Creating Characters
I'm getting ready to write my next book. Here's how I make my fictional characters come to life.
A pinch of Magnolia flower for sweetness, and a dash of oak leaves for strength. A little bit of happy juice, a love of peppermint, and a healthy fear of reptiles. If you guessed this is a magic recipe, you’re partly right. I’m making up a fictional character from scratch, and there’s a lot more than magic going into this spell.
One of the best things about writing fiction is I get to create the people living in the world I write. I also get to play out the story with them. Honestly, as a psychological thriller writer, I put my characters through a fiery inferno, so these characters better be tough as nails.
But how do you put together a whole person and make them feel real to readers?
I draw on my inner Dr. Frankenstein.
Well, sort of. My main characters are women and girls like me. They have a lot of my personal traits, good and bad. They also have characteristics, needs, desires, and talents that are not mine. They have attributes drawn from people I know and characters I’ve read or seen in film. Once I get a good picture of her in my mind, I like to identify positive and negative traits from the Positive Trait Thesaurus and the Negative Trait Thesaurus. Other good tools recommended by Sharon Michalove, are the Emotion Thesaurus, and Conflict Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman. Those books help me refine my characters’ actions and reactions. They also give me a good sense of what emotions to draw out when the going gets tough.
Daphne Ann Post is the fifteen year old main character in the book I just sent to my editor. She is eighty percent me at that age, and twenty percent make believe. She is much braver than I ever was at fifteen, and a much more talented musician. She trusts her friends, but lies to adults when necessary. I never lied, I was too afraid of getting in trouble. But Daphne gets psychic impressions—something I’ve had some experience with—though she doesn’t trust herself enough to believe they are true. She is—like most teenagers—a product of her family environment. And I have put her in a situation where all these traits will shine like the sun.
I’m int he process of creating new characters to hang out with Daphne in her next book. I will draw on the best traits from people I know, and in case you’re looking for yourself in my books, I’ll add some hot cayenne pepper and cardamom to throw you off the trail. Then I’ll add a fistful of trouble and a talent for bad decision making. That doesn’t sound like you, does it?
I can’t wait to start writing this one!
I like how you are creating these characters. I didn't know about these books and will give them a look.
Sounds like a great recipe to me!