Define a viewpoint. Throughout the story I’m currently writing, my hero’s arc, transformation, or ‘inner journey’ is to realize that things are not always perfect, or easy, and they probably never will be. Life is the process of surviving adversity. Sure, life is ‘unfair’ and the world conspires against you, but in the end you either fight to survive, you fight for your rights, your sanity, your freedom–whichever battle you choose, but you must fight.

My hero encounters both a mentor and a mentee. The mentor is of course, older and wiser, and although my hero is slowly realizing that life is simply unfair and he must fight, the mentor is there to teach him that picking your battles is very important. In other words, where my hero realizes that he simply must fight, the mentor can teach a simple fact; How you fight your battles is often just as important as choosing to fight them in the first place.

At the same time, there is a very young and naive character to which my hero plays the mentor. This young character is stuck at a naive stage many of us have been through. It’s the stage where everything is somebody else’s fault, and the world should bend over backwards to satisfy a single individual. It is the naive bitter bus, maladaptive viewpoint. The self-defeating, helpless hand-wringing impatience of youth.

While other writers might define their characters by the character’s habits, quirks, and obsessive personality traits, I’m choosing to define my characters by the purpose their viewpoint brings to the story. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a lot of work to do in defining those odd quirks, and unique individualisms.

But so far the easiest way I’ve found to create a character who actually means something, is to give their perspective relevance and symbolism within the overall themes of the story. Perhaps this may seem a bit obvious, and so I must ask; What tricks do you use in developing characters?