Drawing Up a Character

Oh man, exploring character is the only reason I have a plot at all. (5 & 6) I find that it's best to work around the details of the character you've created. Rather than figuring out the best time to have a character tell somebody that they have a troubled relationship with their mother, just keep in mind how that effects them in each scene. Part of the experience of reading is interpreting those details for yourself.

(1) Basic things like looks, habits, and preferences are only important as the "tells" of deeper aspects of character. I couldn't care less about a character's favorite color. What's more important is how that character sees the world, what they think of themselves. The two most important questions to ask are, "What is this person's sweetest dream?" and "What is this person's worst nightmare?"

(2 & 3) That's just personal preference. I'm usually visual, but I actually prefer to talk out my characters with someone else and make playlists of music that applies to them.

(4) I don't think that's something that you sit down and finish like a D&D character sheet. It's something you have occasional insights into, something you might return to later when you have a new idea about the story, something that reacts to and reflects how the other characters in their world are growing and developing.

Here's my example character:

Iluk is a strong young man afraid of his own body. He grew up in a culture that relies heavily on meat with no concept of vegetarianism, so for him the basic act of eating to survive is an agony because he has to kill other living things. His own metabolism is an enemy and this only gets worse as he grows up into a large, muscular person. Iluk always has a sense that he has to atone for a crime he can't really define. Not having a label for it, he generally blames his own masculine body. This is the core of who he is as a person.

The way I show this throughout the story: Iluk is a pathological hard worker. Physical exhaustion helps in two ways: it makes him feel like he's punished his body and lessens its power as a possibly destructive force. He lets children play very rough with him, even hurting him, while remaining more gentle than is necessary. He starves himself. In his POV chapters, Iluk often doesn't notice what's going on around him because he's too preoccupied with controlling his own awkwardly large body. Iluk has a recurring nightmare about accidentally crushing a pet caterpillar. He's obsessed with hero stories. When he falls in love, he dreams not about living happily ever after with her, but about dying while doing something to save her.

Originally, Iluk was only an idea to create a POV character that would see my main character as more sympathetic than others. But as she developed, he also developed into something much more interesting. As her temporary love interest, he became a tragic foil for her. He also came to represent a point of view along the spectrum of my exploration of the ways in which people use suffering to create meaning, which ended up being the central idea of the book. If I had kept Iluk as what I originally made him, he would be a really boring character without any of what I described above. That's why I think it's really important to keep coming back to your people as you go and let them reflect all of the other work you're doing.

CBJason said:

1. When drawing up a character, what elements are involved? I was thinking a character profile would include basic description of what they look like, their likes and dislikes, and their overall outlook on life.

Click to expand...

I don't write characters, I write people. At least, I try to. Creating 'profiles' before I've even started writing merely makes me feel shunted into the "I'm writing a character" mindset, which I really don't like.

I make notes as I go along. Sometimes I know what a character will look like, sometimes I only know a few aspects of their personality. If it gets to the point where I have so many characters that I can't be "in character" while I'm writing, that's when I make notes.

2. Where do you do this in your work flow? Is this something you include in that particular subsection of your outline, or do you "pants" it into something like a 3x5 card, or some other compartmentalized area, in whatever software you use for tangential writing content (say like in Scrivener)?

Click to expand...

Pants, almost totally. I have a notes section in Scrivener, which I add to. I also have a research section and a snippets section. Anything that I feel is pertinent, I scribble down.

3. Is there a preferred method people use to flesh such things out? I've read about the Snowflake method for building out a story, but it seems this could also be applicable to character development. Are there other methods people use for drawing up a character?

Click to expand...

If I know that a character is going to be a main character, I jot down notes, but I mostly develop characters as I go along as the need for further background crops up. For example, in a story I'm currently working on, I'm writing about a regiment of soldiers in WWII. I have nine 'core' soldiers (technically eight, now that one's dead) and probably a dozen supporting characters. When a supporting character steps further into the limelight, I think more on the backstory and what motivates that character. Until that point, it's not needed.

4. I could see the task of drawing up a character becoming its own project where you eventually have spent more time on that than on the book itself. At what point do you draw the line and say "I have enough on this character. Time to move on to another task for the book."? Or, does that ever happen?

