by Jim Huckabee

Created on: August 02, 2008

Giving birth to fictional characters

I have listened to the professors talk about how the characters in a story should be developed prior to the story lay out. While others say rules are made to be broken but learn the rules that you are breaking. It doesn't matter if you create the character or the story first in my opinion. I came to this conclusion quite by chance. I don't write from a grocery list; it is for salad ingredients.

My writing is from life. I write about what I have lived or it influences what I write. An example of this is a short story which I wrote several years ago called, The Rainbows End. I was sitting in a cafeteria with my current book of choice and a cup of coffee watching people as I do when a story flooded my mind. The setting and the main character was in front of me. How much better can it be? Before the story was complete the main character had changed in his appearance and actions but the setting didn't. The man's actions were what propelled the story to the conclusion. I didn't write the story, he did.

Ernest Hemingway once told an interviewer, "Characters should write their own lines". I never forget this when I sit down and write. Ray Bradbury told an interviewer about story development the following. "My office looks like a yard sale but every story I have written is in this office". I combine these two pieces of wisdom when I write. Please don't call the "little man in the little white suit" but I look at a monolith for an example and a story starts to form in my mind. I don't know how or why, maybe it is simply because I ask What If a lot. The next thing I know there is a main character talking through my fingers. He or she starts to talk to others in the story. They talk about where they are and what they are doing. In turn they talk to other secondary characters and so on.

Since I have been writing in this manner my writing has become better and better. There is a foundation for this in the academic world also. Here is a writing excursive used by a creative writing professor. Pull three nouns and three adjectives out of the air and write a short story or micro fiction using them. I some times will hear a word that catches my attention when I can't find a story line and I will write that word in the middle of a sheet of paper then work forward and backward from it. Either way the character(s) grow out of the story.

I don't mean to imply or advocate that you throw the writing process out the window. If you don't learn the how to of writing you may never find yourself at the bank teller window cashing that royalty check. In my opinion there are three basics that will enhance your ability to give birth to a character; reading, knowledge of the subject matter, and perseverance.

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