1 Chapter 1: Characters start with attitude
How many times have you begun thinking about your characters starting from his clothes?
Let's make him cool. Dark eye-patch over the left eye, blonde hair, sad look on his face and a dark grey coat. And a mysterious animal as his companion! Ohoho….
This is the wrong way of going about it.
Your characters need to be memorable. Something people can put themselves into.
Who would put himself in a character described above? No one.
You cannot start your character with which clothes he has.
You cannot start your character with the magical powers you thought of.
You cannot start you character with a situation you need in the plot.
If you do any of that, your character will be really shallow, and instead of helping you to move the story forward, it will put more wrinkles on your forehead. If you got some already.
You need to start your character with 'attitude'.
Only that way can your character move the story, and give you more ideas and make it more cohesive. The other way s/he would be just hindering your creative process.
Perhaps you have seen one of those 'John Wick' movies? The whole movie, regardless of which one, runs on 'attitude'. The MC is not exciting because of the name of the actor who plays him, or because of his clothes, or his look - he's exciting because he got this 'John Wick attitude' to things - he's ruthless, got immense willpower, practical approach to things, is down-to-earth, extremely capable at killing efficiently, honest, and has bottom line.
What does a character with 'John Wick attitude' do when encountering an assassin and has got only a pencil in his hand?
What would he do if he went to a job interview and they wanted him to kill his own dog in order to get the job?
What would he do if he went to a supermarket and a shopkeeper would try to force him to buy something?
In every of those situation, you can guess what he would do. That's because you know his attitude. An attitude you wish you had or even had sometimes. It is relatable.
Or let's say Hermione Granger from Harry Potter. She is not memorable because of her clothes, her face or the color of her hair. No, she got this attitude of taking knowledge as the law, and she wants to be "more right" in life by knowing more. That's high contrast in comparison to the attitudes of her fellow peers.
You can guess what she would do if she goes to buy a new toothbrush. You know what she would do if a teacher gave the class a very hard assignment. You know what she might want to do in order to feel secure in life.
An attitude is so important that in order to start writing a novel you just need to do three things, even while disregarding the others:
1. Think of an atitude for your main character
2. Think of an attitude for the characters around him
3. Put them all in a certain situation
...that's the reason improvising actors can make a situation funny and great and the reason your story can be more like that as well.
