Building Characters Using Greek and Roman Myths
45 Master Characters: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters
by Victoria Lynn Schmidt
I bought this book at a writers conference back in the 2000s. It was first published in 2001, and I bought the second edition in 2007, and it was updated yet again in 2012.
This is a great book to read and then use as a reference as you are creating your characters for your novel, story or screenplay. You often build characters starting with a type or an archetype. If you understand how certain types work off each other, or work as foils to one another, then you can create a deeper reality from there.
Ancient Greek and Roman myths are fiction; Zeus did not rule over Earth from Mt. Olympus. However, the mythic stories capture the truth of the human experience, and still teach us lessons about love, parenting, war, and life.
The book has chapters based on goddesses and gods who personify specific personality types. Their good qualities are heroic, but an exaggerated version of those same qualities turn that same personality into a villain.
As I read, I realized which mythic character is closest to my personality, and how I have been both heroic and villainous because of it. Of course, it’s even easier to see the mythic personalities in the people around me.
Aphrodite, Artemis, Athena, Demeter, Hera, Hestia, Isis, and Persephone are the female characters. Apollo, Ares, Hades, Hermes, Dionysus, Osiris, Poseidon and Zeus are the male characters.
My next book will be about a young boy and his father renovating an old house and the boy encounters the ghost of a young girl who died in the flu epidemic of 1918. As I build out my characters I believe the father will be like Apollo, the boy will be like either Hades or Poseidon, and the ghost of the young girl will be like Artemis. It’s not “paint-by-numbers,” but it’s a way of thinking.
There is nothing new under the sun, people have been thinking this way for centuries, and I might as well use it to my advantage, and have fun doing it. Check it out!