All About Characters, pt. 1
Hello everyone! Today, I thought I’d write about one of the most important parts of any story: the characters. Sure, you don’t NEED humanoid characters in a story to make a story great. For example, you can write about a leaf floating down into the river. Telling the leaf’s story gives it life, and in my opinion, the leaf becomes a character in its own story. Today isn’t about the metaphorical character, however. I want to talk about physical, real characters! Characters that take up your headspace and lead you down a path towards a story you can be proud of.
(Disclaimer: I’m straight up using all of my AP English from high school and my own personal experience to write this lil guide. I’m a two-time college drop out, so don’t rely on me for academic-based advice. This is for your personal journey into writing! If you’re looking for an accurate, well-written book about writing by people who know what they’re talking about, look into ‘the Elements of Style’ by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White!)
So, what makes up a great cast of characters? Well, you need three important roles: the Narrator, the Main Character, and the Antagonist. Without those three characters, you won’t have anything to write about!
Narrator: The Voice of the Story
To put it simply, the Narrator is your story. Without that voice, you will have a hard time writing. The Narrator can fit into any other role you choose, and they can also stand alone. Most of the time, the Narrator is the Main Character. Sometimes, the Narrator is not. For example, in classic Sherlock Holmes novels, Dr. Watson is the Narrator, but it’s clear that Sherlock is the Main Character.
First person point of view makes it easy to make your Narrator the Main Character; it’s easier to write in your Main Character’s voice because you already know everything about them (or at least, you should!). Seeing things from their point of view is easy. If you put yourself in the shoes of your Main Character, you as the writer can have an easy and fun time writing the story as that Narrator.
Third person point of view is also an easy way to tell a story. You can do it one of two ways: Limited third person is told as if the Narrator is a fly on the wall, watching scenes happen and telling the reader everything they see. Omnipresent third person is similar, except now the fly on the wall has mind reading abilities. In omnipresent third person, the Narrator knows all of the thoughts and actions the characters have. I find omnipresent third person confusing, personally, and try to stick to limited third person simply because it’s easier for me to write.
I won’t touch on second person, mostly because I’ve never written in it so I don’t feel comfortable telling you how to use it. Basically, second person is if I were telling you a story about my day. You don’t see it a lot because it’s just not common. Maybe you can be the first writer that perfects the second person point of view!
Narrators are essential to a story. Without them, you have nothing to write!
Main Character: The Star of the Show
Your Main Character is the reason the story exists. Your job as a writer is to tell the story of the Main Character. Whether they are the Narrator or not, the Main Character’s thoughts, emotions, and choices are important to the direction of the story. As a reader, we have insight into how the Main Character thinks and acts most of the time (if you are telling the story from anything other than first person, however, that might not apply).
Main Characters don’t have to be loveable. You don’t have to make them perfect. In fact, making a Main Character perfect is boring. Give your Main Character flaws, give them humanity. A Main Character who is perfect and whom everyone loves is a Mary Sue, and we don’t like those in our stories, trust me.
I feel like I can speak for the average reader when I say I genuinely like being annoyed at the choices of the Main Characters I read. For example, everything Harry Potter does in the Order of the Phoenix drives me crazy, and in the Iliad (and, in turn, the Song of Achilles), Patroclus’s decision to go fight in Achilles’s place drives me crazy every time I read it. Bad choices, in my opinion, make good characters. That alone creates conflict in your story, and we love conflict! It drives said story right along.
Your Main Character should be someone that we can root for, we can yell at, we can cry over. A full Main Character should be able to carry the story on their shoulders. If you take out the Main Character and find that you can’t continue the story, however, you’ve got a weak story. There is a fine line that I’m still trying to walk to this day when it comes to fleshing out a story.
I read something on Tumblr once a looooooong time ago (RIP to the source of this information) that basically said “If you treat every character like the Main Character, you’ve got a solid story”. To me, that means that you should develop every character as if they have their own story to tell. In reality, they do. Every single character in your story could be the Main Character, if you made it so.
I suggest when you are developing characters to work with, see which one resonates with you the most. See which character is strong enough to tell their story, and you’ll find your Main Character, maybe even your Narrator if you wish.
Antagonist: The Bad Guy…Duh
Honestly, for me, the Antagonist is the hardest role to write. Conflict is always important in any story. If you don’t have conflict, there’s no reason to read the story at all. Conjuring an Antagonist can be easy, however, if you know what your Main Character wants.
If your Main Character is in love, take that love away. A rival in love, whether that love be a person, a sport/hobby, or even an object, is a solid way to create an Antagonist and create conflict.
If you want to write a story about superheroes or other supernatural abilities, create the villain first. Believe it or not, I always have trouble writing superheroes because I focus too much on the powers and not why my characters should be using them. Creating the bad guy and their motive first gives my characters a reason to fight.
Your Antagonist should be the hero of their own story. One thing that has always helped me is writing a paragraph in the shoes of my Antagonist. Giving them a reason to be bad is one thing, but giving them something to believe in is another entirely. I have always found it easy to give them a reason that directly conflicts with the Main Character’s goal. For example, in one of my old drafts for my old story, Value, one of the Antagonists wanted to be with the Main Character at any cost. This directly conflicted with the Main Character’s goal of building a relationship with their Love Interest. Something simple like that can make for a huge story.
Generally, whatever your Main Character wants, give the Antagonist the power to take that away. That simple logic will help you create a story that will have a purpose.
As I was writing this, I exceeded the limit of Medium’s word count! So, I’ll have to make this a two-parter. I straight up didn’t know that was a thing…maybe it was a glitch? I’m not taking any chances either way!
I hope this guide helps future amateur writers! As an amateur writer, I always appreciate having guides written for me to look back on. I’m hoping that this can be something others can reference as they write their own stories!
Feel free to follow me on Twitter and leave a tip on Ko-fi if you’d like! Next week, I’ll finish up this guide. For now, good luck writing!
