In the last season of HBO's version of Game of Thrones, the heroine Daenerys Targaryen, who throughout the entirety of the show was fighting to reclaim the iron throne and championing justice for the people, suddenly turns around and destroys the city and most of its occupants. There have been frequent rants all over social media ever since, talking about what a break it was from the character that had been built up during the entire run of the show. Bitter disappointment and raging disapproval of the show's sudden turn have been a major topic of discussion in Fantasy groups everywhere. Even the actress herself expressed shock over the sudden change in her character, stating that it was not the character she had been playing since day one. How did this happen and why?
Characters are a particular pet peeve of mine with many an author's writing. I have read numerous stories where the characters fell short of what they could have been, and who have been held back simply because the author did not invest enough time in their creation. Think of it this way - If an actor took a role to play in a film and did not put their all into it to bring that character to life, it would not be believable. Writing should be no different. We are painting a picture in the reader's minds and lighting their imaginations on fire. So what are some of the ways you can achieve this?
World-building and character creation are all part of the skill-set you develop when writing stories in fiction. To really be able to flesh out characters, you should know them so well that you know what their favorite foods are, how they love to dress, their moral compass, their favorite colors, what their goals are short and long term, why they exist in their world (what drives them), how they view other people, and just about anything else you can think of in a person. In short, you should know your characters as well as you know yourself or your best friend. Writing a bio on a character can in fact give them far more depth and clarity, but it is not always necessary to achieve this in a character.
Some people can dream up and create characters so real they could step off a page to say hello. But not everyone can do this, and for those who can't, it is simply going to be more helpful if you take the time to write at least a short bio to get a feel for the person you are creating in your story. If you do not fully know them or understand their motives for being, then you cannot do them justice when you write them into the story. If that means writing a bio to help achieve that goal, then take the time to do so. It not only achieves the ability to paint a character that readers can connect to, it makes weaving the story around them much easier to do. Knowing how a character would react to a life-threatening situation, for example - would they stay and fight or would they run?
If the author has crafted their characters with clarity and depth, than this question should be easy to answer. In any given moment of a story, regardless of how big or how small and insignificant a moment it is, the author should know exactly how their characters would behave. Having that insight when writing is what allows you to create scenes with such amazing brilliance that your readers cannot turn their eyes away. It keeps them begging for more. Characters that are not well-crafted are easy to tell, not only because their behavior is all over the map, but often they feel very flat or two-dimensional. the problem is, this can be a deal-breaker with readers who want more than that. Making sure your characters are alive to your audience and believable also makes them easy to connect to and identify with.
Some people draw on friends they know or past experiences of their own to weave into the personalities of their characters, while others take on a more analytical approach, basing their ideas on what they know about human behavior and moral codes (or the lack thereof) in general. Whichever way suits you better, the end result should always be the crafting and well-rounding of the final product. They should never turn out like cookie cutter products that could all fit into the same mold. That makes for a boring and unsustainable character long term, lacking any real depth or personality. So be sure to give adequate attention to them.
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