I never started from ideas but always from character... Ivan Turgenev


Before I sit down to write a story I like to have the main character in mind. Like every other writer, it’s important for me to know my characters well, so that when I place them in certain situations I know how they are going to react. It is difficult to know real people in depth, few of those around us are an open book, we all have our secrets. The great thing about fictional characters is that the writer knows all about these secrets or hidden thoughts. The writer can choose to reveal them by putting the character into situations the character would never dream of going into without that push from his creator.

How does a writer get to know the fictional characters he or she creates? For me, one of the most useful ways is to get my characters to write poetry. Rufus Hobster is a vampire (I know, another one – and too many vampires spoil the bloody broth). I don’t know if I am ever going to finish his complete story, he is pretty pissed off about all these vampires roaming the street too and he’s stopped talking to me. Maybe I should turn him into a zombie instead.

Anyway, while he was telling me his story, he also wrote poetry. And that’s how I really got to know him. That’s how I was able to write the stories he was telling me. This is a Rufus Verse:

Emotion is Illusion

I need to get away from the light,
the rain.

Feelings aren't real
they only exist in the past,

like these memories I fake each day with you,
they fail to comprehend truth.

Only when you say my name,
when you whisper my name against my skin

only moments like these are real
and now that you are gone

everything is an illusion
everything is nothing.

His poem probably tells you that Rufus is a sad old bastard who needs to get a life. For me, it says Rufus is hurting. He has lost something more than life, he has lost the reason to live. He is dead in more ways than an unbeating heart. Yet he still clings onto life, faking his way through the day, or night. I want to know why he goes on living in this dead sort of way, I want to find out more about his past. And I want to discover if he is ever going to feel the same again when someone else whispers his name against his skin. The events in his past may not be told in his story, but as a writer, I need to know about them so I can judge how he is going to respond in situations I put him in. And when I put him into these situations, I need to bear in mind that always; in the dark shadows of his mind, he is hurting badly.

Here is another one of his poems:

Footprints in the Rain

I watched him die slowly
to the sound of raindrops falling on leaves.

He had lost too much blood
a melancholic trail leading me to him.

His eyes held acceptance
yet, he still flinched when I approached.

I knelt down beside him,
and held onto his hand.

He never spoke,
I think he was listening to the rain.

The damp undergrowth was pungent
a welcome distraction to the scent of his blood.

Both his feet had been chewed off
and discarded somewhere I could not see.

Something heartless had left the child this way,
something just like me.

Clearly Rufus is not heartless, the way he stays with the child until he dies tells me this. Yet, he feels heartless; he feels capable of killing the child in the same cruel way. If Rufus didn’t kill the child, then who did? Again, this particular moment in Rufus’ life may not end up in the story I write. What I need to keep in mind is that Rufus feels capable of behaving in this psychotic way. Why does he think that? Has he already killed in a similar fashion? Or is he seeing his future? Is this the way his vampire persona will evolve? It is going to be fascinating finding out the truth behind the feelings he has shown in this verse.


Rufus isn’t all hurting and death, there are other side to him as this verse illustrates:

Do You Want?

The world is beautifully synchronised tonight
let's burn it together before sunrise changes everything.

Then teach me gently how to bleed
while our flames wild the night-time air.

And when all the lights are turned off hungry
don't hide away from my touch,

take this hand I offer
and dream of music makers ravenous

as I take in the scent of your skin
and you gaze only into these darkling eyes.

Rufus may be a sad old bastard, but he certainly knows how to party. He can burn with the best of them. Knowing this, I want to see how he does eventually party; I want to see that very much. I want to write that very much, too. Being Rufus’s neophyte, I am in a privileged position, as he shows me gently how to bleed.

Evan Jameson is another character I got to know through poetry. Evan is the central character in both Cruel and Dublin. When he first met Emily Cullen, he felt like this:

Dark Wind

It’s crazing me, how your skin feels
when my finger moves

from your cheek to your neck
and you stare at me without saying a word.

Everything about you, everything,
every sense inside me

is affected by your touch, sound
taste

and now I breathe you in
as I too stare into your eyes

and find that place once more
where no one ever treads.


Evan thinks he doesn’t know how to love. He doesn’t want to love. He sees love as a user, an eternal consumer. Dark Wind tells me a different story, it tells me Evan is in denial.
After a while, Evan and Emily wanted to change their troubled childhood, so he wrote a new childhood through poetry, where they were together, instead of apart in their first childhood. Here’s a sample of the childhood they created together:

Culpitt

The Culpitt house at the end of the lane
had been unoccupied for years.
No one wanted to be part of its past,
except for you and me.

You felt at home in spring,
while I preferred walls sprinkled with ice
and snowflakes silently dropping
through open rafters.

I found you inside; that bleak day,
staring through broken glass
weeping melancholy tears,
but you wouldn’t tell me why

and for the first time since calling
I got the uneasy feeling
the tragic past of the house
shared the delicate future of our love.

Even in the childhood Evan created, the final line of the poem shows how fragile he feels his future with Emily is destined to be. I need to know why he feels that way.

When they finally meet up in Dublin, Evan’s poetry begins to reveal why he is so unsure about their future together.

Other Than

We bought them in Mongrel Heart
on the corner of Pimlico and The Coombe.

White, silver-heeled stilettos
and a sheer almost dress.

The dress was specifically designed
to reach only the top of her thighs,

while the heels accentuated the curve of buttock
and shape of her legs.

Mr. X entered the hotel room as usual for him,
with both hands in his jacket pockets.

He saw her facing the wall
with her legs crossed at the ankles

and I immediately spoke the words
that first came into my head -

'Other than penetrative sex,
she is yours to do with as you please.'

Now Evan has really got me interested in his story. Wtf is he doing? And why does such a strong character as Emily go along with these kind of games? I guess I’m gonna have to spend more time with these two characters to find out exactly what makes them tick and more interestingly, discover what secrets they are holding back from me.
Having a clear picture and understanding of your characters is critical to the story writing process. Once you know their strengths, flaws and motivations, you are well on your way to understanding them. Once you understand them, you can put them into situations that are going to transform and make them grow as individuals. Alternatively, you might just wanna see them get eaten alive by zombies. Either way, you are in for a lot of fun, and you can be pretty confident you will know how your character is going to react when those decaying teeth first bite into his or her flesh.