Creating Characters is a little like baking a cake: lots of ingredients and a satisfying result.
I think I’m going to disappoint a lot of people when they get the low down on how I build a character for my books. Writers, how often do we hear this:
“Which one is me.”
…from friends and family? Well, I hate to break it to you, loved ones, but none of you inspired a character–alone. I have never, and probably will never, photocopy a human in my life to build a character. That isn’t how character development works (at least as far as this writer is concerned). One character is actually built of many different people. Yet, not as many people as the writer…
Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying hard to be one person.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Where does character creation start?
To begin, I like to build a character from a random photo off the internet (not a whole lot different than this background) and then build a life for them. I collect intriguing photos for future builds on Pinterest. Needs, desires, wounds, fears, goals and misconceptions. I usually get out a blank notebook and start writing random things about the character. Eventually, I get enough scrap to come up with what they want or what they don’t.
95% of what I develop for a character’s backstory is not in the book, and that’s a good thing. Its also is the secret reason why my detailed, indexed character personality bible is as long as my book…
Character creation matters.
If you compare a character created on the fly to one I create with planning–there is a huge, glaring difference you can’t miss in the writing. I find it easier to write about a character–even a minor or side-kick character–if I have taken the time to build them completely.
Let’s take the build for my character JP as an example:
- A friend with wit and wisdom loaned it to him–along with the arrogance.
- A coworker with perfect hair loaned him some gel and style…
- A family member loaned him a sense of duty and a hero complex.
After finding some pictures on the web to give him the right face, and then getting a feel for his jokes by interviewing him in first person… (If you don’t do this, you should start.) I fell in love with what should have been only a minor character. He has his own book now, actually. He even got his own playlist because when I heard it I knew this was his song…
Just a character creation disclaimer…
I do like a good joke. There are plenty of characters in my books with first names that sound familiar to my social circle, but the character is carefully crafted to look and act not a thing like the person in my social circle with the same name. Some of my favorite friends have characters with their name that ended up becoming villains.
How ’bout them apples?
With love and gratitude,
