One step at a time

Developing a character for a novel is difficult. To assist the process, you can imagine the character as a lump of clay sitting on the table.

To shape that lump of clay into a character, you must start with a problem that needs resolution. It could be a murder, unrequited love, or the baddies taking over. Maybe a dog is being carried out to sea by the current.

So let’s take this situation and apply it to the ball of clay, because in a story, you need someone to solve this problem. Let’s take Lauren. Her goal is to save the dog. You have the outline of a person. Your lump of clay now becomes a tall cylinder.

Then you must have challenges to her goal. She can’t swim. The boats on the beach are all chained up. The local policeman is drunk and doesn’t answer his phone. Lauren is on her own. The lump of clay hasn’t changed much. You still only have this cylinder of clay.

But now it gets interesting. How does Lauren solve her problem? She tries to ring the lifeguard. He’s gone out. She tries to push a boat into the sea. It won’t budge. She knows there’s a surf ski in the fishermen’s shed, but the door is locked.  But now reflecting her activity, the lump of clay has changed shape. There’s a round lump on the top of the cylinder, slightly like a head, because we’re seeing a glimpse of Lauren’s character.

Lauren shows further ingenuity. She smashes a metal picket off the fence and wrenches the lock off the door of the shed. At this show of determination, there’s a vague shape of arms appearing on the clay. Lauren carries the surf ski to the shore, but there’s no paddle. She curses, but remembers seeing a kid’s large spade for making sand castles lying near the wall. She races to get it and paddles to the dog. She grabs it and paddles back to shore. The panting dog snuggles into her. Wow, now there are definitely the outlines of arms and legs appearing on that cylinder of clay.

But we need to bring this clay to life. We need a character arc for Lauren to show her change as a person. How to do that? We study Lauren when she brings the dog onto the shore. How does she feel? She feels confident, relaxed and proud. To make that clay come alive, we make Lauren the exact opposite at the beginning of the story. – Lauren is insecure, shy, and anxious. All you need to do is portray those symptoms: Lauren snaps at people, bites her fingernails, taps her feet, and avoids eye contact.

What’s happened to the clay? It has nearly turned into a clay person. Now all we have to do is describe her appearance, blonde hair, cheeky smile, and arts student, and we have a real person sitting on the desk for the purposes of our story.

So, all we had to do was to take that lump of clay and make it into a person. How to do that? Simple. Take it one step at a time.