I finished writing the rough draft of my book a few weeks ago, and have finally started making progress in the first edit. The major delays were working out ideas/concepts and characters, which I needed to set as an additional foundation for my first edit.
I’ve found that just in working on the characters premises and back stories, they’ve become a lot more real to me. Not just that they’re more detailed and have a history, but the time I spent working on them has given me some attachment to them, making them more than just a means to tell a story.
I have a few difficulties when writing for characters, primarily keeping their personality and behavior consistent. When I went back to work on my characters, I added two categories alongside the basic description and back story. These categories are Aspects/Traits and Premise.
Aspects/Traits refers to what part of myself, ideas, and experiences are reflected in the characters. I think this gives more depth than just a back story, as you actually use part of yourself with the character.
Premise is the base from which the character is built, consisting of primarily their reaction to their intended role, general personality, behavior, and interaction. I like combining these into one group since they are closely related.
This has been my largest writing project, both in size and time. Probably the largest project I’ve completed is a twenty-thousand word research paper for college, which took about a month to complete. So far, writing my book has been fun, exciting, frustrating, and daunting.
I actually have a hint of sorrow in completing my book, as the fun and joy of writing it will end. That’s the feeling I have with most projects that I invest so much time in, which makes it hard to finish them. It seems odd I feel this way even though I know have an idea for the next book.
In thinking of the next book, I just realized I don’t yet have a title for the first book!
‘Oh no’s!’
Anyways, just some random thoughts. I’m curious to what other people consider when creating a characters, and what methods are used to write for them or develop.
