Who is that Masked Man?

maskedman If you don’t know, how can you write compelling characters? All our characters, in a sense, wear a mask. Some wear many masks and until we can “see” behind those masks, we don’t know who they are. Sure, you can give them a past and all the other “typical” information that goes with creating a character, but you have to step into their shoes, slip into their skin and get inside their head—almost literally.

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” ~Oscar Wilde

As the writer, you’re the mask; you must put yourself on the character so he can tell you the truth—tell you who he is.

I know one writer—I’m sure there are others—but she writes character journals, from the perspective of the character. This material never makes it into her novels, but she knows who her characters are, what they think, how they feel—she knows them inside-out. She does this almost on a daily basis, either covering what her character experienced the day before or what he needs to experience today.

This is something I’ve just started experimenting with. It seems a little odd at first, but I believe it will be well worth the learning curve and oddity.

I can create good characters, but they’re only a mirror-image. My weakness is creating their whole life story and background—and getting deep inside their head. I’ve read tons of information on filling out charts about your character, creating characters from traits of people you know, yadda, yadda, yadda. This really just doesn’t get it for me. There should be more to it. I think journaling is a great idea and really helps you to know your character, but before the point of it feeling comfortable, there should be something fun and intriguing to help you out.

This is one of my weak areas, and the traditional methods don’t “do it” for me. I’ve been brainstorming some ideas and working on a method to get down to the meat and bones of character creation. I will post my results and any epiphanies I have as I go along. These will include situations, prompts, POV, and interactive ways to work with your character instead of just writing out a past for them. There will also be some unconventional methods—just for fun! If it’s not fun, chances are, you won’t do it.

One, off-the-wall and slightly generic, prompt I’ve been working on is getting into an odd-ball situation with an odd-ball character.