Character Diamonds

I was reading a book called EMOTIONEERING on how to create NPCs for computer games, and it seems to me a lot of it is applicable to creating characters in stories (and novels, for that matter).

The author says that character should have what he calls a Character Diamond - four traits (the points of the diamond) that play off each other and create a more interesting character. You want to make them non-cliche if possible. I looked at doing this for a few characters in the YA novel I'm working on and arrived at this:

Ursula - driven, guilty, insecure, good with weapons

Mim - greedy, good-hearted, loyal, talkative

Amalia - fearless, concerned with social position, savvy, lazy

It ended up making me think about the characters and their actions more than I would have otherwise.

He also talks about techniques for deepening a character. Here are some possible strategies:

giving them a secret

making them present a false face

making them guilty

making them mystical

making them act to save someone else

I think one of the things I'll do in the rewrite of this novel is go through and make sure each character has something that makes them nonflat.

Finally, in talking about dialogue, he talks about making dialogue do more than one thing at a time, the more the better. Dialogue does things like:

intriguing the reader

upping tension

providing information

revealing something about a character

and it should always do more than one thing.

Useful stuff to keep in mind, at any rate.