Twenty Something Writers

This post was written by Pam from Reflections from a Neurotic Writer.   If you’re interested in contributing a writing tip, email twentysomethingwriters[at]gmail[dot]com.

Creating a character for any sort of story is a very important and long process. Whether your character is drawn from real life or a figment of your imagination, you need to know that person inside and out, know them as well as you know yourself. This can be hard for some people, because they don’t know where to start. Well, I’m going to help you out.

The first thing that I do is write the name of the character on an index card (preferably the large one), or create an excel spreadsheet. From there get the basics out of the way, height, weight, hair color, eye color, and age. Next, get into the nitty gritty stuff, for instance, when where they born, favorite movie, favorite color (do they wear this color a lot), did they move around a lot, favorite subject in school, their best friend, and etc. The list can go on and on. Really analyze the character, find out what makes it tick, and bring it to life. Make it feel like you can have someone ask you any question about them and you answer right away.

Now get into their family life. How many siblings do they have, do they get along, etc. If the character has a happy home, their mood should be happy right? Well, you can play with that and have something in their long past that happened in the family that is now covered up and they appear happy.

Here is an example of something that I do every time I create a new character. Sometimes I add more or delete others, it really depends on the depth of what the character needs to be.

The most important thing is to make the characters your own, let them breath, eat, sleep, and love. Let their emotions or actions get portrayed throughout your writing.

This post was written by Pam from Reflections from a Neurotic Writer.  She suggested that we occasionally provide writing tips.  If you’re interested in contributing a writing tip, email twentysomethingwriters[at]gmail[dot]com.

1. Schedule time for writing. I know this is a hard one. But if it is not in a scheduled time then we tend to push it off to the side and just forget about it. Or find something else to do during that small amount of free time. I find if I do not schedule a 15 minutes of writing here or 30 minutes there, that I never get around to it. It doesn’t have to be two three hours, but only little chunks. That way you get some writing done and feel like it hasn’t taken over your whole day. So make a schedule of your week, put in all the times you work, have school, need to clean the house, have other activities, or anything else. Then mark in when you want to write and have time. Don’t sacrifice your family time or your job. Perhaps during lunch, you could eat and write, or instead of watching television after dinner, maybe write. You have to make the schedule. But at some point, writing is going to have to be more important than something to make it into your schedule. It’s the only way you will get any progress and get the project finished.

2. Tell people about your schedule. Let your family, friends, neighbors, classmates, or whoever know what your schedule is, and that you are unavailable at those times. If you have to go to your computer and lock the door behind for an hour, then so be it. As long as everyone knows that you are not to be disturbed at all, except for emergencies. That time is as if you are work. Eventually it will become part your routine.

3. Keep to your Schedule. This is the hardest thing to do, especially when little things come up and you figure you can just reschedule. However, when you reschedule once it becomes easier and easier to move all of the other times. You need to be firm and determine if it something that can be done later (emergences are a different matter), then finish your time and take care of the task or issue. If you start to deviate from your schedule others will think that all of your scheduled time is expendable and think that you can be bothered during it. Stay strong and defend your schedule. When it is your writing time, write and push everything else out of your head. You will thank yourself later for it.