When we talk about epic fantasy, it can pretty much be assumed that there are going to be multiple viewpoint characters in the story. After all, it’s hard to convey the grand scope of your world from just one character’s perspective. Usually there are multiple countries or races at play, and you typically want perspectives outside of your bog-standard human protagonist person. Of course, multiple viewpoints are not limited to epic fantasy, but it is the genre that I am writing in so that’s the lens through which I will write this post. (Credit is due to the Writing Excuses for their great information on viewpoints. Here’s one episode on this topic).

So, let’s talk about the different kinds of perspectives that we can offer. To me, this is defined by distance. You either have multiple viewpoints in close proximity to one another (think Six of Crows where our protagonists are on the same mission), or are too far away to interact or influence one another directly (like The Way of Kings where our various protagonists are spread throughout the world).

Each of these approaches offers different challenges and advantages, so let’s start with what it takes to do multiple viewpoints with characters who are in the same room, so to speak. I’ll leave the broader scope to a later post (link should be here when it’s done, feel free to bug me on twitter as long as you can read this!).

I’m pretty comfortable and familiar with multiple view points in close proximity. After all, this is a bit of what I juggle in Toric (though it’s a small degree compared to the aforementioned Six of Crows, with Skye only getting a few chapters, and a couple other characters just a section or two). I am sure later on in the series that the scope will grow, but for now we mostly have characters on the same mission together.

So, what are the challenges here? For one, distinctiveness is direly important. You can cheat on this a little bit when the characters are far apart and in very unique settings, but when you are switching between viewpoints in the same room, you have to worry about their voice a lot more. Whether you are doing first person or third person limited, you have to cloud each character’s observations in their background and personality.

My approach is to roleplay a bit. Given a situation, let’s say we’re in a bar and someone has just knocked over a table and drawn their weapon, I ask myself how would my viewpoint character react to this situation? Maybe I’m in my standard protagonist’s head, and I think, yeah, they’d probably spring up and be ready to intervene. Simple. So then, I think what would another character do in this situation. I’m not in their head for this scene, but if I can imagine how they would react in a different way, I can use this as a point of differentiation for my viewpoint character’s actions.

This admittedly works better if you have a character who is weaker or believes in themselves less, because if we are in their head then they can lament their lack of action or ability. It probably won’t sound quite right for a strong character to mentally congratulate themselves as they spring to defend a helpless bystander, so we need a different tack here.

That’s voice and personality. You have to let these things shine through. Again, we are in your viewpoint character’s head, they should be thinking about things through their unique lens. It may be that you haven’t yet identified exactly what sets this character apart from your others, so writing multiple viewpoints can be a good way to force yourself to work it out. I often actually write from viewpoints I don’t plan on including in my book just as a way to get inside of a particular character’s head, to write down their thoughts and let them come to life a bit more.

Well, given these challenges, why would you want to write a viewpoint character so close to another? What’s the benefit? Well, it can actually be very powerful to step outside of your main character to get an objective viewpoint of them. Maybe you’re working through some chapters that are dialogue heavy, and switching your perspective can help keep things fresh and maybe provide more insights to the reader about the current situation. I would hope that your different viewpoint characters would have different aspects of the current conflict or world that they would focus on, and if that isn’t the case, writing from their viewpoint is a fantastic way to force yourself to create that new perspective.

Another advantage of using multiple viewpoints like this is that it allows you to work around the limitations of your chosen perspective (first or third limited) in order to play around with information. When sticking to a single character, it’s almost impossible to present information in a way where your main character is unaware of it, after all we are seeing things mostly through that character’s eyes. But when you change perspective, you can make the reader aware of certain details and implications that the main character may not have realized yet.

The good folks over at the writing excuses podcast talk about this a number of times (one good episode is here). When both your main character and the reader don’t know what’s going on, then you have a mystery. When the reader knows what’s going on but the main character doesn’t then you have suspense. By providing an alternate viewpoint, then you can effectively hide information from your main protagonist and create suspense in ways that you never could with one perspective.

