The drawbacks of 'deeper meanings' within character names

The origin of a character’s name can be an intriguing discovery for a reader as quite often it may pre-empt certain events that will happen to that character or relate somehow to their personality. JK Rowling must have spent a good portion of time deciding on which ancient culture to borrow from when designing her fantasy world, in particular its character and spells, as almost every character’s name has some kind of backstory. Should we be following suit with our own characters? There is a tendency to not want to just call our protagonist something quite ordinary like ‘John’ or ‘Jack’ because we want our works to have a deeper meaning than something just plucked out of the air. Likewise we want our readers to become more involved with our characters and allowing them to explore and work out what clever spin we’ve put into the novels can be a fun way of doing that. Trying to provide extra meaning in the book can be a constant struggle, especially in longer more fantastical books  that border into the fantasy genre. I get the positive aspects of doing this and it makes me wonder, what could be so wrong about doing this? Any additional depth is surely beneficial to a novel, but this is not necessarily so. To start with, let’s look at this from a real life vantage point.

Deeper character meanings can easily take away realism

If you’re looking to promote realism in your novels then naming characters after their personality traits or as a way of pre-meditating what will happen to them is not the right way to go. If you’re not too bothered by how realistic you want your novel to come across in this sense then by all means, name your cooks Sage or your thieves Klepto; it can add a little niceness that doesn’t need to be realistic. From a realism point of view however, names don’t tend to predict what we’re going to do with our lives. A parent who whomever names a new-born isn’t exactly gifted with foresight and so it makes little sense for a character’s name to have a strong connection with their personality or future activities. 

There are exceptions to this rather general statement though; families who are extremely dedicated to a particular cause or belief set are likely to name their children in honour of that, it’s also likely that that child will adopt those same beliefs. Think of Lucius Malfoy naming his son after a kind of serpent; it actually makes sense since the family is so dedicated to the symbolism of the snake. This could also serve as a form of irony if the character is strongly against what their heritage implies, it doesn’t always have to be an insightful name but rather a contrasting description of the character. In another instance it could also hold that somebody has twisted themselves around a pre-existing name and adopted it as part of their identity; Jack Sparrow has a tattoo of a Sparrow on his chest, but his name is otherwise ordinary. If he was called Sinbad Skeleton then it would be an unrealistic prediction of events to come, even if it is an awesome name. Forming your identity around your name sounds like an odd way to go about things but several studies have noted the odd occurrence of people doing just that when it comes to their careers. Even if realism is your thing, maybe you could name your cook Julia Sage after all.

Some characters may have adopted names that were not their original, birth name and this is fine too, often it can work especially well with characters from unusual pasts or with unusual roles to play. Marilyn Manson named himself after two of the most iconic people of a particular era, though iconic for entirely different reasons, and therefore his name has deeper meaning but is firmly placed in a realistic situation. Chosen or adopted pseudonyms, legal name changes, nicknames and so on are all fair game when you’re writing as all of it is realistic. If you want to nickname somebody then it’s going to require a decent explanation of how it is they’ve come to abandon their old name and so it must fit neatly into the plotline. There’s a slight risk of overkill with this too; naming a schoolgirl ‘Otter’ for her love of the water and then having her meet a load of otters later on would be a really weird thing to do.
 

The final category I’ll put into ‘it doesn’t really break realism’ argument is some kind of Godly, supernatural or alien character whereby their name has been translated into something understandable by the human race or, depending on what kind of character it is, regular and ordinary people. Naming a vampire Sanguis may be slightly unoriginal but may be explained by the fact that the vampire is several hundred years old and his original name is far too complicated to start trying to pronounce. Alternatively, maybe he wants a break from his old identity so he’s focused on a blood-related one because his sense of humour revolves around the irony of, “I am that which I drink.” 

As long as you can explain the origin of somebody’s name within the universe you have created then there is nothing wrong with it. What I would argue you didn’t do is name characters, from birth, names which pre-empt what will happen to them unless there is some form of divine intervention involved. Going back to JK Rowling; one of the characters is called Remus Lupin, he was bit by a werewolf as a child and as such became one himself. Lupin is Latin for wolf and Remus is the name of one of the twins from a famous, Roman story about the origins of Rome. In the story the twins were sent out to be killed by the King only to be raised by a female wolf instead. It does mean that Remus’ name literally has no basis in the universe that he exists within. That’s not to say it’s not interesting; it is, it’s just not realistic. Before wondering about the effect it has on realism you first need to determine whether you care that it’ll break the book away from that possibility of ‘it could be real’ that many fantasy or sci-fi books base themselves around.

