Where Do Characters Come From
So, someone asked recently on Twitter where characters come from. I started to answer a couple of times, but it proved difficult to do in sets of 280 characters. Plus, I’ve been meaning to start updating my blog regularly, so here we are.
[Warning: Minor spoilers for Yellow Tape and Coffee ahead]
I’m not claiming that this is the only way to write. I’m not claiming this is even the best way to write. The truth is, everyone has a different process. Perhaps your characters just stroll into your head fully formed. That is apparently how Harry Potter started. He just showed up one day, riding on a train and all JK Rowling had to do was figure out where he was going and why and what happened once he got there. (Assuming I’m remembering the details of an interview I skimmed through about ten years ago correctly.)
My process, though, is a bit different and more involved. And again, I’m only describing my own process here, not trying to tell anyone else how to do it or claiming I know better than you do what you do.
“*How* do you create them?”
I’ll start with Veer, the first main character introduced in my first novel (Yellow Tape and Coffee, soon to be available through the best bookstores everywhere!)
Veer started when I was obsessively reading about Nellie Bly. I do that sort of thing. For a while it was John Brown. Lately I’ve been reading all about the planet Venus, but that’s for practical research. Anyway, I wanted to do something with Nellie Bly, because she was awesome and nobody remembers who she was anymore so I wanted to share.
I didn’t want to write a story involving Nellie Bly herself, so I decided a modern day reporter who had grown up idolizing her and wanting to be like her. I also had a story I was kicking around about what it would actually take to keep an organization of werewolves secret from the larger world, so this seemed like a good story to put her in.
Nellie was most known for going undercover and ferreting out and reporting on secrets that powerful people didn’t want known. I liked the idea of undercover work, and I’ve always been interested in security penetration and infiltration (I mean, who isn’t right?)
So, when we begin the story, that’s what I know about her:
She’s a print journalist
She’s specializes in infiltration and undercover work
And, going in to writing her first scene, of her trying to get into a crime scene, that’s all I knew. Writing her banter, I discovered that she’s working the crime beat but that’s not where she wants to be. Complication, and motivation! Those are good, so I put them in there. Her real goal was to report on corporate misconduct, but street crime is what’s paying the bills right now.
I wanted to introduce the werewolves early and not drag on a mystery that everyone was already going to know the answer to. (Thank you, Gra Linnae for that bit of wisdom!), so I decided Veer already was one. So, another trait added to her: She can’t report on the werewolves not only because everyone would think she’s crazy, but because she is one and, even more complications, she’s befriended their leader and doesn’t want to harm them. So, inner conflict to go with all the outer conflict: Should she expose them, or not? Exposing them may be what’s best for them, but does she honestly believe that or is she just trying to justify it to herself? That was to be a question that she struggles with throughout the story.
So now I’ve got a character that I know a lot about. She’s got inner conflict, and outer conflict. Hopes, dreams, and frustrations. That was enough to go on. Other details, like her backstory with her conservative upbringing and her full ride scholarship to UCLA and exactly how she came to be so interested in Nellie Bly in the first place all came later, as they became relevant to the story. (For the most part, I figured out these details just as they were being written.)
So, that’s Veer. the other major characters had similar geneses: Started with a couple of traits I liked, then got more as they served the story.
Some, though, just showed up because I needed someone to fulfill a role. Phil was there just because Michael needed someone to talk to, and Aaron existed because I needed someone for Michael to talk to who wasn’t Phil.
[Warning: Minor spoilers for Yellow Tape and Coffee ahead]
I’m not claiming that this is the only way to write. I’m not claiming this is even the best way to write. The truth is, everyone has a different process. Perhaps your characters just stroll into your head fully formed. That is apparently how Harry Potter started. He just showed up one day, riding on a train and all JK Rowling had to do was figure out where he was going and why and what happened once he got there. (Assuming I’m remembering the details of an interview I skimmed through about ten years ago correctly.)
My process, though, is a bit different and more involved. And again, I’m only describing my own process here, not trying to tell anyone else how to do it or claiming I know better than you do what you do.
“*How* do you create them?”
I’ll start with Veer, the first main character introduced in my first novel (Yellow Tape and Coffee, soon to be available through the best bookstores everywhere!)
Veer started when I was obsessively reading about Nellie Bly. I do that sort of thing. For a while it was John Brown. Lately I’ve been reading all about the planet Venus, but that’s for practical research. Anyway, I wanted to do something with Nellie Bly, because she was awesome and nobody remembers who she was anymore so I wanted to share.
I didn’t want to write a story involving Nellie Bly herself, so I decided a modern day reporter who had grown up idolizing her and wanting to be like her. I also had a story I was kicking around about what it would actually take to keep an organization of werewolves secret from the larger world, so this seemed like a good story to put her in.
Nellie was most known for going undercover and ferreting out and reporting on secrets that powerful people didn’t want known. I liked the idea of undercover work, and I’ve always been interested in security penetration and infiltration (I mean, who isn’t right?)
So, when we begin the story, that’s what I know about her:
She’s a print journalist
She’s specializes in infiltration and undercover work
And, going in to writing her first scene, of her trying to get into a crime scene, that’s all I knew. Writing her banter, I discovered that she’s working the crime beat but that’s not where she wants to be. Complication, and motivation! Those are good, so I put them in there. Her real goal was to report on corporate misconduct, but street crime is what’s paying the bills right now.
I wanted to introduce the werewolves early and not drag on a mystery that everyone was already going to know the answer to. (Thank you, Gra Linnae for that bit of wisdom!), so I decided Veer already was one. So, another trait added to her: She can’t report on the werewolves not only because everyone would think she’s crazy, but because she is one and, even more complications, she’s befriended their leader and doesn’t want to harm them. So, inner conflict to go with all the outer conflict: Should she expose them, or not? Exposing them may be what’s best for them, but does she honestly believe that or is she just trying to justify it to herself? That was to be a question that she struggles with throughout the story.
So now I’ve got a character that I know a lot about. She’s got inner conflict, and outer conflict. Hopes, dreams, and frustrations. That was enough to go on. Other details, like her backstory with her conservative upbringing and her full ride scholarship to UCLA and exactly how she came to be so interested in Nellie Bly in the first place all came later, as they became relevant to the story. (For the most part, I figured out these details just as they were being written.)
So, that’s Veer. the other major characters had similar geneses: Started with a couple of traits I liked, then got more as they served the story.
Some, though, just showed up because I needed someone to fulfill a role. Phil was there just because Michael needed someone to talk to, and Aaron existed because I needed someone for Michael to talk to who wasn’t Phil.