Creating Characters That Write Themselves In 6 Steps
A framework for all of you that write by the seat of your pants
Do you wish that your characters wrote themselves?
I do too. And after going through lectures and articles from some of the most prolific authors of our time, I've distilled their practices into an easy-to-understand formula.
Here's how you do it:
Step 1: Create the Environment
Tolkien is a great example of this.
Before writing the story for the Lord Of the Rings, he already had a world set out in exquisite and extensive detail. The places, the languages and the lore were all in place.
Everything just waiting for a story to happen.
Worldbuilding is a lot simpler than writing a narrative. And if you don't want to do that you're familiar with the real world, right? I won't explain it here since it's a whole topic on it's own.
Worldbuilding is a lot simpler than writing a narrative.
Decide on the setting for your story first and then ask yourself what are the kind of people that live there.
If you want a specific type of person change something in the environment or that person's history so that the person turns out different.
Let’s take Frodo as an example. He's kind, polite, easy-going and for most of his life he's been carefree. All of this can be explained by his having grown up in the comfortable and peaceful Shire.
Moving from environment to characters means that your characters always makes sense in the world they’re in.
Step 2: Weave the plot into them (and not the other way around)
Different people react to different situations in different ways.
Take the Hunger Games. The plot is driven forward by Katniss's confidence in the face of challenges. Replace Katniss with, say, Riley from Inside Out and the original plot doesn't work.
Replace Katniss with, say, Riley from Inside Out and the original plot doesn't work.
When thinking about your characters make sure that they're the types of people you would want on your story's adventure.
You wouldn't want Riley in the Hunger Games, but you also wouldn't want Katniss Everdeen in Inisde Out. Keep the characters in their own plots and you have great stories. Swap them and the stories become pretty short.
Who your character is (their abilities, beliefs, personality, values, etc) affects their reactions to events, affecting the directions in which the plot goes. As you'll see later nailing this part is essential to making characters write themselves.
Step 3: Decide What Type of Character They Are
I got this tip from Brennan Lee Mulligan (a brilliant writer that you should checkout).
We can divide characters into active and passive.
Passive characters are people who have things done to them and in turn they react to those things. They are propped up by the initial status quo and once it's changed out of their favor they'll work to change it back.
A lot of stories have passive main characters.
Luke Skywalker has his uncle and aunt killed and this spurs him to become a Jedi. Harry Potter is visited by a giant and who tells him he’s a wizard.
Active characters are people who because of something inherent to them want to go out into the world and change things, because (the world is evil / it's the right thing to do / it defines who I am).
In stories active characters tend to be side characters or antagonist.
Voldemort killed Harry's parents because he's evil. Gandalf called Bilbo on an adventure because he's a wizard. Fairy godmother wants Cinderella to look cool at the ball because that's what fairy godmothers do.
Active Characters in stories trigger inciting events and drive the plot forward
Active characters in stories trigger inciting events and drive the plot forward. They're also a convenient way of avoiding Deus Ex Machina (remember Gandalf and the trolls in the hobbit?).
Defining your characters as active or passive lets you figure out what role they'll be playing in the story and what needs to happen for them to do that.
Step 4: Find Out What They Want
This is the secret sauce of making your story write itself.
Your plots are the results of your characters making decisions and moving the plot forward. The motivations behind those decisions are the characters goals.
By having characters drive the plot forward through their actions you only need 4 things to write a story.
An interesting world
Interesting characters with opposing goals
An inciting event
The Reaction Process Output (RPO) cycle
The RPO Cycle
If you haven't heard of it before it's because I made it up.
That being said it's essentially Stephen King's writing advice put into a step-by-step format.
Put interesting characters in difficult situations and write to find out what happens
- Stephen King
All you need to kickstart the cycle is an inciting event. After that you just keep asking yourself the following questions until you get a story:
How do characters react? (Reaction)
How do the reactions go? (Process)
What are the effects of this reactions on the status quo? (Output)
How do the characters react to this changed status quo? (The Next Cycle)
Using the RPO cycle you're basically playing a DnD game with the characters in your story. Each iteration of the cycle is just another round.
I'm not the first to think of something like this. Based on this 2011 interview, Pendleton Ward does so too.
When I'm writing an episode it feels like I'm playing D&D with the characters
- Pendleton Ward (Creator of Adventure Time)
Each cycle pushes the story forward. Representing them as chapters gives us a convenient format for chapters.
The bulk of our story happens while our characters chase their main goals. And as we'll see next that's where the character development happens.
Step 5: Find Out How That Changes Them
Brandon Sanderson thinks of his books in terms of Promises, Progress and Payoffs.
Make Promises to the reader about what's gonna happen in the book. Show Progress towards fulfilling those promises. Once they are achieved give the reader a Payoff.
Most stories have that basic structure. It works because it's the same structure our lives follow.
Aim for something (promise). Work towards it (progress). Achieve it (payoff).
The reason it works is because it's satisfying. It's satisfying to see a character get closer to their goal. It's satisfying to see them achieve it. Each time they hit a milestone it's a reason to celebrate and get the reader invested in the character's journey.
Each time they hit a milestone it's a reason to celebrate and get the reader invested in the character's journey.
Let's take the Lord of the Rings for example.
The main Promise of the trilogy is that the ring will be cast into Mount Doom. The Progress is the journey to Mordor. The Payoff is the destruction of Sauron. Additionally, on that journey to Mordor there's a bunch of substories with their own Promises, Progress and Payoffs (going to Rivendell, getting through Moria).
When we're thinking about character arcs we've just got to ask ourselves the following questions:
How does the character make progress? How does that affect them?
What are the results of receiving the payoffs? How does that affect them?
How does all of this affect the kind of promises the character makes to progress towards his main goal?
And if you do this well you'll see characters developing in ways you didn't even think of.
Step 6: Putting The Characters Together
All the steps you took before this have set you up for this moment.
In this step you'll be taking the characters with their personalities, beliefs, goals and desires and putting them out into your world where they'll interact to create stories.
Your characters are gonna write the plot.
You just need to light the fuse. We need an inciting event. Something that causes all the characters we've created to come together and create stories. To make decisions driven by their conflicting goals.
You need a quest giving wizard. A tornado that carries people to Oz.
But that's your job.
Sources
For further reading:
Interview with Pendleton Ward (webarchive)Masterclass - Writing Tips for Character Development
Brandon Sanderson Plot Structures —The Hero's Journey & Star Wars