The four elements, Earth, Air, Water and Fire, can be an amazing starting place to create characters. I’ve been exploring elements as a basis for character development for awhile. My middle grade fantasy novel Element Girls (Handersen Pubs, 2019) features a dominating element for each character (Tess is Fire, Amelia is Water, Susie is Air and Elizabeth is Earth). Now I’m interested in a more complex approach, where two elements come into play. Do they work in harmony? Or are they at war with each other?
We explored this question in Story Club, my creative writing group for young writers.
One of the characters a young writer created, Cleo, was based on fire and water. Her personality became fiery when she was angry, and watery when she was sad.
A second character who remained nameless (it can be tricky to think of a name for someone with two elements!) was a Water person when she was confident. This character was afraid of her second element, fire. The young writer created a scene where the character receives some bad news at school. She feels the fire arising within her, and is afraid to be out of control. The tension is high as she waits for permission to run to the toilets, before the fire takes over.
I love this example of how a character may prefer to be one element over the other. In fact, this character is afraid of her own fire. It felt like an amazing metaphor to not liking part of ourselves, or even fearing it. Perhaps this is another way stories can help us embrace all the parts of ourselves.
Juggling two elements in a character is no easy task. I’m tempted to try three or even all four. Have you tried it? Let me know in the comments.
