How Do You Create Characters?

[madelinemasoch]

Where do you generally draw up inspiration from? What's your process like for coming up with characters? What is your relationship to them and to this process in general? I'm interested to hear about how other writers do this, as I'm opening myself up to new methods.

Feel free to also talk about how character development arises naturally in your writing (or if you have to force it), etc.

 

[KeithD]

My writing emphasizes plot. I bring characters in to serve the plot and the plot provides me what needs to be in included (and nothing else) in the characters. Ipso facto I do not make up character charts before writing. I'll only note elements of the characters to ensure I don't go out of their bounds as the story proceeds.

 

[Yarglenurp]

My writing emphasizes plot. I bring characters in to serve the plot and the plot provides me what needs to be in included (and nothing else) in the characters. Ipso facto I do not make up character charts before writing. I'll only note elements of the characters to ensure I don't go out of their bounds as the story proceeds.

I'm new to this, but I've so far found this is a cyclical process. You make characters to fit a plot, but if you use them for an extended period of time or reuse them in a later story, you start saying, "nah, Zargpam'kor the baby-eater wouldn't say something like that."

 

[ElectricBlue]

I usually base them on someone I know or briefly met, then build the character as the story progresses. I've got several stories where a new character appears in the space of a paragraph - where the hell did you come from? - and they often become key to the story.

But I never sit down and "create" them. They arrive in the story, and my job as their writer is to keep up.

 

[Mastered_again]

All my characters are based on people I've encountered, changing/embellishing traits (physical and/or personality), or creating hybrids, bending them to fit the character I need. Some I may know well, some may just be people I've observed and placed in a (mental) casting call folder.

Depending how extensively they're featured, they may evolve along with the story and I'll have to add depth to the initial sketch

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I dream them up.

Sometimes I draw on people that I know. Sometimes I draw on people that I've seen during the day (people watching, observations). Sometimes I throw in a bit of myself. Sometimes I just conjure them randomly out of thin air. Probably the most important thing that I do in characterization is given a certain scene/situation in the story I ask myself, "what would this character think and/or feel in this situation to shape how they would speak/act next?"

I never use character sheets. I never want to see them. Most writers that I've seen use character sheets write weak cookie cutter characters based on "faceclaims" full of backstory and details that are totally irrelevant to the plot, and almost always these writers never follow through to finish the story, too hung up on their wonderful characters to get them out of the first act.

 

[AchtungNight]

I dream them up.

Sometimes I draw on people that I know. Sometimes I draw on people that I've seen during the day (people watching, observations). Sometimes I throw in a bit of myself. Sometimes I just conjure them randomly out of thin air. Probably the most important thing that I do in characterization is given a certain scene/situation in the story I ask myself, "what would this character think and/or feel in this situation to shape how they would speak/act next?"

I do this also. Mostly I think of the story I want to tell and characters that would fit into it. Heroes, villains, love interests, and so on. Then I make them interact.

 

[mildlyaroused]

I don't create character charts before I start writing, but I tend to know a little about the characters before the plot reaches them. I make them up as I go, and they fall into place.

I think the best way to write interesting characters is to ask interesting (and thematically relevant) questions, then have your characters answer them. In a story I'm writing I asked my protagonist, "Is it worth sacrificing your personal connection to music for the sake of artistic excellence?" That's a relevant thematic question, and however my protagonist responds will reveal their character (it will also, more broadly, dictate the direction of the plot). As the story progresses, my characters will change their answers (and I, as God, will ask new questions in turn).

So my characters are born from the ideas of the story I'm writing. They are products of the story, but not products of the plot (they drive the plot, which is secondary). I don't really believe in mapping out characters. I also don't really care what their "biggest regret", "favourite thing to do on a rainy day", or "eye colour" is before I start writing. Those things will become apparent as they become important, and if they're not important, then they are best left untouched. That's my issue with character charts. YMMV.

 

[intim8]

Where do you generally draw up inspiration from? What's your process like for coming up with characters?

I generally start a story with a very simple premise or situation. A virus makes all but one in a million men sterile. A guy and a girl who have been friends for all their lives are going to be separated when they go to different colleges and don't want to separate without having their mutual first time together. Two girls stumble into Santa's raunchy lair when they go somewhere they are not supposed to be.

Then I come up with a very, very basic character, thinking who would be the most interesting type of person to put in this situation. A very introverted virgin college sophomore wins the one in a million lottery. Two smart but not brilliant kids, the girl being the more insightful and proactive one. One girl who is very shy and timid, but always lets her her troublemaker friend talk her into doing risky things. Literally no more than that.

Then I just start writing. As soon as I get to one of the characters having to do something, I try to immerse myself in the situation and to get in their heads and expand on their qualities and personality. Add additional characters if necessary. Write something happening and figure out what they would do and say. With what I've discovered about them, figure out what kinds of decisions they would make and what would happen next. Or, imagine something that could happen to them.

