Part of the process of preparing for NaNoWriMo involves working out your characters for what you want to write. I’ve talked about character development before on here, and if you’re interested in character development in general, I’d recommend this post on getting to know your main character. But today’s post is specifically focused on character development for a NaNo project. That is, character development to (hopefully!) make it easier to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

The NaNoWriMo blog has an ‘Official NaNoWriMo Character Questionnaire’, with almost 50 questions to help you figure out various elements of your character’s personality and history. What it doesn’t really do, in my opinion, is help you to figure out what should happen with your character in the story you’re writing. That’s what I’m hoping to help you out with today! By going through these three steps, you’ll come up with some solid ideas for things to write – not just a better idea of the colour of your protagonist’s childhood bedroom.

What would your character’s dream future look like?

Working this out, in as much detail as possible, can give you some interesting stuff to play with when you’re writing. Consider what they want in every area of their life, what they want in terms of their career, how they want to feel, what they want from the various relationships in their life. The more clearly you can see the future they would ideally want to live in, the more you can build plot points out of it.

There are a number of ways you can construct scenes and plot points from your main character’s ideal future. You can have some other character get something that your protagonist wants, or have something from your main character’s ideal future dangled in front of them as incentive to do something. Or, you can go the other way and threaten them with the opposite of what they want, to force them into a difficult decision or action.

This is why having a strong sense of your character’s wants and motivations is important when writing!

Does your character know their own flaws?

I’m assuming you’ve given your character some flaws, and that they’re not some kind of perfect, benevolent angel. If that’s the case, maybe you can skip this exercise. But for the vast majority of our characters, flaws are part of the picture. Not everyone is equally aware of their own flaws, however.

With that in mind, this is a two-part exercise. Part one: if your character is not very self-aware when it comes to their own shortcomings, come up with some ideas for scenes in which they can be made aware of those flaws. That might be in a confrontation with another character, who can lay those flaws out for them. It might be a challenge or decision that forces your character to confront their own shortcomings. It might be a moment of failure – or, indeed, of success, but for the wrong reasons. The aim isn’t to write the scene right now, obviously. It’s just to come up with some ideas of scenes that you might want to write next month.

Part two of the exercise is for characters who already have a pretty good idea of their own flaws. For these characters, come up with some scene ideas that might challenge their perceptions of their flaws. A moment that turns a trait they’re ashamed of into an unexpected strength. Or a situation that makes them realise their flaw isn’t as extreme as they always thought. These kinds of moments can be held in the back of your mind as you embark on the path of NaNoWriMo, ready to pull out and give you a sense of direction when you’re stumped for words.

Think about your character’s highs and lows

In any good story, a character isn’t going to feel exactly the same the whole way through. You want them to go on a journey, even if it’s more of a metaphorical or emotional one rather than a literal trip from A to B. As part of your character development, think about the high and low points that your character might hit throughout the course of your story.

Think about the position they’re in at the start of the story. Who are their friends? How do they feel about themselves? What are they good at? Then think about ways you can improve upon that situation in various ways. What triumphs might they experience? What moments of joy could they find in your story? How can they win, and win big? And, of course, then you’ll want to think about how you can snatch it all away from them. Because we’re mean to our characters like that.

The aim here is not to outline their path through the whole plot (unless you want to, of course). This is about coming up with some great moments and some crappy moments that they might pass through in the story world you’ve imagined for them. You may or may not end up using all of the highs and lows that you come up with during this exercise, but they’ll give you something to come to for inspiration during November if you’re feeling stuck.

All of these will help you to write great moments of character development in your story

And they’ll hopefully help you if you’re feeling stuck in November! Writing 1667 words a day isn’t always easy, and there are going to be days when the words won’t flow. But if you can come up with something you’re excited to write, every single scene you manage to get down will bring you closer to that 50,000 word goal.

Are your characters ready for NaNoWriMo?