Click to expand...

Nope. I have a lot of head-time to think these things through. I tend to do most of my character development in my head, and live them so thoroughly that I rarely need to jot notes down.

5. Have you ever gone through the process of drawing up a character and found that you have more character details than are actually included in the book? If so, what percentage of your "source material" do you end up just throwing away versus keeping?

Click to expand...

Nope.

6. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, how do you determine where and when to reveal the elements of a character in the actual writing of your work (whether that's a novel, short story, etc.)?

Click to expand...

When the story requires it.

For example, I have a character who initially started out as a name in a flash-back. Then I needed something sarcastic to be said, and that character was available to say it. From there, a sort of smart-ass, wise-guy attitude developed. And that was lots of fun.

Then, he threw me a curve ball and fell in love with one of his fellow soldiers (my MC) and confessed his feelings in a Dear John letter left behind after his supposed death. And I was like, seriously? Because I don't do romance, and until then, I'd never done M/M romance.

If I'd mapped that character out from the start, none of that would've happened. Most of the time, my characters do as I tell them, and what the story needs from them... but occasionally they surprise me. And that's what I'm in it for.

ETA: Oh yeah, if anyone wanted to include a fully "drawn up" character from their notes that could be insanely helpful too...just sayin'!

Click to expand...

I suppose my story is my notes. My characters in the particular story mentioned above do get a lot of praise, but in this instance, it's fanfic, therefore not hard to stand out from the ubiquitous Mary-Sues.

Sorry I can't be of more help. Sometimes I just don't know what my characters are going to do until the story puts them into a situation they need to react to. That's the whole point of my writing. I could subject my characters to deep psychological profiling, but then it would take everything organic out of my writing.

I use pretty much the same methods for character writing in flash fiction, fan fiction and novels. It's just the balance I've found.

When it comes to characters, you could say I'm a pantser. Which doesn't mean there isn't some "drawing up". Of course there is, only it happens very fast and only in my head rather than on paper. There was once that I did go into that detailed character study, which ended up with the character pretty much living a life of their own and in the end didn't end up in any story at all. They sort of became too large for a story and could not be shoehorned in anywhere I find an overly detailed pre-planned character to be a problem for building a story. Besides, there are so many aspect of a character that have nothing to do with the story. Do we really care if Indiana Jones prefers ice-cream or custard with his cake? Or what's his favourite colour, or what book did he read last? A detail like that could be useful though, like that time in one of the Batman movies where villain Mr Freeze (A Schwarzenegger) is revealed to be wearing fluffy bunny slippers (or something similar, I haven't seen it for a long time). That was a riot! It added a cute side to this otherwise cold character, it made him likeable - the detail had a purpose. So, I'd say the best way to draw up a character is start with the purpose first and then come up with the corresponding detail.

CBJason said:

1. When drawing up a character, what elements are involved? I was thinking a character profile would include basic description of what they look like, their likes and dislikes, and their overall outlook on life. --> Yes, something like that, considering the thoughts above.

2. Where do you do this in your work flow? --> taking notes like these is the best feature of the various "writing software" I've come upon. But a simple list is also enough:
"Joe Jones: tall, dark and handsome, likes his lemonade cold and bubbly, prefers hawaiian shirts and walking on the beach at night." This will expand as the story grows, so that all little details about Joe are added here for quick reference. You don't want to be caught out saying that Joe likes to stir his martini on pate 21 but then saying he always has it stirred, on page 97.

3. Is there a preferred method people use to flesh such things out? --> use real people as models

4. I could see the task of drawing up a character becoming its own project --> well, that's up to you. I can spend hours thinking little details about the above mentioned Joe (who looks very much like Tom Cruise) but that's just a waste of time, really

5. Have you ever gone through the process of drawing up a character and found that you have more character details than are actually included in the book? If so, what percentage of your "source material" do you end up just throwing away versus keeping?e-->all of it. I got bored.

6. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, how do you determine where and when to reveal the elements of a character in the actual writing of your work (whether that's a novel, short story, etc.)? -->Ah, the main issue here indeedy. I'd say that everything a person does is part of their personality, so the answer to "where" is "everywhere". How do you know a person is shy? Well, they sort of stand apart from others, even at the bus stop, perhaps they dislike crowded places and avoid queues at the shop, they don't look people in the eyes... Every time you make this character do something, think about their traits. If their favourite colour is blue, maybe they will be attracted by somebody wearing blue at a party. If their favourite food is fried chicken feet, perhaps that may come up in a conversation at the party to break the ice and make a new friend. Just sprinkle little things all over.

Click to expand...

CBJason said:

I have always been a pantser, and am slowly learning how to outline stories and my brain is starting to think more about things like character development. So, along that vein, I am curious about a few things:

Click to expand...

I'm a "pantser" too

1. When drawing up a character, what elements are involved? I was thinking a character profile would include basic description of what they look like, their likes and dislikes, and their overall outlook on life.

Click to expand...

I don't do any of this. I let them develop organically as I write the story. I write in either first person or close 3rd (or whatever it's called where it's like first person only written in 3rd) so I'm always writing from inside the MC's head, and the process of doing this and considering how the MC feels naturally results in the development of the character. For developing other characters, I sometimes try to view the world from their POV, but without writing it. Just to give an idea of how they'd react in the various situations my MC finds him/herself in.

2. Where do you do this in your work flow? Is this something you include in that particular subsection of your outline, or do you "pants" it into something like a 3x5 card, or some other compartmentalized area, in whatever software you use for tangential writing content (say like in Scrivener)?

Click to expand...

I have a file for keeping notes for the purpose of maintaining continuity with regards to secondary characters, but not that much ever gets noted down and I don't refer to it much, and sometimes when I go back to it, I find that the character's changed beyond recognition and the previously recorded info is next to useless.

I write in scrivener and use the research section of the documents to file any notes related to stuff I've researched, or anything I've noted down for continuity or worldbuilding or whatever.

3. Is there a preferred method people use to flesh such things out? I've read about the Snowflake method for building out a story, but it seems this could also be applicable to character development. Are there other methods people use for drawing up a character?

Click to expand...

The only method I use is to try to view the situation through the character's eyes and making up some of their backstory to explain why they act in certain ways. Most of this never gets written down (although I try to include something of the MC's backstory and that of any characters where the backstory's relevant to the plot). If I do write any of it down it goes in my info for continuity file (as explained above). On the whole, if it's worth remembering, I remember it. If I forget it, it probably wasn't worth remembering. Though maintaining continuity is of course important, hence my file for that.

4. I could see the task of drawing up a character becoming its own project where you eventually have spent more time on that than on the book itself. At what point do you draw the line and say "I have enough on this character. Time to move on to another task for the book."? Or, does that ever happen?

Click to expand...

It's never happened, because the development of characters happens as I'm writing the book. For example, if I'm writing a scene involving the MC and some other characters, then I need to consider how my MC reacts in the situation and how the other characters react.

What has happened on occasion is a secondary character becoming more interesting to me than the main character, at which point I write the story from that character's POV instead.

5. Have you ever gone through the process of drawing up a character and found that you have more character details than are actually included in the book? If so, what percentage of your "source material" do you end up just throwing away versus keeping?

Click to expand...

Lots of characters have backstory and explanations/motivations for doing stuff that doesn't get into the manuscript or is only hinted at. It doesn't get "thrown away" as such, because it all just stays in my head. The info in my continuity file gets discarded sooner or later and is used for continuity, not as a reservoir for details to be included.

6. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, how do you determine where and when to reveal the elements of a character in the actual writing of your work (whether that's a novel, short story, etc.)?

Click to expand...

As I write from the point of view of one character, it gets revealed when my MC learns about it, and what my MC would pay attention to. Occasionally, things are described in a way that means the reader can make inferences about other characters that my MC fails to pick up on. But all of that would still be through things observed by my MC. Granted this doesn't apply to writing in omni POV.

All my characters are based on people I've met at some point in my life. I'm a martial artist and a biker, and my parents were criminals and so spent some time in prison... so I've met some peculiar characters. Although characters in my writing are mostly composites of people I've known, they come alive in my mind and I feel that I know them while writing. A character description helps me build that feeling of familiarity.

The profiles I create are mostly for consistency. You don't want your character to have blonde hair in chapter 5 and brown hair in chapter 10.. unless she's female and has dyed her hair. As to when these traits are described in the story, it depends... when it feels right.

