Note: I am currently at the Romance Writers of America National Conference. While I'm gone, I'm reposting some of my older blog entries. This one is about how writers figure out their characters.
Every writer finds ways to make her characters three-dimensional and
interesting. We fill out character sheets, brainstorm via longhand in
cheap (or expensive, depending on your personality) notebooks, post
pictures of what we think they look like - the list goes on and on.
Archetypes or
stock characters
are fantastic starting places. Often people get quite upset about these
ideas, claiming that using them leads to one-dimensional characters or
stereotyping. In the hands of a writer who isn't paying attention, yes.
That can happen. I really like the way
Christopher Vogler puts it in
The Writer's Journey:
Looking at the archetypes....as
flexible character functions rather than rigid character types, can
liberate your storytelling. It explains how a character in a story can
manifest the qualities of more than one archetype.
Every good
story reflects the total human story, the universal human condition of
being born into the world, growing, learning, struggling to become an
individual, and dying. Stories can be read as metaphors for the general
human situation, with characters who embody universal...qualities,
comprehensible to the group as well as the individual. (pgs. 30-33)
Here are just a few archetype systems that writers I know use.
 |
| Joseph Campbell |
Joseph Campbell's breakdowns which includes categories such as
Hero, Mentor, Threshold Guardian,
Herald, Shapeshifter, Shadow, and Trickster.
 |
| Visconti-Sforza Tarot. |
The Tarot- Which has the advantage of very pretty art in addition to helping figure out character traits.
Astrological signs (a perennial favorite)
Gods and Goddesses of various pantheons (I have a weakness for the Greeks, but I've found inspiration in other religions, too)
I'll
be getting into these ideas into great depth in later posts. Let me
know if you want me to go into the whole Jung/Joseph Campbell origins of
modern thought on archetypes. It's fascinating and I love it, but I can
be long winded about it.
