Alan Moore - Creating An Authentic Character - Storytelling - BBC Maestro

Learn how to craft three-dimensional, complete characters with legendary writer, Alan Moore.

This lesson is taken from Alan Moore’s BBC Maestro online storytelling course, which details every aspect of building a fictional world and the characters that inhabit it.


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BBC Maestro | Let The Greatest Be Your Teacher

[IconOfSin]

I'm not an aspiring writer, I just bought in to hear Alan Moore talk

[Hamerparsa]

This dude not only is one of the greatest writers ever lived, he is one of the few that never sold out to Hollywood . He hates them and every time they adapt his stuff into big screen he tells them to take his name off of it and gives the royalties to other contributors to his books . So gangster

[HGAMES]

Alan looks like the Kingsman portrayal of Rasputin lol

[aubreyknight]

I know he hates the industry now and is fed up with it, but this man is really the last OG in comics. He tells a story like no one else not named Neil Gaiman.

[joshuavstheworld]

Watchmen will always be my favorite comic book. At the end of it you feel like you have know those characters for a long time. That they might even been part of our world. Absolutely fantastic.

[Just_Some_Guy_with_a_Mustache]

Ah, it's always a treat to hear Alan Moore "ribbing" comic books any chance they give him. From the man who wrote issues of Spawn and WildC.A.T.S., by the way.
That being said, I kind f get it as more comic book stories come out. Getting serious Watchmen Babies vibes as time goes on...

[Kriskazam]

bruh when he brought up Stan Lee's name i was like "oh no he's not gonna shit talk Stan Lee on BBC rn is he?" and then he described how Stan Lee added more dimension than a one dimensional character i was like "phew sigh of relief" but then he follows it up as it being a two dimensional character and i just burst out laughing lmao. Alan Moore u savage

[sleepysera]

I think there's a place for one- or two-dimensional characters in fiction. A story can become unnecessarily convoluted if every random castle guard is a multi-layered character that we have to get to know properly, and even if we are purely talking main characters, there's something very calming about simplistic characters.

In the end, it boils down to - what is our intent? Do we want a complex, thought-provoking, deeply engaging story? Then I fully agree that complex characters are the better choice.
Or do we want to write comfort fiction? Something that lets readers take a mental break from the complexities of the real world, because especially in troubling times, when it's hard to know what to believe and there is no clear right or wrong (well, there never is, but sometimes it's even more muddled than usual), there are many readers who specifically crave a story where the bad guys are simply evil because they are, and the good guys are good and have nothing else to worry about and single-handedly save the world because that's what good guys do.

Comfort fiction has its place, just like comfort food does. In the same way as it would be quite problematic if someone ONLY ate mac&cheese everyday, if all fiction was like that, of course it would be a problem. But that doesn't mean there isn't a place for that kind of fiction at all, and the usually one-dimensional characters and moralities that define it.

[shaun_seow]

What a deep and wonderful voice Alan has. He will make a great narrator for documentaries and audiobooks.

[digi_edits]

Reading The Swamp Thing Saga for art homework at uni. It's facinating and captivating, just had to read one chapter but I'm reading it all because of how good it is.

[richardpreston]

Okay, just to clarify: Alan's comments about "a bad leg" are about Donald Blake, Thor's alter ego, who was slightly crippled. In the 60s, physical disability was looked down on a lot more in society (it's why characters like Matt Murdoch and Alicia Masters were so ground-breaking) and a lot of Donald's problems were about his own sense of self-worth over his disability. Alan is dismissive of this because... well, as you might have gathered, he's never been a big Stan Lee fan.

[athenassigil]

I love all his stuff...but for me, it's his 2 novels ( Voice of the Fire and Jerusalem ) and the work he did on Promethea and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that really shines. Brilliant stuff, all of it.

[tyrfree]

You can say I'm a student of this man as well as Roy Thomas. Both of these dudes pretty much taught me that when you write a character, you have to basically write a virtual human being. That means you have to get to a point where you are watching this character go through their daily lives in your mind, and then your job is to pretty much record the events. When this happens you no longer are thinking about static images, you are seeing another reality.

Someplace more fantastic than the reality that you live in.
At that point, It's not just about trying to immerse yourself, That happens automatically because this human is so interesting.

Of course there are scenarios that you place the front of this virtual being, but you begin to notice that you don't have to think for the character anymore. It takes a life all its own.

Sometimes the outcome is crazy and you say you know what? I can't write that shit :-) so you edit it. But for the most part you get a very satisfying story. And when the story is done you find yourself missing that entire world and that character that was in that world. I have no doubt that some of the best stories that we've ever read and human history, were characters that were fleshed out this way.

You have to see these characters live, you can't do it the other way around where you create them and control EVERY single movement that they do. That's just not being alive. That's not a living thing. That's not what you should do to something that is a product or should be a product of free thought in the first place.

after all characters are an extension of your own mind and your thought processes and maybe, just a little bit of connecting to the universe itself and some sort of alternate reality :-)
That last part could be wrong but it's fun to imagine it at least.

[malekartorian]

This man is an authentic character just look at him

[thedeadd.c.]

Alan Moore doing a project for the BBC. What a topsy turvy world we live in. He's like the cool grandad all aspiring writers want. He has the wizard look on point.

[invisiblefan]

I know Moore has never been a fan of Stan but his work at the time was revolutionary.

[dragonmasterlance]

I'm an amateur writer myself but I've always tried to flesh out characters as much as humanly possible. Besides a full name and personality traits/flaws I always have notes on things like birthdays, siblings, etc, just in case I ever need or decide to reference them. This is very assuring advice.
Some of my favorites though are the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul writers. They manage to give so much depth and personality to even minor/one off characters (though obviously the incredible casting contributes to that too).

[gibbons]

Alan Moore is the closest thing to a living comic book character than actual people pretending to be comic book characters.

[cylondorado]

As much as I like corny comic books, I have to give it to him. I've always been impressed by the depth of his characters. A DC character could have a cameo in Swamp Thing, and they'd be more fleshed out then they've ever been.

[NicholeLucas-kp]

This man taught me that when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares right back at you.

Master of story, Alan Moore.