When a character first comes to my mind for a book I go through a series of steps to understand who they are. I know everyone does things differently and has their own unique approach and I would like to share mine.
When I look at what I want a character's name to be it can happen one of two ways.
The name simply comes
I research the name on the internet for the specific meaning or place that I want the character to come from. If I am working in faerie land, I will look up names which relate to different plants or places in nature. I will look up names from different cultures that have nature based associations to them.
If I am working with a name specific to a culture, I look up a name that describes that character qualities and traits or desires that my character wants or has.
When looking at their personality and what drives them, this is where I let the metaphysical world take over. I use a combination of tarot and oracle to see what their personality and desires/drives are going to be throughout the story. I ask the cards to tell me about the character's traits listed down below and it has not failed me yet.
Personality
Desires/Ambitions
Character qualities: positive and negative aspects
How their emotions/actions will drive the story
Their past
Through this process I get a deep view of who my character is and do the same for any others who come through, often pulling more for how they interact with each other. I jot down notes and then from there write, referring back to my notebook to check on character continuity often.
I also do this for story arcs as well (which is another blog article) and have been impressed by how much is revealed about the story and how the characters will interact with each other.
It is one of the odder things that I do as part of my writing process, but I am more than happy to share it with my audience and fellow writers.
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