Character Creation & World Building

Happy Saturday!

Today I wanted to share a bit more related to my writing side as it's been so long! It's tough to remember to write about this as opposed to my illustration work as this part of my career is more "secretive" and difficult to put into a visual. Although I can't exactly share a novel's plot with you, I realize I CAN share about what it's like to write and how I do it.

Specifically, I felt it would be interesting to focus on how I begin constructing characters and settings. It's something I find REALLY fun, but it does take a lot of work (in my case, lots of excel spreadsheets). There's quite a bit of discipline involved (and hopefully lots of other people behind you, editing for cohesion and asking tough questions), but in a big picture sense, I'll share what I think are some top considerations, components, and craftsmanship tips! Here we go!

1) Time & Place

This is fairly obvious, but a story needs a place to start, a place where characters can grow up and develop; a setting. If I'm being honest, I can't quite remember whether it was the characters or the setting that came first for me, but I knew very quickly that I wanted my story to take place in a type of Victorian Era with some tweaks. And, that there would be a specific country (or countries) involved.

Here are some things to think about in regards to setting:

- What kind of scenery do you imagine around your characters? How will it affect them? (i.e. living by the sea might bring in the possibility of pirates)

- What time period do you want them to live in? (i.e. a futuristic setting would give you a lot more freedom as to "what is possible" as the future hasn't happened yet!)

- Are you going to be using our real world, a made up one of your own, or a mix?

- How detailed do you need to be with your setting descriptions to tell your story?

- What are you going to name everything?

- Are you going to include a map of your world?

The bottom line: How do you explain your world to readers and how does it affect your story?

2) Following the Rules

I knew that in my novel that I wanted to merge two totally different cultures together to form this interesting contrast and prove that it could be done (especially since this plays into my story's conflict). But, in order to do that and make it believable, I had to study a culture I didn't know very well. I definitely tweaked some of its societal rules and history a bit to fit my story, but I made sure to honor the original culture so as to not disrespect it and again, to keep some of the realism that made it believable.

When I'm making up rules for my world, I like to think about it like this: what are the expectations of my characters for how things should function normally? What rules help their stories along?

Try asking yourself the following:

- How do the laws of physics work in my universe? Is there gravity? Are there time portals? Does time work backwards?

- What customs or rules of etiquette do my characters follow? What kind of social classes, political systems, religious entities, etc. are there? How do they affect things?

- How do I make my readers understand that something is acceptable or not for this world? Do I use a character's backstory to demonstrate this? Do I literally lay out the laws of this society and a character reads them?

The bottom line is this: what is normal in your world and how do you communicate it?

3) "Parenting" your Characters

Ugh. This is so weird and cool and... just plain hard sometimes.

If you think about it, you are literally creating your characters out of thin air. It's like giving birth to children that you chose every single characteristic for; gender, personality, looks, etc. It would be creepy in real life, but it's pretty cool for an author.

As previously stated, your world needs rules. And as you are writing your story, your characters need to follow them. Since you are the one creating the characters, you get to decide what happens to them, the choices they make, the struggles they go through, much more so than even a real parent would for their own child. And this part can be a bit hard ( at least, it is for me) as you also get to be the one to "discipline" your characters. Writing in tough choices, bad decisions, consequences, and maybe even death can be rough. I mean, I get attached to my characters. Why would I want something bad to happen to them? I even felt bad making certain characters villainous. But, maybe that's just me.

You also need to be able to write believable characters. They have to have flaws. I struggle with this! I want each character to be an ideal archetype or perfect person. I want my main character to reflect who I am and all of my best traits (and only those)! I want to see everything fall perfectly into place for them, and for all the characters. I want the major supporting characters to have the best qualities of my favorite people. And then I have to write in something about them that I don't like and it's so hard. But, they have to be like real people. They have to have struggles, deal with darkness and light, and make good and bad decisions to be relatable. And you have to follow up with consequences based on the rules of your world. You get to write in their choices and you get to dole out the consequences. So weird.

The bottom line here? Write in imperfections and hard choices.

Ultimately, I think a good writer asks themselves, and lets others ask, a lot of questions when it comes to writing a novel. No matter what genre you're writing in, even if it's the most fantastical of fantasies, you want to make the world you're building believable with 3-dimensional characters and well-developed settings. Keep in mind, these bits of advice are very high-level, big picture starting points. As you get more into your story and flesh out ideas, you can ask yourself harder questions like, "What motivates my characters?" and even begin to develop the setting more from the needs and goals of the characters you develop.

If you're writing a novel, or just writing in general, keep up the good work! I'd love to hear from you and to learn about how you write. Leave comments below with your favorite tips, tricks, and questions you ask yourself to keep your novel going!

Yours truly,

Chelle Elle

“Chelle Elle” has been drawing since she was really small. No restaurant napkin was ever safe when crayons were involved! Now, she writes and illustrates characters and other fun ideas to help her dreams and the dreams of others come to life! And yes, she takes commissions and would love to hear from you.

Email her today to learn more about how she can bring your ideas to life at:

ArtofChelleElle@gmail.com!

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