What I’m Taking Into The Next Character

Building Luna has changed the way I want to start the next character, but not because I want to repeat what worked with her. Actually, the opposite. The biggest thing I want to carry forward is the process of making enough decisions that a character can eventually become completely different from the one before them.

Luna has a particular rhythm to her life now. She works, comes home, runs errands, buys little things, and has an apartment that feels like hers because the same pieces of her life keep showing up there. Those details are useful for Luna, but they would be completely useless if I copied them onto someone else. A character-building process shouldn’t be a formula for producing different faces that all somehow live the same life. The process should give me a way to ask the right questions so completely different people can come out on the other side.

That’s what I want to test with the next character. What happens when I keep the discipline around continuity, world building, references, and character clarity but change the person completely? I want to know what he cares about, what an ordinary day looks like for him, what would never belong in his apartment, what he spends money on without thinking twice, what he wears repeatedly, and even what his camera roll would look like. I don’t need every answer to become content. I need the answers because they start creating boundaries around who this person is.

Luna taught me that those boundaries eventually make creating easier. Once I know enough about her, I can tell when something doesn’t belong, and that might be just as important as knowing what does. So I’m not starting the next character by asking how he can be visually different from Luna. I’m starting by giving him enough of his own life that comparing the two eventually stops making sense.

If you’re starting at that same blank-page stage with a character of your own, I made the free Before the Character guide to help you begin there.