It may influence the character too much

When I was studying psychology I became very interested in a phenomenon that occurred during one of the studies called the Rosenhan experiment. In short, the study involved sending several people who had no mental health problems but who had been given identical, fake, diagnosis notes to 12 psychiatric hospitals to see whether the doctors and nurses would recognize they were actually perfectly sane. Did they? Did they hell. On exit all of these pseudopatients had been diagnosed with some kind of problem, seven of which were schizophrenia. Why? Well, because they had been labelled from the start as mentally ill and the doctors and nurses treated them as such. They perceived all behaviours as unusual and as evidence of their symptoms when, really, they were just wandering around being rather regular. Ironically, the actual patients expressed suspicion that these pseudopatients weren’t actually ill, many of them believing he pseudopatients were undercover journalists. The problem that the Rosenhan experiment demonstrated was that when you label something you tend to twist everything around it to fit into that original diagnosis. We do it all the time and this study is a frightening example of how even trained medical professionals are prone to these diagnosis-bias beliefs. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they did a follow up study.

By labelling our characters with origin name stories we run the risk of influencing the character to such a degree that they are simply play acting into this box we’ve drawn for them. A name that is personality driven is particularly vulnerable to this diagnosis-bias. If you name your character after something that means ‘to lead’ or ‘a strong leader’ then this personality label could easily stick with him throughout the novel, even in situations where he shouldn’t be strong or shouldn’t be leading. It’s a very restrictive label that can easily backfire and you should be aware of whether you’re boxing your character into a specific, ideal persona that you thought would fit him. We need to be careful at all times not to make two-dimensional characters because not only is it boring for the readers but it’s boring to write about and, frankly, a sign of a bad writer. Though there isn’t anything inherently wrong with making a nod at a character’s finer qualities by eluding to it in some abstract manner it can often dominate a character’s nature by making the name meaning extremely restrictive or overly positive/negative. A villain doesn’t need a name that alludes to death, evilness or blood but it can be acceptable to go for something a little less obvious and a little less restrictive. A personality should first and foremost be natural and appropriate for the character it is matched to. Certain aspects of that personality need to be explained and not simply slotted in alongside a stereotype that may occur if you’ve already put a name to who they are as a person. Diagnosing a character as evil isn’t a natural progression of their personality but is aligning them with an ideological representation of something they have not acquired through experience.

Legit way of choosing a name; pick whichever is generated as the largest.

So the point I’m trying to make is that giving your characters names based on what you’d like them to be or do is a sure fire way to box them in, unless you make yourself very aware of still allowing them to flourish and extend beyond that label. The Rosenhan experiment demonstrates that once we have a fixed idea of somebody’s nature it can be very hard to break away from that and any behaviour, any action or situation will lead us right back to that original diagnosis. This can have dangerous consequences within your novel as before you’ve even started you’ve restricted yourself. A good writer will be able to break away from doing this, provided he or she is aware what could come of their fairly innocent name choosing.

Helping your protagonist live up to your readers’ expectations

Your protagonist has a lot on their shoulders in terms of what a reader expects from them.  A protagonist is the main character because they are the person who will be doing either of two things; doing things or having things done to them. In the end, it’s probably going to be both, but for now I’ll focus on the expectation of them acting. If a main character does not act, does not perform actions that moves on the storyline and instead they simply exist as a passive individual then it’s fairly uninteresting to read about their story. Granted, certain characters are passive by their very nature but passiveness when it comes to the plotline and simply having a passive personality are entirely different things. You need to ask yourself, why is this person the protagonist? What makes them so important that the story is tracking their movements when, when it comes down to the nitty gritty, they are simply unable to move things along.

A degree of decisiveness needs to be in place. The reader is expecting them to respond to the things which happen to them or around them; the protagonist needs to seek out answers to questions, look for what’s missing and work out what to do next. These things can be worked into the framework of every personality type. A passive, go with the flow personality is not a hindrance to progressing the storyline and instead can be incorporated into the way that protagonist goes about advancing things. A protagonist who is, by nature, a complete coward may still be unable to help themselves from exploring a mystery further; hating themselves every step of the way. By the time they finally run away it may already be too late and the damage that their curiosity led to has already been done. With characters that are passive, lazy or cowards then you just need to get a little more inventive with the storyline. 

