There was an excellent guest post over on Literary Lab today. It had to do with character development in writing, and how to develop your character's worldview as an essential component of any realistic character. It was well-written, and I highly recommend you read the post.
My response was different, though. The thought I had was, Wait, what? You have to bring out or develop the worldview of your character?
The reason I reacted that was was simple: worldview is pretty much my starting point. Every character I write typically has his or her genesis as, "a person who looks at the world through this kind of lens and responds to things through this kind of filter." This means I have to work to develop other aspects of my character, but not this one.
I was sort of blown away by that. In my mind, that was just how a character started. It didn't even occur to me that major characters could start in another way.
So today I have a question for you. My characters are conceived as worldviews in action. How do yours start, dear writer friend?
.Nevets.
Sometimes they start as jobs, sometimes as descriptions, and sometimes as their names. For example, I created a character named Lysistrata Keira Murphy because I liked the first name (and the Greek play) and wanted to build a character around it. I ended up coming up with an Irish girl whose theatre-professor parents named her after the play -- and she despises the name with her whole spirit. Everyone calls her Lizzie.
ReplyDelete@Matthew, that's awesome. I could never work that way, but I am sincerely fascinated by the different ways we creative types, well, create.
ReplyDelete