In the following article we will talk about how to create a story when you only have one character.
It is possible that at the beginning you don’t know how to start your story, it is normal, keep in mind that your character must have a problem, or if he/she doesn’t have them, look for them, this is fundamental.
Last but not least, focus on the future of your character, and not on his past, but we won’t stop you any longer, continue reading!
Despite having created the ideal character for you, you don’t know how to start your story?
You thought you had it all figured out! After all, most of your favorite comic books star unforgettable characters, you know everything about them, their name, age, occupation, and what they do in their free time.
You know what makes them unique, and how that allows them to participate in stories as amazing as you could imagine. So you created your own character! It was hard at first, but you did it, and the end result, it’s not so bad, you think But, still, you don’t know how to start your story! How can it be?
DO YOU HAVE A CHARACTER LOOKING FOR TROUBLE?
A very useful and very old way, to generate stories with a character, especially, if they are serialized stories, is to get yourself a character who is looking for trouble, often, this character, will have mainly, a profession, detective, knight-errant, spy, teacher, pirate, etc.
You can put your own spin on this old concept, exterminators, cleaners, mechanics, plumbers, all have been the protagonists of their own types of stories (sometimes their own genres). More than once, if you fear their lives will be bland or not generate enough interest, you can add some variation of fantasy or science fiction to their environment, ghost exterminators, mafia cleaners, mechanics and plumbers on a space station.
So, How to create a story when you have only one character
If you have one character, who by his own activity goes to trouble, or trouble comes to him, you already have the excuse, to tell thousands of stories.
Every story is, after all, the story of a problem, you only have to associate a story to each problem that comes to your character, and you will be making your pages, before you can say, he was hired to do a job, but in reality, it was a deception to achieve an ulterior goal Think of many stories, and discard the less interesting ones, have fun!
DO YOU HAVE A CHARACTER WITH MANY LAYERS AND CONTRADICTIONS?
If it’s the case that you have created a being with a really interesting personality, that you would call profound, and now the problem is how to get him going, maybe no story seems good enough for him, or you find that, whatever you do, you are not being able to bring out his true self, so that he falls in love with the readers, the same way he has fallen in love with you.
So, the first thing to tell you is, don’t be afraid, your situation is perfectly normal. It’s not so easy to find the right story for a great character! (And vice versa) The important thing is not to make your situation worse by setting goals that are too close to being unattainable.
You’ve created an unforgettable character. That’s a lot of work! Enough! Why would you demand of yourself, in addition, to make him known all at once, so that readers understand his greatness, in a single flash of lucidity, within a single story?
Isn’t it too much to demand of your own story, don’t you see how it will collapse under the weight of so much pressure? No, what you should do, is to start smaller, consider making several stories, or one long story, broken into small parts, and focus on the first of them all.
Focus also on a single layer, or better, on a single element, of your character’s personality, tell yourself, I will dedicate eight pages of comic, to tell this about him, only this and nothing else, and of course, then stick to it, yes, there is a lot about your character that will be left in the ink.
But you will have communicated something, about him, that will be received clearly, without interference from the signals sent by the other elements, this will also serve you as a support point, as the first brick of this great building that you will construct, which will be your character, story after story, anecdote by anecdote.
Take the time to tell aspects of your character later on, in the following pages, to begin with, something simple is always convenient, you only have to associate some problem (because yes, as in the previous point, for a story it is always necessary some problem) to your character, in such a way that it puts into play some of its aspects.
If you can make it go against his wishes, even better, maybe he wants to see a concert of his favorite band, but he hates people, however, he is forced to stand in line with hundreds, if not thousands, of people.
Looking for a contrasting situation, you can always highlight a certain aspect, show how that aspect of the character is a constituent part of himself, and even (if you play your cards right) transform at least in part, some of these aspects, before the eyes of all your readers will thank you! And they will ask for more.
DO YOU HAVE A CHARACTER WITH TOO MUCH PAST?
You may have overdone it a bit, you admit, he’s fifth in line to the throne, visited Fairyland when he was 11, and at 25, became champion of a complicated sport involving horses, wooden spears, and baskets hanging from trees.
At 30, he survived a plague, and at 40, he married a beautiful maiden, unaware that she was a statue given the gift of life by the gods.
Now he serves as the official magician of the current king. And you fear that none of this will appear in front of the readers, that they will only see an old man who goes around casting spells! Relax, as always, the secret is to concentrate on one thing at a time and balance it with the events the character is about to experience. Anyway, if I’m reading your story, I hope the most interesting thing is in his future, not in his past! Let your character surprise you for every story, or at least for every twelve or twenty pages.
Propose at the same time, these two things, that we know something new about the character’s past, yes, but also, that something new happens to him, some addition to his story, that deserves to be remembered along with the fairies, or the marriage to the statue
Make up what interests you, and don’t worry too much about being consistent from one story to the next! When it comes to characters, the past can always change.
Conclusion
As we could see during the course of the article, everything mentioned above is very important, it is very important that you take into account all these tips, and you will see how very soon, you will stop being stuck in front of your magnificent character, or rather, the one who will start to stop being stuck will be him and he will start to have his own life and go through unsuspected and unbelievable situations!
As we said, it is also very important to focus on a single layer, or better, on a single element, of the character’s personality, you can create several pages, just telling intimacies about his personality.
We hope you liked this article as much as we did. See you next time!
