 The thing about any story is that it's generally driven by two competing forces, character and plot. Without both, your story will generally fail. Most new writers I run into tend to be actually decent at having a story plot. But no matter how much plot they come up with, the stories they write tend to underwhelm, or they're just bad outright. And that's because those same new writers tend to underestimate the value of a good character. So today we're going to talk about how to write a compelling and memorable character, and how you can make that character drive your story. Now I should note, everyone writes differently. When creating a story, some people just sit down and write until they're finished. Others will plot and plot and plot until they run out of enthusiasm and never get around to writing anything. I'd argue that the most successful writers tend to be somewhere in between those two methods, but every single person is different. There's no absolute best method to write since every writer is different. The advice I give you today is going to explain sort of my own approach towards writing, which for me at least has been successful. The first thing I think of when I can identify the major characters in a story I'm going to write is the answer to two major questions about them. Who are they and what do they want? Now these two questions get to the core of any character, or even person really. The first half is always going to be more detailed, but somewhat simpler to determine. Who are you? Covers things like how old are you? Where did you grow up? What are you good at? Now these questions are somewhat basic, but they can seriously inform how a character reacts to the plot around them. Imagine a spaceship crashes into someone's backyard, and that someone is alone. One is 15, and the other is 55. That's a single important detail about who a character is. But if you think about it, it really informs so much about the story and their reaction. And we develop our characters from these questions, with the answers further influencing the plot in the moment-to-moment basis. After all, no matter who our character is, that spaceship still crashes outside. But a 15 year old's response might be curiosity. They ask, what's that noise? But also, the fact that a 15 year old alone, a necessity of your plot, is strange and has to be justified. A 15 year old kid shouldn't be alone in a house under normal circumstances, so his circumstances must not be normal. His parents are out of town, maybe they went on vacation, maybe they left him behind because he got an F in school. And a 55 year old's response might be cautious, asking the exact same question, what's that noise? But also, him being alone is still a little strange, although perhaps less so than the teenager. But maybe he's a military veteran who's just retired, and he's starting his life off from scratch in his childhood home, and his parents are dead. Now that informs you about that 55 year old man. But the difference in age is already charted to completely different people, with completely different histories, and of course with completely different responses to the plot you've created. This is the power of understanding who your character is in the context of the plot you've created, so it's not enough for you to know, let's say a spaceship crashes in someone's backyard. Someone goes to investigate it, and acquires superpowers after interacting with a broken piece of alien technology. If you have the 55 year old guy come out and, sensing a threat, accidentally kill the alien running the spaceship, that's a different event than a stumbling, nervous 15 year old with a shotgun, that they barely know how to load accidentally killing the alien running the spaceship. But both characters can follow the exact same plot point, but how you approach their actions in the writing changes based on who they are. Now you might be one of those writers who plots out 10 or 20 thousand words of outline before they actually get around to writing a story. Or you might just write as you go, like we talked about earlier. But regardless, it's important to understand that these factors can be fluid, and definitely more so than, say, the what do you want question that we're going to talk about in a second. So you can modify your characters in ways that make their actions more realistic, changing who they are to fit your plot as needed. When writing a flash fiction piece, like on the SCP Wiki, this is actually true throughout the work. Because going back and fixing, say, 2,500 words or less to be consistent with the character you've written about in the last act of your story is actually pretty easy. But if you start to run longer, it might behoove you to keep certain details about your character, at least core details, consistent. Because otherwise, you're going to have to go over, say, a 90,000 word novel draft over and over as you write. And beyond that, almost any character that has a direct influence on the plot of your story should have at least some details worked out about them and who they are. This is generally going to apply to anyone with a line of dialogue or again who has a strong influence on any one scene or the story as a whole. The level of detail depends on how important they are to the story you're telling. The man who spits on our primary protagonist as he's walking down the street doesn't need a college history. But you should probably know how old he is or how physically imposing he is or how likely he is to back down from a confrontation over his actions. And these events, by the way, kind of blur the line between plot and character. Say, take that above event. Your main character is walking down the street and someone spits at them in passing. Now you want your main character to do something here he regrets. That's the plot point you'd like to happen. So a physical confrontation seems pretty likely, but also it needs to be regrettable. So this person has done something incredibly insulting, but you need to change the context of that reason. So maybe they did it accidentally or they immediately back down from a physical confrontation that our character then pushes for anyway. In this way, the plot informs the character because that character needs to be the kind of person to do the things that drive the plot in the way you want. If that character shows up again in court when our main character is fighting say the assault charge because they got into that particular fight. That character must remain consistent