Characters, where the hell do those come from?

Today, my lovelies, I would like to talk about character creation.

In short, I am going to introduce you a handful of ways I had the top of my mind + 1. 

 

Observation

This is most like the easiest way to create your heroes or villains. You observe people and base your characters on them. The man you see on your way to work becomes a guard captain; your grandmother becomes an evil witch and so on and so on. This technique limits you to what your eyes can see, which of course means, that you get to invent the personalities. 

Plagiarism

This is a way where you actually steal already existing fictitious character, change its name and slap it to a new environment. This is a poor way to create characters, since you’re not actually doing it. This is more like swap-verse fan-fiction. Possibly fun, but not very creative or professional. You just file off the serial numbers. 

Body part-stealing and something borrowed

This, on my personal opinion, is one of the most fun ways to create characters. In this method, you simply steal eyes, hands, ears and other physical (and emotional and mental) traits of real life humans and mold them all together in a way you see fit. Your characters will be like polished versions of Frankenstein’s monster, (possibly) without the scars, that is. 

They might have your uncle’s nose or your mother’s personality. They might talk the same way as your best friend does. Or perhaps you choose to steal from already excising fictional character --and by stealing I mean you take inspiration. You do not copy the character, and why would you? You want to create your own, don’t you? You want the readers to hear your own voice, not someone else’s.

Careful construction

This is a time consuming technique. Before you even start writing your story, you carefully plan out the characters, possibly using the previously mentioned ways. You write notes. Possibly make ‘character cards’ of their looks, ages and personalities. This is actually a very good way to work, if you are going to have multiple characters. We all hate it, if they accidentally change appearance in the middle of the story, don’t we?

I want something similar

This is a way, where you have fallen in love with some character or their trait and wish to create something similar without copying. Let us say you want to create a character similar to Joker, because who wouldn’t love a crazy clown? 

(I picked Joker because I have been playing the Arkham series lately. I also like to do the most macabre thing and eat jelly-bats while playing.) 

To create the character you want with this method, you ask yourself questions. How do I do that? What is the character like? What can I change without breaking a working concept? What can I add to make the character my own, in other words; unrecognizable from the original?

+1

This is a thing which isn’t actual character creation. This just happens.

This is a thing where the characters just pop up out of nowhere, letting you know they exist. In other words, your subconscious mind has done some damn good job! Now you may pat yourself on the back. 

It happens most often in scenes, when your imaginary friends decide to show up and introduce themselves. It is like a part of a movie that comes to your mind and you see your character for the very first time. Maybe if you’re lucky you also hear him/her, too. The character might have stuff to say, secrets to reveal. . .

This +1 thing happens to me mostly in scenes, but sometimes a character just appears in the middle of the story and becomes part of it instantly, usually by starting to talk to some other character.

Sometimes they just walk out of a tunnel of sorts, stand quietly and smiling, letting me take a good long look at their appearance. During those times, I must use the other methods to get to the bottom of the character: Ask questions, give it personality, character traits, human weaknesses and strengths. Sometimes, the character reveals his past bit by bit, letting it melt together with the plot. And to me, this is most rewarding. 

Now that you have read my post about character creation, you may find yourself nodding in agreement, perhaps even recognize yourself using some of these methods. Or you might scoff, shake your head and declare this as utter nonsense, which is fine, too.

These are the methods that happened to be on the top of my mind, but they’re not the only ways, by any means. To create characters, there are as many ways as there are writers. 

And with that said, I’d like to wish you all very happy and creative Holidays!