# Character Development



## FelixBandercoot (May 15, 2010)

I've always had problems in character development. I think the reason why is that I focus too much on moving along in the story, and not elaborating more on character interactions and description. 

If you have any tips you'd like to share, please do! I'd love to hear suggestions on how to fix this problem, so that it may help with writing in the future.  Thanks!

-Felix Blazius Bandercoot


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## GraemeLion (May 15, 2010)

FelixBandercoot said:


> I've always had problems in character development. I think the reason why is that I focus too much on moving along in the story, and not elaborating more on character interactions and description.
> 
> If you have any tips you'd like to share, please do! I'd love to hear suggestions on how to fix this problem, so that it may help with writing in the future.  Thanks!
> 
> -Felix Blazius Bandercoot



I tend to develop my characters as I'm working through the scenes in my story.  Things tend to come out as I write.  I've been known to make up stuff about a character on the fly, just because I didn't think of that piece of information before hand.

I'm a huge fan of the snowflake method, by Randy Ingermanson, located here:

http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php

He suggests taking your characters, and making a one page summary of them that contain the name, a sentence summary of their story line, their motivation, their goal, their conflict, their epiphany, and a paragraph about their role in the story.

It tends to make things easier for me.


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## FelixBandercoot (May 15, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> He suggests taking your characters, and making a one page summary of them that contain the name, a sentence summary of their story line, their motivation, their goal, their conflict, their epiphany, and a paragraph about their role in the story.
> 
> It tends to make things easier for me.


 
Hm... Interesting. I did something similar before making an outline, but not to that extent of detail... It's a great idea! Thanks!


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## HidesHisFace (May 15, 2010)

I find first person perspective a good way to force character development - telling about what character thinks about certain situation or simply talking about his or hers everyday life indebteen the lines.
First of all, take your time, do not move with action too fast. If you do so, it will make potentially good characters looking like piece of cardboard, and everything may be hard to follow. So, do not hurry up, take your time and write about characters impressions, beliefs etc. 
For example - when character does something, write about what he or she feels about it etc. do not rush with it. I really helps to build a tension when needed and makes relating to the character much, much easier.


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## FelixBandercoot (May 15, 2010)

HidesHisFace said:


> I find first person perspective a good way to force character development - telling about what character thinks about certain situation or simply talking about his or hers everyday life indebteen the lines.
> First of all, take your time, do not move with action too fast. If you do so, it will make potentially good characters looking like piece of cardboard, and everything may be hard to follow. So, do not hurry up, take your time and write about characters impressions, beliefs etc.
> For example - when character does something, write about what he or she feels about it etc. do not rush with it. I really helps to build a tension when needed and makes relating to the character much, much easier.


 
Great advice! Thanks!  I really do need to start taking my time with writing; I think that's what makes my works so secondhand. "Rogue" is written (mostly) in first person, but it's the first time I've ever used the first, so it didn't turn out as well as I thought it would.  Ah, well! That helps a lot! 

Any more suggestions are welcome!


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## Steel the Wolf (May 16, 2010)

One thing you might consider is the very core of a character. By that I mean, you take a stick figure and you give it something to care about. That is the core of every character in every story, ever. After that you decide how what the character cares about will be threatened. That's plot. Character Development is essentially a big scary term that means "how the plot (the threat) changes the character". So how does the character respond to, and subsequently be changed by, the threat. 

For example, I'm writing a novella right now about a young female fox who lives as a thief on the streets. She cares about keeping herself safe. She doesnâ€™t trust anyone because she feels it makes her venerable. I threaten that by making people around her attempt to show her that it is really ok to trust people. Her response in an up and down ride; having to face her own insecurity and teaching herself how to tell the difference between good and bad people and being able to separate the two. 

I am developing her by throwing positive and negative events at her and asking myself how I would respond in that situation. Being an actor, I just put my self in her shoes, think how I would act given the current stimuli, and then write it down.

One final note, I think it helps a lot to get the first scene and the last scene nailed down from the start. That way you know where you are and where you want to be. After that it's just getting from A to B in an appropriate manor.

Not sure if this wall of text helped at all, but those are my thoughts.


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## FelixBandercoot (May 16, 2010)

Steel the Wolf said:


> One thing you might consider is the very core of a character. By that I mean, you take a stick figure and you give it something to care about. That is the core of every character in every story, ever. After that you decide how what the character cares about will be threatened. That's plot. Character Development is essentially a big scary term that means "how the plot (the threat) changes the character". So how does the character respond to, and subsequently be changed by, the threat.
> 
> For example, I'm writing a novella right now about a young female fox who lives as a thief on the streets. She cares about keeping herself safe. She doesnâ€™t trust anyone because she feels it makes her venerable. I threaten that by making people around her attempt to show her that it is really ok to trust people. Her response in an up and down ride; having to face her own insecurity and teaching herself how to tell the difference between good and bad people and being able to separate the two.
> 
> ...


 
Thanks for your help.  Those were pretty good suggestions, and I'll refer back to them as I begin to start writing again.


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