While I'm not on Pinterest that much anymore, sometimes I come across gold. Like this pin that I'm springboarding off of today. Whether you're into profiling characters or filling out charts for them or not, it's good to know what a little about them in order to have your characters be unique.
The best things to know are your characters' strengths and weaknesses. Some people prefer to look at internal and external motivations, but these go hand in hand. Actually ... a strength and a weakness have the same root character trait.
Someone's greatest strength tends to lend a hand to their greatest flaw as well. While I'm not sure real people are always that clean-cut, it makes a nice process for creating a character.
Say you have a character who has the strength of handling money well. On the flipside, that probably makes them stingy or controlling when it comes to purchases.
Maybe you have someone who seems to brag a lot, but they have good self-confidence and powers of execution. (Again, you can find more examples in this pin.)
Your characters can have more than one of these, especially if they're a main character. And it should be obvious that this is for every character. Not just good ones or bad one or side ones. Because every real person has strengths and weaknesses, too. And I'm actually really curious to try and figure out what my own are now!
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How do you like to create characters? Have you ever heard of this approach? (Can you tell they're my favorite part of pre-writing? :P)Want to read my latest flash fiction? Check out mine and many more over at Rosalie Valentine's Flash Fic Dash.
It is interesting how it works that your strengths are often weaknesses. I have definitely found that to be my experience with real people too, and it's always fun to twist a character's life into a hopeless, tangled mess. ;)
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
Right??? Yeah, it's always great to make characters into little disasters haha. Thanks, Emily!
DeleteGreat post! What a great tip to making characters more real! ;)
ReplyDelete-Brooklyne
Yes, I thought so too!! Glad you found it helpful. :)
DeleteI love this post, especially the part where you pointed out that we need to make sure all of our characters have strengths and weaknesses, not just the ones we have direct interaction with. I tend to forget that.
ReplyDeleteYeah, me too!! That's why I thought I'd make that point. Share my own writer weakness and all ... ;P
DeleteI love character creating too! And that’s a great thought. Thank you, Abi!
ReplyDelete~Katja L.
You're welcome! It's super fun, isn't it??
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