Today’s post is written by Anna Lindwasser. Thanks, Anna!
Recently, I was challenged to write a short story within four days. I had a plot in mind, but my main character was faceless and dull. I had to give him some interesting traits, and fast.
Rather than attempt to cook up a whole new character from scratch, I decided to use one of my old characters, Kit. Using Kit led to the creation of a whole new character. His name is Avery. Once I had created Avery, I discovered that I had a useful shortcut on my hands.
About Kit: I’ve been developing Kit’s personality and history for years. Because I’ve known him for so long, he’s familiar ground. I don’t have to worry about getting his voice right, I don’t have to think about what his motives are or what he’s thinking or what he’ll do next. Because Kit is so easy for me to write about, Kit makes an excellent template for a new character.
To transform Kit into a new character, I changed the following things about him:
Plot
Though I started out using Kit’s name and vague description, I made a conscious effort to change something about him during the first part of the story. I chose what had to be changed for the plot—he had to be more nervous and effacing than he was.
The story was about a college kid taking a girl on an awkward date. Kit could make things awkward, but he’s far more controlling and angry than this story’s main character needed to be. So, Kit’s rage went out the window and was replaced by other traits.
Appearance
Kit had brown hair and glasses; the new character would have black hair and perfect vision. Kit had brown eyes; the new character would have blue. Kit was tall with a bulky build; the new character would be slighter and shorter.
Here, I simply tweaked some details. Later, once I’d changed more about the new character’s personality, a more complete image emerged.
Family
Kit is supported primarily by his father, who makes plenty of money as a defense lawyer. He doesn’t have a job, and is only tangentially interested in college. I changed those details and gave my new character a job in a second hand clothing store, no parental support due to lack of funds, and a college career which is moving one class at a time, also due to lack of funds.
I reversed Kit’s situation and gave the alternative to my new character.
Relationships
I deliberately chose a character of mine who was in an established relationship. That way, I’d have to change this when coming up with a new character for my first-date story.
Kit has a girlfriend named Mona, and an intense, protective friendship with a teenage boy named Rue. My new character was on his first date, ever. He has noncommittal relationships with everyone around him—the opposite of Kit.
My new character was, in many ways, the opposite of my old character. By simply reversing aspects of Kit’s personality, I was able to generate a new character with some flesh to him. He wasn’t perfect or fully developed, but I had a working start.
At this point, he was different enough that I could give him his own name, Avery. Once I had a name and some general details, I could flesh him out independently of Kit. Using Kit helped me to get past the initial paralysis of having to generate a whole new character from scratch.
Applying the Method
Obviously, not everyone has characters they’ve been developing for years.
If you’re new to writing, you might not feel like this method applies to you. If you don’t have any old characters to recycle, you can try using people you know, or other fictional characters. The process is very much the same.
You might think that you should take extra care to change the character if you use one that belongs to someone else, but whatever effort you think you should put into that is that exact same amount of effort you should put in to altering your own character.
No matter what you start with, you want to end up with a unique new character.
Anna Lindwasser is a writer living in NYC. Her work has appeared in The Shine Journal, Downtown Brooklyn, and LearnSomethingUseful.com. She is currently studying to become a teacher, and working on a novel.
Anna,
This is a very helpful post. I see how will this helped you kick-start your new character. I find thinking of TV characters can help me begin to develop traits and mannerism for my characters. I attended a class that encouraged writers to find pictures of people that they can use to develop a description of their character and keep the pictures on hand to refer to.
Thanks for the comment, Cindy! I know what you mean about TV characters…there have been times when I have used those as my basis for character creation as well. Television is a powerful medium, but because it’s NOT the same as writing, there’s a lot you can do with concepts you find on TV in writing that just don’t happen on TV. It can be a bit of a gray area because of copyright issues, but you can still utilize what you see if you change enough things to make it unique. I like the idea of having a picture on hand, as well…for some people generating physical appearance without physical reference can be quite difficult.
Fascinating! Love this idea. Thanks, Anna.
It reminds me of this cookbook by “The Cake Mix Doctor” where she fancies up cake mix to make hundreds of fab desserts . . . ones where you’d never know that cake mix is the foundation.
Thanks for the new ideas!
I can definitely see the connection between my idea and the Cake Mix idea. It’s the same basic concept–it’s having a common base to start with instead of doing it from scratch. In both cases, it’s a shortcut, but that doesn’t mean the end result can’t be fantastic.
Thank you for the comment!
A very good point. Back when I was writing fantasy/adventure stories in high school I used to recycle characters all the time. I just changed their names and a little of their looks and personality. This is a great tip when you’re stuck and need some help. Thanks!
Merry Christmas!
Thanks for your comment. I actually use this method more now that I’m older. When I was in high school I was somehow able to generate people like character-creating machine, but lately it’s a little more intimidating, and a little harder to get started, so that’s where this method comes in. I find that as I start to write about a slightly altered character, new traits emerge. I’m glad you found my advice helpful!
Merry Christmas to you too, and Happy New Year.
It is a cool method. I usually come up with a character first, change the appearance, sometimes make the personality more extreme and even change the sex. Some stories gain great momentum when you just play with the genders of main characters.
But I’ll try your method for my next story and see where it will take me:)
Thank you! I hope the method gives you good results. I’m excited to hear that you’ll be trying it. Changing the gender of the character can also be an interesting tactic…although it by no means changes everything, the way other character perceive them, and the way they’re likely to have been socialized from birth can make for a very different story and a very different character. You can change anything about your base character, really, and sometimes the most dramatic change can be the best one to make.
I like this method a lot. I actually have a stash of characters because I have always loved creating them. That’s why when my husband plays all his video games, I’m the one he comes to to create new characters.
Great post, Anna.
Thanks for your comment! I have a lot of characters floating around in my head too, which was why I developed this method…there are only so many adventures that the same set of people can reasonably go on! It’s great fun to make up new people–it’s just hard sometimes, especially when we already have so many other people crowding up our heads!
Is THAT what I have been doing with my “critter” characters and my “mostly human” characters in my adult fairy tales? I suppose it could be described as using a character as a template for the development of a new one. I was just seeing in my mind’s eye another character sprouting out of a well-established characer, manifesting initial traits that either complement the first character’s M.O., or act as a counterpoint. Thank you for sharing your method of character development here. I can see how your approach works well in more straigtforward types of fiction.