It’s week two of Camp NaNoWriMo prep and I’m back at it again with a packing list! (Can you say “Daaaaamn WBT!”) This week, we’re going to be talking about character development.

If you missed last week’s post – Packing List #1: Inspiration! – be sure to check out that post too.

Personally, I find character to be the most important element of any story. If I don’t love the character (or love to hate them), I’m going to be asking “what’s the point?”

Whether you’re planning to write a draft for Camp or you’ll be revising a draft you’ve already written, it’s important to craft or develop characters that are interesting, dynamic, and experience some sort of growth.

Inspiration.

Drafters and Revisers: Continue to collect, develop, and refine inspiration for your characters. If you’re having trouble creating characters that excite you, look back at Packing List #1 with a specific focus on character. The more details, images, songs, and ideas you run across, the more chances you have of creating a memorable character that makes you excited to write.

Profiles.

Who are your characters? What do they look like? What is their favorite thing to do on a Friday night?

Drafters: Fill out character profiles for each of your main characters. This will help you get a good idea of each character in your mind, and will create a valuable resource to refer to when writing. I’ve even made my own version of a character profile! Click here to download it. You can also search online – there are many, many options out there. Or make your own!

Revisers: If you didn’t create character profiles before drafting, consider creating them now. If you did, review them and edit if needed.

Growth.

Readers want to see characters change and grow over the course of the story. Your characters – or, at the very least, your main character – should learn something, experience something, or do something that changes them.

The growth of the main character – or main characters – should be paced alongside the plot arc. In fact, the growth your main character experiences is directly related to the plot – whether it’s falling in love, becoming a hero, or going on an adventure. You character’s growth – just like the plot – should be expressed in three parts: beginning, middle, and end.

The growth of minor or secondary characters (subplots) can be as quick or as drawn out as you like – as long as it’s expressed in the same three parts: beginning, middle, end.

Drafters: Figure out how you want your main character to grow over the course of the story. What is their state (physical, mental, emotional, or even geographical) at the beginning, how does that change in the middle, and what state do they end up in?

Revisers: Evaluate the way your characters currently exhibit growth (or don’t). If you can’t pin-point a beginning-middle-end, try to figure out how you can develop that character to make their growth more evident or present. To make this a little easier, here’s a free, downloadable worksheet from my forthcoming Editor’s Planner to help you map out the way your characters grow! Click here or the image below to download it.

Voice.

If you’re writing in first-person point of view, your character’s voice should be very clear in your head. If you’re writing in third-person point of view, your narrator’s voice should be clear.

Drafters: Write a few practice scenes to develop your character’s (or narrator’s) voice. Include dialogue, inner thoughts, and interactions with other characters to really identify what makes your character’s voice unique.

Revisers: To further develop and reacquaint yourself with your characters’ voices, answer some questions in their POV. What do they want? What is keeping them from getting it? What is one fun or interesting thing about them?

Relationships.

Who – or what – does your character interact with? What is their relationship?

No matter what genre you write, your character does not exist in isolation. Even if your character is literally the last person on earth, they will interact with a “character” of some kind, whether it’s nature, an unshakeable thought or worry, or a memory.

It’s essential to map out the relationships in your story so that you understand how every character fits into the framework.

Drafters: Create a relationship map with your main character in the middle. Draw arrows, boxes, circles – whatever! – to represent their connections.

Revisers: Whether you created a relationship map before drafting or not, make a new one! How do your characters connect – and more importantly, are those connections valuable to your message/theme/general point of your story? Some characters end up floating in the background – not really adding anything to the story. In order to make your story more powerful, consider cutting the character altogether or figure out how you can use them to add a new element or contribute to an existing theme or plot. Each character should be there for a reason. If there’s a character you can’t bear to cut, figure out why. There’s probably something there worth developing.

Packing List #2!

Click on the image or title below to download your packing list!

Don’t forget – you can join my FB cabin! I’m already part of a cabin on the Camp site, but I’d love to connect through FB to chat with more of you about our WIPs! Just click here or the image below to gain access.

I’d love to hear how your packing is going – so tweet me @haleympettit or leave a comment below! And if there’s anything you’d like to see explained or included in an upcoming packing list, let me know.

Until we meet again!