Lather, rinse, repeat till I have a complete story, then go back and flesh out the characters that emerge, fill the plot holes, patch up the rough spots and call that a rough draft. Then edit from there and submit. For longer stuff, I've been trying to work out a process where I extract an actual outline from that initial pre-rough draft, but it hasn't been going all that well.

That's how Aces, Last Summer, and Santa's Little Helpers got done. The rest were similar.

Occasionally, the initial story premise idea will come from seeing a person (IRL or otherwise) and imagining a back story for them, or a situation they are currently in.

 

[ChuckWolf]

Most of my characters are based on women I know/knew in life and the rest are amalgamations of actresses from different eras (Joyce Dewitt, Erin Gray, mid 70's Barbara Streisand, etc.)

All are hyper sexualized to varying degrees.

The male protagonists are pretty much cyphers, except for one who has a Michael Shannon persona & demeanor even though he looks nothing like him.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Usually the story concept will give me some pointers towards what kinds of characters I need.

For instance, one of my stories was influenced by my wanting to explore the idea of loving somebody who isn't perfect, somebody who is a mix of good and bad and sometimes does mean, hurtful shit. Putting that together requires answering some questions, and the answers then have further implications.

For instance: I need to decide why she has this mean streak. I don't want the cop-out of "oh she's just misunderstood" because this is meant to be a story about the dilemma of loving an important person, but she needs to be somebody who's still worth loving, so it can't just be that she's inherently awful.

Eventually I decide that she's a high-achieving queer woman in a politically unstable country with a macho, homophobic culture; even though she's talented, she knows her success has more to do with her family connections, and if the political situation changed she could lose it. So she's insecure, and she feels the need to cover that with bluster. Any perceived slight requires retaliation lest she be seen as weak...okay, so if she's that person, what else does that mean? It probably means she's into conspicuous consumption - expensive clothes and cars etc. - as another way of signalling "I'm powerful, don't fuck with me".

Okay, so: she's somebody who gets mean and hurts people, but she has a conscience, so sometimes she realises she's overstepped and done something shitty. Not being a sociopath, she feels bad about that, but she can't say "I'm sorry". So what would she do instead? The answer to that is patterned on somebody I know who deals with that situation by being extra-nice to the person she's hurt, while not being able to admit fault.

It crosses over into how she talks. Her first language is a variety of Russian, and although she's quite capable of grammatically flawless English, usually she speaks it badly as a kind of "fuck you, your language isn't more important than my language" signal. It's only when she really wants to make a good impression on somebody that she might go to the standard of English she learned at an expensive British boarding school. (I don't think the school made it into the story, but it was part of my mental backstory.)

And so on. Just by following up on every answer with "so what are the implications of that?" can go a long way to fleshing out a character.

 

[ronde]

I start with a story idea. That means an ending and at least the mental sketch of a plot. Then I imagine what kind of characters would be able to work through that plot.

Sometimes those characters come from my imagination, but usually they come from people I've known at least briefly. I think it's important to remember that every person has two personalities - the personality they show the world and the personality they only reveal to another person who they've become extremely comfortable with. For this reason, some of my characters are assembled from pieces of people I've known.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

Usually the story concept will give me some pointers towards what kinds of characters I need.

For instance, one of my stories was influenced by my wanting to explore the idea of loving somebody who isn't perfect, somebody who is a mix of good and bad and sometimes does mean, hurtful shit. Putting that together requires answering some questions, and the answers then have further implications.

For instance: I need to decide why she has this mean streak. I don't want the cop-out of "oh she's just misunderstood" because this is meant to be a story about the dilemma of loving an important person, but she needs to be somebody who's still worth loving, so it can't just be that she's inherently awful.

Eventually I decide that she's a high-achieving queer woman in a politically unstable country with a macho, homophobic culture; even though she's talented, she knows her success has more to do with her family connections, and if the political situation changed she could lose it. So she's insecure, and she feels the need to cover that with bluster. Any perceived slight requires retaliation lest she be seen as weak...okay, so if she's that person, what else does that mean? It probably means she's into conspicuous consumption - expensive clothes and cars etc. - as another way of signalling "I'm powerful, don't fuck with me".

Okay, so: she's somebody who gets mean and hurts people, but she has a conscience, so sometimes she realises she's overstepped and done something shitty. Not being a sociopath, she feels bad about that, but she can't say "I'm sorry". So what would she do instead? The answer to that is patterned on somebody I know who deals with that situation by being extra-nice to the person she's hurt, while not being able to admit fault.

It crosses over into how she talks. Her first language is a variety of Russian, and although she's quite capable of grammatically flawless English, usually she speaks it badly as a kind of "fuck you, your language isn't more important than my language" signal. It's only when she really wants to make a good impression on somebody that she might go to the standard of English she learned at an expensive British boarding school. (I don't think the school made it into the story, but it was part of my mental backstory.)

