Characters

So we are about a week away until the majority of us are done with classes. It has been such a busy semester that it feels like I've only been here for a month. I can't say I recall enough of my experiences here to write up a short memoir, but I still have my little projects to look up whenever I need to remember something.

One can say the same about characters. Recall their accomplishments enough and they are just as memorable. To remember them so fondly is what makes a good character to someone.

Characters

A character is a participant of the story, most commonly a person. If you don't know that already, I would like to personally bonk smack you on the head with a thick newspaper.

You can maybe write poetry without characters, but a whole story? Well, there has to be someone or something that needs to be the focus of the story. So without characters, there is no story.

Want an unorthodox example? Take the indie video game NightSky, where you play as an empyreal black ball. Yes, I know this is not a written story, so please bear with me. While NightSky isn't a story with engaging characters or even a structured plot, the main "character" is the ball. It has no personality or motives of its own. It just contains magical properties and rolls across fantastic dream-like landscapes. For what it lacks though, it is still the main focus of the game and is the closest thing to a character at the bare minimum.

As you decide who your characters are, there are a few things you must consider. For example, is one of you r characters narrating the story? If so, will it be the main character or someone else? You may think you can only write a story in first-person with the main character, but this is false. For example, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was written in first person from the point of view of Jay Gatsby's (the main character) neighbor. A different point of view makes up a very different story. In a crime novel, will you narrate from the point of view of the detective or the criminal?

Next,  you need to decide who your protagonist(s) and antagonist(s) are. The protagonist is not necessarily "good," but just the main character we're following, while the antagonist opposes the protagonist. As mentioned previously, you can have a ruthless criminal as your main character and he/she would still be the protagonist. What often drives a plot is the interaction between the protagonist and the antagonist; the protagonist has a "goal" or "desire" in the story and he/she spends the whole story trying to achieve it. But someone else, the antagonist, tries to keep him/her from that goal/desire. This creates the main conflict between characters, which drives the whole story forward. We'll go deeper into conflict later.

Every main and major character has a motivation driving them. Taking note as the character being the "who," what is the character's desire? How will the character achieve it? Why is he/she trying to achieve it? Again, motivation. This is what builds an interesting character.

And lastly, let's discuss minor characters. Minor characters interact with your major characters in the story, but play little to no role in the main plot. So why use them? Because to create a believable story, you need to bring your world to life with more people. You don't necessarily need to identify their motives or goals as your major characters, but they are still important for helping moving the story forward. Minor characters can be planned out to an extent or create right on the spot as you write. They are a nice little touch to bringing life to your story.

To wrap things up, remember these:

• Is one of your characters the narrator?

• Who are your protagonist(s) and antagonist(s)?

• What is the motivation of the protagonist(s) and antagonist(s)?

• Who will you use as minor characters? How will they move the plot forward?

There is so much I can speak of regarding characters, but we are just looking at the basics for now. Until then, keep a lookout for my next post!