Characters

I love inventing characters. I find that it’s no work at all and it seems to come easily to me. I have no idea why, but it is also the reason that I always start off with characters and let the plot follow in its own good time.

All of my characters – at least I can’t think of an exception at the moment – are a result of many small bits of information and snippets of stories. All this merges together into one distinct character. I don’t use the normal ways of creating a character and background. I don’t write a biography and I don’t answer the 30/50/100 or more questions that some sites give to help produce a well-rounded character.

Instead I write little scenes. These are defining moments for the character. They may show how mean they are or how generous. They help explain what makes that character who they are. I do include some aspects of a biography, such roughly how old they are, but unless there is some need for it, I tend to leave that alone.

I will say that if something becomes important in a story, such as the heroine having red hair, green eyes and is exactly 24 years 3 months and 16 days old, then I do add these facts to the character sheet. And yes, I do have character sheets. They just don’t look like the examples you see on the internet or in books.

I normally outline four to five characters in detail for each story. There are far more than this in one novel, but the others don’t have such a detailed outline as I may only use one or two aspects of their character. But in these cases, they are noted in the minor character section of my notes. I do this because I have a nasty habit of using the same name more than once. I tend to forget these rather quickly.

I have fun creating characters and if I get really stuck I simply fall back to character creation. For some reason this is easier than some other aspects of writing, like sticking to a timeline…