How to Create Characters
One of the great joys of being a writer is making up new people. We get to play God in the low risk environment of our imaginations and in the process, learn more about ourselves.
My favouite computer game is The Sims (I'm still on Sims 2 and already there's a Sims 4) where I get to be an all powerful deity controlling the life and death of my virtual people. As a writer, I'm doing the same thing in my books.
Create some characters, put them together in a situation, poke them and see what happens.
There's a simple formula that defines a story:
Characters + Conflict = Story
We throw in all sorts of other juicy ingredients to create the layers of flavour needed to keep a reader salivating, but essentially this is what it boils down to.
Every story needs characters, but how do you conjure up new people?
- Observation: Observing and understanding other people is crucial to develop believable characters. I'm a fan of people watching, watching strangers going about their lives and creating a story for them based on how they look, behave, dress and speak.
- People we know: There's a myth that writers base their characters on real people. Sometimes this works, but more often than not we draw inspiration from different aspects of the personalities of the people we know, consciously or otherwise, and create new combinations of features and traits.
- Research: It's not necessary to be a qualified psychologist to create characters but researching psychology, behaviours, academic studies, personality tests etc. can provide inspiration and help writers to coax realistic emotional responses from our characters when we put them in different situations.
- Learn from other fiction: Film, TV, Books, Theatre - other fictional characters can have a real impact on our lives. Have you ever cried when a character has died?
I love adventure fiction; a bit of action, a bit of history. That's what I enjoy writing and I'm sure that this developed in me at a young age from the experiences I had as a child.
My favorite movies when I was growing up that influenced this were:
Indiana Jones films (I was in love with Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford was my first crush)
The Goonies
Labyrinth
When developing characters, there's a simple process used by anyone teaching the subject and I've added my own take on it.
One of the best known personality profiling tools is the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator test. This profiling tool categorises people broadly into 16 personality types.
If you're not familiar with it, this is a great Wikipedia explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator
In my Sheridan and Blake Adventure Series I have done this for Tom Sheridan and Sasha Blake
Tom Sheridan: ISTJ (Introvert, Sensing, Thinking, Judging)
He's reserved, a strategist, he struggles to show his emotions, prefers to observe than be the centre of attention - his specialty is hiding in plain sight. He's a logical thinker, loyal, likes to have a plan and scrutinize the details, Sasha calls him 'calculating'.
Sasha Blake: ENTP (Extrovert, Intuition, Thinking, Perceiving)
She's impulsive, argumentative and likes to think out loud. She likes to imagine and consider different possibilities but then pin them down logically, make decisions and solve puzzles. She's spontaneous and fickle but in many ways, despite projecting outward confidence, verging on self righteousness, she is quite insecure and fears commitment.
Once I've made some decisions about the type of person my characters are and what they look like, I find images of actors who could play them in a movie. I collect the images on a Pinterset board, pinning images of the actors in different poses and situations. It helps me to hear tone of voice, imagine and picture scenes.
Here's my Pinterest board for my latest book, Gabriel's Game
Follow Amy Morse's board Gabriel's Game: Characters on Pinterest.
Actions for writers:
Use this blank proforma to make notes on your main characters and bring them to life on the page:
How do you come up with character ideas?
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