Hierarchy of Characters Video Transcript

(This is a transcript of Hierarchy of Characters video from YouTube)

Well hello everybody, welcome back to my YouTube channel, Real Talk with Rory.

If you are new here, welcome.  

If you are just coming back from another video, welcome back.

It's so good to see you.

It's been a while since we've done one of these videos, and I'm always trying to get this up and going again.

Because, I really actually enjoy making these videos, even though I am not the best of speaking, as you can tell.

Because I say, um, and I have brain stutters.

But you know what, you only get better when you actually face your fear, and you can do it.

So, on this channel we talk about all things writing.

Whether it be writing techniques, writing tips, tricks, the industry, or different things about school.

Because I value explaining what I've learned throughout the years and what I'm still learning.

Because you know what, learning is a neverending process.

So yeah, I want to share a little bit of my wisdom, so that y'all don't have to make same mistakes I have made.

The couple mistakes that I’ve made.

And also, it's been a while since we did one of these videos, so a little bit of what's been going on.

I graduated with my Bachelors in Creative Writing, I just finished that up.

Along with also finishing the Publish & Go program, that we have been talking about the last couple weeks.

A final video about rating the program, the coaching program, and then

Also, I finished rewriting Ravenwood 1,  so that should be actually coming out by the end of this year.

And it's actually in editing process, which is a whole new process for me.

So I will have a video of when I get my draft back.

A little bit of talking about that process and how that is going and

Because the publishing industry is kind of still a little very cloak and dagger, so I want to check a little bit of light on that.

So, we want to get back to these informational videos, which is very exciting for the next couple weeks.

Into the summer, we are going to be talking about characters, and starting to create those characters,

And then in the new year we're going to be talking a little bit more about world building because.

Characters and world building go hand in hand, before you even start the process writing your book

So in this video, we're going to go back to the basics of knowing the hierarchy of characters.

It is something that a lot of people don't talk about once you learn at once in middle school or high school.

But that understanding how these characters work is very, very important to developing your cast of characters for your story.

Making it plausible, making it understandable, and making sure that you don't overwhelm your story with characters that are not necessarily needed.

So this video, is the first video heading into characters, which is talking about the basic hierarchy of character.

So further ado let's get into the video.

(Introduction to the channel)

OK, what do I mean by the Hierarchy of Characters.

The Hierarchy of Characters is explaining what level of importance to your character has in the story.

Now, there are three main levels which is the main character, the secondary character, and the tertiary.

The main character, is the character that your readers or your audience will follow throughout the story, as they go to pursue a journey to fight a bad guy or to achieve a goal.

Now this character is often,

This story is often told by this character's point of view, either in first person.

Which is often in young adult, where the character is telling their own story as they move to move through the journey.

And then there's also third person narrator, where there is an outside voice telling the story of this one character.

AKA think of Princess bride where the grandfathers reading a storybook to his grandson about Princess Buttercup and Wesley as they fight to come back together.

Against the Prince who is trying to stop him because he wants Princess for himself.

All of the conflict is going to be geared towards stopping your main protagonist.

This characters also the most developed out of all the other characters.

And we're going to have another video in the future about making sure you pick the correct protagonist.

And make sure you develop them enough compared to secondary characters.

Now there are also some characters that boarder the line between main character and secondary character

But we are going to be talking about that in the video following in the next week or two.

So let's move on

Secondary character

Your secondary character is your supporting cast.

These characters are the ones that have a little bit less development than your main protagonist, so we won't know their backstories, their values all the time.

But they are characters that help your main character pursue their goals and support them.

Or on the villain side, go against the character trying to stop the character, and act as like goons, or villains to the characters.

I'm saying character a lot aren’t I.

But these characters are developed second to most importance of the main character.

So think of characters like Ron and Harmony, Professor Lupin.

I would even say Neville Longbottom.

They are in several scenes throughout the book, and throughout the series, and it's not like a one and done we see them.

And then secondary characters, can vary between being an active role along with the main character.

Or can be towards a little bit more of a subtle role of tertiary characters.

But still have a name, you understand their character, you understand their personality, they may have a little bit of an arc, and they are recognizable to the reader.

Like when you hear Neville Longbottom in book  one, in book two, or book three you will recognize him, and you will recognize Luna, but they are still only in a couple scenes throughout this story

Now finally the tertiary characters,

These are going to be your extras, and they often are just known by the name of their occupation.

So the soldier, the barista, the teacher, or another student passing by making these snide comment, or offering information.

Now they are important for rounding out your worlds.

So like visualize a movie where movie has extras in it.

So like thinking about Avengers, if you've seen the movie.

The Battle of New York and if there was no extras

 There’s no people for the Avengers to save, it looks like a ghost town, like what's the point

So you need to have those characters of those scared villagers, or the barista that talks to them.

Like think of Ant Man where he talks to the people at Baskin Robbins.

So these characters just make your world feel lived in, and it's important

They can also be mouthpiece pieces that give your characters information

Or in like. 

I'm going to use the example of my book.

My protagonist is moving around the scene, and she's getting information by the gossip and students around her

They never have a name, you never see them again, but you get a little bit of information from them.

And also that's also another story.

So those are kind of fun play around with, and most of the time they're just going to be referred to in your book and your story, as the soldier, or the barista, or extra students.

Or yeah, there's a bunch of other things.

And now I’m saying ‘or’ a lot now.

And This is why we just we go with it, and we learn as we go.

Now in the future, we're going to be talking about character types, and how these character types fall into each of these three categories.

But it's kind of important to know this hierarchy, because it's important for knowing when you start writing your story because sometimes

You, We can develop a secondary character, more than your main character.

Which is a big no, no.

So you need to understand how much information will be covered in each character type so that you don't bog down your story with too many characters.

Which I do that a lot, and I have to be very careful about  that one, and that is my go to mistake.

Or making sure you pick the right for protagonist.

Because there have been many stories out there, popular stories

Where they…

Where the author has very much developed the secondary characters, and they should pick one of the secondary characters to be main character in my opinion.

I will go into that in another video, um but yeah that's kind of a little bit information.

And we're going to cover this lot.

If you like this video.

And you like the content.

And you want to see some more of it.

Please like, follow, and share, and hit that notification bell in the corner to subscribe, and be notified for when I drop new videos.

And we are actually now on TikTok at @RMMcDermottauthor

And we're  going to be posting some aesthetic videos once or twice a week to start showing you what Ravenwood is about.

And showing you some of the fun characters that you're going to see in there.

And the following weeks we are also.

I'm also working on developing a newsletter.

If I could just get my e-mail to work on my website.

But you know what…

 It's apart of the process.

And I really want to be candid about some of those struggles, and some of the developmental issues because it doesn't happen overnight.

And this is one of the reasons why I haven't been doing these videos.

Because I've been working on developing the scripts so that I can give you good information.

And really nice development. 

And yeah so we are growing, and we are starting to go.

And there's a lot of stuff in the works.

So in the following weeks, I'm going to be excited to share this with you, so if you like this video just comment, share.

And also bye guys.

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