Eight Steps to Writing Interesting and Complex Characters

hi this is Ellen Brock editor at Q top Inc this video is going to be about how to write interesting and complex characters and then we're going to give you eight simple steps to follow step one is just to create the basics your character's name age and what they look like step two is your characters objective what do they want it's the novel were to turn out perfectly in their favor how would they want it to end step3 is motivation why does your character want this thing what is it that drives them what lead are they fulfilling or what desire will they realize by getting by meeting their objective and motivation is very important in a novel because if the readers don't understand why your character wants the thing that they want they won't be rooting for them they won't have any reason to root for them so you need to make it clear what the character stands to gain from meeting their objective and that's their motivation step four is steaks what are the stakes for your character if your character does not meet their objective and things don't go according to plan what is the consequence of this how will it hurt your character readers need to feel a sense of suspense and suspense comes from the stakes what could go wrong in what will happen to your character if things do go wrong that's what creates the tension and the desire for the reader to continue reading so stakes are very important in your novel in stakes don't have to be life or death they just have to be bad enough that will feel sorry for the character and won't feel sympathy for the character if they meet these consequences if this bad thing happens the stakes do need to be high enough that they feel like it's worth the characters actions Step five is the obstacles what is standing in the way of your character achieving this thing that they really want most novels will have internal and external obstacles a novel can have one major obstacle but more often there's a series of smaller obstacles is as well as an overarching obstacle just make sure that you put enough obstacles and your characters path to make their journey challenging because that's what makes the reader feel satisfied when they get to the end and they in the character gets what they want or maybe doesn't get what they want but what makes the ending satisfied it's the journey and the complexity of the journey and the challenges in the journey so if you make the journey easy and you don't put obstacles in the way of the characters it's not going to be interesting and your readers are going to lose interest step six is creating the characters past what happened to the character that led them to be where they are today in real life everybody has elements of their past that are negative mistakes that they've made negative things that have happened to them things other people have done to them tragedies traumas things of that nature so it's only natural that your character will also have a background that has some negativity to it it adds a lot of depth and interest to your character to have these elements of their past affect their present step seven is creating a flaw for your character everybody has flaws it's just a part of being human so giving your character flaws makes your character feel much more real and more relatable it can also be really interesting to give your character flaws that affect their journey throughout the story so for instance maybe your character's objective is to star in a play but their flaw is that they have horrible stage fright and so the character's own flaw can become an obstacle step eight is how your character relates to other characters in your story once you've gone through and you follow the first seven steps with all of your characters at least all of your major characters and you really understand them take some time to think about how their flaws and their personality traits and their objectives might conflict with each other it might be a good idea to deliberately create characters where their objectives are conflicting especially if you have a protagonist and an antagonist the antagonist will has to want something that the protagonist is not one or otherwise there's no conflict but it doesn't have to stop at a protagonist antagonist relationship this can continue through all relationships romantic relationships friendships allies so look at their character traits and how they might conflict with each other and see where you can create interesting situations for arguments disagreements misunderstandings and this can add a lot of richness and interest to the way that your characters are relating to each other so those are my eight steps for creating a complex and interesting character I hope that they're helpful for you and if you have any ideas or any topics that you would want me to make a video about just send me an email or leave a comment if this video is helpful to you I would really appreciate it if you could like the video or share the video it helps me get clients and it helps me keep making videos

Channel: Ellen Brock

Views: 123,101

Rating: 4.9710655 out of 5

Keywords: novel, writing, writer, editing, characters, writing characters, character development, editor, how to, how to write

Id: MozMgyppTjM

Length: 5min 8sec (308 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 05 2013