Using Beginner Techniques of Literary Analysis to Guide Character Development

[u/dragonraptyr]

If there is one question that I have struggled with, it was "How do you develop a character?" Most of the advice I encountered told me how to make a character engaging, likeable, how to make them hold a reader's attention. I found plenty of advice on how to make them people.

I found much less advice on how to treat them as a piece of a story. And the resources which I did find used terms I was unfamiliar with.

Treating a character as a piece of a story was for me, a fundamentally new approach. And while I looked for resources, I found my personal answer in an unexpected place: the book reports of my childhood, and those early lessons on literary analysis.

The questions it was asking me were simple. But it served to uncomplicate for me what I had overcomplicated. It is my hope that this resource should do the same for others.

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There are four key areas of a character that one should identify, in order to understand their role in the story: Goal, Motive, Conflict, and Opportunity.

• Goal: What does a character want?
• Motive: Why do they want it?
• Conflict: What is stopping them from getting it?
• Opportunity: What will let them overcome the conflict?

Conflict is often divided into three primary types: Human vs Human, Human vs Nature, and Human vs Self.

• Human vs Human (Human vs Society): These are external conflicts that are caused by other people or groups.
• Human vs Nature (Human vs Machine, Human vs God): These are also external conflicts caused by an environment, object, or idea.
• Human vs Self (Human vs Past, Human vs Future): These conflicts are internal, and are caused by a who a person was, is, or might be.