The other day at Crowvus HQ, we were discussing our favourite Jane Austen novels. Amazingly, for saying there were four of us with a positive opinion, each person had a different favourite. Jane Austen's books, of course, are not historical fiction, but books written contemporaneously to what is now an historical era. But! All the multitude of spinoffs which her books have invoked are historical fiction. Pride and Prejudice is not my favourite Austen story, nor my second or third, but I absolutely love the series Lost in Austen . People hear the phrase "fan fiction" and immediately think lesser of it, but this is a little unfair. Fan fiction is not a new thing, it is how folk stories grew into legends, adventures becoming more daring with every telling. But what has changed is the way in which these stories are retold and the care which is now (quite rightly!) taken to preserve and protect the rights of the original author. In the case of Lost in Austen , this is not t...
The thing which brings characters to life is often not any
physical appearance at all. You can imagine your hero or heroine as looking like
yourself, or like someone you really admire. But what readers best connect with
is a character’s behaviour, their deeds and thoughts, and what inspires these
said deeds and thoughts.
| Deity, Society, Family |
These are the character’s beliefs. They tend to fit into three categories:
- Belief about or in a deity
- Belief about or in society
- Belief about or in family and friends
Each one of these will make a profound difference to their
thoughts and their actions. So, if you
have a character who is a follower of a military deity like Mars, they are
likely to couple this with an attitude that human life can be readily given for
a cause [belief one affecting belief two]. But if your character is a devout pacifist during a time of war, this
will certainly put a strain on their relationships and beliefs about their
family and friends [belief two affecting belief three].
I grew up playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and the
hardest part was always remembering to pay homage to whichever deity your
character happened to be loyal to. These
little aspects didn’t just add to the character, they also gave back to the
character.
Here are a few things to think about with characters and
their beliefs:
- Everyone believes in something – each of your characters, like everyone on this planet, will believe something about deities, society, and personal relationships. It’s what makes us humans. Your character's beliefs may be that there is no deity, or that society should be Thatcheristic and about one man and his family, but they still believe it. These things will ultimately determine how they live their lives.
- Beliefs are subjective – no two people, even those who believe in the same thing, believe the same things about that thing. For example, two of your characters might believe they have a duty to their friend to save them from a danger. One might belief that duty means they have to do something about their friend, but the other believes they should do something about the danger.
- Beliefs don’t exist in facts but in truths – Oh boy! This is becoming one of those philosophy modules that frazzled my brain at university. If something is fact you can’t believe in it, so neither can your character. They either know it or they don’t. BUT as soon as someone believes something (like, properly believe it) it becomes truth, although perhaps only for that individual.
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