Thursday, December 11, 2008

Creating a character: Part 1

Well, the harder I try to prepare the profile for my next character, the more I realize that there is still a lot I need to figure out about her before I can put together one of these profiles.

There are endless ways to develop a character that you are having trouble with. In today's post, I will be discussing some of the methods I use and I will be creating a new character from scratch to illustrate my points.

Lesson #1: Writers lie.

I have already lied at least once. No character is created from scratch. Everything is inspired. Nothing you can create is entirely original to the world, but that isn't the point. It's your interpretation of that character which is wholly unique and original.

In this case, I already have some of the hardest parts figured out. I have a story to put the character in including a time, a place, and a genre. That's a huge step right there. One of the reasons I seem to be having such a hard time with Lady Liberty is because I have very few other female characters in the story and she is the only lead. Consequently, I don't know what kind of woman she is.

Human beings are social creatures. We define ourselves in the context of our friends and think, "I'm the funny one or the smart one or the weird one or the artistic one." We like to think we fulfill a role that contributes to the greater whole. In fiction, this is even truer. When utilized well, characters have chemistry and we don't even think about their "role" in the story because we are too busy enjoying it. When utilized poorly, the role outshines the character and they become a stereotype.

Lesson #2: Context is everything.

When placing The Enigma and The Mechanic in the context of one another (for example), they are very similar but very different. They're both brilliant, alpha males with a strong, inflexible moral compass. However, The Mechanic is forth-right, polite, and hopeful. The actions he takes are designed to make his life better, but have the welcome side-effect of making the world better. He is a man in balance with the world around him, even if he doesn't fit in with the world around him. The Enigma is sarcastic, self-absorbed, and self-destructive. His actions keep his life in a state of dangerous instability because (due to his childhood tragedy) he is afraid to care about anything. Life has shown him that you lose what is most important to you. This, however, is also the same quality that makes him fight for others so selflessly. (Incidentally, this character flaw is why I'm so eager to write the Enigma, and the lack of debilitating character flaws is what makes writing the Mechanic so intimidating.)

However, when comparing Lady Liberty to the Enigma or the Mechanic, it becomes clear that her defining feature is that she is female. She takes Wonder Woman's place, in my universe, as serving an example of female strength in the years before the women's movement. Now, this is a bit too big of a challenge for even my ego, so I need to step back and develop the character's context.

Context, put simply, is everything outside of the subject. When developing the context, it is in relation to the subject. For example, when I created the Enigma, I just had a vague idea of a guy in a suit. I decided he should be Jewish (since he was inspired by Will Eisner's The Spirit). Since he was a Jew in the '30s and '40s, I thought about my love of the vaudeville (often featuring Jewish performers) and Harry Houdini, who was something of a real life folk hero, in particular. I quickly realized that, like his namesake, he was a man of deception, so what better place to put him than working as a newspaper reporter in Los Angeles? In this way, I use the character's context to reinforce his defining attributes.

In creating Lady Liberty, I have to discover her context, and while I have some good ideas about who she is, I've decided that it will be much easier if I have some other "mystery women" to contrast her with. Whether I end up using the characters or not, it will be helpful in defining her character. And if I don't end up using them, they may be tweaked for future concepts just as The Mechanic was tweaked for this one.

Lesson #3: Don't wait for inspiration. Look for it.

Waiting for a muse is like waiting for a girlfriend. In other words, when the opportunity arises, grab it, but don't count on it because it isn't reliable.

When you are facing writer's block, I've found that the best thing to do is try to look at your story from a fresh angle. Stories can get really stale... to the writer more than anyone. This is why most projects get abandoned. Usually this is because you have a vision of what the story is and its limiting what the story could be. This is part of the reason I'm writing an ensemble story so that I can switch more easily to other styles and points of view as the mood suits me. However, I am very much limited by the period which makes this particularly challenging as well.

Personally, I have found that female characters are particularly difficult for me. Usually, I model them on people I know or my own personification of the feminine ideal, which is usually entertaining, but I want to dig a bit deeper in this story.

Part of the mission statement in this idea is to show a more complete look at the history of America and the history of comic books by creating a modern allegorical myth which highlights both our diversity and our common culture. To ignore the history and culture of women would miss out on half of that picture. On top of which, there are a lot of great issues surrounding women that make for great stories: the Virgin/Slut trap, the institutionalized status of inferiority, their attraction to men (for the most part), hell... why do they like flowers so much?

My story currently has three developed "mystery women:" Lady Liberty, Rosie, and Dawn (modelled after Myrna Loy in the Thin Man series) so I will be seeking to create at least three more. As I said, whether I use them or not isn't important, as long as they help provide a context for the others. Rather than confine this process to my mind, I thought I would share in case anyone has any suggestions or they are just looking for their own methods to help create new stories.

Comments, questions, and suggestions are always welcome.

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