NaNoWriMo Preptober: Nail Your Character and Their World

Photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash

Beautiful language, exciting plots... those are great. But in the end, what we remember most from any story is the Characters. Especially your main protagonist, whose arc has to carry the story.  We relate to them – or not. They intrigue us, inspire us, sometimes drive us crazy. The protagonist is the one we go on the journey with. Whether we like them or not, we feel drawn to either see them succeed, or we’re fascinated by how they get away with so much (and in some cases, we can’t wait to see their comeuppance).  

Therefore, your main character is arguably the most important piece of your story. You will come to know them better as you write – discovering your character is part of the fun of writing – but it’s also good to go in knowing something about them before you start. Otherwise, you risk writing a plot-driven story where the character is merely dragged around by what happens, rather than being a fully-formed person who drives the plot by how they act and react. 

It’s important that the character arc be entwined with what happens, so they don’t seem like mere puppets in service of the plot. For every scene, you should write: 

The Action (what happens) 

The Point (what it means to the character and how it drives their next decision or action) 

This can be a lot harder than it looks, especially if you have a strong idea of how you want the story to go. The temptation is to push the character into a situation because the plot demands it, but pretty soon the reader starts to disengage.  

Why? Because if there are no internal stakes for the character, they are one-dimensional. If the character has no agency, who cares what happens to them?  

Brutal, but it’s the truth.   

So how do you create a character readers actually care about? Below are some questions to get you started: 

1.     Whose Story Is It? The main character needs to be the person who goes through the biggest transformation as a result of the story. Their actions drive the story as they face obstacles and setbacks to their goal. 

2.     Who’s telling the tale? The Protagonist, in 1st or 3rd person? An omniscient narrator? A secondary character? (Think The Great Gatsby.) 

3.     What is the story timeline? This doesn’t need to be detailed at first, but you should know the general time frame – 1939-1945? One summer? One year? 20 years? 

4.     Where does the narrator stand in time? Are they telling the story as it unfolds, or from the perspective of having lived through it?  

5.     Where does the story start and end? Try to flesh out the first scene and the last scene. Remember, the story should start as close to the Inciting Incident as possible.  

6.     Who is your Protagonist?  

• What are their core beliefs, especially as regards this story?  

• How were these beliefs formed? In other words, we don’t just want age, gender, occupation, and so forth. We want to know what makes this person tick. This is an excellent opportunity to sketch out some pivotal scenes from the person’s life, the ones that formed who they are today. No one cares what your Protagonist had for breakfast. We care about their values and beliefs about the world, and how that affects their decisions and actions in the story to come.  

These often come from: 

• A wound: This is often, but not always, something that happens in childhood that sets up their belief system later on. 

• A fear that develops from that wound: That something will happen, or won’t happen, that will cause them pain. 

• A need that must be met as a result; They need love, or security, or to learn to trust themselves or another person 

The story must put them in a situation where they have to deal with a particular wound/fear/need. This involves outer and inner conflict: the outer situation forces them to deal with their inner conflicts or weaknesses created by the wound/fear/need. 

This also ties into their Want, or Desire: the strongest “wants” are the ones driven by an inner need. For example, a man may want a family, but came from an abusive background (wound) that makes him afraid to really give himself to anyone (fear); by the end of the story he must learn to trust others and himself in order to satisfy his need for belonging and purpose. Notice I don’t say here whether he actually gets a wife and child. Maybe by the end of the story he does, or maybe the reader simply knows that now that he’s overcome his issues blocking him from what he wants, he will be successful in getting it soon. Or maybe he gets a “found family” of other wounded folks and learns to be a part of the community. 

WORLDBUILDING – not just for fantasy and sci-fi 

This is related to character, because a protagonist’s world deeply affects how they deal with what happens in the plot. A world consists of: 

• The other characters in the story – who surrounds and interacts with your protagonist?  

• The setting – where is the protagonist? A ranch in Montana, an apartment in Paris, or a Moon colony are all very different places. These impact your character‘s occupation and skills, which are going to affect how they solve story problems. A military submarine commander is going to have very different skills and solve problems differently than a suburban mom running for president of the local PTA.  

• The rules of the world – You don’t have to have it all nailed down at the beginning (you can get lost in all the fun details and never write the book). If you’re writing history, what research do you need to do to create that world realistically (clothing, dress, food, occupations, etc.?  

If you’re creating a fantasy or sci-fi world, you might consider any magical “rules” (who can use it? How? Why? When?); any technology (or lack thereof) that will affect the story; any flora, fauna, or other geographical information you will need if it’s relevant, etc.  

Keep in mind you can change it as the story evolves, but any changes you make must have internal consistency, i.e., if only women can use magic in your story, you can’t have a man suddenly be able to use it with no explanation. If you get stuck while writing, write TK (editor speak for “to come”) and just keep writing. If you’re doing NaNoWriMo, you won’t have time in the race to 50K to do much else. 

All of these affect your character in both obvious and subtle ways. Taking some time to at least jot down notes now will help you create a protagonist who feels real – like they could leap off the page and interact with your reader. Whether your reader would actually enjoy that prospect or not... is up to you.