you need any more tips or have any questions, I would love to answer them for you. My NaNo profile page is HERE if you would like to join me in my quest to write 50k! Honestly, my biggest worry is making my story longer than necessary and going way over. I'd like to keep it at about 70k tops so wish me good luck! And feel free to join me at my Instagram account as well! I'm on there at @neisasnook I will be sharing my experience as I write my story. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope that this helps you grow and mold your main character!
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