Make ‘em Breathe
Creating the people to inhabit fictional worlds is, in some ways, the most creative part of creating a story. Characters, like real people, are infinite in their possibilities. They experience, they react, they emote, they inspire, they irritate, they dream; the list goes on.
Because characters are so open, they can be a headache. Too many possibilities make it difficult to choose. For a writer, they are the equivalent of a sweet shop full of tooth-rotting goodness. The temptations are endless. ‘Pick and Mix’ is usually the best way to satisfy all the competing urges – Sporty? Sneaky? Saucy? Smart Alec? Sarcastic? I know, let’s have a bit of each. The danger, of course, is that a character becomes a list of traits rather than someone recognisable or relatable or likeable. That would be a baaaad thing.
Ernest Hemingway knew a thing or two about this. He said, “When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters.” Yes – that is what I want. People, not cardboard cut outs, not stereotypes, not hypothetical trait exhibitors. How is this achieved? Hmm. Trickier.
An editor once told me something I have found useful. Instead of painting a character like a personality checklist, think about what drives them. Why are they the person that will perform a particular role in your story? What is there in their background that haunts them? Why do they care/not care? Motivation is key to creating character. Once you have ironed that one out, the personality traits kind of take care of themselves…
How do you create characters? What kind of characters do you enjoy the most? Are there any character ‘types’ that you return to in your writing? I seem to have a penchant for damaged people, people who have been wounded so badly that trust becomes an issue for them. The confident exterior that hides a multitude of fears is also a favourite. Care to share yours?
Related articles
- Highjacked (blackinkwhitepaper.wordpress.com)
- On Writing – Character Description (swampofboredom.com)
- Sanderson – Lecture 4 (6/6): Character Creation Example Part II (lpstribling.wordpress.com)
- Mental and Emotional Byways, Complexes and Hang-Ups in Fictional Characters (scskillman.com)
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Again, a delight. The following was my favorite sentence in the post: ‘For a writer, they are the equivalent of a sweet shop full of tooth-rotting goodness.’ Oh and the gods bless you for using the word ‘penchant’. That was a nice choice. I liked the Hemmingway quotation as well.
By the way, are you British? I know. The question seems a non sequitur, but I’m just judging from your spelling of ‘recognisable’.
Thank you for the kind words.
Yes, I am indeed British, or to be more precise Scottish. (I’m not sure whether that is better or worse…)
When I first started my book in college, I ultimately ended up abandoning it because almost all of my characters–and certainly my primary ones–were boring and lacked personality.
When I started it from scratch, they suddenly had lots of personality. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I’m not afraid to make them like people I know. My husband complains that he doesn’t have any good lines left because a couple of my characters use all of them. Another character’s disgust of vampires comes from a friend of mine who also dislikes vampires (although she gamely read my book!). My main character is a lot like me when I was a teenager, with little tweaks here and there.
I think the character type I write the most is “hero.” Both in my urban fantasy trilogy and my historical romance, my primary characters have a strong sense of right and wrong and are committed to doing the right thing–even to the point of sacrificing themselves.
But they’re not superheros in the traditional sense, because there’s no capturing the bad guys alive and locking them up in Arkham. Anselm and Micah will not hesitate to shoot to kill or cut out a throat. In fact, it causes some tension when Anselm tortures a man (to get information which would, hopefully, save lives), then executes him (by court order). His love interest has trouble reconciling his “medieval sense of justice” with the person he is normally: quiet, introverted, and very kind.
Wow. Anselm sounds kind of scary but in a good way. A little like the Clint Eastwood ‘man with no name’, dispensing rough justice to bring the world back from chaos to order. I can get behind that. I guess it means the woman he loves needs to be straight as a die – or perhaps that’s where the additional conflict comes in, if she is, like most of us, flawed…
Yes to the pinching people you know scenario too. I have a friend who tells me she always visualises her characters as the actors who would play them in the movie. I find this handy and strangely pleasurable.
I do that too! I always have my book running through my head like a movie. And if I ever sell the rights, I will cry if Oded Fehr won’t play Joshua. (When I found a picture of him, he was so perfect for Joshua that I actually went back and tweaked the description of Joshua to look more like him.)
I actually enjoyed having Anselm break out of his carefully controlled, perfectionist mold. He’s so patient and reserved, you’d gag if he didn’t occasionally lose his temper and slaughter someone (who was asking for it). I even have him get so angry at one point, he starts cursing (something he never does otherwise), then storms out and starts busting up furniture in another room. Then, after a few minutes, he comes back into the room—quiet and reserved once more—and apologizes.
By contrast, I take Kalyn—who is a fairly typical, silly teenager to start with—and I harden her to the point that she doesn’t hesitate to dispense a little shotgun justice either. The lesson learned by the end of the third book is that some people are too dangerous to be allowed to live, and it becomes her responsibility to eliminate them.
Thank you for mentioning “Hijacked.” Oh yes, apart from a *penchant* for single malt and Robbie Burns, I’ve a bit of the Scot in me as well.
You’re welcome – I liked your post a lot. Personally, I steer clear of Burns and whisky!
Reblogged this on L.P.'s.
Thanks for the reblog L.P. – I’m honoured!
Well, the honour is mine. Anyone who displays at least some degree of passion for quality of writing and the English language is high on my list.
Creating characters is my favourite part of writing. I always say it must go back to my childhood, when I played with dolls and my dolls house
I often start with a picture, ie a physical image of the person. A photo I’ve seen in a magazine, someone I saw in a coffee shop (and wrote a couple of lines about in my notebook), or someone I’ve seen on TV.
I’m very much the same, all my characters seem to be damaged in some way lol, usually be someone else, if you know what I mean
My husband always says “Are none of your characters happy?” lol. I think that’s a little unfair, most of my characters have happy moments 
Xx
The thing about happy characters is that they need taking down a peg or two – what business do they have being so damn happy when the rest of us are suffering???
I like tortured characters, but I like to see them find a measure of happiness before ‘The End’…