Do you have a fiction story you'd like to write? How about a character or two flashing scenes inside your mind?

Maybe you have a keen interest in writing horror, fantasy, sci-fi, paranormal or romance. If so, this class will give you the ability to begin creating characters that will become the beating heart of your story.

Characters may be fictional but they are also people in the minds of your reader and they are a pivotal part of your story's creation process because characters are the vehicle through which the reader experiences the story.

But... what happens if your characters aren't yet three dimensional?

How do you go beyond creating cliche characters?

In my experience, it's important to know them as much as possible before writing the first scene. However, I do know there are writers who like to discover their characters as they build a story too. Regardless of your individual approach to writing, it's important to learn about your characters, and in particular to understand what they want in their story (their goals), why they want what they want (their motivation), and what or who is stopping them from getting what they want (obstacles and conflicts).

No matter whether you prefer to write plot driven stories or discovery write your way through your novel, this course will help you to create characters with depth and interest. This course will also help you to develop a basic character sheet that you can refer back to and tweak/add to as you write and discover more about your characters. This is a living document that can grow with your story and you can use it to create your protagonist, antagonist, love interest - any characters that has a main role to play in your story.

As writers we want readers to fall in love with characters or have some kind of emotional reaction to them as they go through challenges and struggle to get what they want in their story. So, it's important to know who they are and what they have to offer the story even if you've already written the first draft of your novel/story.

This class introduces you to concepts of character creation designed to help build characters that capture the imagination and interest of readers. Essentially, the more you understand the goals, motivations and conflicts that drive your characters, their background and what has shaped them, the more it will help you to write characters that come across as real to readers.

In this class, we'll explore the following:

What makes a character interesting?
What makes a character likeable? And why you should you care.
What role your character performing in your story?
What conflicts do characters need?
And, a class project aimed at creating a character work sheet that captured your character's physical appearance, delves into their greatest fears and what they want in the story.

Learn to think about characters in a way that will build depth and interest in your genre fiction.

I hope you enjoy this class!

Please leave me a review, add your thoughts to the community section and let me know if you have questions. I'll do what I can to help you out.

All the best with your character creation and story development.

Selina

About the Project Character Work Sheet and where to find it

I have created a bonus video where I walk through the project worksheet by fleshing out one of my characters, Luca, who is a love interest. I hope it helps you think through your project and helps you to build more confidence in not only your character development but world building, themes and other aspects that are closely tied to the story plotting, writing craft and narration.

The Project Character work sheet document is located under the Project & Resources section. It's a link on the right hand side of the screen. Just download it and start thinking through your character.

When completing the project think about what conflicts the character is facing internally (emotionally), what conflicts and obstacles they are facing externally, and what they will do to overcome the obstacles to get what they want in their story.

Feel free to add to this character work sheet so it is all relevant to you and your character.

A Christina Portillo

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