So far, for a protagonist needing to live up to expectations I’ve outlined that they need to make decisions for themselves and also to act upon those decisions. There’s something else that I want to discuss however and that’s taking responsibility of the consequences that may occur. I find this to be an essential component of any good character. I’m sure you’re familiar with that, “and it was all a dream” ending of bad books or bad films and the same, fist pounding, author-slapping reaction applies to a character who does not take responsibility. Again, this sounds like a personality aspect of a character and that I’m ignoring irresponsible characters, but I’m not. A good character who takes responsibility is one who has to deal with the problems they have caused through their decision making or actions they’ve been performing. Maybe they don’t want to, maybe they’ve been avoiding it for a long time, but eventually it will catch up with them. It needs to catch up with them sooner or later; any problems that are caused cannot disappear into the abyss never to be seen again, that’s not how real life works.  Irresponsible characters can be irresponsible in many senses; they don’t take care of their family, they don’t take care of their money or themselves, they don’t go to school and so on but that doesn’t make them entirely stationary. If you have a protagonist who is not only irresponsible but who doesn’t leave the house, doesn’t talk to people, doesn’t think about things and doesn’t care what’s going on around them then you might want to rework the character a little.

Lazy characters, like Hershey, can be spurred into action with the right incentives.

When a story ‘was all a dream’ it has effectively just had all aspects of responsibility and consequence removed from it. This is naturally going to frustrate the reader because, god dammit, characters shouldn’t be able to get away with things like that. Where there should have been a climax or a conclusion of events there is instead a rather miserable fizzling off, leaving the reader just sort of helplessly standing there, wondering what just happened. Consequences of the character’s actions need to actually happen, especially one’s which are being anticipated by the reader for some time. If you are writing a fantasy novel you should be particularly cautious of exercising a ‘magical’ way out of a problem as more often than not that will diminish your book, not enhance it. Certain problems can be solved by a form of magic in a fantasy book but, like in many fantasy universes, there need to be very tight rules and regulations of that magic otherwise it just turns into a free-for-all. Remember, people prefer to read about conflicts, struggle and overcoming these things through hard work and perseverance; emotional or physical. With this in mind it’s unfair to set up a problem and then have it disappear into thin air later on in the book with no consequences. 

A reader expects many things from a good book but their expectations of the protagonist often include these components. Consequences, responsibility, taking action and moving the storyline along are what distinguish the protagonist from other characters in the book. These components are an indication of good quality writing in general; a novel where decisions are meaningless due there being no consequences is likely to be unrealistic and uninspiring.  The protagonist’s personality has no bearing on how much they are pulling their weight when it comes to the storyline and even passive or shy characters can become the decision-maker. Of course, this is not all that makes a good protagonist but that’s for another time, happy writing!

Like so.

Are we able to write anything original?

Maybe it’s a sweeping generalisation but I imagine that every author out there wants to write some original content. If all you are doing is essentially re-writing or rehashing the same stuff that people have seen a million times before then you would start to wonder what kind of writer you were. After all, creative writing is supposed to be… creative, not unimaginative, repetitive drivel. Unfortunately it’s fairly likely that everything you’ve ever written has already been thought of and is out there, somewhere, just waiting to jump out at you and knock your confidence down a few notches. Is there anything we can do about it? I’d argue that there probably isn’t.

Coming up with a new idea is rather like imagining what emptiness is like. Imagine what existed before the universe, or after everything has long since gone, maybe you’re imagining a big, blank, white slate or an empty black void. This is not emptiness; these are colours, it’s a horrible thing to put yourself through because we simply lack the capability to imagine what nothing looks like. We’ve never experienced it before and our mental capacities are severely limited if we try to think outside the human-body box. I’d argue that completely new, original, literally never thought of before ideas are also beyond our mental capacities; we need to build up ideas with pre-existing building blocks. Unicorns are made out of horses and horns, dragons are from pre-existing lizards and then there are several creatures inspired by twisted and unnatural versions of humans. 

