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…

Plot of character? How is your writing driven?

I actually started off writing about inspiration, but I got sidetracked, so I decided to leave that for another day and write about plot versus character instead. Below is what I wrote...

I have thousands of ideas floating around in my head, some of which I write down. These are plots or people by prototypes, which can be expanded as needed. Part of this is due to how I write. I always start off with characters and the plot develops from there.

I find if I have interesting characters, I never have to make things happen, they will occur on their own. In fact, if I get stuck at all I put some or all of my characters in a room and see what happens.

For example, in my NaNoWriMo outline for this year, I started off with a character similar to one I had read about in a news story. It was about a man who's dead body had been lying for months in his flat. Not an unusual story except that the man had not been a recluse. He was in fact an obnoxious weirdo, who was disliked by everyone including he own family.

Most of the neighbours assumed he had been rehoused by the council, His family weren't talking to him and didn't really make a huge effort to contact him. It was only when a workman needed access to the flat to fix a leak that his body was discovered.

This started me thinking about all the horrible people I know and the victim of my NaNoWriMo was born, well died. She, in fact, starts off dead. But her nastiness leads to all sorts of possibilities and without her needing to go over the top in any of her actions. This gives me a large pool of suspects. It's a murder mystery in case you were wondering.

Everything I've written has always started with one or more characters. It's the only way I seem to be able to write. Last year I tried starting with a plot. I did write the 50 000 words, but it was a slog and not one I want to repeat. The result is incredibly bland. There aren't any plot holes, as in my other attempts, but it will send you to sleep quickly.