Character Creation and Novel Writing
by Tom Farr
This post was originally published as “Creating Characters that Drive Your Story” at whisperproject.net on September 21, 2015.
Characters, who they are and the choices they make, drive a story. When Star Wars: The Force Awakens comes out this December, many longtime fans of the Star Wars saga will be drawn to the movie simply because of the characters they already know and love. Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo are iconic characters that, along with other characters like Darth Vader, C3PO, R2D2, and Chewbacca, made the original Star Wars trilogy the powerful story it was.
As National Novel Writing Month approaches in November, some pre-planning can go a long way in helping you to draft a compelling story that intrigues you and the people you hope will read it. Part of that planning is creating characters that will drive the story the way Luke Skywalker drove the Star Wars trilogy.
The Art of Creating Characters
Many writers struggle with coming up with story lines or scene ideas, and that’s why creating characters at the outset is so important. Stephen King, in his book On Writing, talks about putting characters into a situation and seeing what they’ll do. This is great advice, but first you need to understand the characters in order to correctly tell us a story about what they would do in any given situation.
Creating character biographies is the key to understanding the characters of your story, and there are four main areas you want to consider when creating characters.
1. Background
What is the background of your character? Where did he or she come from? When you begin your story, your characters are the summation of all the experiences they’ve ever had. When you’re developing your characters, write out the things that have shaped them into who they are. What are some of their most significant experiences? The kind of family they grew up in and economic status have surely had some effect on them.
Cultural or ethnic background is also important to consider. When you’re creating characters, you want to know as much about them as possible. Most of what you discover you won’t use in your novel, but everything about the character will inform the decisions they make in your story.
Knowing your characters’ backgrounds can be helpful because you won’t be scrambling to shape the character as you’re writing. You already know where they’ve been and what experiences they’ve had that might shape the decisions they make in your story.
2. Beliefs and Values
Creating characters should feel like you’re creating real people. Real people have worldviews or specific beliefs they have about the world. They might believe that an all-knowing and all-loving God rules the world behind the scenes or that an impersonal God who is always angry is waiting to punish everyone who does bad. They might believe the universe came about by chance or that something call fate controls everyone’s destiny. They may not think about these things at all, but, when pressed, they’ll have some sort of answer for some of the most important questions of life. What do your characters believe?
Values are also important when creating characters. What do your characters consider to be important? Family might be important, or friends might come before family. Your characters might believe that divorce is awful, or they might think that marriage is something terrible to be tied down by. They may value self-sacrifice or value their own lives above others. Whatever values they hold will inform the decisions they make in your story.
3. Habits
What are the things that your characters do without thinking about it? What are the actions they just naturally take everyday? Maybe your character looks away when someone tries to meet their eyes. Maybe your character has a habit of telling lies when lies are obviously unnecessary. Your character might smoke or drink after sending the kids off to school.
Habits will give your characters a feeling of authenticity. Whatever habits they have, they will probably show up somewhere in your story. Chances are that your character’s main character flaw may show up in a negative habit, and this habit will have to be dealt with before the end of the story.
4. Motivations
If habits cover what your characters do naturally, motivations cover why they do the things they do. Maybe your character can’t look people in the eyes because his mother used to beat him when she was talking to him unless he looked down at the ground.
Motivations will often touch on how the experiences of your characters’ backgrounds shaped their habits and values. Motivations may not always be seen in your story, but you should know why your character is doing whatever he’s doing at any given moment in your story.
The Value of Creating Character Biographies
If you spend the time to define all that we’ve talked about above, you’ll know your characters better than anyone. And the great thing about genuinely knowing people is that you know what they would do in almost any given situation. Having detailed character biographies can be just the way to start generating ideas for what will happen in your story.
For example, if Carlos can’t look people in the eyes because of past abuse by his mother, but he believes that helping others is important, your story might take shape to include Carlos being forced into a situation where he has to save a woman’s life. After saving her, she tries to thank him, but he won’t look her in the eyes, and she begins to wonder about this mysterious man who seems brave and yet can’t look someone in the eye.
The story could go in a million different directions from there, but the point is that fully formed characters are ready to live out a story once they’re fully formed. You just have to create circumstances to put the characters in and record what happens.
Further Resources on Creating Characters
Author K.M. Weiland has a great resource for interviewing your characters and getting the answers to several of the questions I mentioned above. Just join her Helping Writers Become Authors Newsletter to get free copy of “Crafting Unforgettable Characters.”
Another great resource is a book from Writers Digest Books called Creating Characters: The Complete Guide to Populating Your Fiction. It’s packed full of essays by well-known authors on the strategies they use to create truly compelling characters for their stories.
Your Turn
Who is your favorite character in a novel or movie? What about that character makes him or her your favorite? Please share in the responses below.
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Tom Farr is a blogger, storyteller, and screenwriter who teaches English Language Arts to high school students. He loves creating and spending time with his wife and three children. He blogs regularly about writing and storytelling at The Whisper Project.
