Abraham Maslow identified human needs in his Hierarchy of Needs (as described in the last blog). But later in his career, he expanded his hierarchy to include Cognitive and Aesthetic Needs (both of which fall under Esteem Needs) and Transcendence Needs that served as the final level—the level to which we all aspire once our Deficiency Needs are met.
The first two parts of this series focused on using wants and needs to develop characters and laid out the basics of wants vs. needs. Now we’re ready to take a deeper look at needs and the human condition, which will help write better characters.
In the first blog in this series, we explored what wants and needs are in their most basic form. Now we’ll look at how they can be used to design plot and characters. [Warning: This blog includes spoilers for some novels, so if you have not read the books or seen the movies, be forewarned.]
Stories are about character. Sure, you can have an action film with little more than special effects and plot (think Transformers), but those kinds of stories have little emotional impact. They are fun while you’re watching them, but they don’t linger. They don’t make the audience think. Or feel. For those reactions, you need characters who want things and need things.
Wants and Needs are two elements that drive stories. They determine plot and character. Story and resolution.
This is the final blog in the How to Introduce a Character series. In the first three blogs, we touched on the basics, tips on how to introduce characters, and examples from both films and books. This blog will complete the examples and ways to introduce a character, whether main or side.
In the previous two blogs, we looked at some basic advice and criteria for introducing characters—the lifeblood of any story. Now we’re going to go deeper and look at various examples of the ways in which you can bring your character to life the first time you introduce them to your reader. As you can imagine, this is a huge topic, so these examples will be broken into two blogs to finish out this series on character introductions. Now to begin…
Ways to introduce characters:
The first blog of this series laid the foundation for character introductions. Now we’re going to go deeper into ways to introduce characters. The final two blogs in this series will explore each type of introduction with specific examples and explanations.
Bringing your characters to life begins with the introduction, no matter whether it’s in fiction or film, it’s how you choose to begin that matters. There are many options:
Characters make stories. They are why we read. They are how we escape into someone else’s life, experience trials foreign to our own. They provide inspiration to keep going during struggles. Getting to know them helps us learn and feel. They change us.
Characters are why we care. They are why we keep turning pages and stay glued to the screen.
Never before has the Internet been so important. Heaven help us if wifi goes down. We might not make it.
Sequestered in our homes, it’s books, movies, and streaming content that keeps us going. That is, when we’re not working out, cooking or obsessing about flour, yeast or paper products. But even YouTube can let us down now and then. Our feeds get gunked up with cat videos and before we know it, we’re down the rabbit hole never to be seen again.
Well, here are some links to help you stay on track, even if you are still sitting on the couch:
I was talking with someone recently who was despondent because she felt her writing no longer held meaning in light of what was happening in the world around us. I understand how someone might feel like that. We’re not on the front lines. We’re not putting our lives at risk sitting in front of a blank page. It’s an easy assumption to make, but an erroneous one.
Across the country, we are hunkering in our houses, apartments, condos, and yurts hiding from an invisible pathogen intent on causing harm. We’re closed off from others, forced into an isolated existence. The kids are home. Shops closed. Parks cordoned off. It feels like a different world than it did a month ago and it looks like it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
As writers, it is up to us to capture this time in words. It’s time to keep a journal. Take a moment each day to write down what is happening and how it makes you feel. Take the shock, worry, anxiety, anger, fear, compassion, sadness and grief we all feel and commit them to the page. Describe what is happening—all of it. The boredom, the loneliness, and the obsession for toilet paper. These are the parts of the pandemic that are human. They are the emotions that define this time. It is also where you will find story and character.
In the last blog, I shared tips for working at home. In this age of COVID-19, more people are self-isolating and working from home than ever before. But it’s nothing new for freelance and independent writers. We always work from home, but that doesn’t make it easy, especially at first.
After two decades, I have come up with some tips for making the transition from a traditional work environment to a solo venture. Look for the first set of tips in the previous blog. Here are the rest of my tips for surviving a work-at-home situation: