Creating Great Characters

This month THE ROUND ROBIN BLOGGERS are discussing how we create our characters, keeping them real and consistent.

Back when I began to write, I had zero idea of this aspect of peopling my stories. I picked names I liked and went from there. My first effort at a novel was inspired by Georgette Heyer so it was set in the Regency period in England. I had fun writing that book, when I wasn’t chasing down three kids under six, but I didn’t do much of any research and even less time considering if my characters were real, compelling or believable. That book, written before personal computers were a thing lives in a file buried at the back of my filing drawer, written in pencil on yellow lined paper. It will likely still be there when I am gone as I have no desire to see just how awful it is.

When those rambunctious kids grew up, I began to be more serious about my writing. I joined writer’s groups, attended meetings and went to conferences. I listened to and participated in a number of workshops on character creation and came home with handouts – aides to make them real. I have all of those handouts somewhere and notebooks with notes taken during the lectures. But over the years, I’ve boiled them down into two that I use regularly.

When I began writing my first published novel, The Candidate, I had a handful of notes on my main character, but soon discovered there were things about him I didn’t know that I realized I did need to know. So, I paused and just started typing his story from somewhere around when he was in kindergarten. It was like I was telling a friend about someone I knew, and before long, I did know this guy and what made him tick.

I still type up detailed dossiers on my main characters most of the time, but I’ve also come to rely on that combination of character aides that I’ve created. It’s a three page form that I print out and start filling in. The first part is the “Keep it consistent” part: height/weight, hair and eye color, features, mannerisms, religion, politics etc. This is followed by education and if applicable military service and a family outline: mom, dad, siblings etc. This section also includes friends, what kind of vehicle he or she drives, their job/career, hobbies and where they like to hang out, how they dress, pets if they have any. Next couple sections address their philosophy and attitude toward life, family, friends and co-workers. And their personality: strengths/weaknesses, phobias, vices, regrets and darkest secrets. I also include favorite expressions, movies, books, actors etc. But now the real work starts with questions like:

1-Event(s) up to now that had more impact on this character’s life than anything else. How and why.

2-What is it about this character that will make the reader sympathetic to him/her? (compelled, intrigued, tantalized, in love with, repelled by (as in character you love to hate)

3-What will make this character special, unique and/or different?

4-And if I’m writing a romance, or there is a romantic interest: Why is this character attracted to or intrigued by hero / heroine?

By now I know this guy or gal about as well as I know myself. Since I’m normally a write by the seat of my pants type, knowing my character this well, means I can then just toss him or her into the action and I don’t have to guess how they will react or what their actions will be next. The only thing remaining that I need is to complete the GMC chart.

For those of you who are not familiar with GMC this stands for Goal, Motivation and Conflict. It includes both the inner and outer goals. Outer would be the overt actions all their fellow characters see and interact on, like putting out a fire, or solving a mystery or averting a world crisis. Inner is what goes on inside the character. This could include having been abused as a child and determined to protect others from being abused, having been abandoned and seeking love they can trust etc.

With all these questions answered, I am off and running with my story. I have a briefer outline for secondary characters but those also include things like he drives a Ford 150, or his mother has Alzheimers, her hair is red and she’s a graduate of an Ivy school etc. If the guy is always tossing things into the bed of his beat up truck for the first half of the book and then he shows up in a cherry red convertible the readers want to know where the new car came from and wouldn’t do to have your heroine’s best friend looking through blue eyes if she had chocolate brown ones on page two. I don’t need to know all these secondary characters as well as I did my hero or heroine, but I do need to be consistent and know them at least as well as I know my neighbors.

The rest of the cast of characters don’t need to be so well defined. The dentist might have a name or not, but he might have a lisp that leaves the hero wondering if he became a dentist because of his own overbite. The waitress doesn’t need a name unless she’s a regular at your heroine’s favorite diner and you might not even need to know if she’s efficient or lazy. I only include details or names for all the supporting characters if they are going to appear again and they need a little more fleshing out.

So, maybe you’d like to check out that first book and see if I did right by Matt Steele in The Candidate. Or perhaps my newest series to check out Kenzie Ross and Sam Philips. If you like police procedurals or mysteries, I recommend the Jesse Quinn Mysteries. Jesse, is a woman, by the way who was Christened Jessalyn but followed her father into law enforcement and didn’t want people judging her performance by such a “girly” name so chose to call herself Jesse, deliberately spelled that way to deter judgements based on gender. She is the only female on the Major Crimes Squad in the St John’s County Sheriff’s department. (St Augustine, Florida) For that character creation I actually sat down to a lengthy lunch (almost 3 hours) with the only woman on the Major Crimes Squad in my hometown, to get a feel for what it would be like for my character operating in a mostly male department.