The Comics How To: FINDING THE CHARACTER – PART II

Lance Lucero

6 years ago

When last we left our new hero, I had proclaimed the identity of a psychic and defined acceptance as the through-line/main plot of the story, correlating it to an establishment, the Psychic Union. With those story elements in play, I could now begin to build a character with more dimensions.

According to psychic practitioners, there are many different kinds of abilities: the ability to see energy fields and/or “auras” surrounding people or places; the ability to see the past, future and present; the ability to see and communicate with spirits, etc. I wanted my psychic to have as many abilities as possible in order to create more story opportunities.

Now came a big question: how did this character get psychic abilities? I boiled it down to simple genetics; my protagonist was born with psychic abilities. It was always in the family blood. By creating a family lineage I would further expand story opportunities and define my character even more. Â Plus, when you add the family element to any story, you have built in conflict, and that“s great for story telling.

By examining the psychic element I had bestowed upon my character, I had come to realize that having psychic abilities could be considered a gift or a curse. Either one can create great conflict, but I decided to go with the idea of psychic abilities being a curse. When a character has something he or she doesn’t want, I believe that conflict creates more story opportunities and the more of those the better!

The character was becoming more dimensional, but it’s still not enough, there needs to be more. So what did I have so far? A conflicted psychic looking for acceptance. All right, but what did this character do for a living? What actually sustained this character?

Once again, I took the approach of asking myself what I didn’t want the character to be. I didn’t want a millionaire trust fund baby. I didn’t want the character to have a high-paying career, you know, a scientist, a doctor, or a lawyer. Giving instant access to everything the character might need by means of money is detrimental to the development and to me; it’s a major cheat. I believe a person needs to struggle and earn what they need in order to grow. Plus, I wanted the average reader to identify with the main character, and making him or her rich wasn’t the way to do it.

I struggled with what the profession would be for a bit; the sky was the limit and it was hard to narrow down. I knew I wanted the profession to be a trade skill of some kind; I wanted this character to work for a living, like the rest of us.

Then, when I was at the barbershop getting my lovely locks trimmed one day, I looked around and noticed how busy the place was. The stylists, barbers, and colorists were serving a vast clientele with their skills, and I found it awesome that they were providing a valuable service to the community. I also knew they had to be licensed and certified in order to ply their trade (their art, really).

Cutting hair is a skill that can indefinitely sustain someone. There’s always a head of hair to manage! Plus, the skill can be practiced anywhere, which gives a person mobility. So there it was: my protagonist would be a hairstylist by day, and a psychic by night. Which, come to think it, was actually a pretty unique and fun tagline.

Now that I had a profession for my character, I had to figure out how to initiate the trade. As usual, I decided on what I didn’t want, which was to have the protagonist work for someone else or freelance. I quickly realized I wanted the main character to be a small business owner. There’s more to lose if a character controls his or her own professional destiny and holding onto a business is a tough thing; there’s a lot of conflict in the day-to-day life of a small business owner.

I want to mention something I rarely see when writers talk about character creation, and that’s choosing a gender. It’s understandable if one thinks I chose my character to be a man because I’m a man, but in this case, it’s not true. I struggled with deciding the gender of my character, who could be male or female. Since I could go either way, I took a not-so-novel approach to deciding: I flipped a coin; heads male, tails female. The coin came up heads. Simple as that.

I’m rolling now! I had more than I needed to create a great, fully dimensional character.

Next, building the story around your character!

For more information about the BOB: NON-UNION PSYCHIC world, visit the Warehouse 9 Productions site HERE