Let's Create Characters

Where do we get ideas for our characters?

 

An interesting question.  We’ve all seen lists of ideas on how to make the characters in our books into real people. In fact we have one coming out in a few weeks also, but still, how do we come up with that special character in the beginning?

Sue: For my villain in my first Meg mystery, I thought of my first boyfriend. He and I were hot stuff in high school, but once we were in college he dropped me like the preverbal hot potato. So was I hurt, you betcha. Now it was get even time. I delighted in not only making him the bad guy but I even went so far as to give the villain his real first name. Oh, how I loved it when he got

his.

 

Becky: Right. I too take people I have known or even parts of myself and turn them into fictional characters. Usually it is just one little thing or an incident that I might pull from someone around me. For instance in my romance, Home Fires Burning, I took a line from my mother and the story idea from her romance with my dad. The line she always repeated, from the first time she saw him as a young teen, was, "I'm going to marry that guy some day." She fell for him from the moment she laid eyes on him and I took that love story and built it into my romance. I set the whole thing on a Colorado ranch, which was where they met.

 Sue: Other characters somehow just appear in one’s mind. Where they come from, I’m not sure. My theory is that the brain, while sleeping, those gray cells are working on possible characters for you to use. 

Becky: I'm also always looking for special characters who can play off each other. For instance in my Dead Man's Rules, I have two characters in a small New Mexico town who have both spent time living in Los Angeles. All Cere my heroine can think about is how to cover a big story so she can redeem herself in her boss's eyes and get back to the city. But for Rafe, it means serenity and peace. He loves the small town that he has chosen as a refuge from the dangerous big city.

 

Sue: While other characters come from life. I use friends and relatives and sometimes just people I met or see in my daily travels. I might take the gray beard from the guy who sold me new tires, or the bent nose from the butcher who sold me my meat. Another character I used was from one of the neighbors down the block and how she was always butting into everyone’s business. I made her a nosy sister-in-law that needed a good telling off. Lots of fun.

Becky: I do the same. I'm always observing people and picking up little bits and pieces from them that I find fascinating. As writers it's something  I think we need to foster in ourselves. Be observant and pay attention to everything around us.

 

You never know when you will be meeting your next fictional character.

 

We hope you'll watch for our new Dottie book on characters, Let's Write a Story: Creating Memorable Characters, coming soon. It can help you learn how to make cardboard cut-out characters into actual story people your readers will love.

Developing Our Characters

Both of us write fiction… mysteries… although Becky has romance in her books while Sue's are cozies with little or no romance.

But we both need to create characters that “fit” into the story line.

Becky:   My characters pop into my head and I find myself starting to develop them as the story goes along.  Sometimes I don't know them completely until I have finished with the first draft of my book.  I keep a blank character profile handy and as I find out something about a character I will write it down.  Often by the time the book is done, most of the blanks are filled in.  Then I can use that profile as I edit, to either deepen the character or make certain he/she doesn't go off the rails somewhere.

Sue:  I have a pretty good idea of my character even before I start writing. But as Becky says, they develop during the writing both physically, mentally and of course, emotionally. Sometimes when I get to the end of a scene or chapter and when I know what has to happen for the plot to progress I find that I have to “give” some new aspect to the character.

 Becky: Right. When I first start out I really don’t have a great grasp on how my hero/heroine is going to react until the first problems start to pop up. This comes quite often as I am writing.

Sue: I agree. When the protagonist sees the dead body or example, how do you want this character to react?

Becky: And when they first kiss, what should the reaction be so the story will continue? Do I have them get all mushy and lovey-dovey and suddenly, if this is a romance, the story is over on page 15? Well, of course not.  I am going to throw come conflicts and other roadblocks in the way. I want them to have to work to make that romance become a total reality.

Sue: Absolutely. Here is where you have to deepen the emotional and mental aspects of the character, whether the good protagonist or the villain. So I keep a three-ring notebook by my computer. Each character has his/her own page where I am careful to note first their physical appearance and then add personality traits and emotional responses as I develop them in each scene. Little did I know when I started working on my latest cozy that one of the main characters needed to have an eidetic memory…but by the time I got half way through the first draft I realized the plot wouldn’t work unless he could remember certain happenings. 

Becky:  And little did I know when I first started writing my Dead Man Series that I was going to have one peripheral character who got under my skin and started demanding a bigger role in the story. The funny thing is people who have read the book tell me that he's gotten under their skins as well.  I was already halfway through writing book two, so while he plays a role in it, he wasn't the main character. Now I am working on book three, and telling his story.

So speaking of characters... we would like everyone to know that we are in the final stages of editing our very own character ebook in which we have pulled together all the various elements and factors a writer needs to consider when building and develop his/her characters for their next book.  It's in the final editing stages at the moment, so please watch for it on Amazon… it has this catchy title, Creating Memorable Characters, and it will be available sometime in March.

After that, our next ebook is The Plotting Wheel, and every writer who has ever stumbled over a plot problem will love this book. Watch for it sometime this summer.