DemonHanzo's Make Your Own Comic Book: A self Journey To Making A Comic Pt.5.5

Make Your Own Comic Book: Do I Have To Know Every Character Inside And Out?

The answer is no. But you still need to know enough about the character to be able to write them effectively. You can always flesh out minor characters later on as well, if the need should arise. You can use one sentence statements to keep track of you characters motivations.

For the most complex characters you don't have to give them back stories right away. You can always develop these later. You do need to know what your characters want and why they want what they want. That's it. If you know some ones motivations and why they are motivated to do it it becomes easier to write them.

Here's the motivation for a character in my "secret script". He's a minor character in fact he's a toadie.

Hunter J. Preston. Simply known as (HUNTER)

Wants to be accepted by his social peers and is not afraid of doing the wrong thing to get what he wants.

Motivation is all about wants. What does you character want and how will you character get it. That's what it boils down to. For instance many people want money. What are people willing to do to get it? It depends on personality of the character and their back-story.

Would an introverted person become a door to door salesman? You could force them to try. Most likely they might be nervous or in the case of Agoraphobic persons become extremely anxious every time they try to set foot outside their front door. 

Find a motivation(s) for your character and ask what will they do to obtain it. What won't they do? How do you know this?

Luffy for example wants to be the Pirate king. He also has some other motivations namely food and Nakama (comrades). He will not sell out his Nakama in any circumstance, not even to obtain one piece and become pirate king. We know this because we see instances of this throughout one piece.

Set up a free writing assignment to make sure you understand your characters motivations. Go for a couple minutes on the minor characters each. For the major characters you can go 15-20 minutes if you like. You can always develop them more later on. We just need to put rough ideas on paper.

This is all about getting you to make your own comic books and manga.

The tree sloths are rampaging about, I need to get back to work, so get your characters motivated.

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