Talk to the Quill Tuesday: The Aesthetics of the main character part 2 (creation and purpose)

To understand creating and creation, you must first understand purpose, there is purpose in creation, within life and definitely in writing. 

Think about the creation of life. All things were put here with a role to play, everything from the stars in the heavens to the ants on earth have a destiny in the end. You must use this thinking in the creation of your characters and it begins with your MC.

Ask yourself: 

What is the purpose of my character?

What role does he/she or it play in the story?

Does she, he or it change or remain the same?

In what ways?

What are they like?

What is their personality like? 

What is their fate in the end?

Ask yourself these because you determine them all and for every other character this helps as well and assists with how the story will flow. For example: Samantha purpose in “The Back road to nowhere” is to provide the other characters with insight on how to communicate with one another and the world around them, as a leading character she takes on a motherly role as well, being gifted in that of nurturer and care giver that is seen in various flashbacks of her seeing herself take care of her young brother and sick mother. She tries to reassure herself that kindness, patience and love will save her yet she has conflict. She is ashamed of how immature her young adult life appears and that she has spent so much of her life caring only for those that hurt her the most and had no good intentions for her, she feels that she does not know what love is, therefore she can not possibly show it as good as she think she does, this sends her into her very first depression and ends with a fit of rage, abandoning those that looked up to her BUT that is not where her development ends, it is where it begins.

Now I bet you are wondering: well Jasmine, that sounds like all there could be about Sam. WE ourselves are not 2D, we are highly dimensional and complex creatures, understand our characters are reflections of different aspects of ourselves and should be given the time and energy to be properly created. 

Give your characters purpose, it is then that you give them and your story, life. 

photo is not my own