I can’t stress enough how careful you have to be when working through this though. I’m as guilty as anyone of writing an alternate perspective and just hearing the same narrator voice come through in the end. The viewpoint character needs to have a good thematic reason to take over and be that leading perspective, so I know that I have to constantly think about what such a character is bringing to the table that others are not.

As I said above, this is just the first of two planned entries on juggling multiple viewpoints, and I’m sure I’ll have more to say on this as I continue to write. For now, I hope you find some of this helpful or at least interesting. Please feel free to respond to my tweet below if you have some thoughts on challenges or benefits of this that I may not have covered! See ya!

Welcome to the first post in what I am hoping will be a series of blog posts about various writing subjects. Seeing as this is my first entry, I think it makes sense to begin with the topic of “Getting Started”. Essentially, I want to dive into how I approach fitting together the various pieces of a story when I am planning a new project.

So then, since this is the first post, I have to start with the one aspect of story creation that I consider absolutely foundational. That is, the characters. After all, think about some of the most universally beloved stories out there. When we talk about Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter, the average fan doesn’t typically get excited to discuss the politics of Coruscant or the implications of what a magic society might actually look like if anyone really could apparate anywhere at any time. No, instead we talk about how cool Vader or Gandalf are, or whether Sam was really the hero of middle earth. It’s through these characters that we form our personal connections with a work.

So, given that, I think it’s incredibly important to start any story planning from a character centric point of view. Sure, you do need a hint of a setting at least to ground your character decisions. I’m not advocating that just because you love your alien were-rabbit OC then it belongs in your next romance novel. Even still, you don’t need much more than a basic setting before you can get started here.

Given that, here are five things I think are most important when it comes to crafting strong, memorable characters.  

1.       Main characters need to have a defined role

This is especially important early in the story when the reader is trying to figure out who is who. It gives them something simple to grasp on to. It also gives the reader some base assumptions about the character that you can either lean into or subvert. I’m not necessarily talking about roles like “the smart one” or “the funny one”, but more so what they actually do within the context of your story.

Let’s say for example that you want to tell a medieval fantasy story. One simple way to look at character roles is to examine what they will be doing during action scenes. This might push you towards having a character who is a strong hand to hand fighter, while another of your characters focuses more on magic. Additionally, you might find additional roles like a sneaky thief, an artillery expert, or a smooth-talking spy. Of course, you don’t have to look at it from an action perspective. You could just as easily examine the political structure of the entity you are working with. Whether that’s a country or a small company, you will have people on top who are in charge, and those working for or against them in manners that could range from direct to indirect.

One important thing to note is that a character role should not define who a character is, but it should at least inform your character in some sense. While a role gives your character a reason to exist in the story, their personality should become their reason why they exist in your story. Defining this up front can help you to understand where a character fits into the larger narrative as you start to form it around them.

When crafting main characters, you need to be careful about this.

2.       Your character’s personality needs to be grounded

I find that some characters are more believable and convincing than others in stories. That’s not unusual, but the question I’ve had is why? What makes me connect more with one particular character over another?

I usually get attached to characters that feel the most real to me. This means that their personality cannot be a caricature or cliché. Instead, you need to think more deeply. All characters should have some kind of nuance to them.

The trap here is when your characters are too simple, then they become boring. I should have a decent idea how they will respond to various situations they find themselves in, but I shouldn’t feel like I can predict all of their thoughts and actions before they occur. Real people are more complicated than that, and you should embrace that when you are creating your characters.

Back to our generic fantasy example from the point above. Let’s say you wanted to move ahead with creating your hand-to-hand fighter character. The first thing to do is give them a few different personality traits. Let’s just pick a few at random. Talented, subordinate, kind of lazy, loud. From there, we can take these traits and begin molding them into the outlines of a character’s personality.

