Hello readers. Welcome to my February 2017 blog. Today’s blog is going to focus on how I create characters in my books. This is one of the most exciting parts of planning the story for me and without characters, no story would exist.
First of all, when planning a book, I think of ideas as to what the story could be and then put together some key words or ideas such as: school, holiday, magical world, time travel. From this brain -storming and further thought, I will begin to have ideas of a storyline. These ideas, of course, do not yet commit me to a definite story.
After this, it is important to think about characters, focusing on the main ones first. I think which characters would suit this kind of story. For example, if I have selected a story about time travel (which I have already written about), I may consider a main character, who needs to be brave or a mad scientist, who wants to travel in time to destroy the world.
Then it is important to consider what other types of characters would make the story a good one. For example, if a mad scientist travelled in time to try and destroy it, a good character to include, would be an heroic individual, who would try to stop the mad scientist.
When you have decided who the main characters are to be, their roles in the story and how they will work together or indeed, work against each other, it is at this point that you can go into more detail about them. This may include height, weight, hair colour, personalities or their interests.
The main characters will then help you shape your story. For example, in my latest book:’ A different world of school’, the main character, Matty, is a daring young boy, a bit of an adventurer and so I thought that this should have a major impact on how the world of Taze is found. Matty’s curiosity about an old school shed and his desire to miss his afternoon lessons, lead him into another world. His caring personality throughout the story also leads to various actions in protecting his friends.
My main message from this blog, therefore, is that it is important to consider carefully who the main characters in the story could be, their role, their personality traits and how they will influence the story line. I also often find that the story line may change a character as I write!
Jonny Pardoe
Photo by Romain MATHON on Unsplash
Jonny Pardoe © February 2017
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Jonny Pardoe
