You’ve written your first draft. Maybe you’ve gone through NanroWrimo, and now you have 50,000 words, more or less to work with. Now it’s time to craft captivating characters.
In today’s episode, I’m going to give you ways to go deeper into your first draft so that it doesn’t fizzle out. but gets closer and closer to THE story you envision.
This part 1 of a 3 part mini series, Beyond the First Draft. Today we’re going to focus on character development. Character is the essential pillar of every great story. So grab your work in progress, and let’s do this.
Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”
Here’s a glance at this episode:
[2.49] Character is the first essential pillar to explore deeply
You want your reader to become your characters, not just be told about them. You don’t just want them to feel for your characters, but feel with them. In order for this to happen, you have to intimately know your characters. Because once you understand who your characters are, their dreams, their fears, their flaws, their inner conflicts — the reader has a stake in the story. And you can make other big decisions about your story. Like point of view, scene development, and plot.
[5:28] Core Foundation
Get clear on who your story’s about and what he or she wants. Learn to articulate your character’s desire in concrete, simple terms. You can be more general later on. This way, your character’s desire stands for all human desire. But desire is the engine of your plot, so you don’t want to skip this step.
[9:52] Build Character
Captivating characters have contradictions and complexities. They complicate the reader’s reaction and make them active participants in your story. Learn how to build contrasts into your characters so that they resemble multi-dimensional human beings, and are irresistible to your reader.
[15:27] Reveal Character
Revealing character takes a subtle hand. Here’s where you want to show, not tell. You’ll get an example of how to show us who your character is and what he or she is feeling through action, reaction, dialogue, gestures, and body language.