Unlocking the Hidden Truth Behind Your Character’s Worldview
There are multiple sides to a character’s personality. When we take the time to evaluate our characters on a deeper level, we offer readers an inside look into the emotional architecture that shapes your character’s worldview, misbeliefs, and behavior.
When we research beyond the surface level of personality, we find a whole new world of emotions for your character to bask in their own destructive behavior. This is what makes good stories—the ability to transpose your character’s fears and flaws into stability and empowerment.
Fear Thrives in the Shadows
Don’t believe me? Okay, then play my game for a moment.
Let’s look at shadows and fear as synonyms, if only for the purpose of this article. Come and hang out with me in the shadows and feel the pressure of darkness press upon the back of your neck as it glistens with perspiration. In darkness, we lose our sense of balance, lose our ability to focus, and the lack of light triggers introspection. This introspection isn’t always soothing.
Shadows represent the darkness, or the dark side of our personality. Shadows are absent of light and are the place we fear because that is where our monsters live—in desolate, dark places with no windows or doors. Just breath-sucking pain of memories we wish to erase from our minds that transform into entities that live and breathe and steal the air from our lungs with every scared hyperventilation.
Fear craves the shadows as darkness is where fear thrives. We are more alert, attuned to threats, and our nervous system’s flight or fight defenses kick in. But what if I told you that fear is nothing more that suppressed energy that exposes truth? When we face our fears head on, they no longer control how we move through life.
This is how our character’s move through a story. We find their hidden flaws, the secrets they hide from themselves, and open a doorway to unsuspected readers.
Shadow Work for Character Development
The most basic way to create your main character’s personality is by discovering their history. Making a list of their demographics is the easy part, but still important. Once that is complete, look at the neighborhood they grew up, their friends or foes from down the street. Were they nice and fun, or were they mean and bullish? How was your character raised? How many siblings or were they an only child? Or in a blended family? By answering all these questions, you’re creating a good foundation of your character.
Next, take everything you’ve uncovered about them and focus on the conflicts that were created in those early years. Remember, even the most wholesome family has unseen issues.
Shadow Work Exploration
As your character moves through life, all the basic information you’ve developed from above will help you build a strong character in which readers will follow. But that basic information you’ve gathered, is only the tip of the iceberg.
For every action or external factor that effected your character, a belief, or more realistically, a misbelief formed. And to clarify, a misbelief is a false belief that shapes your character’s choices as they move through life.
There are several ways to identify your character’s misbelief.
Ask yourself these questions:
- What is one truth about your character that they refuse to acknowledge?
- When the moment the forces them to confront this truth, how will they accept it and change?
- Who taught them that this truth was unacceptable?
- Why do they hide this truth from others?
- What misunderstanding does it create with others?
Happy Writing,
-RADolence