Now, there is no rule out there which states that original bits of work by people; novels, poems, film scripts and so on, need to be, well, entirely original. Plagiarism has always been a big problem but it doesn’t have any actual legal grounding other than a vague sense of stealing. Copyright infringement is a whole different bag, plagiarism tends to be limited to somebody claiming that what they are saying is theirs is something that they themselves authored. Problem is, it’s rather difficult to prove as actual ‘never seen before’ ideas are hard to come by. 

Is 'creative plagiarism' common?

Here’s some examples of what I mean. I’ll do a quick summary of a book and you see if you know where it is from:

“A young boy discovers he is a wizard and heads off to a magical school to learn more about the craft. Under the guidance of an elderly and wise tutor he trains and improves his powers, his best friend is from a modest background and his enemy at the school is a complete snob.”

Harry Potter? Surely, Ron and Draco are in there, also Dumbledore and I mean, he discovers he’s a wizard and he goes to a wizard school for Christ’s sake. But, actually no, it’s not Harry Potter. It’s instead describing “A Wizard of Earthsea” published in 1968. Sorry, maybe I tricked you a little there, here you can have another try: 

“A young boy discovers he is a wizard. He must engage in a long and dangerous wizarding competition where he must solve clues also, at one point, rescue hostages which are imprisoned by half human, half animal creatures in order to become the winner of the competition. The wizarding world thankfully has its own wizarding hospital but, when not participating in the competition, he can kill time with wizarding chess or reading the wizarding newspaper.”

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire! Surely, the tri-wizard tournament with the weird mermaids who kidnapped the contestants buddies… nnnoo.. this one is describing “The Adventures of Willy the Wizard” from 1987. This one actually had a lawsuit attached, serious business.

Harry Potter aside there are plenty of books and films out there which build upon long accepted groundwork ideas. Modern day vampires are not a patch on what they used to be but, even in Bram Stoker’s era they weren’t new concept. John Polidori put those fanged guys down a long time before Stoker did but, even Polidori could also have easily read the short German poem written by Heinrich Ossenfelder and nicked the idea from him too.

There are, of course, modern examples of creative plagiarism but it never stopped them from making any money. The Hunger Games has a very similar idea to Battle Royale and the 2009 film Avatar has been noted by critics as being extraordinarily similar to Dances with Wolves, or Pocahontas, or Princess Mononoke… or some other stuff. It’s a fairly cruel business to go around accusing directors and authors to be taking ideas as they please and rehashing them into something that has become popular as, chances are, that ‘original’ idea wasn’t ever original. After all, none of us live inside a vacuum of space whereby we are totally unaffected by the surrounding world. Most of us, I hope, read as well as write and as we read we’re going to be consciously and unconsciously picking up bits of ideas. It’s a natural process and it’s also fairly likely that you’ll end up writing down combined bits of stories that you had previously read without even realising what you’re doing.

Totally different films. Honest.

Does it matter?

So, if there is no such thing as new and original ideas then then what hope is there? Is this the end of creativity and imagination as we know it? Does this explain why every single film that comes out at the cinema seems more and more familiar as the years go by? Actually, maybe that last one is correct, but as long as it’s an enjoyable film who gives a damn. What makes a good idea, even if it’s not an original idea, is that it adds a different perspective to a pre-existing story. As long as you’re bringing something new to the table then your idea is worth writing down as contained within something old is a kernel of originality that is provided for by, you; a unique person. 

Creativity doesn’t have to be about coming up with completely new, miraculously created you’re your little writer’s vacuum. Instead, simply looking at something in a different way and getting that down on paper is, in itself, worthwhile. Perhaps you hold a perspective on something that nobody else has held. Perhaps you can put things together in a unique manner by combining components into something that is, if not completely innovative then at least a bit novel. 

We’re often tempted to discard bits of work because we realise how similar they are to pre-existing pieces of work, either by ourselves or somebody else, have you ever done this? Do you think you can have entirely new ideas, not formed from pre-existing concepts? Let me know!

The walls around them were shaking.

The walls around them were shaking. The mortar and plaster peeled off in great chunks and shattered on the concrete floor below. The group stood huddled in the middle; not wanting to move from their temporary safe haven in the centre of the room; well away from the cracking, crumbling walls. Above them a light fitting swung violently from side to side then dropped a little lower and spun off in one direction as, with a great snap, one of the electrical cables gave way. The remaining cables stopped the fitting from smashing into the wall and tugged it back again, just as the room gave another great lurch. One of the smaller children started crying only to be hushed by its mother. The room had no windows, no doors and no way out. The only chance of survival the trapped few had was to wait, and hope, and try not to be hit by any of the falling debris. Even though the walls would not cause more than severe bruising the mere movement of an individual could be devastating to them all. Above them the ceiling was now crumbling away and above that the jarring sound of metal clashing onto metal sounded violently. The largest of the group ushered them away towards a mostly destroyed corner. His eyes were fixated on the light fitting above as it now threatened to be let loose entirely.