Just my opinion, but I think a character profile should include the following:

1. I usually do the character descriptions while I am doing the outline. Each one as I encounter them.
2. Physical description (obviously).
3. Favorite words and phrases they use (for dialogue).
4. Some basic background information. The amount you put in here depends on how frequently a character appears in your work. Even if I don't explicitly use this info in the story, it helps me create POV for the character.
5. Does this character strongly like or dislike another character?
6. What is this characters motivation within your story?

My stories all seem to start with "what if" questions. What if a man blamed his daughter for someone's death? Which leads to more specific questions, like what kind of guy would do that? And in what ways would that shape the little girl? And so on and so forth. It doesn't take very long to have a very basic skeleton clue of what these two people might be like, and I write very little of this down. This all goes on it my head until it becomes too much to remember.

I like to do full on character worksheets right around the beginning. I've found a couple online that are several pages worth of questions, not just physical descriptions but questions about careers, religious beliefs, family background, etc. I'll cart these worksheets around with me for awhile, but to be perfectly honest most of it I never look at again once I've started writing. I think of it as freewriting to build my understanding of the characters. And because I use a worksheet, there is a natural end to this process. Once it's filled out, it's done. I don't start properly writing the story until these are finished, and even if I never consult it again I don't find it useless. Ruminating is a large part of my artistic process.

As for where and when to reveal my characters...I don't really see that as something that can be helped. People do things the way that they do them and that reveals their character all over the place. Think about yourself and something mundane you do, like getting ready for work. This is such an ordinary process that you would think everybody does it more or less the same, but our character shows up in the details. Are you always rushed, or is your time structured and smooth? Have you laid your clothes out the night before or do you rifle through your sock drawer every day to find a match? Do you cook eggs or grab a bagel to go? The answers show what kind of a person you are, and possibly what's important to you. In the same way, what your character does (or doesn't do) and the way they do it reveals who they are.

The story is my "character notes." That's where they're conceived and where they grow and change. I don't have any notes, plans, summaries, or descriptions outside the pages of the story.

I'm somewhere in between a panster and outliner. I outline my plot, but I almost always come up with my characters by pantsing it. I just can't create characters through things like character profiles. It's more of an organic process for me, which isn't very helpful, I'm afraid. But I do a lot more planning with my plots, and that sometimes leads to changes to revelations about my characters. Basically, the characters' personalities and basic characteristics will feel very organic to me (I don't consciously plan any of it), but if I realize that the plot is calling for someone to have a different ethnicity or have different political views or something, then the character will often change to reflect that. Or I'll change my plot. Whichever seems to work better.

My characters get fleshed out more as I write.

auzerais said:

I like to do full on character worksheets right around the beginning. I've found a couple online that are several pages worth of questions, not just physical descriptions but questions about careers, religious beliefs, family background, etc. I'll cart these worksheets around with me for awhile, but to be perfectly honest most of it I never look at again once I've started writing. I think of it as freewriting to build my understanding of the characters. And because I use a worksheet, there is a natural end to this process. Once it's filled out, it's done.

Click to expand...

In the course of writing the actual story, do you never get new ideas about your characters?

caw

Interesting to read about how others create their characters... I'm generally a pants-er, but I do tend to start out a story with some inspiration about a character and a challenging situation they're in. So I usually know the MC/s in a general sense before I start writing, and what I know of them and of their situation gives me my first clues about the setting and plot that I will flesh out as I go. Having said this, I don't know the MC/s REALLY well until I get in there and they start moving around and doing things that often surprise me and get me to know them better. Usually it's more like: I see their gender, usually sexual orientation (though I have been surprised by that at times as things develop), general age, general attitude (ie how they would be perceived by others, how they present themselves), get a sense of their ethnic and/or racial background, things like that. I tend to imagine them in trouble, and dig into that trouble to figure out what it says about the world around them and how they relate to it. Sometimes I see two characters pretty strongly because the conflict is between two people at the start. Sometimes, I just see my MC, and fill in other characters around them as needed. Often these other characters start off in service to the plot, and are shallow at the start, but become more alive as I write.

