Writers Workshop
"Creating a World - and Living With It"
A Workshop for Writers
by Rachel Lee
Central Character: Rachel Lee
Your central characters drive the plot. That includes your hero and/or heroine, villains, and important secondary characters that motivate or inhibit the heroes or villains. These can be relatives, friends, coworkers, pets, and influential people of the community. In a paranormal setting they could also be ghosts, deities, spirit guides, or your world itself.
For each central character, at a minimum, you need to know his or her primary goal and primary fear. For some characters, the goals and fears spring out organically as you get the idea for the story. For others, especially characters that emerge as you write, you'll need to create them on the spot.
Your characters' goals and fears can be as varied as your understanding of human nature, but here are three basic guidelines: (1) don't make them mirror opposites, like "he wants to be rich" and "he's afraid to be poor," because you'll get 'flat' characters; (2) don't make them too specific, like "he wants a red Mercedes," because your characters need to be able to act on their goals and fears in any situation; and, (3) don't make them too general, like "he wants to be a good man," because that doesn't give you enough to work with as a writer.
A character can have more than one goal and one fear, but every central character needs at least one of each. A character's own goal and fear will create his or her internal conflicts. The goals and fears of different characters create the conflicts between them. Those conflicts - and the things your characters do to resolve those conflicts - create the plotlines for your story or series. That's what "character-driven" means: the plot comes out of the characters and the conflicts within and between them.
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Writer Workshop: Character