The Write Zone

Characters. Your mind is either dreading or anticipating getting to dream them up. Maybe you want your hero to be a defiant girl in the 1700’s, or a talking mouse in medieval times. Perhaps your villain is a sorcerer or a bully at school. Quite honestly, your options are endless. And if you have a setting, it might be easier to come up with your main characters, but maybe you want to build your world around them. Let’s go through the steps I use when dreaming up protagonists and antagonists.

Step One: Visualize your hero. Think about what you want them to look like and what their personalities are. (Use a piece of paper, a Google Doc, or a sticky note to jot down notes and descriptions.) Don’t worry about a name yet, just take it one step at a time.

Step Two: Imagine your villain. You might not even have a person that’s dubbed ‘The Bad Guy’, because the enemy might be your hero’s negative thoughts or something that’s not alive. But think about your protagonist and try and create something that would be his/her enemy, and just write down some descriptions again.

Step Three: Side Characters. Who is the villain’s henchman? The protagonist’s brother? Start creating friends, family, assistants, love interests, etc. that could make the story richer and more elaborate. These people should have descriptions and personality, but they might not need to be as developed as the protagonist and antagonist.

Step Four: Names. This is what I struggle with the most. I want to like their names, but I also like the meanings to match the character. So I’d go to a name finding website, like Nameberry, and put in words that describe your character, and attempt to find a name for every character. Or, if you want to be unique, think of names that aren’t real but could be in your world. I once had a wizard named Zelfar in a short story of mine, and I basically jotted down random combinations of letters until I found a name that was realistic enough and fit my character.

Step Five: Don’t worry if during your writing you change the character’s role. I was writing a novel once, and I was three chapters from finishing it when I decided a betrayal would be perfect. So I totally threw it in there, completely at random, but when I went back and added in foreshadowing, it made the book better than it would have been without. So if you think that changing the role of a character would be best, don’t tell yourself you have to stick with your first plan.

If you need tips on anything, leave a comment below and I can write a blog on your struggle.

Till my pen meets the paper again,

Tatum