Visit Fox Lancet's Website Here
Fantasy Book Critic is excited to welcome Fox Lancet to our blog today. She is the up and coming author of a new fantasy novel titled Otherworld Soldiers: Rise of the Apocalypse.
Today she stops by to discuss character development and
writing her latest novel.
A huge thank you to Fox Lancet for stopping by today!
Summary of Otherworld Soliders: Rise of the Apocalypse:
A Demon lord running low on victims.
A woman who was never meant for the world she was born into.
An enemy seeking to stand in the path of a violently ravenous horde.
When Lord Nefarion learns of the Otherworld, he stops at nothing to bring his legion to its gate and cross over. The Key must be found so that the demons can keep control of this precious gate out of the hands of their enemy.
Meanwhile, the Seraphs will do anything to keep the demons from their goal. Earth and its billions of humans cannot be allowed to fall victim to the savage bloodlust of Nefarion and his Horde, but they are outmatched. Only allies on this Otherworld can help, but can this equally blood-driven race be trusted?
Can either side locate the Key before the other and secure their access to this new battlefield? What happens when there is much more to it than any could have guessed?
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There are all sorts of aspects in writing that we writers
have to hone in order to be successful. Between setting, characters, structure,
and dialogue it’s tough to be the master of it all. One of my favorite parts of
writing is character development. Creating intelligent beings and unveiling
their personalities through their words and actions never loses its luster. In
a way, we writers have very personal relationships with every character we
bring to the page.
It is beyond simple to write a likable character. We make
them do things that we ourselves wish we could do or would do if we were in
their shoes. Even beyond that, we write people we like into those very
characters. But we have to tread lightly when writing the likable character
because they’ll often become predictable and fall flat as a believable
character. A writer has to remember to give each of them their own quirks and
flaws because that’s what makes a true, intelligent being. Allow them to make
mistakes, to be cruel, to be overbearing or irrational. Before you know it,
your character will start moving through your story doing things you never
would have guessed and that’s when you’ll know you have succeeded.
No story would be an interesting story without the
unlikable character. This one can be as easy as it is difficult. Think of
people you don’t like and why you don’t like them and put them on your pages.
The difficult part is still giving this character a chance. Give him
opportunities to be somewhat likable or relatable by giving him empathetic
motivation or actions. My struggle with these types of characters is my
disinterest in them. I wrote most of my book almost completely ignoring a key
character because he didn’t interest me. He was a thorn in the spines of my
main characters and so I just blew him off. Then it was brought to my attention
that the reader needed to know him more in order to really care what was
happening in the book at all. It took great effort to write him in, primarily because
I didn’t really know him and secondly because I didn’t like him. But after
writing in more scenes with him he really rounded out and became easier to
include later on.
Motivation is probably a writer’s strongest tool when
developing a character. Once you establish their reason for existence and what
moves them through your pages, the rest should come easier. After that you just
have to establish his attitude and give him some personality. So long as you’ve
had your own human interactions, creating a make-believe person with certain
personality traits shouldn’t be too tough, otherwise you may be trying too hard
and trying too hard often creates a calculated character that’s flat and
predictable. I always like to say, “You have to hate what your characters do
sometimes and even more, let them surprise you.” Once you really know your
character, you can stop asking yourself whether that’s something he would do or
not do. He’ll do what he does for you.
The relationships your characters have with one another are
pertinent to revealing their personalities. This is probably one of my favorite
ways to develop characters, through their interactions. It sets up moments of
actions and reactions to another intelligent being’s own actions and reactions.
These scenes will give you plenty of chances to show off your character’s
personality. Even if he is conniving and fake, we’ll see him faking it when
discoursing with another character. Most of my favorite characters are part of
a dynamic duo because I like to write a lot of my characters in pairs. This way
they play off each other and they know each other well enough to remark on the
other’s traits.
In some respect, you have to be aware of certain emotions
and characteristics within yourself to help the process of developing
characters. If you don’t know how to be mean—or nice—how would you ever expect
to write about someone who can be one of those things? Recently, I told a
friend (who is an aspiring writer) how he needs to get in touch with all
aspects of himself, even the most loathed parts of his being. He’s one of those
ridiculously nice persons who wouldn’t curse you even if you crapped in his
morning cereal, but he is an unbelievable comic and book nerd! He loves the bad
guy. He loves the good guy. But I believe to write these characters you have to
feel the good and the bad in yourself and everything in between. If you can’t
connect in some way with those parts of yourself, how can you imagine writing
those personalities?
After I told him this he went ahead and tried to play an
RPG game through and was attempting to make his character the most diabolical
by making all the most terrible decisions and he admitted that he really
struggled with it because he didn’t want to disappoint the character’s father
or bestie, etc. See right there? If you go into a fictional role still acting
like yourself, you’ll never find characters beyond yourself. They will always
be just you. In other words, if you can’t break from your own mold,
you’ll never break the fictional mold. If you can tap into all aspects of
personality possibilities (try saying that ten times fast) then you have an
unlimited supply of characters at your disposal.
Developing characters is, in my experience, a very
rewarding process. I’ve created these beings that move around the pages of
practically their own volition. I think about them when I’m out and about and I
even dream of them. I’m pretty much to the point I wish they really did exist,
but maybe it’s because they’re like my babies. Either way, just try and stay
away from the clichés and get ready to let your characters do what you DON’T
want them to do. You can’t always lead your characters otherwise you’re just
doing what YOU want to do and your character’s can’t be themselves. And don’t
be afraid to feel things you don’t normally like to so you can write a
personality that’s nothing like you.
2:14 AM | 
Posted by
Cindy |
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3 comments:
Great advice about getting out of your own mold. I reckon an author's first book, or books, probably has characters that sit too comfortably within the author's head. At least, that was my experience with my first two books. Now, I'm interested in getting out of my head and thinking more about the motivations of others. I like your advice to get inspiration from real people you don't like too. I've got one such person in my life who I have in mind to be the inspiration for a character, and I'm trying to understand more about him. Interestingly, the process is making me empathize with him more than I ever have.
I'm glad I could inspire! It was definitely a learning process to figure out how to truly make individual characters. Breaking your own mold is the way to go! :)
"Breaking out of your own mold" is a very good advice for building characters, I myself have too often written main character/s to be more in line with my own personality as that felt more comfortable than forcing myself to write things I wouldn't do.
Thanks for the article.