Now That You’ve Brought Them to Life: What Can You Do With Your Character?
Expanding Fictional Identities into Stories, Worlds, and Mediums
Written by April Martin
So you’ve created a character.
They have a name, a shadow, a secret. They speak in your ear or scribble in your margins.
You know what breaks them. What makes them beautiful.
But now what?
A compelling character is not bound to a single page. They are a vessel. A seed. A spark waiting to leap into multiple forms of expression.
Here are powerful ways to evolve your character beyond the sketchbook or story doc, and into fully realized worlds.
1. Write Their Story (But Don’t Limit It to a Novel)
Whether you're working on a novel, short story, or serial, your character can drive:
A personal journey (coming-of-age, identity reclamation, revenge)
An epic arc (destiny, war, apocalypse, rebirth)
A mystery of the self (unreliable narrator, trauma revelation, transformation)
Ask: What truth are they running from? What truth are they destined to confront?
2. Role-Playing Games (RPGs): Let Them Evolve Through Play
In tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder:
Assign your character a race, class, background, and flaws
Explore what happens when a trait becomes a mechanic
Collaboratively explore their relationships, choices, and moral dilemmas
In RPGs, your character becomes a living myth in motion, faced with real-time consequence.
3. Video Games: Design With Mechanics in Mind
What if your character had to fight for what they believe in? Or sneak, heal, manipulate, or sacrifice?
Design them through:
Aesthetic: armor, posture, color theory
Abilities: what makes them unique?
Playstyle: are they stealthy, brute-force, strategic, or cursed?
Visual and mechanical design becomes a new language for character psychology.
4. Film & Television: Script Their Arc for the Screen
Characters built for the screen need:
Clear desires and obstacles
Visual symbolism in costume and behavior
Evolution across a limited time or seasons
Use your character to:
Challenge genre tropes (e.g., a femme fatale who is also the moral core)
Reinvent archetypes (e.g., a wounded healer who becomes the antagonist)
Consider how they speak, pause, or command space. Every frame is a statement.
5. Theater & Stage: Embody Their Emotional Architecture
In stage productions, the character becomes a ritualized presence.
What they wear, say, touch, or refuse to touch matters.
Explore:
Movement and posture
Rhythmic patterns in speech
How space defines status or emotional intimacy
On stage, even silence becomes sacred. Let your character’s inner world haunt the air.
Transmedia Storytelling Possibilities
A truly rich character can cross formats. Try:
Journaling from their POV
Creating a digital archive of their “life” (emails, sketches, memories)
Building a fictional social media account
Writing a myth or legend about them, told by another character
The deeper you understand their soul, the more places they can live.
Final Reflection
A character doesn’t just belong to a single narrative.
They can stretch, echo, and reincarnate.
So ask yourself:
Where else could they speak?
What would their legacy look like?
What medium tells their truth best, or reveals a new one?
Because once a character is born, they don’t fade.
They ripple.
And the stories they tell might outlive you.