Creating Characters that Create Stories

I've watched a lot of videos and read a lot of articles regarding character development, story outlining and brainstorming. While each have contained priceless tips and insight, they've also covered vastly different subjects and have contained varying viewpoints.

I took all these nuggets of knowledge and dropped them into the blender of my brain and, I think, come up with a few helpful (albeit, not entirely original) tips myself. For those interested in the raw ingredients, look up pretty much anything from Pixar. They have some incredible videos and articles on creating stories.

One tip I received a long time ago was to begin my story concept with the villain. So many people focus on their main character/hero, that their antagonist often falls flat. Even in the original draft of my current WIP, my heroes were fascinating characters with hopes, desires and goals. My villain, on the other hand, just went about doing villainous things for the sole purpose of putting obstacles in the way of the main character and his friends.

"I'm going to detonate this bomb!"
"Why?"
"...cuz I'm the bad guy... it's kinda my thing."

That may have worked for old school television episodes of Batman, but people tend to have higher expectations these days.

Now, of course, you can still create a believable antagonist as a secondary thought, but I've found that the easiest way to do this is to start with them. Dream up your bad-guy. Who is he? What does he want? What moral shortcomings does he have that will make him the villain on his way to achieving these goals? Grab one of the seven deadly sins and just run with it.

The result of this, is that your main character will suddenly become much more easy to develop. All they have to do is have a slightly more stable moral compass and be in the wrong place at the wrong time (or however you want to get them involved). Your main character will then automatically act heroically in response to your antagonist. Look at that! You've got a story well under way.

Now, I recently watched a video of a Pixar seminar on brainstorming. Their basic structure for creating any story is something like this:

1. "Once there was a __________ who wanted to ___________"
2. "Every day he/she would ___________"
3. "Until one day __________"
4. "Because of that __________"
5. "Because of that __________"
6. "Because of that __________"
7. etc, etc, etc, story
8. "Until finally _________"
9. "And ever since then __________"

This is a great structure to help you develop your outline and walk yourself through the story. However, this runs somewhat counter to the previous advice of "start with the villain".

So! Bippity boppity, timey wimey!

Use this structure but STILL start with the villain! Then, run through the structure again, this time with your hero. Then again with one of your supporting characters (everyone should have goals). And again, and again, until all of your characters have believable stories of their own, that everyone can relate to.

For example:

1. Once there was a young jedi, who wanted peace in the galaxy.
2. Every day, he would train with his jedi master.
3. Until one day, he was asked to spy on the chancellor.
4. Because of that, he began doubting the intentions of the jedi.
5. Because of that, the chancellor was able to convince him that the jedi were evil.
6. Because of that, he joined the sith.
7. Until finally, he helped the chancellor overthrow the corrupt government and defeat the jedi.
8. Ever since then, he has ruled at the chancellor's side to maintain galactic peace.

See how that works? We suddenly have a character that we can understand. He has depth, and we can relate to his actions (even if they were manipulated and a bit misguided).

Now run through the same process with the heroes, and just watch how their tales intertwine. I think you'll be impressed at how rich and believable your new concept becomes.