Last week I blogged about my rough ideas on the character diamond. I’ve gotten a lot of positive responses to it, and we even talked about it internally at work. Since I posted, I’ve become a little less enamored with the side traits (I don’t seem to be using them much, and they feel like a justification of the diamond shape more than a useful tool). However, two of my coworkers came up with a really cool idea on what to do with those points that makes the diamond shape even more exciting. Let’s look at the diamond again:

The top and bottom traits are just as I discussed in the last entry. The left and right points, however, are now a spectrum going from the past to the future, almost like a line drawn through the center of the diamond.

The left trait is what the character is at at the start of the character arc. This is the core of their desire, the thing that they want or need to change that propels them forward through their arc. In Jane’s case, she’s self-conscious of herself, and this is what makes her flirty and scared.

The right trait is the character’s evolution – where she will end up as she grows and changes. Through the course of the story, Jane will be tested and tried, but as she gets what she needs, she grows from being self-conscious to being loyal.

I’m really digging this, because now the diamond becomes a dimensional map of the character arc. You can imagine that the character starts in the top-left side of the diamond: Jane is flirty and self-conscious. As she goes through the story, she dips closer and closer to being scared (as her bottom trait peeks out more and more due to the stress that the conflicts will bring), before she redefines herself as a loyal woman.

Even cooler, flipping the left and right traits gives you a totally different character arc: Jane is a loyal but flirty character who, through being secretly scared, ends up becoming very self-conscious. In this case, the character arc isn’t a positive change for Jane, but it’s still very much a progression.

From here, you can flesh in details, but a story is already taking shape, and more so than it was in my previous attempt. It’s still something you can sketch on a napkin or a whiteboard, but an entire story skeleton pops out to me now when I look at it, instead of just story potential.

Thoughts?

Chuck Wendig was talking about hyperbole today, and I mentioned that his ideas were similar to the character diamonds that I’ve started using at work. He asked me to explain, and I realized that I couldn’t easily explain in a comment field. So I’m hashing this out on my blog because I have more space. While I used this primarily to help me with my writing at work, it could be extended to scriptwriting, fiction writing, or even making characters for RPGs. Don’t say I never gave you nothin’.

Anyhow, character diamonds aren’t a concept unique to me. In fact, I first came across the idea in Creating Emotion in Games, although the author seemed to focus a lot on three and five-sided “diamonds,” which struck me as weird and led me to do my own research. I found some good info, but it seemed that the idea wasn’t really that far removed from listing three to five character traits for each character. I decided that the placement of traits into the diamond shape was meaningful in some way, so I invented that meaning – thus creating my own spin on the process.

Let me give you an example. Here’s Jane, a character I just made up to talk about this process:

Jane has four character traits. “Traits” could be anything about the character,¹ but in my own definition they’re restricted to something that can show up about the character in action. (If it doesn’t show up on the page or during the story in some way, the character might as well not have it.) The orientation of the traits is actually important in my model.

The first trait (“Flirty”) is the top trait. This is the trait that will most often show up in dialogue or action during the course of the story.² When I’m writing dialogue for the character, this trait should be showing up more often than not, until the character goes through a character change (more on that in a second).

The trait opposite the top trait is, strangely, the bottom trait. This is the trait that’s under the surface of the top trait, peeking out every one in a while.³ The bottom trait shouldn’t show up that often, but it should inform how the character acts during the story. Ideally, the bottom trait is informing the action while the top trait is informing the dialogue, but really it’s something that I’m playing by ear. The top and bottom traits should be at odds, but not diametrically opposed – too far apart and they become unbelievable and hard to write, but too close together and the character seems dull and flat.

The two traits on the side are side traits. (See how complex my terminology is?) Side traits aren’t as important as top or bottom traits – indeed, for minor characters, all you might need are a top and bottom trait. Side traits give flavor to the character, taking it in new and unexpected directions from time to time, and are best used when the character has a chance to develop and grow. Honestly, side traits are the hardest for me to explain – the best analogy I have is that they’re slightly more important than quirks of character, but they can not show up in an entire scene or two and the character is still believable (top and bottom traits should inform every scene, though).

When a character goes through a defining moment (usually around late Act II or within Act III), these traits can move around. The most obvious move is that the top and bottom traits switch position – as the character comes under stress, she becomes more true to her inner self. However, you could also shed and replace side traits (new habits or quirks start to form), or even switch a top and side trait (discarding one defense mechanism and using another instead).

I admit I’m still not sure on that part, but the point is that the placement of each trait has meaning, and therefore the movement within the structure also has meaning. A simple diagram that you can sketch on the back of a napkin can be shorthand for an entire story arc.