An example, since all of this is kind of vague: the antagonist for a series of books I'm working on started as a what-if. What if shapeshifters couldn't remember much when they changed their shape, since their actual brains would be changing at a cellular level? (Not that they would know the science aspect of the reason behind it, and there are magical aspects to consider here, too, but I digress.) I pictured this desperate shapeshifter adrift in a world of humans, posing as one and trying to figure out more about their own past, and since I knew this was a secondary-world fantasy story from the start, it was easy for me to think, well, this poor shifter would be seeking out someone with some kind of magic or Seeing ability to help them find answers. But... wouldn't it be neat if the Seer actually lied to them? Used the shifter, and their powers, for the Seer's own ends?

Concurrently I was playing with an idea about a different sort of vampiric heroine, a sympathetic (but still blood-sucking) protagonist who was nothing like the "typical" vampire you see romanticized in so much literature. She was a black lesbian mage who was the leader of a group of outsiders; I wasn't sure about the specifics of why they were outsiders yet (they ended up being a persecuted nomadic clan). I had wanted to play with the idea of a false prophecy for her, one that led her down a rather dark path in her quest to protect her people, and that idea just kind of dovetailed so well into the shapeshifter idea (that prophets/Seers have their own motivations and can use their reputation as truth-seers to tell strategic lies or omit certain things as it pleases them). I built the world and plot around these two and all other characters kind of came as the plot demanded and became more fleshed-out over time.

TL;DR that's my process, haha. A certain image of a character, and a general idea of their motive/struggle... and I just kind of hit the ground running and make all the rest up as I go (and re-make what doesn't fit as I have better ideas, and re-make certain things AGAIN as I edit, etc...) I usually know what they want and have some notion of what might stand in their way; I might even know *if* they'll get what they want, just not the specifics of how they get there (and sometimes I'm wrong, at first, about the main obstacle they face, ie I had no idea the shifter was my antagonist at the start, I thought I had two MCs whose lives would collide and they would be allies... welp..... not so much...).

blacbird said:

In the course of writing the actual story, do you never get new ideas about your characters?

caw

Click to expand...

Of course. That's usually the point of the story.

blacbird said:

In the course of writing the actual story, do you never get new ideas about your characters?

caw

Click to expand...

Someone answered this for me already, but of course I do. The worksheet just serves as a jumping off point. I never go back to the worksheet but the characters grow and change and magnify. Only very rarely do they end up resembling the people in the worksheets.

Oh, man. If I had such detailed lists, I'd never write a story. I write the plot first and then fill in the blanks.

But I know what each character looks, sounds, and even smells like. I have a general idea of their attitudes and outlook.

I start with a MyersBriggs type, a D&D alignment, and my character's plot-role at the start of the story.

And that's it I'm about 85% planner, 15% pantser, but my character-planning focuses on the quick-and-dirty core that I then flesh out with further details later on.

When I started my Urban Fantasy, my protagonists were 4 bank robbers

• Alec Shorman: Lawful Evil ESFP man
• Charlie Petersen: Neutral Evil INTP woman
• Amy Carmine: Chaotic Evil ESFJ woman
• Jason Carmine: True Neutral INFP/INFJ man

And my antagonist, also a bank robber but secretly a vampire, was Chaotic Evil INTJ woman.

I then came up with a backstory that involved the group formerly running a cocaine ring that got destroyed in a turf war (at which point Charlie became more interesting as an ISTJ than as an INTP, Jason became more interesting as a straight-up INFJ instead of a borderline J/P, though both remained Neutral Evil and True Neutral respectively), and now they're deep in debt with a loan shark who helped set them up (Neutral Evil ENFJ with two bodyguards, a Lawful Evil INFJ and a Neutral Evil INTP).

I don't know if I'll be able to give any screen-time to Alec's argument with the vampire about whether Jack Nicholson or Heath Ledger was a better Joker, but I did make it important that Amy has made headlines as the Deadliest Female Serial Killer in American History and that the vampire wants to steal "The Richmond Ripper's" press.

CBJason said:

What was the initial thought on who character X is and what their journey would be like?
Did the character go through a challenge/change or development shift as you wrote that you found unexpected?
What is your final impression of character X after finishing? Is it the 100% the same, 180 degree polar opposite of where you started or somewhere in between?

