How do we make our characters feel real? How does motivation and how a character line up with how they should act in our story? Should they follow a structure? Are they good? Evil? Somewhere in the middle?
These are just a couple of questions I ask myself when I start working on a story. Afterall, realistic characters are necessary for us to build and make sense of the plot and conflict. Without meaningful characters that feel grounded and make sense, readers will lose interest, and they should. When characters feel flat and uninteresting, we tend to not believe what they are doing in a story.
It’s one of the reasons I utilize an old Dungeons and Dragons tool, The Character Alignment chart. This is something that I do to start, and oftentimes it works well! It is how I won a national competition with the first one act play I wrote! By putting characters in a room with different alignments, you can make sense of how people would behave and why.
So, enjoy my short video! I’ve really been enjoying making these, and I hope you’ve liked watching them!
