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Creating Believable Characters
By admin | November 9, 2009
By Anna Goodwin
These suggestions can be used for both fiction and memoir writing.
Show character traits, don’t tell people about them. Emphasize the unusual.
Watch people around you to get ideas (e.g., family, friends, strangers).
Readers must “feel something” about the character (negative, or positive) to keep reading.
Form an image of your character in your mind. If this is difficult for you, find a picture in a magazine, etc. that symbolizes the character. Pretend the person is sitting across from you and you are interviewing her/him. Here are some of the questions you might ask.
1.Physical attributes:
a) Hair, eyes, skin, marital status, race, ethnic origin
b) Height, weight, age, muscular, skinny etc.
c) Distinguishing facial features, especially unusual or striking ones (a mole with a hair on the end of the nose).
d) Wealth, poverty, dress, sloppy, neat
e) Deformities like a limp, a glass eye, a withered hand
f) Tags or quirks. How does the person react physically when s/he gets nervous or is lying? (e.g., Places hand on side of nose, twists wedding band, bites lip, fidgets with hands, cracks knuckles, taps foot, etc.)
g) What physical hobbies or coping mechanisms do they have? (e.g., jogging, swimming, basketball, etc.)
2.Mental/emotional:
a) Character must have goals, strong desires, and passions, especially if you are writing commercial fiction. What are they?
b) Characters beliefs, dreams, values.
c) Under stress, what decisions and choices (actions) does the person make? This knowledge will help you show who the person really is, not merely who the person wishes to be. Does the character’s choices conflict with her/his values, beliefs, dreams, goals, especially under stress? If so, you can show inner turmoil, fears, weaknesses. If not you show strengths, decisiveness. Does the character act because s/he is afraid of punishment, to please someone else, because it is the law, or does s/he take each situation and work it out according to her/his beliefs?
d) How does the person cope (or doesn’t) under stress? Denial, avoidance, gets angry, faces things head on, worries, makes jokes, etc).
e) Intellect, education, occupation
f) Left versus right brain. Logical versus intuitive, creative. Negative versus positive thinker (black and white thinker), muddled versus clear thinker.
g) Acts deliberately or impulsively? Outgoing or shy?
h) Authoritarian or nurturing?
i) Level of self-esteem. What type of situations trigger self-esteem issues? (e.g., feeling not good enough).
j) Vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and strengths.
k) General characteristics: conceited, effacing, self-centered, prejudiced, proud, arrogant, greedy, lazy or industrious, brutal, loving, confident or insecure, forgive and forget or hold a grudge, revenge, afraid to make commitment, do drugs. The negative characteristics ultimately come out of fear and low self-esteem. Need for control. You can ask your character what s/he is afraid of, or what will happen if s/he changes.
3. Spiritual:
If you are writing inspirational books, this area is particularly important.
a) What religion?
b) Religious or spiritual beliefs? Or none. (e.g., there is nothing greater than me out there that helps direct my life and gives me purpose.)
c) Does his/her spiritual belief system guide the person’s decisions in daily life or is s/he merely a “Sunday Church Goer?”
4) Family history and childhood experiences that influence the person’s present life:
There are a million questions you can ask your character at this point. What happy or traumatic events occurred in your life as a child? There are too many questions to get into but here are a few examples. Working out the family genealogy and functional and dysfunctional patterns in the character’s past can give you a great handle on the person’s beliefs, reactions to situations, etc. A person usually decides to be like or not like someone else depending on her/his perception of or identification with that someone (often a parent or sibling). Who loved whom, who hated whom, who sided with whom, who was most like whom, who was in control? What were the family’s expectations of the character? Was there lots of conflict or did no one ever argue? Was s/he allowed to speak up and tell the truth as s/he saw it in the family? Was s/he allowed to have feelings (e.g. anger, sadness) without someone trying to suppress them? What secrets did the family keep? How did people treat each other? Criticism or praise? Were family members too close (therefore didn’t become individuals), close but gave each other space to be who they were, or distant and uninterested in each other?
Anyway, you get the idea. Add anything else that comes to mind. Even if you don’t use a lot of this information in your book, it is important to know your character well, so you can create a consistent, believable person.
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