Hello, everyone. Today, I want to talk about story writing and possible ways to improve characterisation. If you’re a lover of literature, you may have noticed that story telling is gradually becoming stale or should I say, same song being sang over and over. Most upcoming writers do not know how to craft good stories anymore. Now, I’m not a professional in this field (not yet anyway) as I’m still learning and discovering what works for me, but I’ve learned quite a lot on my journey, and I believe the things I’ve learned may be useful to someone else still struggling to find his/her feet.
Almost every book or literary work on a website, on the same genre, have the same storyline. What I mean here is this – the superhero is usually the good hearted person, the villain is wicked and dark, the princess is beautiful with a melodious voice, the prince charming is tall, dark and handsome. Everything is cliché. You read the same thing over and over, at some point, it begins to get boring.
Characterisation is the way authors create characters and make them believable. When writing about texts, it is easy to treat characters as real people. Try to remember that the author is creating characters using language.
I’m going to share some tips on how to create unforgettable characters in your story. Writing a good story is one of the favours you can do yourself as a writer and characterisation is one of the most important things, besides plot and settings. You would want to create something every reader would want to come back to. Take ordinary people and give them extraordinary lives. Paint real lives on your pages.
Here goes:
Do not create useless/idle characters.
Minor characters are important when writing a story, but the way you use them can affect your plot negatively or positively. Cameos can change your storyline and give it a beautiful twist that will leave your readers glued to the pages. I read a story where a character who lived previously in the room of the main character, left something that changed the main character’s life. This character was mentioned few times but he served his purpose. Do not mention a character and abandon it. Give it something important to work with.
Get into your character’s head.
Every reader needs a character they can relate with. Understand your character and give it life. Some people would say that writers leave a piece of themselves in every story they write. This may be true. I’ve come to realise that my best stories are the ones I invested in emotionally. A character doesn’t just stand up and start doing things. Get into their heads and give reasons for their actions. While your story may take their own course, ask yourself why they do the things they do, and when you can’t find a good answer, dig deeper.
Give your characters habits.
You are creating a real life situation with real people, so your characters should have habits, like normal people. Imagine that you love running every morning and after that, you walk your dog and then have your breakfast. How will you react when you wake one morning and your dog is sick? How will it affect your routine? Will it have a positive or negative impact on you? Same goes with your character. They are humans so something will change.
Clone a real person.
This will be easier if you like watching people. You can sit and observe people and write about them afterwards. It could also be a friend or a family member. The advantage is that they are real people. You can easily identify and relate with their flaws and habits.
Appropriate naming.
Pick a name that explains the character. If you are writing about ethnicity, pick a name from the ethnic group. If it’s on religion, pick a religious name as well. Be sure the name resonates with your character.
Create a brilliant villain.
Of course your readers would want your hero to win, that doesn’t mean you should make it easy. Your opponent should be as good or even better than your hero. Remember to give them life too.
Be consistent.
Try as much as possible to avoid character contradiction. If your character is flawed, then he is from start to finish. A character who is introverted cannot suddenly become a party animal. That is character assassination. You can put twists here and there but still maintain their personality. Also, your audience can determine the type of character you produce. If you are writing for the secular society, give them secular characters. If it is for organised group, go for it. Give your characters appearance too – their build, a scar on a part of the body, their looks. Go as real as possible.
Avoid cliché if you can.
While we may be tired of reading tall, slim and beautiful, you can still diversify it to suite your purpose. If you can't, then avoid it. The important thing is to produce a real character readers can relate with, not necessarily what they want to see. Too much cliché makes even the most interesting story boring.
Create a story with scenes.
It’s okay to not know how to create an active character in the beginning. You may be tempted to describe a character in one paragraph which will eventually read like a summary. All you have to do is break the summary into scenes. Give them life and bring in other characters to interact with each other. You may even give it a good spin by writing a story beginning with the end and slowly work your way up.
There, you have them. That’s about that for now. The important thing, like I said before, is to find out what works for you. Stick to it even when you explore.
Another important thing I want to mention is – trust yourself. One mistake a lot of upcoming writers make is reading other people’s work so much that they begin to distrust their abilities. I know I did that a whole lot. You visit a literary blog and after reading a very good story by an equally good writer, you begin to feel like you are not doing it right. While it’s beautiful to read other writers and learn from it, understand that they have their pattern and you have yours. All you need to do is to find your writing voice and work with it. And you can do that by writing all the time. What type of story do you enjoy writing? Find it and harness it.
Tell me your thoughts and also what you are writing today.
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