The Pen & The Sword: A Discussion Book

|Discussion Article| Character Development Part 1

Character development, something writers both love and hate. You're plotting a brand new book, and who comes knocking? Your cast. 

Now, you can put as little or as much into character development as you want (just like world building), but to save us time and sanity, we're going to approach this in multiple parts. 

Part 1: General Information and Appearance

Part 2: Lifestyle 

Part 3: Personality/Mentality 

Part 4: Social Connections (ie. Friends, Family, and Enemies) 

Part 5: History Growing Up

Each section will include an explanation as well as parts of a worksheet you can use to help you develop your characters. Now let's get started!

General Information

When you first jot down your character, this is just the general information you need to describe them. This will also give you a starting point of who they are at the beginning of the story to what they're like at the very end. 

Character's Full name: What's in a name? Obviously your character needs a name, so let's have it. Is there anything unique about it? Does he/she have a secret name that only the write and certain characters know? 

Reason/Name Meaning: Whether you're named after your great grandfather, or your parents' favorite fandom (I'm looking at you, Bella and Edward), there's often a reason behind the name. Is the history of the name important? 

Nickname and Reason for Nickname: This one can get fun, especially if your character hates the nickname. It's good to have the name listed somewhere in case you want to go back and use it throughout the story.