In The Demon's Head: How The World Can Influence Your Characters

In The Demon's Head #39: How The World Can Influence your Characters

July 19, 2012

Hey everyone happy Thursday, as strange of a concept is for that to read I realized that I was only one more post away from being completely caught up so I thought that I needed to get it done and up so I could finally be on the right schedule again. As I'm sure you noticed in reading the title of this post it's all about how the world can influence your characters.

As I'm sure you've heard a million times before, “Write what you know.” It's something that's beaten into our heads time and time again as we start to develop our crafts as writers. The general thought process is that if you write what you know then you'd be able to relate more to what your writing.

That statement is no more true then when you begin to develop your characters for whatever it is that your writing. I know this little bit from experience. In the last short story that I wrote for “More Than Memories” I was writing about a house flipper, in fact some of his characteristics can be traced back to an old friend of my dad's named Chris, who ironically enough (and I swear it was accident) the character is also named.

Now when I said the world could influence your characters I didn't just mean your tiny bubble world, not by a long shot. Lets say that your a law student, and your studying cases of a judge and you start to notice some of his behavioral patterns through the work that he's done. You can relate those into the characters that you might start writing about down the line.

Another huge form of learning is Television, I know they say that it's bad for your brain to watch TV but in reality it can be extremely helpful when developing characters for your next book. Watch some drama shows, watch some news, watch videos on Youtube. You don't have to know everything about the characters you see to develop the characters that you want to write about.

I'm a firm believer in absorbing as much knowledge as humanly possible because the more you know the better your writing, your characters, your worlds, and your stories will become, and if your like me there's no greater joy in the world then to know that you wrote one hell of a story.

Also, I'd like to encourage a little homework for those of you reading this, I want you to go home and watch 30 minutes of TV, or internet videos, (commercials don't count) and I want you to see if it gives you an idea of any kind, be it for your characters, your stories, or anything at all. Then I'd love for you to share what you found in the comments section below.

That's all I got for today's edition of “In The Demon's Head” I'll be back tomorrow with the weekly update, as always you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and now Tout as well where I will be uploading videos throughout the week. I also have the new website up and running you can check that out here and be sure to bookmark it.

Until next time you want to take a trip through the gates of hell and into the demon's head, I'm Kyle Robinson wishing you a safe trip back to the surface.