People often ask me how I create memorable characters who feel like actual people. No, honestly, they really do. I wouldn’t lie to you about that. Maybe just a little bit…
But I digress. I’ve talked to a lot of other writers about how they create their characters (it’s all we authors chat about when hanging out), and every writer does it differently.
How it started
So, let’s go back to way back when. I wanted to be a writer, and if I knew anything about writers, it was that we would do everything and anything to put off the actual writing part. And I was very keen to do my bit.
I read all the books and followed their advice. I created extensive templates for my characters, even using character sheets from old Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, including such ridiculous things as:
- Worst smell they associated with childhood
- What they lie they told most often
- Something they pretended to understand
- A secretly envied profession
And more!
I made absolutely sure I knew the plot and its characters backwards, so when it came time to write, everything was covered. All I had to do was write the damn thing… which is where it all fell apart and, in an unexpected plot twist, it all came together.
How pantser writing changed my characters
From the off, my characters and the stories they influenced would not behave. They had their own ideas about who they were and what they wanted to do, and no matter how much I prepared, I ended up writing vastly different stories than I intended. Indeed. My writing process is, first and foremost:
finding out who my characters are and then: what it is they want to do.
This is what is called Pansterism or the Panstser Process. Writing stories by the seat of your pants. I know, scary, isn't it? Now imagine trying to write mysteries that way? I'm a real sucker for punishment.
Characters completely take over my writing process, becoming themselves in the instant they start speaking and interacting with each other. In fact... they are speaking to me now, but they steadfastly won’t give me the next winning lottery numbers, the stubborn bastards.
Writing characters in the mist
It's an odd way to do it, but my characters suddenly appear out of the mist as if by magic. Like a fog blown away by a sudden breeze. Sure, I have a broad idea about what I want to write about, the genre and my ‘big idea’, but step one is always listening to my main protagonist by giving them an empty page and letting them speak to me.
I prefer to write in first person narrator, which is the best way for me to channel their thoughts. Any action that follows is then shaped by who they are and their internal logic. And I never try to pull them towards any preconceived notions. No matter how much that hurts.
And the reason for letting them do this?
Quite simply, the ideas that are generated via the actuality of writing are far more vibrant, exciting and just plain better than what I usually come up with beforehand. I know... it's bloody annoying.
Creating supporting characters
I usually have no idea regarding supporting characters. Just as I let my protagonists off the leash, I have no restraints on the people they may meet. In fact, I’m always quite excited to meet the people who inhabit my novels.
In The Peculiar Case Of The Missing Mondrian, the main character is a rather lazy, laconic individual named Jim Riven, who suffers at the hands of unwanted coincidences as daily punishment from an uncaring universe that appears to be having a private joke at his expense.
The first time we meet Riven, there’s someone at the door who has the audacity to come visit before his traditional wake-up time of somewhere in the afternoon. It turns out to be his ex, a girl called Landa.
Landa arrived as an absolute whirlwind and took me entirely by surprise, very much in the way she does for Jim Riven, who is henceforth launched into a coincidence-based mystery of epic proportions.
And it’s those arrivals that make the writing process interesting enough for me to continue.
Just like homework…
For me, writing is mostly like dreadful homework that I don’t want to do. It’s an odd dichotomy, wanting to write and hating it, but the pantser process gets me through to the two-thirds mark. After that comes the hard slog to the end.
Which I hate.
And then the editing process.
Which I also hate.
And then finally finishing the thing, which is more of a relief than anything else.
To be honest, by the time a book is out I’m usually sick to death of it.
My Hollywood connection
The only prep I sometimes do is give my characters a very quick physical description: stature, eye colour, hair colour, etc.
And to do this, I often base them on actors.
They can be Hollywood or TV stars of any generation, in films or soaps, or even adverts. It’s just a place to start. A reference for physical type. There is no other similarity.
What’s in a name?
I used to spend way too much time before writing a novel, painstakingly coming up with character names. But again, this was a waste of time, as the names very often didn’t match who the characters became when written.
