How to Create a Character

You’ve met Lana and seen a character design based on the production Bible. Now we’re going to use GraphicNovel to define her.

A naming note before we start: Lesson 1 called her Lara Lynne. These lessons use Lana Lyne. Treat that as a deliberate revision to the reference, not permission to alternate names at random. Hoisted by my own technique. Again.

01 / The Convention

A common convention is to describe a character on first appearance, often in capitals. Sometimes the description becomes a creative splurge. Take Lana.

I’m not going to spare you this. It’s what you can find in graphic novel, film and TV scripts. INFO DUMP CITY. Some poor sod has to go through it.

It’s also mine. Paragraph breaks removed and capitals applied because: I wasn’t going to use someone else’s script; it looks like the real thing; and people who write this are fine. People who leave it like this are dicks.

LANA: EARLY FORTIES, PETITE WITH LONG UNKEMPT HAIR FULL OF GREY STREAKS. SHE DRESSES PRACTICALLY FOR WORK. GLASSES BY NOW, BUT NOT ALWAYS. SHE KEEPS STUFF IN HER POCKETS AND HAS DRIFTED TO MENSWEAR FOR EXACTLY THIS REASON. HABITUALLY WEARS HER WATCH AND CARRIES A BRASS-AND-MAHOGANY MAGNIFYING GLASS WITH LED ILLUMINATION ON ONE SIDE: LOW HEAT, BRIGHT LIGHT, SWITCHED ON BY TWISTING THE SHAFT. STARTED AS AN ARCHIVIST IN A NEWSPAPER MORGUE AND GOT REPEATEDLY PROMOTED, MOSTLY BECAUSE SHE READ FAST, COMPLETELY AND HAD NO APPARENT DIFFICULTY SWITCHING LANGUAGES. THIS LED TO INTERNATIONAL WORK AND, BY STEPS, TO DEAD LANGUAGES AND CODE CRACKING. SHE MOSTLY DEALS WITH DEAD LANGUAGES BUT FORGETS RAPIDLY: SHE SEEMS TO HAVE A LIMITED “CURRENT STATE”. SHE GOT ILL BECAUSE OF WORK. SOME OF THE MATERIALS ARE RADIOACTIVE AND APPARENTLY DELIBERATELY CONTAMINATED. SHE HASN’T BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH RADIATION SICKNESS. HER ILLNESS HAS LED TO A PAINKILLER AND SLEEPING-TABLET ADDICTION. SHE FAVOURS DARK CLOTHES AND PRACTICAL HEAVY SHOES THAT ARE WIDE AND SQUARE-TOED: BEETLE CRUSHERS. BS DETECTOR: SHE HAS VISUAL CUES. A SIDE EYE MEANS INDIFFERENT OR SCEPTICAL. SHE’S DISMISSIVE AND HAS HEARD IT ALL BEFORE. WHEN READING SHE LEANS FORWARD, HER HANDS AND ELBOWS BECOMING A BARRIER AGAINST DISTRACTION. EYES WIDE AND INTENSE. SHE’S DRAWN AS IF LIGHT IS COMING OFF THE PAGE AND ILLUMINATING HER FACE FROM THE FRONT. SHE WEARS BLOOD-RED LIPSTICK FOR THE CONTRAST WITH HER SICKLY SKIN. SHE FAVOURS HER LEFT EAR WHEN LISTENING DESPITE BEING RIGHT-HANDED, AND IS ADEPT AT HOLDING HER PHONE TO HER EAR WHILE WRITING. SHE ACQUIRED CONRAD AND BABEL, HER AFRICAN GREYS, WHEN HER BROTHER DIED YEARS AGO.

All clear? No? OK. Let’s break it down.

[AGE] [LOOKS] [CLOTHING] [LOOKS] [QUIRK] [CLOTHING] [KIT] [PROFESSION / HISTORY] [TALENT] [PROFESSION / HISTORY] [PROFESSION] [QUIRK / LIMIT] [HISTORY] [CONDITION] [CLOTHING] [BODY LANGUAGE] [ART DIRECTION] [LOOKS] [PSYCHOLOGY] [QUIRK] [HISTORY]

Enough capitals. That’s some heady creativity, a bowl of spaghetti and twenty minutes for an artist with a highlighter to make sure they’ve found everything.

People don’t just hate us writers because we get drunk on the top decks of buses, expose ourselves and tell the passengers no one appreciates our creative genius. It’s because we leave the empty cans rattling around and expect someone else to sort it out.

02 / Let’s Do Lana

We called her Lana in the splurge. Let’s give her a surname: Lana Lyne. A nickname can come later.

You already know how to name a character. What matters here is making that name count. We’re defining her in the Bible so the tool can check character references in the script.

In a long piece, that saves you from introducing Lana, writing Lara thirty pages later and leaving the artist to work out whether you meant someone else.

\begin{character}{Lana Lyne}

The backslash marks a command. begin starts an entry. {character} says what kind; {Lana Lyne} supplies her name. That name becomes her definitive reference.

Everything we want to add about Lana goes between the opening and closing commands.

\begin{character}{Lana Lyne}
  %% Put description here
\end{character}

This tells the cross-checker that Lana Lyne is a character. It tells the artist nothing about her. Useful start. Not much of a briefing.

03 / Huggy Little Arms

A word about curly brackets: { }. They’re huggy little arms. They hold things together so a command knows which information belongs to it. {Lana Lyne} keeps her whole name together.

Imagine hugging all your kids, cats, dogs, pillows, awards, wrenches or cars in one go. Brackets inside brackets? You’re hugging hugs that are hugging things.

The %% marks a comment: a note for whoever reads the source. The tool ignores the rest of that line. One % is enough; two are just our convention.

Bugger - this will be easier in a picture

04 / This Lesson Hereby Finishes

Except for the exercise.

This is practice for a habit you already have: sorting information so somebody else can use it. Select passages and put them into labelled buckets. No marks. No timer. No assumption that you’re an idiot.

There. Done. Next tutorial.

Lana exists. The tool knows she’s a character. The artist still hasn’t a bloody clue what she looks like.

Next: give the artist something to draw.