Adam knew nothing of danger before all of this. His short life had been a picturesque time of opportunity, love and safety. He had never gone hungry, he had never had to work and he had always had a safety net in the form of friends and family. There was always someone or something that would catch him. Now, as the floor began to give way and expose little chunks of light filtering upwards into the empty, grey room, Adam was unsure of what falling would really be like.

Great beams of light were breaking into the room from every direction. The west wall in particular was now mostly a criss-cross of exposed metal girders and supports. The protector of the group; the largest male there, previously a student, looked at the wall with a grim faced expression. He took a determined step forward but as he did so the room gave a heart wrenching dip. The man stopped moving entirely and stood frozen to the spot. His arms were held out at an unnatural angle as he waited silently, listening. A slow and continuous grinding noise was sounding above the group and a few of them raised their faces to the ceiling. Something was groaning with the strain of the room and it was only now that Thomas realised what was happening.

“Get into the middle again!” He urged as he once again ushered everybody together as one group. The corner of the room in which they’d all been huddled was beginning to dip under their weight. Above them, outside the room somewhere where the roof would be, a clunking noise sounded and the entire room lurched violently as a shrill swishing and clattering noise carried from the roof to the wall. Through the exposed mental beams a rusty chain could be seen slithering off from where it had previously been suspending the room from some unseen contraption. Thomas only had a moment to dart to the side and grab it through the broken wall but his swift movements jerked and shook the crumbling room. The terrified group behind him gave a quick fire variety of horrified screams before Thomas had snatched the chain up and retreated back into the middle, holding it triumphantly and seemingly unaware of the risk he had taken.

“You’ll get us all killed” moaned the mother of the crying child as she petted at its sweat matted hair in a calming gesture.

Thomas ignored her as he now looked down at the chain in his large, grubby hands as he desperately tried to think of how he could use it to save them all… to save himself. The walls were still peeling away gradually and now the group could see what was outside of their suspended cell. In the far distance was a great, open plain of grassland and, beyond that in the even farther distance, a gathering of mountains topped with white could be seen blending into the horizon. None of them could move from their position, the smallest shift of foot was enough to make the room dip and swing again, but all of them looked out at the picture of freedom not too far from their reach and drew a little further away from one another.

                                               

Walking on air; the happy body.

The next time that you’re nervous, scared, happy or excited pay attention to what you feel and how your body reacts. As writers we are responsible for our character’s physiological and psychological reactions to the things we put them through. Since this responsibility is seated firmly on our shoulders it’s certainly something that needs to be done properly. This relates quite closely to my earlier post about showing, not telling, as this way can we communicate effectively with the reader and also gain a greater understanding about how our character is feeling.

The first thing to note is that when people are happy they don’t just smile. A whole host of reactions take place and what I’ll primarily look into today is some of the non-verbal cues that people give when they are feeling very positive or very negative. These behaviours tend to occur when a person is specifically not trying to portray themselves in a certain way and are the kind of behaviours that affect the majority of people due to us all sharing the same limbic system. The limbic system is the bit of the brain that reacts to the world in a reflexive manner so with no thought going into it; it governs our emotional responses and its from here that signals go to other parts of the brain which then affect our physical behaviours i.e.: our body language.

So, happy people don’t just smile! I mean of course, we all know this because (hopefully) we all get happy at least once a day. When you're not in the right frame of mind though it's easy to let certain, natural behaviours wash over your head and then when you sit down to write about these normal things you kind of go; ah, uh... hmm.

When people are feeling happy, confident or excited they may become giddy and also perform ‘gravity-defying behaviours’ which are behaviours that physically elevate the body upwards. It sounds odd but we all do it all the time. This can happen in various parts of their body and, when you start noticing it, it becomes quite apparent in day to day life. A child who is excited to go to the park may skip or jump and adults may appear to be walking on air, rocking or bouncing on the balls of their feet or, when standing still, the foot may lift vertically to point the toes directly into the air. This toe pointing can happen when on the telephone after you've received some really good news because it tends to happen when you're standing still. If you do a little people-watching you can start looking out for what their toes and feet are doing - the feet are the most honest parts of the body which is partly due to us not paying much attention to them when we could be focusing on our faces and hands.