I also got stuck trying to name them. The same for other names in my novels, like planets or villages, etc. It’s a creativity killer. So now I put zero effort into character names. Instead, I use a simple naming convention:
My first character’s name begins with A. Any name. Angela, for example. The next starts with B. Bill. And so on, grabbing the first name beginning with the next letter that comes to mind.
And it matters not that the characters may live on some far off-exotic land or planet, or in the past.
I do this because at some point in the novel or screenplay, the name will arrive. So instead of overthinking it, I let my subconscious take the strain, which is a far better employment of its reasoning capacities than waking me up at 3am to only fill me with existential dread.
Simulacrum what?
And there’s one more thing: nearly all my characters are aspects of myself. And this is where the oft-repeated adage comes in handy: always write what you know.
I’ve often wondered why I, and other similarly affected authors, write off-the-cuff like this. And in my pursuit of knowledge, far, far between and everywhere else, I’ve read that human brains create a sort of simulacrum of our family and friends. It builds internal models of other people, enough for us to hear their voice in our heads, anticipate what they might say and guess how they might react if, say, we were to buy them that shit present they'd hate.
The cerebellum appears to play a part in social prediction and sequencing too, although the science is rather messier than each person getting their own dedicated bit of brain. Shame I as I quite liked that idea.
I mention this because it feels very similar to what happens with the characters I create. I’d even say I have a stronger connection to them than I do with real people. I think this is because I don’t always really understand people or where they’re coming from due to annoying autism shitness. Of course, I still forget who they are once the books are finished.
Sorry, characters, but you’re dead to me.
Having said that…
Who is my most memorable character?
The most startling character I came up with using this process (or lack of it) was Vatic, the protagonist of Shattered Helix (perma-free), who arrived fully formed on the page as soon as he woke up from hypersleep.
To be honest, I didn’t even sketch him out or have Idea One about who he was, where he came from, or anything else for that matter. I just wanted to write someone being roughly woken from hypersleep, which became the spark for a 3-novel series. The name arrived as soon as it was mentioned in the story, and since Vatic turned out to be an empath, it was peculiarly serendipitous.
He was and is a force of nature. I didn’t have to think about how to write him as he wrote himself. Like he was standing next to me and whispering in my ear.
I’ve often wondered why, but I think I know the reason. He’s a character in a crisis with only six hours to solve a mystery, or he dies. There’s no time for pleasantries and nonsense.
I’ve always found all that extra stuff around social connection to be tedious and mostly unnecessary. I much prefer to get to the point as soon as possible. And, as has been proven in my other non-writing careers, I’m very, very good in a crisis.
That’s because I’m focused on the actual issue, fully aware that it needs resolving as quickly as possible and, most importantly, everyone around me has suddenly been stripped of their usual human bullshit. Nobody’s talking about the weather or wandering off into some unrelated nonsense. They actually answer the bloody questions I’m asking.
No fluff. No waffle. Just people doing stuff efficiently. And I think this is why Vatic leapt to life for me.
Flaws
This is the conclusion thingy where I try to tie up my disparate thoughts and sell you something.
But forgetting toxic capitalism and the end of days for a moment, there’s no set way to create characters. Always write what you know. It's the best advice, and it will never change. But as you've just discovered, my characters simply refuse to do what I need them to do, and that, I believe, is what makes them feel so very real, because (and I apologise for the flaky logic) they are real. Well, to me, anyway.
Regardless of how you create them, you don’t want your protagonists to be beige, or the same, or similar to existing characters by other authors. And that is true for all your characters. No matter where they come from, they all need depth, idiosyncrasies, habits, flaws, and more…
I firmly believe that fully-rounded, believable characters (in whatever genre you write in or read), who operate on their own inner logic, are the key to successful novels and 4-5 star reviews, and, on occasion, many sleepless nights.
And hey, who would’ve thunk it? I just happen to have a book about that: All About Character Flaws: Making Your Characters Unhappy and Rewarding Your Readers Forever.
Enjoy!