Another possible fun question set to explore would be:
When you hear from readers and their perceptions of the character(s), do they differ from yours ever, and how much of a difference (if any) is there when talking with readers, whether beta or post production?

Click to expand...

These are a lot less consistent from one project to the next

Simpson17866 said:

I start with a MyersBriggs type, a D&D alignment, and my character's plot-role at the start of the story.

Click to expand...

That's an interesting system for creating characters.

Three-part process, for me.

1. I start by selecting an appropriate picture of an unknown actor/actress from a casting agency. Easier for me to get any physical description consistent, if I have a visual frame of reference.

2. Then I'll create some character flaws and ticks, because I think they're what gives a character their flavor. If I get stuck, I'll use something like this, to spark my imagination:

http://www.springhole.net/writing_roleplaying_randomators/character-flaws.htm

3. Then I'll jot down any goals they might have, and a 1-2 sentence backstory.

And that's about all I do. I wing the rest.

I can pretty much guarantee that wherever they start -- they'll end up somewhere else. Tricksy characters.

So I'm going to be the complete opposite of everything I just read.

First, I draw a (random) character. I see if I can fit them into a currently developing story. Regardless if I can, or not, I end up giving them a name, then an age, etc.

So uh, sometimes I end up having random characters just floating around as sketches if I don't know what to do with them.

*links lead to sketches from my art tumblr

I didn't spend any time on character sheets before writing this story, though I had a general idea in my head of what the MCs looked like and what they wanted. Both what they looked like and what they wanted changed as I actually wrote the story and things began to click into place. In addition to a "Plotting" document, I also keep a "Character Notes_Scenes" document where I can track changes and preserve snippets of story that illustrate character, and I often refer to it when I need a reminder or when I'm thinking about changing something (it's also a darling graveyard, lol).

On the next story, I intend to spend a little more time upfront plotting a loose sort of character arc and storyline. I didn't know how to do that (or even know that character arc was really a thing) when I started this story like two years ago, so I'm hoping I'll be able to be more efficient and knowledgeable about it this time around--though I expect things will still change once I start writing it, and I'll probably keep a Character Notes/Scenes document again to keep track of any physical descriptions or telling moments that pop up while writing.



One of the reasons I avoid filling out character worksheets and similar things is that it's like brain candy. I enjoy worksheets and flowcharts and idea mapping and stuff and could easily immerse myself in that to the detriment of the "real meal" or working on the actual story. So I try not to.

1) Appearances (hair colour, eye colour, any specific features - I like to focus less on the colours and more on the features, but I still keep notes so my character won't turn from brunnette in chapter 1 to a ginger in chapter 21). I also include things such as habits and gestures, as well as personalisation bits that are likely to come up in several scenes. For instance, I have a character who's a poisoner and very paranoid - she can't sleep in the same room with other people, not even her lover. I focus on things such as speech patterns (she talks in short sentences, rarely asks follow-up questions, etc) which helps me make her stand apart from the rest of the characters.

2) Just a word file - I jot down details and once I'm done, I usually have an idea of who the character is in my head. I keep the character descriptions separate from each other, each in an individual file, in a folder separate from the MS (as you can tell, I like to organise stuff).

3) Don't really use a specific method. If I'm struggling to understand who my character is, I usually do a personality test from their perspective. There are outlines that also help to get you started

4) If I can predict their actions in an array of situations, if they seem as fleshed out as my real friends, they I know I've done a good job.

5) Yep, and that's the beauty of it, I think. No one will know the characters and the world better than the writer, in my opinion. For instance, I'll know that one of my characters was abused in the past and she'll have a very particular way of behaving around certain people; this bit will never be revealed since it's not critical to the story arc, but it will explain her behaviour. I'm not sure what's the proportion of things that make it into the story versus thinks that stay in the outline file, but I'd say 1:3, maybe (apart from the MC).

6) When I feel that the element will contribute to the story progression or to the character development. I'm not an outliner so I don't start with a certain scene in mind - if I feel that a certain trait or character element could be revealed, I write it down. I revise a lot so when I reread the MS and I feel that this revelation is out of place or feels forced, I highlight it and think of a better place to introduce it.