Starting Off on the “Write” Foot
Stories are rarely born like Athena, clad in plot armor wielding a shield of perfection. More often than not they start with a spark. Where that spark comes from varies wildly between authors. Maybe it was an emotional song that created a hero fighting for their family. Maybe it was a couple walking in the street that became star-crossed lovers on separate sides of a war. Whatever spark the muses gave you, you’re here and you should celebrate that.
Unfortunately, not all writing is writing. A lot of writing is (shudder) thinking. Authors create worlds inside their minds with unique characters and places that are somehow supposed to interact in an entertaining way. If you’re the kind of author known as a pantser, you splatter paint on a canvas hoping something fits; whereas, if you’re the opposite known as a plotter, you surround yourself with notecards hoping a solution will magically fall from the sky. Nothing is ever ideal or perfect, and figuring out how to begin is the hardest part.
It's incredibly common for a spark of creation to die before it becomes a story. How do we prevent that? Well, there’s no single fool-proof way, but I can try to help you along the path to success.
No matter what spark you start with, a story cannot begin without a cast of characters. Whether you have one or multiple, the success of your story depends on how deeply your readers can connect to your characters. A plot can be rewritten over and over again but think of your characters as your foundation. Without a good foundation, the house will fall.
To have a good foundation, you need to have multiple pillars. This is more than just a protagonist and antagonist. Think about the cast in a play! Even the characters with no voice lines can be important to the story. Your main character isn’t going to be all alone in the world you’ve created (unless they are, which props to you for taking on a huge challenge). They will have friends, mentors, love interests, enemies, a guy named Steve, etc., and all of them play a crucial role in the story.
If the first thing you come up with is the overall plot of the story, then you must next determine the star. This can take much consideration because there is never simply one perspective that can be told. Your story will change depending on whose perspective you decide to focus on.
For example, if you’re telling the story of a young girl bringing home a cat to her bemused mother and infuriated father, you must choose between 4 different perspectives. Do you pick the young girl who is struggling to make friends at school and is overjoyed to have the cat? The bemused mother who has been working overtime for several weeks trying to make ends meet and doesn’t know if they can afford another mouth to feed? The infuriated father who has been hiding a puppy at his parents to surprise the girl for her birthday? Or the cat who is actually a wizard who has been cursed? As you can imagine, each perspective would give the story a wildly different feel and tone when explored.
Settling on a protagonist is key because it determines the goals and direction of the story. Every character should have a motivation, but your readers need to be most invested in the motivation of your protagonist. If your readers are rooting for the villain when they’re not supposed to be, perhaps you need to do a little switcheroo of main characters.
Starting out, I like to have three strong character ideas: the protagonist, the antagonist, and the sidekick/mentor. This has worked well for me in building a novel because all other characters I create become extra as long as I can focus on these three. Once you finish your first draft, you’ll probably end up cutting characters or combining them so keep this in mind. The smaller of a main cast you have, the better off you’ll be.
Creating any character is more than their hair color, eye color, height, etc. They need to be dynamic in order to pull a reader in and make them truly invested in that character. This goes for all of your characters, not just the main one(s). When I first create a character, I have to give them a face. This makes them a real person in my mind rather than a few traits taking up space in my notes app. Once they have a face, most of their physical description is decided and I can focus on more important things.
This is where Plottr really comes in handy for me. They have a whole characters section where you can categorize characters and add any attributes you need to depending on the kind of story you’re telling. My advice is to treat your characters like a Dungeons and Dragon’s character-- give them at least one personality trait, ideal, bond, and flaw. This makes any character immediately feel more dynamic because it is defining who they are and what they’re fighting for (cue the song from Mulan).
If you’ve never played Dungeons and Dragons before, don’t worry it’s not a requirement for this to work. Essentially, every character has a background. This background determines where the character came from, what skills they inherently have, and what drove them out of everyday life. Unlike with characters you make, the Dungeons and Dragons community has a plethora of pre-made backgrounds for just about anything. Within those backgrounds, you’ll find a selection of personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws to choose from that are specific to each background. If you’re having trouble with a character, feel free to google this for free inspiration.
Back to the point, your goal when making a character is these four things: personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws. You might be asking what the heck those are. Well:
Personality Traits are specific things your character does or feels that make them unique. For example: “I’m incredibly insecure and seek the approval of others.”
Ideals are essentially philosophies but simpler, like “I believe the choices we make matter.”
Bonds are what tie your character to living and what really keeps them going. This can overlap with their main motivation, “I want to save my family,” or be simple, “Loyalty is the most important thing to me.”
Flaws are exactly that: flaws. These make your character feel more human and real for the reader. Think of something like, “I’m too naïve for my own good.”
The important thing about these is that you’re not explicitly stating them to readers. This is information to help you write the characters so that these things show through your writing. They can really be anything and everything, as long as they’re helpful to you.
Now that you have a solid start on your cast, you can think about where you want the story to go. This is the most difficult part. Sometimes we think of an ending but not a beginning, or even a specific scene that has nothing around it. I’ll expand on this in a later blog, but the best thing to get you started is to think about your story like a 3-Act play. Each act seeks to accomplish something. Break it down as much as you can then focus on story mapping it. I cover a technique for that in a previous blog. The importance of story mapping and outlining cannot be overlooked, no matter how much of a pantser you’d like to be. If your characters are your foundation, the outline is the scaffolding. Both are critical steps for a successful story. Without them, the big bad wolf will come and blow your house down.
Originally published under R.L. Martin
Originally Published Nov. 15th, 2022
Updated Aug. 23rd, 2025