Gravity defying behaviours of the arms may include excessive gesturing, swinging them whilst walking, thrusting them into the air during celebration, waving them up high, placing them up high behind the head or embracing people widely; all of these things are the movements of those who are happy, confident and positive. Interestingly, these reactions are hardly ever observed in those with clinical depression as these bodily movements reflect the emotional state of the individual; the happier or more excited you are the more gravity defying behaviours are likely to be observed.

See how absolutely ecstatic this lady is?

To partner this consider the movements of those who are uneasy, ashamed, disappointed, insecure or upset. The shoulders and arms sink downwards, movements are restricted; hugs may be tense and the arm movement very minute. A customs inspector who worked in Arizona describes how he noticed the movements of people crossing the border when holding their bags; those who were worried about the contents of the bag, maybe something inside was dubious or of great value, tended to hold the bag closer to the body and more tightly; the arm and hand held closely to the body in a constricted, tight manner. Similarly those who are afraid of being noticed restrict their arm movements almost entirely so that they are completely frozen. Generally when your emotional state is negative in some way you tend to make yourself as small as possible with very little movement; not just when you’re hiding but when you’re directly in front of other people too, depending on how you feel.

Your character's movements need to reflect their internal state of mind and for them to do this you need to be aware of what is normal for a regular person to end up doing, even if they aren't aware of it. There are many great resources on body-language and how to read non-verbal cues for everything from dating to detecting a liar, I will however, keep posting bits about it as I find it extremely important when forming realistic interactions between characters :)

Show; don't tell

Sometimes a character idea just comes to you; maybe they’re based on yourself, somebody you know or a combination of personality traits that you think fit together nicely. They could even be based off another fictional character or perhaps embody an ideal such as the ideal hero, ideal lover or ideal mad scientist. It makes things so much simpler when you already have a profile set out ready to be slotted into your story but pre-existing character profiles can often make writing a lot more difficult than what you originally intended.

I tend to have a general concept of what I want from a character but for them not be too restrictive or flat in shape. I have in mind their age, gender and then run a few demo interactions early on in the novel to see how I find myself writing their response. I didn’t even know what my main character’s age was until the end of the third chapter. Generally, personality outlines run the risk of sounding thin and false and often run the risk of falling into stereotypes that don't exist in reality. Take the example of your regular old mad scientist. There’s a lot of them in cinema, books, general fiction but not too many in real life and these kind of crazy scientists seem to unanimously share a soul which is, well, boring. Yes, he’s brilliant, he’s crazy and he’s probably got some questionable morals to be doing the sorts of things he’s doing but is that all there is to him? He’s a flat character and even if you bulk things out a bit; he has a troubled past, a phobia of water and sleeps in very late, it’s still pretty boring and 2D. You also risk restricting the way the character evolves and may even stop them from evolving at all because you already have them where you want them. Evolving characters are essential to make their progress in the novel worthwhile and realistic. By putting walls up all around him and telling him how to be and how to act you're essentially listing flat facts about him which doesn't make for good reading.

You carbon copy you!

Think more into extending and then balancing him out a little; does he genuinely think he’s helping out, does he stay awake at night ashamed of what he does or is he somehow being forced to do it? Why is he crazy? What kind of crazy is this? Check out mental health issues; schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder, manic depressant. All of these things could be construed as ‘crazy’ but they all exist in the real world; and your characters, unless they’re aliens, need to follow some kind of logical structure. And, if you're writing science fiction and they are actually aliens there's nothing wrong with creating your own version of a mental illness to enforce a self contained logical structure.

With my characters I tend to let their personality flourish as I write; my lead character freezes every time she gets scared, I didn’t intend to do this but it happened about three times without my realizing how consistent I was being. Why did I do it? Well, that’s not the real question really, rather it's; why does my character do it? Well, she’s young, inexperienced and indecisive, apparently. I could have listed these things prior to my writing and wrote accordingly but I feel there would be a temptation to make her inexperienced to the point of annoying and indecisive to the point of never getting anywhere. I already knew my character was young but the other things are more down to the individual personality rather than age. You could argue that young people tend to be more inclined towards these traits that I’ve just outlined but frankly there are plenty of preteens who are brash, confident and headstrong so it didn't guide how to wrote the character.

