Author: Kaitlin Hillerich

How to Create Life-like Characters in 6 Steps

~ Kaitlin Hillerich ~ 1 Comment

#Characters are the life’s blood of your #story. Learn how to create characters that feel real. Characters are the life’s blood of your story.

We read about characters we care about to find out what will happen to them. If you have a killer plot but flat characters, the reader won’t bother to finish your story because they won’t care what happens to your characters.

So how do you make readers care about people who don’t exist?

By making your characters feel real. A character becomes life-like when you flesh him out and layer him with details—and I don’t just mean favorite food, band, or what color underwear he’s wearing. Those little details have their place, but to truly make a character come to life, we must dig deeper.

For this post, I will be using the character Elsa from Frozen as an example (If you haven’t seen the movie you must have a frozen heart and need to go crawl into a corner in shame). Let’s begin, shall we?

STEP #1: Childhood/Family

A person is heavily shaped and influenced by how they grew up and what sort of family they had. Did your character have a happy childhood, or was he abused or abandoned? How does his past affect who he is today?

 Elsa:  Her parents didn’t approve of her powers and wanted her to hide them. When she accidentally hurt Ana, she felt shame and guilt and tried even harder to suppress them. She cut herself off from Ana to try to protect her. Elsa’s childhood experiences had a huge impact on her character–she doesn’t know how to control her powers and feels like an outcast.

STEP #2: Hopes and Dreams

We all have them, and giving your character one will help reveal more about who he is. What is the deepest desire of his heart? Does he want to find true love? Travel to India? Start his own business? His dream doesn’t have to be the goal of the story, but it will reveal more about him.

Elsa:  She wants to be able to be herself and live alone in her ice palace in peace where she won’t be a danger to anyone.

STEP #3: Fears

Indiana Jones is afraid of snakes. Bruce Wayne is afraid of bats. Ron Weasley is afraid of spiders. Giving your character a fear makes him more relatable. It doesn’t have to be a fear of something physical, it can also be a fear of something abstract like loss, loneliness, or the dark.

Elsa: She is afraid of her powers throughout most of the movie. She fears them because she doesn’t know how to control them, and she is afraid she will hurt Ana again.

STEP #4: Flaws

If you make your character perfect, he won’t be relatable and will feel unrealistic *cough*EdwardCullen*cough.* Consider both internal and external flaws. For example, Ron Weasley in Harry Potter  is described as gangly, and he also has a temper and tends to swear. He’s not portrayed as perfect, which is what is charming and likable about him.

Elsa: She spent her childhood shutting Ana out and keeping secrets from her. She is too insecure and ashamed to be herself and be honest with Ana.

STEP #5: Strengths vs. Weaknesses

What are your character’s strengths? Is he honest, loyal, or good with a sword? Again, think both internal and external. Whatever strengths you give him, you will also have to balance them out with weaknesses. Does he act before he thinks, have a gambling habit, or is terrible at cooking?

Elsa: Her strength is her love and loyalty for her sister, which breaks the spell and saves Ana’s life. But her weakness is  her insecurity with being herself and her inability to control her powers.

STEP #6: Outlook/beliefs

The way your character sees the world will affect his personality. Is he a pessimist or optimist? Does he believe in Hinduism or is he Jewish? Is he cynical or naïve?

Elsa: She is more responsible and practical, as we see when she responds to Ana’s announcement of her engagement by saying, “You can’t marry a man you just met!” She seems more wary of people and seems to see the darker side of the world because of the way her parents treated her.

Of course there are many more aspects to creating realistic characters, but I feel that these 6 things are your essential building blocks. Before you start a story, write a short “bio” for your main characters that answers these questions. Getting to know your characters first will make the writing process easier because you’ll know how they will react in the situations you throw them into.

Take the time to develop your characters and they will become real to you–and your reader.

 What brings characters to life for you as a reader?

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7 Things No One Tells You About Writing a Novel

~ Kaitlin Hillerich ~ 6 Comments

blogpost1 finDo you have a crazy-awesome idea you want to turn into a novel? Brilliant!

But before you begin, there are some dark secrets about writing you need to know. If you think writing a novel will be an effortless pouring of inspiration onto the page leading to a NYT best-seller and a six-figure publishing deal, you may want to hit pause.

Consider the following before you start joyously tippity-tapping away at the keyboard.

#1: It’s a lot of hard work

Okay I lied, you’ve probably heard this one already. But have you heard it from Ernest Hemingway?

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit at a typewriter and bleed.

Sounds delightful, yes? Not only is the act of writing a labor in and of itself, but it is also mental and emotional work–some days it will drain you.

#2: It’s scary

When you write, you bare your soul. You make your innermost thoughts, beliefs, ideas, and feelings vulnerable to critique by the world. There is an underlying fear of failure and rejection with every word you type. Writing is an act of courage.

#3: You will have to make sacrifices

Writing a novel will suck up your time like a dementor sucks up happiness. Do you ever find you don’t have enough time to write? A serious writer has to make time, and this means making sacrifices. To make time to write I have sometimes sacrificed sleep, outings with friends, and movie nights.

#4: You must overcome the voice that says, “No one will want to read this.”

You know what I’m talking about. That little demon sitting on your shoulder, niggling in your ear. Yeah, that guy. He’ll tell you that your work is worthless and you’re wasting your time, but you have to learn to tell him to shut up. Basically, writing is an intense mental battle that will make you feel like a schizophrenic.

#5: Sometimes you will hate your writing—but that’s normal

Yep, you read that right. Every writer hates their writing. It’s healthy. So go ahead, hate away. It shows you are able to view your work critically, which is an important skill. Just don’t take your hatred to the extreme like Kafka, who asked his friend to destroy all of his fiction upon his death. Avoid melodramatics.

#6: You can’t wait for inspiration to write

That image of the writer enraptured by inspiration and pouring a brilliant novel onto the page with ease is a myth. Inspiration comes and goes in spurts. Writer’s block is the notorious beast that separates the wanna-be’s from the real writers. You must learn to slay it.

#7: You will spend most of your time editing

Your story isn’t finished once you type “the end.” In fact, that was just the beginning. You will spend more time editing (and re-editing) your novel than you did actually writing it. By the time you’re finished, the very sight of your novel will probably give you the strong urge to vomit. Or slam your head against a wall. Editing is a necessary evil.

If none of these dirty little secrets deter you, congrats! You have the mettle of a true writer. Ready to start on that novel? Next time, we’ll dig into creating life-like characters.

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