Maybe this is someone who fights with the sword. They have been gifted with magic power, but in this universe, it takes extensive practice to even be considered a beginner mage, and this character never followed through with their training. So, while they know a lot about magic, and can sense it around them, they primarily fight with their sword and are deployed in battle as a counter against enemy mages. They’re also brash and take risks both on and off the battlefield. They’re a bit rough around the edges, but at the end of the day they will stand by their companions.

There, that’s a basic outline grounded in your world. Notice I haven’t talked about gender yet. I don’t believe in defining that up front if I can help it. I find that as the outline of my character takes shape, the character’s gender just asserts itself in my mind. I am lucky in the regard that I naturally tend to have a pretty even split of character genders. I believe that if you are writing things like fantasy or science fiction, there’s no reason why you can’t have an even gender split, and you should strive for that if you find yourself with an imbalance.

3.       “But” is your strongest tool

As you start to get an outline of your character, you can make things more compelling by constantly using the word “but” to dig deeper. The word “but” can lead you to discover things that are hidden beneath the surfaces of your character’s personality. It exposes contradictions or dichotomies that feel organic and can lead to a more well-rounded character.

This is where you start iterating. Let’s again take our swords(wo)man from above and see what we can discover about them. One thing that stands out is they are lazy. So, let’s ask “but why?” Maybe this character is very naturally talented. They mastered the sword at a young age and grew up surrounded by praise. When confronted with something they couldn’t easily master, in magic, they instead gave up on it. They never learned how to work hard; things always came easily to them.

“But if that’s true, then what? How did they react when things didn’t come easy?” Well, maybe they blame that challenge itself for their hardships. This character takes great satisfaction in fighting against and beating powerful mages, since perhaps they see magic as a whole as the challenge they couldn’t surmount. They also can’t escape the deep-seated shame that they feel for themselves, knowing they had the capacity to master this skill but instead have let themselves down, leading to an outspoken brashness about them to cover up any form of weakness. This all leads to them regularly throwing caution to the wind and exposing themselves recklessly to danger at times, as they don’t believe deep down, they are worthy of what they have.

In order for this character to be part of your story, as we have defined them, they will probably need support from your other characters. They would need someone else to keep them in check, to remind them of their good parts. They are a bit of a wildcard.

I feel like we have a good outline now, but you can keep this exercise going for as long as you’d like. Asking yourself “but if it is true that they take dangerous risks, what does that mean for their personal life? For their interpersonal connections? For their ambitions or future plans?”

4.       Where did your character come from?

We’ve already touched a bit on that above, but if you haven’t thought about this yet, this is definitely the time to do so. Characters don’t just spring into being the first time you write a line of dialogue for them in your story. They have their entire lives behind them, and where they come from can be a great way of rounding them out.

Think about their childhood. Maybe it was relatively normal. They grew up with a middle-class family and were trained to inherit the family business, or left to learn a trade. Maybe they were well educated from an early age. Maybe they struggled, and went through periods of homelessness or hardship on the streets. These are just some examples of how we can help build out their past.

If you get stuck, just like the “but” exercise above, there are questions you can ask yourself that can help guide you. For instance: “Did they grow up with both their parents? Just one? Or did extended family or some other institution take them in? What were their friends like? Did they have any dreams? What are their goals, short term and long term? When they are introduced in your story, are they happy with where they are at in life?”

All of these questions can help to give depth to your characters, and make them feel more real. You, as an author, are in a constant fight to get buy in from your readers. If you are writing something fantastical like fantasy or sci-fi, that task becomes even more difficult. One way you can fight back is by having relatable, complex characters that your reader can latch onto and identify with.

One thing you might have realized is that the deeper we dive into the past, the more there seems to be a limit to what we can do without a plot or developed setting to guide us. When we define the backstory of our characters, we are also somewhat defining the backstory of our world, which should in turn inform our plot.

