Define What's Missing:
It's simple to think of qualities and habits your
character has, but the most important element of a
character can be the very thing he or she is missing. What
has happened in his or her past that causes this piece to
be missing and what happens as a catalyst for this
character to once again find this missing piece?
A friend of mine recently wrote a story where a character
was a "Caregiver" type (those with Typing Chimp Character
are familiar with this type), who's life revolved around
taking care of others with a horrible disease at the
expense of giving up his own life. To the outside
observer, and to the reader, at first he seems like a
wonderful, compassionate person. But it turns out he has
no compassion. He takes care of these people because he
lost his father to that disease and he feels he should
help them to help himself deal with the loss -- he doesn't
really care about these people at all. This comes out in
interesting ways that gives this character a lot of depth.
Then, he falls in love with one of the patients and,
through his crisis, learns to have compassion -- his
missing element. He finds himself helping people because
he wants to, not because he thinks he should. He learns to
draw boundaries and remembers he has his own life to live.
It's a powerful transformation. He was missing something
and found it during the story.
Think about your character. What's he doing in the story?
What assumptions do you make about his motivation to be
doing this activity? Is it possible he's lacking the very
quality you assume he has? That's the quality he should
acquire during the story and the story should wrap around
his learning this lesson. This technique can work for any
story and any genre.
Typing Chimp Character
automatically gives you the background and inner
psychology of all 54 of the major character types. You
then take that beginning and develop the character using
your own story elements. Character Writer is designed for
professionals and future professionals alike to take a
vague story and general concepts about characters to that
next, and most important, step of development. With this
software program your characters will come alive and will
help you develop your concept into an engaging and
compelling story.