Creating A Fictional Character (A general view)
Friday, September 26th, 2008Have you ever wonder how writers create characters in their stories, one that can be enticed with depth, personality, appearance, background and conflict of interest? Well, it is not easy for one thing and for another, it isn’t hard if you focus on the character of interest. Defining the character can be as 2 dimensional or 3. 2 dimensional characters are quite easy but creating a 3 dimensional character might take a little bit more time to define how you want your character to be. For instance of a 2 dimensonal character:-
“Darrick Montana is just an average ordinary person, short hair with average built body and has a love of eating ice cream because he likes to. He’s the sort that likes to take a walk in the park, enjoying the breeze of the wind and like to sight-seeing places. By night, he loves to dance his night life away with friends and also would love to pick up some girls along the way. Basically, Darrick enjoy his life at the moment because this is what he likes to do everyday”.
Well, boring right? That’s what 2 dimensional fictional characters are. It’s easy to create and it’s easy to just explain it. Those are considered supporting characters that people don’t care about. I mean, usually we don’t care because they are there to support the main character, which is a 3 dimensional type that boost up the depth of what we know about the character we pay most attention to. Here’s a 3 dimentional character description:-
“Jonathan Starmores is 31 and has a history of violence. He was in a group called “The Morlocks”, a group of gangsters that they operate in New York City and he is their body bagger. His friend, Darrick, let’s him know certain locations of where to hide bodies his employer kills. He has a “I hate you buggers” tattoo on his right arm and he limbs with his left leg, an old injury his father used to beat him. From a broken down family, he does learn the true values of family from his uncle but it is difficult to be brought up as a gentleman while he has a hot temper, just like his dad. He doesn’t have any hobbies because he thinks hobbies are for sissies and he dislike guns. He smirks whenever trouble is around the corner and when it comes to brute force, just watch out his left hook.”
Now what you have read so far is the 3 dimensional character that has a history background, what he does, a small fraction of his personality that can be push through but still, not much of a character that can pull readers to be interested in his character. If you add one more line to this character like:-
“He loves broadway musical shows but he doesn’t tell people of his interest because in his business, nobody likes a sissy”.
That gives you an indepth 3 dimensional character that makes you think… hmmm, what makes this guy unique and want to find out more about him. With questions that will sprung up from your mind, you want to know more of Jonathan than Darrick because Jonathan is much more interesting. So when creating a 3 dimentional fictional character, you have to create a character that is based on:-
1). Experience
2). Experience of others
3). Research of true accounts of someone’s life
Knowing all three of them, it is what makes creating a fictional character as real as possible and creates a someone that will make you want to know more about him than anything else. I hope this blog of explaining how to create a fictional character is helpful to you. Here’s one example of mine:-
“Michael Johansen has just turn 40. Single, living alone in his apartment at 2nd street of New Jersey was his ideal place to be unlike in Texas, which to him is nothing more of cattle and horses. He has a problem of approaching people, one that he lacks of any self confidence in himself because he doesn’t have any friends to support him. His loves to watch TV a lot, doesn’t read any books but magazines and he commutes in a train every day for his work. He is an accountant at Strauss & Morgan for 18 years, never promoted. His parents passed away recently and he is all alone now. Lonely and sometimes feeling quite unhappy, he hopes to find someone he can truly love that will make him happy, one he will require sometime for the day to come, in hope that it will”.
I hope you enjoy reading this blog. 