with their previous iteration and not just in the sense of say physical attributes, but also behavior and personality. But that's the short version of why who you are is important to a story. With that out of the way, we're going to talk about the second question that you have to ask about any character you're right. What do they want? Now once are how characters tend to move the plot and here it isn't just one thing that any character wants. Think about yourself as a person. You want more than one thing in life. I hope. But there's probably a single thing or just a few things you want more than anything. In the end, a character does have to build towards that greater want. And speaking of, I like to chart character once at two different levels and there's certainly more. But in a story, you can usually condense it down to simpler motivations. That's the greater want and a lesser want. A greater want is an overarching, persistent motivation throughout the work for a character. Say in the original Star Wars trilogy and spoiler alert for a 40 year old movie. The biggest motivating factor for Luke Skywalker is I want the approval of my father figure. Now a lesser want is how in a single senior interaction that character acts in service to or in opposition to a greater want. The greater want defines a character and the lesser want defines a specific senior interaction. When we examine that, we can understand how those overarching motivations affect how a character reacts to the plot. Every decision Luke Skywalker makes on a scene to scene level, his lesser wants either stand in opposition to or in service of a greater want. And that greater want defines his character in every scene he's in and defines every decision that he makes. These are interconnected concepts. At the start of the first movie, he wants the approval of his uncle. So he gives up the chance to hang out with his friends in Tashi Station to clean up the droids that his uncle just acquired. And this drives the plot forward. So the decision of the character and that motivation acts in service of the plot. But it also acts in service to the character. The best of all possible options always advances both the plot and the character's motivations or stands in opposition to them. See, later on, after the plot moves ahead, Luke seeks out Obi-Wan Kenobi in opposition to his uncle's wishes. This is another thing to understand about greater and lesser wants. A lesser want in a particular scene doesn't have to act in service to a greater want. And sometimes it just stands in direct opposition. These character moments are important still and again can further drive the plot forward. Hanging out with Kenobi is why Luke isn't around when his uncle and aunt are killed. And that, by the way, dovetails nicely into another basic fact about your greater wants. Once, if his greater want across three movies is, I want the approval of my father figure, then how can it remain the same when his father figure is killed? Well, even if he gets that approval, like he does his chores and he gets respect from his uncle for doing so, that doesn't mean he stops wanting more approval. And when his uncle dies, he doesn't have a single father figure. He just shifts that father figure role to Obi-Wan Kenobi. And then he seeks out his approval. In fact, Luke's father figure changes multiple times throughout the original trilogy. His uncle, Kenobi, Kenobi's ghost, Yoda, Yoda's ghost, Darth Vader, and finally, Humpty Dumpty. But he never stops wanting to please his father figure. This through thread is a critically important piece of understanding this story on the fundamentalist of levels. And nearly every time in that story that Luke Skywalker does something in opposition to his greater want, he pays a price, usually the death of the father figure that he disappoints. When he acts in support of that greater want, he is almost invariably rewarded, usually in a way that advances the plot or makes it more powerful or makes it more important or gives him a chance for adventure. But, and this is another important factor, he is not the only character. Han Solo and Princess Leia serve as secondary protagonists throughout and they have their own wants as their own characters. It's important also to understand that this is where the intersection of who are you and what do you want happens. Luke is looked after by his uncle. His mother and father are gone, he's never known them. His uncle is harsh but fair, so him seeking approval from his father figure throughout the movies makes sense because that's how he has been raised. But Princess Leia is a different person. She was raised in wealth and even without knowing that backstory, she seems confident and self assured about her position in power. It wouldn't make sense if her character's greater want was to please her father even though she has adopted, she doesn't know it because she already has the approval of her father figure. And this is good because having characters with greater wants that don't necessarily align means your varied characters are acting in different ways in response to a plot that you have created. Han Solo is out for money but he also values friendship. Princess Leia is all about the cause and Luke is out for his father figure's approval that we've been talking about. These are three completely different greater wants but these characters are still thrown together because they don't stand in opposition to each other. But still the vast differences allow for conflict on a scene to scene scale that doesn't derail the plot going on in the background and scene to scene conflict is incredibly important to keeping your readers or viewers interested. I could go on and on and probably could do a whole video separated out about these two big character questions. What do you think? Do you think you can use this in your own stories? Let me know in the comments down below. And of course, a special thanks to Cassie Clark and Agent William Steele for becoming new $20 Patreon supporters. You have no idea how important that is to me. Thank you for helping make this content a reality. I genuinely and wholeheartedly appreciate it. If you'd like to join them and everyone else on the screen right now, go to patreon.com. It's what makes sure I can keep making this content. And if you can't do that, just hit the subscribe button and the notification bell next to that so you're notified as soon as new videos come out. It helps me know I'm not alone out here. Thanks, and I'll see you on Tuesday.