In a post on the Stage 32 blog, Shannon Valenzuela offers advice for developing complex characters in your story. “As we know from Aristotle, character is the engine of plot,” she says. “Falling in love with the characters is the surest guarantee that readers and decision-makers will go with you on the adventure of the story.”
In great stories, character and plot are intertwined. “Who your character is determines what your character does,” Valenzuela writes. “And, as Aristotle says, character is revealed in choice: character is the habit of moral choice when the choice isn’t obvious.” Putting your characters in situations where their choice isn’t clear is a helpful way to let their true nature shine.
Most character-building advice offers some variation on the questionnaire technique. That’s a fine way to start, but it won’t result in a well-rounded, complex character that you know well. “It’s like a dating profile — it gives you enough information to ask for that first date, or to walk away,” Valenzuela notes, suggesting a different approach.
- Character Mapping. Rather than bullet lists, Valenzuela examines her character’s past, their influences, and their current relationships and writes responses in paragraph format. Instead of relying on a fill-in-the-blank answer, she expands on the element, providing backstory and context. “To get a firm knowledge of your character, you don’t have to answer 200+ profile questions or fill out a five-page character template,” she says. “You just need to see your characters in action in a few key moments from their past and to drill down into their emotional drivers.” You can use those moments in your story, when you want to reveal something about your hero’s nature.
- Conflict Mapping. “Action results from a combination of conflict and choice,” Valenzuela notes. “Understanding your character means that you know what situations and characters will bring the most intense conflict to the adventure.” Character templates and questionnaires usually don’t prompt a writer to consider how this character relates to anyone else. A conflict map helps you design supporting characters with opposing attributes, creating the potential for maximum conflict between them. Going back to your micro-narratives, you can extrapolate how your character may behave in the future and what they learned (or didn’t) in the past.