Another risk that I always try and avoid is telling the reader what my characters are all about before they have a chance to discover for themselves. You don’t want to feed the story to your audience hand to mouth or lead them by the nose. Your audience or readers are not stupid and they’ll probably enjoy drawing their own conclusions and forming in their mind their own idea of what the character is like. I remember reading a series when I was a teenager and I was never told what the main character looked like; I just sort of assumed and made it up and in that sense your characters are becoming individualized in each reader’s mind. This is not to everybody's taste of course but it always exists as an option and there are plenty of books that do this to no ill-effect.

When you meet somebody in real life you get to know them in a natural, gradual and very organic way, unless you meet them online but even then it is a journey of discovery about one another. Your reader should get to know your character in the same way they would have they met him or her in real life.

In essence it breaks down to showing but not telling. When you want your reader to know what a character is like you show them and this rule of 'show, don't tell' applies not only to characters but to everything in fiction. Here's an example to compare -

“She was young and inexperienced; not knowing how to properly align the gun and even forgetting to take the safety off as Jane had never handled a gun before.”

Vs

“Fumbling awkwardly with the firearm Jane lifted it again, aimed shakily at her target before squeezing the trigger with a trembling hand; but, for some reason, nothing happened.”

Now, I don’t know which you prefer but I find that the second one feels more real, less like a documentary and more in the moment. This is only a couple of sentences but if you put that kind of writing style into an entire paragraph you’re more likely to get a scene that is emotionally charged and realistic. It also has plenty of unspoken detail in it also that's not so apparent in the first example. We, as readers, can draw from the second example that Jane is afraid and that she’s physically shaking she’s so scared. Maybe it's because she’s under pressure. Maybe she's not scared but the pressure is very intense and the adrenaline is getting to her; maybe there’s a time limit, maybe she’s at risk of hitting a friend of hers. There’s a lot more here than in that first paragraph which is a short description that sounds like it belongs in a witness report. Like your 2D characters it's best to be descriptive, thoughtful and emotive; not listing qualities or facts about the scenario.

Generally we’re also going to want regular human error in your characters; they’re not psychic, they don’t know half the things that are going to happen to them. Jane here is struggling with a gun because she's never used one before; it's simple and it's logical but sometimes people forget the implications that comes with the character that they have created. On a related note it's important to not make your characters be able to do all the things you may take for granted; driving a car, putting the laundry on, cooking a simple meal or ordering a ticket on a bus. Most people know how to or are able to but not necessarily all. There’s always something that someone is unable to do either out of no experience, social anxiety, confusion, youth, age, whatever it is. I can cook; not all my characters can. I struggle to buy a bus ticket; my characters probably won't. Diversity and breaking away from what you're used to is all part of developing unique characters but, like I say, don't tell your audience what they can and cannot do; show them steadily and gradually.

Growth, love and character development.

I find that the best way to create a character is, as I’ve said before, to allow them to develop organically. Like a new relationship it’s never healthy to force it faster than it develops when left unattended. The best kinds of relationship I find are the ones where you’ve known the person for a long time so you have an entirely different frame of mind when it finally comes to having a romantic relationship with them. Knowing somebody in a context outside of the dating world means that the focus isn’t all about the relationship potential; you’re not asking if you’d live together well, or whether they’re attractive, or whether your family would approve. It simply boils down to you, and your friend, doing what you do and if you then develop feelings for them then all of the awkward ‘getting to know you’ things are out the way and don’t impede the course of the relationship.

Let it grow

It’s all about giving it time and not letting the ‘end goal’ spoil your perspective. When introducing a character it can be tempting to throw it all in and have where they’re going to end up firmly in your mind. “He’s going to lose a sister, she’s going to save the world, they’re going to get together at the end.” These kind of very strong, very direct end goals will ultimately cloud and change how you write your character so they fit into this pre-determined state despite the fact it’s not happened yet so, truly, it physically cannot affect the character in any way, shape or form unless you let it so. A certain amount of control and restraint is needed as otherwise you’ll risk spoiling the natural development of a person and, also, spoil it for your reader. Like relationships, if you go out desperate and diligent in your conquest for love you’re unlikely to find something you’ll be happy with in the long run. Ease off a little; you don’t need to delay it but there’s no need to rush it either.

