In this lesson we’ll talk about creating characters more realistic for your book. Hi, I'm Guilherme Orbe and this is the course how to write a book. This is already the third class, it is possible accompany her perfectly without having seen the others, but seeing the ones that have already passed you will learn more about creating a story from scratch.
But let's get to the subject of this class. I will use as a base the manual book of the script Syd Field, because it has a way of creating very interesting and complete characters, and at the same time very simple. The book is geared towards film scripts, but it can be adapted for many other media, and I already recommend reading.
So let's go to our character creation. First we need to understand that what differentiates a realistic character from a non-realistic is its depth, the things that are beyond the explicit or described in the book, and what makes the character take certain attitudes, and their essence. A writer needs to know his character to describe it better.
Because it will come to life on the pages and even the dialogues will be more natural and easier to write. But let's talk better about dialogue in a another class that will be just about dialogues. In the book Manual do Roteiro the author says that each character has 2 characteristics: interior and outside.
(print page 25) Start with your creation for the inner life. Is it man, woman, young, adult? Where do you live?
Lives with the parents? Are you an only child? What kind of childhood did you have?
He was a shy, outgoing kind of child. You create your life story, how much more details better, but you don't have to lose in the smallest details. Make a note of it in a separate file on your computer, or on a sheet in your notebook, the story of the character what kind of life did he even have arrive at the current moment in history.
Then move on to creating outer life of the character. What happened at the beginning of the story? What does he or she do?
Are you satisfied with life? Are you married or married? Have children?
Do you like the job? Or are you still studying? What is the lifestyle?
Would you like your life to be different? If you think it’s too much, don’t worry, the important thing here is to know the character, so you don't need to write exactly all these questions, what you need to keep in mind is who the character is. To create a more realistic character you need to take into account 3 basic components: professional, personal and private.
Professional: Where do you work? what are you doing? What is the position?
Or study? Or an unattached one? Folks: Is your character single?
Married? Widower? Divorced?
If married, to whom? Have children? Go out with friends?
Or is it more socially reserved? Private? What does he do when he is alone?
Read a book? Watch TV? See series?
Do you exercise? Do you have an interesting hobby? Do you have any pets?
Another important point to leave the character is it more realistic to think what your need is? What does he want in the story? Your need will guide you through history.
Your actions will be guided by that goal. And after creating your needs you can create what obstacles, what is on the way to achieve. Drma is conflict.
The character's need must be clear along with your obstacles, so it will give the drama that the story needs to develop. But in this case it is important to note that this drama is needed mainly when you are going to create the protagonist of the story. Secondary characters are important and their needs add to the drama, but the protagonist needs to be the focus, at least the most developed, or create a story with more main characters, but be careful with stories with many characters, you can not allow time to develop everyone, and can get confused, without much connection, so caution.
For those who are starting I advise to go in simple, a protagonist, secondary characters with good dramas people, but that don't take away the focus of the protagonist. But you can ask yourself, and now, already I have the ideas and I'm not sure how to organize in the paper. I will use as an example the protagonist of story I'm creating to facilitate the understanding.
This is how I usually create and organize my characters: I thought about giving the name André Ribeiro. Story: He's 12 years old, comes from a simple family, never went hungry in life, but also never had many luxuries. Your parents have a somewhat troubled marriage, with constant fights and an impending divorce.
He studies at a municipal public school. He was never very studious, but he has no difficulty to get good grades. Born and raised in Itaboraí.
He is Catholic and goes to Mass every Sunday together with his mother and younger sister, but participates in no pastoral care. (he is only 12 years old, has not yet lived much to have a longer history and the focus of my example story is not is exactly a childhood suffered) Then I think about his personality and appearance. And I write more or less like this, very well objective without worrying in technical terms of psychology, but if you want to go deeper more in the psychological part in the creation of your characters are up to you.
And remember that a character is not just qualities if they are good and defects only if are bad. Everyone has defects and qualities and it is important put here at that point. Personality: Intelligent, creative, lazy, honest, sincere, sloppy, carefree, accommodating, but persistent in the things you really want do.
He's a typical phlegmatic. If you know and like to analyze temperaments can help you create the characteristics of the characters. As the goal is to exemplify, I will not worry about creating very complex characters for that story.
So I already say that as 4 characters will be main ones, each will follow the pattern of one of these temperaments. And so it simplifies my work for this book. So let's go to the appearance: At this point I am as direct as possible.
Short black hair, tired eyes, body thin, brown skin. Don't worry too much about fashion, wear clothes simple. That simple.
I want him to be a character with looks common even. Then we will define the social and the personal: Participates in club activities and meetings who is the founder and leader. The Clube dos Sonhadores has activities that include supporting the activities of other members how to go to presentations, give ideas or suggestions when needed, and also have regular meetings to talk and play board games or video games.
They study at the same school and it was how they met. It doesn't have many friends besides the members of the club. And you don't have much interest in going out without your friends.
Folks: The staff I already include the private. What he does when he is alone. Or at home.
He likes to read, play video games, sleep and write. And as I said at the beginning, every character need a need that would be yours objective. He wants to be a writer.
He is very creative and this is his big dream. The obstacles that will hinder your dreams in a way it is the reality of being a writer, it is not easy to live from writing, especially in a country with so few readers. But you will also be bullied at school when a bully finds a poem that he did and it starts to disturb you in various ways many different.
And another obstacle is your father who he sees no future in his dream. But about the father I will talk in the next class that I'm going to talk about creating characters secondary and antagonist, which will complement this class. And this is more or less like I usually do my characters file.
Depending on the story I build with more details or add elements like: Vocabulary: that would be the type of language that the character uses. Manias: that makes the character more differentiated, but you can make him funny. Spells: That's when I create fantasy stories.
But these are points that do not always fit for all stories. And I create a record like that for all the characters relevant in history. For this story that I'm using as example I will create 6 character sheets.
André - Protagonist Mariana - Little sister of the protagonist Lays - club member Thales - club member Parents - I will create only the father on a form and mom to save time Bully - so far no name defined If I find it necessary I create more. It will depend on how I develop the story. I hope this video may have helped creating characters.
In the next class I will continue talking about character creation, but I'm going to talk about other points, already intending to deepen on some issues already linked to the script of history. So until next time!
