I had a look around the good ol’ internet for a quote on characters, and settled on this one, because it’s poetic, and it spoke to me.
“Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.”
Ray Bradbury
Maybe I’m preaching to the converted here, but for me, a story I can immerse myself depends on how I connect to its characters. I believe characters are deeply personal to an author. Sure, there’s probably something formulaic about creating compelling characters, but push that formula through the brains of different authors, and you’ll get different characters. Because we’re all different, with our own influences and experiences. The humanity in this is why I could never buy into something written by AI. But that’s another conversation.
Everyone has their own way of creating characters, but there are probably some common themes. Here’s how I did it.
Avid readers (yes, that’s ironic!) of this Stack will know I don’t have a Main Character, so I’ll focus here on the major POV characters in A Piece Of A God.
Despite the quote above, it starts with plot. What am I writing about here? Well, the book is about power, an attempt at overthrowing the established rule in a city. Oh, and at some point that’s going to unwittingly run into the machinations of the gods. That generates a list of questions.
Who do I need to make that happen? Well, I need two sides. The establishment, and the rebels (for want of a better word).
Who else does it affect? This to me is really important. Conflict is rarely contained. People get caught up in it, and I knew I wanted to tell the stories of people who have no stake in the game.
What are these people like? This is the big question, because it defines how events unfold. It ties in with how I outline but often I let my characters define how things play out.
How do I tell this story? It’s not for me to say I got this right, but you need the vessel to tell the story. Whose head do you want to be in? And which characters do you want to keep some distance from?
Where do these characters start, and where do they end up? Physically and emotionally. Do I have room for them to change?
I should say here that this didn’t all fall into place at the first pass. There were changes along the way as I realised I had too much of certain things, not enough of other things, and I realised I needed new POVs to ensure events converged.
Process-wise, I do two things.
First, I write a bio. That includes physical descriptions, allegiances, relationships, any prowess with weapons or magic, some backstory and personality traits, etc.
Second, I plan out possible character arcs. I don’t use all of them, but I like to have options. I write down what they want, what could potentially get in the way, and what the outcome could be, both in terms of plot, and character. None of this is too excessive. Once I’ve sketched it out, it’s pretty much in my head.
Here’s who I ended up with, and some of my experiences in writing them:
Goris
Goris initially opened the story before some tweaking. He has no stake in the game, and is in many ways the naive country boy caught up in events he wants no part of. There are elements of Rand al’ Thor from Wheel of Time in him, and Kyle from the Malazan world. Unlike those, I gave Goris a brother. The story (and, I guess, the author) is pretty mean to Goris, but that worked better than I expected. He felt boring as I was writing him, but everyone seems to love him. Shows what I know!
Flint
Flint is just your resident sociopathic assassin. He’s a lot of fun to write, and if you look closely enough, he’s laden with dark humour. I’m not sure people really connect with him though. The reason for that is that I tried to create him so that it’s not clear which side he’s really on, so I have to withhold a fair amount from the reader. The biggest influence here is probably Pearl from the Malazan books, but I moved away from that as Flint evolved. Flint actually began as a female character but I changed him on account of being too similar to Sprite.
Sprite
Sprite is part of the rebel army, had a traumatic childhood, and is badly damaged. I was pretty mean to her by having her run into the demi-goddess of love. She’s hard to write for many reasons. First, it’s a female POV and I’m male. Second, she’s cold and distant, so it can be hard to drive an emotional response in the reader. And she’s brutal, so there’s always the internal debate about how far to take that without being gratuitous. Her chapters are dark, so I have to pick my moments to write them.
Hesp
Remember I said I needed two sides to the fight? Well, I ended up with three because I thought it would be interesting to examine what happens when you create a power vacuum (I know, biting off more than I can chew). Hesp is the leader (sort of) of that third side. He’s based to some degree on Cotillion from Malazan, and he’s a lot of fun to write. That’s because despite his day job, he’s actually quite nice, and he comes with his sidekick, Malko, a conniving genuis with verbal diarrhoea.
Nactivel
Nactivel is my only non-human POV. She’s a historian and effectively the person who would write this series after events had taken place. She’s a mix of Duiker from Malazan, and Loial from Wheel of Time, with plenty of my own traits thrown in. Another tricky one to write because it’s her job to remain impartial and distant. That means I throw a lot of emotional stimuli at her to test her resolve and evoke a response. Very fun to examine her evolving relationship with humanity.
Delder
Delder came later on in the process. He’s a not-so-regular innkeeper, and runs the inn where Hesp and his buddies hang out. His big secret is that he’s in the employ of one of the gods, something he hates. Fun to write because I love his internal conflict of having no choice but to serve his god. He’s also a good conduit to seeing what the gods are up to, and foreshadowing what it might mean for the other players.
Nobbe
One of my favourite characters to write. The classic anti-hero ‘regular’ soldier. Complains about everything, but comes through when it matters, which generates a lot of ‘well if I don’t sort this mess out, everything will go to hell’ internal conflict. Every story needs levity in places, and Nobbe is one of my channels for this.
Elania Gallyn
My attempt at tragedy. Elania wants revenge against her uncle for killing her parents, but has to commit treason to do it. Which is a big deal, because she’s the city’s Champion. Lots of conflict swirling around Elania, but hard to get the reader to connect with her. Or maybe she’s a slow-burner. The hard part here is not to drift too far into self-pity when I’m in her head. But, probably my most rewarding character to write. The one that sends shivers down my spine.
There we have it, those are ‘my darlings’. Feel free to ask questions. In another post I’ll talk about how all these threads interact, how the characters evolve, and the plate-spinning required to make sure it fits together.