Everything has a purpose

When writing a book it’s important to not let things happen for absolutely no reason when, instead, you can use every single event in the book for a purpose. Everything you write must count for something even its little things like describing the atmosphere of a particular place, but everything you write must be written for a reason. When things happen in a book, like a house fire that’s witnessed by the character or a relationship breaking up it shouldn’t just exist ‘as so’; it needs to do something or be there for a reason. Reasons could be:

• A slow build up to an event
• A plot twist later on
• Background detail/information
• Emotional or personality changes
• Motivations or incentives for characters to act upon
• A chain reaction of events for plot purposes

Just say your character does in fact witness a house fire; you’ve described it well and it’s quite exciting but what’s the point of it? If the event never reappears in reality say, in the form of another house fire indicating something unusual is going then it’s essentially just a one off thing. It could alternatively reappear in the sense that it’s present in the character’s thoughts or in the impact that it has had on surrounding events, people or atmosphere otherwise the fire is essentially just a pointless bit of drama. Sometimes random things happen for no reason that cannot be explained but frankly this is your world and you’re the one controlling it so the things included should be generally relevant to the story that you’re trying to tell.

I have never written about a house fire before but I can imagine circumstances in which it could be used as a useful tool or mechanism for something I was going to get around to. Even if this fire is not related to your story it in any way, shape or form that still doesn’t mean it has to end there. The fire could instil a fear or paranoia in the character, the town could be on edge or deeply saddened due to a death, people may become more closed off or more willing to help one another, the character may reflect more on how fragile life is; there’s a lot that can be done here, even with simple or meaningless things. The events you write don’t necessarily have to all interconnect into one great web of story as, depending on your story, that may be more unrealistic than lots of random things going on. However, that doesn’t give you permission to write things for no reason as, as I just described, emotional and psychological changes caused by our surrounding influences are just as meaningful as physical connections in the terms of plotline.

I personally find a book that is jam packed full of random events that have no bearing on the actual plotline or characters to be rather tiring; a few are ok if it’s in the right context but after that it begins to feel as though the character has just been plonked down in a spinning world of random factors If that’s what you’re going for, crack on, but your character should probably start being affected by what’s happening otherwise they must be bordering on the inhuman in terms of their emotional capacity. On the other hand, if you’re following a specific plotline rather than an observation on the futility of one’s existence then it’s best to keep things relevant to what’s going on; even if that’s not immediately apparent to the reader. There’s nothing wrong with setting things up that seem random and unrelated and then throwing in a plot twist that shows the reader, “ha! You thought it was innocent but actually it’s all interconnected!” in fact, people love that in fiction; films included. Nobody wants to read and watch something predictable after all so it’s good to have a few aces up your sleeve for the later chapters and you'll hopefully find that you enjoy setting those up early on.

The writing process

Writing has been a continuous part of my life. I wrote novels for fun when I was a teenager but never finished them and now I've come back to it; picking up the story from 6 years ago but in an entirely new format. I don't have that massive word document from 2007 anymore but the general outline, the world it existed in, remains in my head still.

It came out of nowhere really; a document was opened, I'd graduated university and I was longing for something to do in my free time, I stared at the blank pages then began to tap some stuff in. I hadn't planned anything; I knew nothing of the middle or end of the book, I had no character ideas, no concept as to where this was going but it's as though the book wrote itself.

My characters' personalities were formed as the words were. I didn't put myself in their shoes. They were in their shoes. I still don't know everything there is about Clara, my lead character; a thirteen year old girl who's beginning to realize that she's unwittingly involved in something much bigger than she is. I'll know her when she reveals herself to me, through the decisions that she makes and the reactions that she forms. In real life things aren't planned out perfectly; sometimes life is illogical and confusing, in fact, it often is. Rarely do things go the way they were intended so why should my books be any different? When I write, I write as though it were real with all the complexities and mistakes, plot holes that will be filled with time and emotional blunting, or overemotional reactions, that form the personalities of real people all around the world.

I'm nowhere near finished with it; I have more of an outline than I used to as the story is revealing itself to me over time, but to finish this novel takes so much emotion as, when I write, I live the experiences alongside Clara because otherwise it's just not real enough. I make it real, with the help of my characters.