I’ll be returning more to this point in a later blog post as I examine how plot and character can influence each other.

5.       Identify the fun

The last, and probably most important point. You have to personally enjoy the characters you are writing. If they are boring or annoying to you, that feeling will definitely come across to the reader. I’m not saying you can’t write characters who are annoying, just that you should be at least somewhat excited about them.

If you are struggling to write one of your characters, often times the best way I’ve found to break through is to really dig deep into what about them is compelling. When I do this, I find that characters I’m tired of are usually missing something fundamental. They don’t have that spark that makes them more than a cardboard cutout.

Hopefully if you’ve started with the first four points above, then you have a pretty well-rounded character. But sometimes for whatever reason it just doesn’t work. If you’ve lost the fun of the character, then it might be time to return to the drawing board and reimagine who they are and their place in the story.

It’s a scary concept, rethinking a character who you may have already written in, but I’ve done it more than once and I’m always happier in the end. Go with your gut. Your characters are the most important connection you make with your reader. If you don’t believe in them yourself, then how is the reader supposed to?

Well, there you have it. Five things to keep in mind when constructing characters for your stories. I don’t always go point by point like a checklist when brainstorming characters, but these things can help me when I’m stuck or looking for inspiration, and hopefully it can do the same for you.

This won’t be the last time I discuss character by a long shot, but I’ll be leaving this topic behind to discuss getting started with plotting next week. Hopefully you’ll join me then! See ya!

Well, I didn't expect to be sitting here, writing this, when the year 2020 began. There are times in one’s life that feel a bit like defining moments, and in a lot of ways, this past year has been that to me. Sure, there were the lows. Early on, March, April, and May felt tense and draining. I was constantly bombarded by defeatist, negative news. Refreshing websites every ten minutes just to see the latest frenzied half-truth repeated ad nauseam. It was stressful, draining, and well, just made it hard to get out of bed some days.

Nothing better exemplified this than a more than one-minute-long video I took of myself, alone in my apartment, spinning around and zooming in and out nonsensically on things like a bottle of Purell, a glass of water, a cut up t-shirt improvised into a mask, my wireless mouse, and any other things I kept on my desk. All this, while singing my heart out along to the Wahaha song. I do regret a bit that this video no longer exists. Nothing could summarize quite as well this strange, strange mental space we had all found ourselves in.  

By May I knew this couldn’t continue for me. I removed Twitter from my phone. I unsubscribed from any subreddit even tangentially related to news. I turned off the tv during the day. Within a week, I felt like myself again. My anxiety disappeared. Stress related heartburn and stomach problems also vanished. I was sleeping well; my back wasn’t hurting. I felt like I could live again.

With all this suddenly free time, I turned my attention to my writing (Well, and some video games I’d been meaning to catch up on, but then my 3DS broke…). I had been noodling on one particular fantasy story, that would eventually become Toric, casually since college. I’d find myself going to Starbucks to write for three or four hours on a lazy Sunday occasionally, or getting some motivation to put in a few hours after work here or there. It was just for me. Something fun to do without much of a plan at all.

It was at some point around 2015 or 2016 that I started to take this whole thing a bit more seriously. I sat down and outlined for several weeks. I solidified characters, cities, countries, races, worlds, and came up with a plan. I threw out the 100+ pages I’d written and started from scratch.

It was character backstories first. I spent a year writing intricate and detailed vignettes of each of my main characters in scenes that fell years earlier in my timeline than my planned chapter 1. I thought that if I didn’t understand where my characters came from, how could I hope to write them in the present? Well, it worked. Kind of. I was excited now for the story, and while my pace of work improved, all kinds of barriers sprung up as well. I was traveling every week for work at this point, and most nights all I wanted to do was throw something on to watch or just crawl into bed at whichever hotel I found myself at.

I chipped away at the thing though. Eventually making it about halfway through the story before 2020 derailed everything.

