construction

One time somebody went ahead and told me writing was like a construction zone for a house, and it could be, but I write a different way. I do do a construction of a sort, but more in the characters and their lives as the story itself. When I begin writing a story, it always starts with a character strolling through my head who I choose, sit down, and mold into a real living breathing thing.

Obviously an interesting conflict eventually enters their life in which I can write a story off of, but before that happens they must have an everything. Memories, a bedroom, secrets, everything that makes up a person. For example, they've got to have a mom, and that mom must have secrets and a story of their own. She's gotta have substance in order to be believable, and thats where the detail of conflict comes in. Say my character's mom is married to a king? This affects the character in general, how they're treated, their reactions, and everything surrounding that sort of plot development.

So I guess what I mean to say is that I write like I'm writing about myself but its not myself. If I was writing my own story I'd include all about my childhood, my family, how many times I've moved and why I thought we did when I was young. Pets, school, the secrets I've kept. Everything that basically I would find trivial and boring about myself, those little things, that make a character interesting to everyone else.

The secret about this sort of thing is that it doesn't have to be all Harry Potter, they don't have to have extrodinary anything, they just need to have an actual personality. They don't need to be outgoing or exciting or unique even, if you include enough little facts about them that grows on its own.

Also, when you write anything the characters don't always have to be super, or good. They can be bad characters, bad people. Their secrets shouldn't always be they stole the cookie from the cookie jar, they can do bad things. Not all good stories have good charcters, good in the sense of morality and right and wrong. Depending on the genre of writing I mean, hell, Harry's no Hufflepuff, but he's no Slytherin either.

A character that I've recently began developing is called Hunni (most of my characters begin with a nickname and their actual name is unearthed later on). Hunni is twenty and still lives at home with her single mother, sister and nephew. Her sister and her share a room with the nephew, its a small apartment, and Hunni is really messy but since her nephew is a toddler all of her mess has to be above the hardwood floor out og reach.

Thats only a start really, but a conflict could already emerge if the mother wants her daughters to move out, or Hunni doesn't want to be there anymore but she feels ogliged to help out with her nephew. So many things that are caused by little things that can be manipulated into a story. Things are just there, ready for you to find.