Characters 201: What Do You Do Once You’ve Made A Character?

 Characters 201: What Do You Do Once You’ve Made A Character?

Hello my fellow writers! Today I bring you a blogpost of endless possibilities: what to do with that character you’ve finally written down on paper(or maybe you’re a daydreamer. I respect that.)

Before we launch into this post, I’ll take a moment to suggest to you one of my other blog posts: Make A Character With Me: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Detailed Characters. This one is good for making sure that you’ve got your character nice and fleshed out.

Now, onto our Character 201!

What Do I Do Now That I Have A Character?

I’ll answer this question broadly, and then zoom in from there. 

First things first, you have to take stock of what else you have. Do you have a plot? A setting? Other characters? An idea for your story? Even just the general vibes can be helpful with deciding what to do with your character.

If you don’t have anything outside of a character, then it’s time for you to make either a world or a plot, whichever one you would prefer to create more. Since you’re using your character as a starting point, then I would recommend taking what you know about your character, and implementing some of their details into the world. 

Backgrounds and talents can be very helpful with this. Does your character have the ability to teleport or summon fire? Then make your world built around certain abilities. Stuff like that can help give you a starting point.

I Have A Plot

If you have a plot, then perfect! How does your character fit into said plot? Are they the love interest, the antagonist, a side character, the main character? Or maybe they’re the grocery store cashier that chews on a wad of gum really loudly.

The point is, once you have a character, you need to define their role(I have a section of this in the blogpost I mentioned) to be able to integrate them into the plot, or to be able to adapt your plot to fit the character.

I Have A Setting

Before you plop a character into a setting, you have to first figure out, do you have a setting(like your character’s house), or do you have a world(like Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere)? Once you’ve figured out which one you have, then you can continue from there. 

If you have a setting, then I would recommend putting your character there for the time being and building up your world a little bit more. The longer your story goes, the more places they are (probably) going to travel to. Having more than just one place helps with making your character feel less stagnant.

If you have a world, then I would recommend sending your character off on an adventure– or plotting, if you like to know what your character is going to do. Or, you could do some character writing exercises to get a solid grasp of what they do in your world.

I Have Other Characters

I smell an epic quest coming for your character! If you have other characters, then I say, let them interact! How would your socially anxious character interact with the brooding assassin that gets sent to kill them? (I have not read or created a story like that, but you get my point.)

Knowing how your character mesh with each other is an excellent way to get a grasp on your story. You can also use your character’s dynamics to help with some world-building. If a fire wielder has a natural friendship with a water bender, why? Use that to help create a believable world.

And, making a plot with five gremlin-rascals versus one may seem a little trickier(especially if you give them each a separate plotline), but it’ll all work out in the long run(probably)!

I Have An Idea

If you have an idea, then great! Flesh that idea out a little more using your character as a scalpel, and make sure to get some world-building and general things worked out. 

Once you have your idea written on paper, then I would recommend overlooking it and trying to puzzle out what your foundation is, then build upon it. You still have some way to go, yes, but you’re getting there!

I Have Vibes

Ah, this one is a little tricky. If you have a character and just vibes, then you need to develop those vibes into an idea before you can do much more than ground your character in a fight scene that is set to the song Pumped Up Kicks by Foster The People. 

Once you’ve got a little bit more written down(aka your idea), then you just have to keep building from there. I would recommend using your character as your step-ladder, since you can base just about anything in the world you will make off of their past experiences and talents.

And that’s a wrap! I hope you liked this blogpost, and please remember to either comment, check out another post, vote for what blog posts you want to see(check my UPDATE section on the sidebar for more info on that), or follow!

Have a good day!