Writing Essentials: Character

Laying the Foundation

Out of our three core elements of character, plot, and world, character offers the most stabile foundation to structure our narrative on.

This is because when the character journey guides our narrative structuring, both plot progression and world building flourishes organically.

Think of the narrative as a mirror for the character journey and you’ll begin to see why this is.

Everything within the narrative, from the physical spaces our character occupies to the situations they come up against, exist for one reason only: to push our character to move from the beginning of their story to the ending of their story.

This push is what creates a sense of movement within the story, what is also known as narrative momentum.

Narrative momentum doesn’t mean the character/s must be in constant movement but rather that there is something happening in each chapter that gives meaning to our narrative.

It’s difficult to find a deeper meaning within a story set in one room where no events occur, but if one event is the character/s finding themselves trapped, and this in turn leads to another event of trying to break free, there you have the basis of a plot.

A deeper narrative meaning, however, isn’t found in the events themselves.

It’s found in how a character reacts to what’s happening.

For the reaction to carry meaning it must be rooted in our character journey, furthering the arc and the growth within it.

This way the reaction is relatable and engaging for the reader as they, with each event, get to know the character better, and get the satisfaction of watching them grow.

So, the next question becomes: Where do we begin to create this character journey?

We begin with our core elements.

The core elements to our character root themselves in the basics of human psychology. 

Behavior is what makes a character go from lines of description to someone human.

This means that understanding human behavior, even if it’s at the most basic level, assists us in creating compelling characters.

A character’s core elements are:

·       Ego

·       Shadow

·       Self

The Ego is their conscious self, home to the persona. The persona is how they present themselves to the outside world and how they perceive themselves, heavily influenced by the Shadow.

The Shadow is their subconscious self, home to their flaws. Their flaws inform their self-perception as well as their reactions, especially to anything outside of their control.

The Self is their true self, home to their identity. Their identity sits at their center and strives for them to attain self-awareness. Self-awareness will lead to inner balance between Ego and Shadow, known as integration.

Integration is endgame for most character journeys.

Look at it this way:

·       A character begins flawed, learns lessons along their journey, and evolves into a more self-aware person.

·       The lessons challenge their self-perception and push them out of their performative persona into a more authentic version of themselves, reflective of their true self.

·       Accepting the journey and learning the lessons typically results in the character being rewarded, not with what they consciously wanted at the beginning of their journey, but with what they needed deep-down all along.

Is this the only way to approach the writing process.

Of course not!

But it’s an approach that focuses the process on one starting point and allows us to build the narrative from there, rather than try to work with many moving parts that simply do not seem to want to fit together. Usually they won’t fit because the character journey is too undefined, leaving the narrative meaning with little to no resonance.

In the next post we’ll take a closer look at the Ego/Shadow/Self dynamic and effective ways to play around with it in our writing.