Sanderson 2012.4 - Sympathetic Characters

Brandon Sanderson’s 2012 Semester at BYU: Creative Writing, Lecture 4
This video is a mirror of the materials posted by user writeaboutdragons. I’ve linked together the parts of the lecture into a single video, and provided some notes with timestamps below. Enjoy!
*Notes*
0:12 / Sympathetic characters
- In the fantasy genre, characters are the most important thing
- All of your characters should be sympathetic in some way (even the bad guys)
- Sympathetic characters….
- - Have some “everyman” attributes and some “superman” attributes
- - Underdog
- - Are proactive
- - Nice (or has friends who like them)
- - Quirks
10:53 / Proactivity
- Make your character proactive, don’t have them wait around for the villain
- Easiest one to slip on, and will weaken the character
16:43 / Show vs tell
- Give the character a unique view on life
- Show don’t tell
- - Dialogue is generally more show than tell
23:10 / Character depth
- Make your characters care about things other than the plot
- If you think of your character only by their role in the story, you will lose depth
- The character’s life did not begin when the story began; they had wants and hobbies and values before the plot started
33:50 / Love Interest alternatives
- Mentor & student
- Best friends who start as not best friends
- Teens are interested in romantic relationships, and it is one of the main things that draws them to books
36:01 / Character building exercise (with examples)
- Build into the character things that are unanticipated
- - Unanticipated doesn’t necessarily mean “weird”
- Build a scene that shows the attributes of these characters without even mentioning their actual attributes