Characters Creation the Chinese Way

(For those of you who took me at my word that I would post a new, short story yesterday at martinwolt.blogspot.com, my apologies. My family made it clear that if my focus drifted from Thanksgiving to my laptop, they would gut me and feed my entrails to a pig.

(Between a Grizzly and Her Cub continues at martinwolt.blogspot.com Mondays and Thursdays. See you there!)

I discussed, over the last few weeks, different ways to create a personality for the characters in your fiction, ensure that they remain true to that personality.

Keep in mind that your characters, particularly you protagonists, ought to experience some changes in their personalities (unless you elect to use an inciting protagonist—see future posts for more information on them).

If the events in your story fail to change your main character, your story likely didn’t offer much excitement.

Granted, characters in series, such as television shows or comics, shouldn’t change too radically too quickly, nor should they “solve” their biggest problem until you, the writer, decide to end the series. More on that at a later post, as well.

Let’s return to character creation and identity identification.

The Chinese identified four personality types based upon what motivates each of these people. They labeled these personalities with different animals.

Love motivates Sheep. The need to love and feel loved motivates their every action.

Power motivates Tigers. They seek control over others, situations, their environments, and themselves.

Career motivates Horses. They wish above all else to better their career performance.

Notice that I write the word “performance.” Promotion, praise, and money might please a Horse, but they want more than anything else to “perform” well at their job.

Vanity motivates Peacocks. They seek out praise, to look good in the eyes of others.

You must truly know your character before you can identify which of these animals represent her.

Your character might struggle to do well at work, but if she only wants to earn a promotion so she can hold greater control over her subordinates, she’s not a Horse. She’s a Tiger.

Perhaps your character works hard because she wants her boss to praise her. Or perhaps she wants her coworker’s envy. The Peacock represents this person better than the Horse.

What if your character’s parents channeled their love towards a sibling and not your character, and your character believes that if she works hard enough, earns her own corner office, her parents will finally recognize and love her? Sheep!

If your character’s a cop because she desperately wants to clean up the streets, perhaps a Horse represents her. Why does she want to clean up the streets, though? What motivates her?

You must know what motivates your character even if your character couldn't hazard a guess. Good characters often misjudge their own motives.

Your antagonist ought to demonstrate a real motive as well. “Bad guys” who act badly for the sake of “being bad” rarely work (unless done in comedic fashion, though you brave thin ice along this route).

I created another animal-type for this list.

Revenge and/or hatred motivates Dragons.

I, in my own novel series, Diaries of Darkwana, take these personality types literally (yes, literally) in the ninth book. You can read about my series at Darkwana.blogspot.com.

We examined, in the name of character building, elements and animals. What about fluids? Don’t look at me like that. I’m serious. You know these fluids (the four humors) better than you realize.

We’ll tackle this subject next week. Thanks for reading!

 You can catch my novels, such as Daughters of Darkwana, on Kindle.

I publish my blogs as follows:

Short stories on Mondays and Thursdays at martinwolt.blogspot.com

A look at entertainment industries via feminist and queer theory, as well as other political filters on Tuesdays at Entertainmentmicroscope.blogspot.com

An inside look at my novel series, its creation, and the e-publishing process on Wednesdays at Darkwana.blogspot.com

Tips on improving your fiction writing Fridays at FictionFormula.blogspot.com

Movie reviews on Sundays at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com