Do I know you?

My teaching of writers is based around the idea of engaging the reader and much of that comes from creating compelling main characters.

Most leading characters tend to be a Dynamic Character (sometimes called Round or Developing), a character who changes during the course of a story or novel.

I always think it helps to see how much you know about your character - you may not use all the information but it informs your writing, especially when it comes to changing them as the story progresses.

Here’s your starter for ten

1 Where does your character live?

2 How old is your character?

3 Have you got the right name for him/her?

4 What does your character look like?

5 What kind of childhood did he or she have?

6 What does your character do for a living?

7 What does your character do as a hobby

8 How does your character deal with conflict and change?

9 Who else is in your character’s life?

10 What is your character’s goal or motivation in this story?
Struggle with any of them and there’s more work to be done in developing them. Struggle with them all and you have created a cardboard cut-out!

Oh, and don’t forget to let them grow - lists are all very well but the key to real characters is the organic development that happens when you write.

John Dean