Well, after regaining my sense of normalcy in May, or as close to it as I could find given the current situation, I decided I wanted to do something to take back my agency from the world. So I wrote. It wasn’t nonstop (until the final week or so that is), but I set aside a good amount of time in my evenings and weekends to actually, finally, dedicate to this project.

It’s surprising how much you can accomplish even in a relatively small amount of time. Even though I was limited to just time in the evening after work, I was flying through the story compared to my earlier efforts. By October, only four months and change later, I found I had matched my output from the previous four years combined. By November, the story was finished, revised, and sent out to beta readers for feedback.

I don’t know what I was expecting. Up to that point I had received zero feedback from anyone on my work. I told myself to prepare for the worst. I roleplayed conversations while I lay awake at night, imagining how I could best accept negative feedback. I started brainstorming ideas for other books in other worlds once it became clear this one was a bust. Oh sure, I also dreamed about doing huge book signings with legions of fans lined up (who doesn’t?), but this was about as fulfilling for me as dreaming about winning the lottery. Fun, but ultimately just a pointless diversion and far from a realistic outcome. 

But, as initial feedback came in, it was actually, shockingly… pretty positive. I couldn’t believe it. I went into my first beta reader review sessions armed with several plans I could roll out when I was told that the book inevitably needed to be rethought. I could cut 1/3 to 1/2 of what I had written and turn the book into just part one of a larger book. I felt like I was teasing a lot of things, but not answering enough questions, and worried endlessly that the work as it was would feel unsatisfying on its own. I was also prepared to pitch another idea about writing a concurrent narrative from an alternative character’s point of view that could run simultaneously alongside what I had already written. I also had a long list of scenes that I thought I could cut or rework to slim down the story and keep it more gripping. I was prepared to take an axe to the thing.

Well, my early readers were horrified at the thought. One even said “That would be a tragedy” when I proposed cutting a large swath of material. There were minor nits, but overall, they liked it. Overall, they said it was good. Overall, they wanted more.

Well, for the first time in my life, I found I was not just doing this for myself. It’s a scary thought, but also one that excites me like no other. By January 2021, I was researching agents, query letters, and all manner of publishing related topics. All of that culminated in the existence of this blog post you are reading now, on this new website that has become the first technical side project I’ve ever actually fully completed.

If you are reading this then I assume it is probably long past the day when I actually first posted this blog. I can't even pretend to know what life will hold for me in your now. Maybe this website is sitting abandoned in some forgotten corner of the internet while I just can’t bring myself to pull the plug out of nostalgia. Maybe I did actually manage to make it happen with Toric. Maybe it was years later with another book. All I know is that through all the chaos and pain that was this past year of 2020, I was able to do something pretty dang cool for myself. So, here’s to that! 

Thanks for reading to the end. This probably wasn't the most interesting blog for you, but it felt right to me for a beginning. I don’t have too many firm plans for my blog at the moment, but I do expect to update regularly on Wednesdays to start out. I think I’ll be focusing half on the craft of writing and half on more personal topics. I want to discuss my thoughts on topics like characters, settings, plot, and so on. I also am a regular listener to the Writing Excuses Podcast, which is a great resource for fiction writers of all kinds, so maybe I’ll post some of my thoughts when an episode really captures my interest.

Things aren’t going to be too serious here all the time though. If I watch or play a particularly good game, anime, tv show, movie, or something, then I probably am going to want to discuss it, at least from a writing and character perspective. I’ll try to keep my sports rants to a minimum, but no promises there.

And who knows, maybe when this so-called Backstreet Boys Reunion Tour comes to an end, I might actually have interesting and new things happening in my day-to-day life to write about. Don't let your memes be dreams!

Well, there comes my website, right on cue, telling me an exception was encountered as I went to save this blog post. I guess the whole website thing is still somewhat a work in progress. Please excuse me while I debug this thing when I really should be just heading to bed. See ya!