And so on. Just by following up on every answer with "so what are the implications of that?" can go a long way to fleshing out a character.

which story features this rusian character?

 

[CyranoJ]

Where do you generally draw up inspiration from? What's your process like for coming up with characters? What is your relationship to them and to this process in general? I'm interested to hear about how other writers do this, as I'm opening myself up to new methods.

I draw upon, in order:

1. People I have known (often mixing and matching traits from various real people into a character)
2. Characters I've encountered in fiction
3. Random concepts and scenes that have popped up in my brain over years
4. Extremely hot people I've seen in various media

There's not a lot of distance between them, and I also mix and match between all these approaches, with no single one predominant. When writing porn or "erotica" (or "porn with a bit of class"), the fourth category becomes a much bigger consideration than it would be otherwise. So, it's a big part of my Literotica stories.

 

[HeyAll]

Generally I make up the small details as I go along, let the story reveal itself, it's more fun that way, but sometimes leads to being stuck.

Before writing, I think of what kind of character works best for a story.

 

[Bramblethorn]

which story features this rusian character?

https://www.literotica.com/s/ai-era-loss-function

She comes from a fictional country, Serjarus, that speaks a dialect of Russian slightly different from Central Russian. This is my excuse for any errors in the Russian bits of the story ;-)

 

[nice90sguy]

every person has two personalities - the personality they show the world and the personality they only reveal to another person who they've become extremely comfortable wit

When I started reading that sentence, I thought you were going to say that the second personality is the one they see themselves as, which is what I think. And that can be very different from the personality they project, even to their loved ones, not because they're secretive, but because, in a way, they're simply wrong about who they are.

 

[Cagivagurl]

Where do you generally draw up inspiration from? What's your process like for coming up with characters? What is your relationship to them and to this process in general? I'm interested to hear about how other writers do this, as I'm opening myself up to new methods.

Feel free to also talk about how character development arises naturally in your writing (or if you have to force it), etc.

For me, a story emerges from something like an overheard conversation. A lightbulb goes off, and a plot starts to emerge. Once I sit down to write, the characters emerge from the conversation. What they say builds their characteristics.
They may not start off this way at first but as the story unfolds, the characters develop traits, characteristics. Are they humorous... Deep thinkers. Snippets of conversation will hint at their appearance. Which I probably didn't even know I'd developed until that thought emerges from the inkwell....
For me it's totally fly by night.
No plan, no plot just a starting point. It grows from there. Sometimes as I write the characters uncover themselves to be not so nice. Who knows where it goes...
I certainly don't.

Cagivagurl

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Without characters there's no plot. As I figure out the premise of the story, I make the characters reflect what that is, since they drive the story. I try not to add a little me, or people I know as possible, or not at all. From there I make them more human, I guess.

 

[KeithD]

I'm new to this, but I've so far found this is a cyclical process. You make characters to fit a plot, but if you use them for an extended period of time or reuse them in a later story, you start saying, "nah, Zargpam'kor the baby-eater wouldn't say something like that."

I think most discussing this on the boards say their writing is emphasizing characters, so they'd claim they first and uppermost visualize the characters that are prompting them to write a story. I don't do it that way and can't visualize how they can, but I won't say they can't.

 

[KeithD]

Without characters there's no plot. As I figure out the premise of the story, I make the characters reflect what that is, since they drive the story. I try not to add a little me, or people I know as possible, or not at all. From there I make them more human, I guess.

Without plot there's no story. This "without characters there's no plot" does nothing for me, and plot, not characters drive my stories. Your mileage may vary, but a claim of universal application in this will get a rise and a denial from me.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Haphazardly.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Without plot there's no story. This "without characters there's no plot" does nothing for me, and plot, not characters drive my stories. Your mileage may vary, but a claim of universal application in this will get a rise and a denial from me.

If it's not death and taxes, I don't see it as a vonstant. A story needs a plot, a plot needs characters. Either way, somebody or something has to be doing something.

 

[oneagainst]

Oh jeez, very little of the above. They rock up and they open their mouths and it's cat herding all the way from that point. The only real lever is steering the story world, and even then they have their own ideas.

Which leads to a significant thing. I've finished my final storyline and I know I'll never come back. My conversation with Lily in Critical Response 6, scheduled for March 2025, gets me in the feels every time I review. It's actually hard to tell them it's the end.

 

[intim8]

Without plot there's no story. This "without characters there's no plot" does nothing for me, and plot, not characters drive my stories. Your mileage may vary, but a claim of universal application in this will get a rise and a denial from me.

I'm of the school that says every story is the story of a character's growth and change. Any worthwhile story, at least. You need a plot to give the character an impetus and vehicle for that change, and it requires conflict of some kind. And plot is generally what gives the reader a reason to keep reading. OTOH, caring about the character is what gets a reader invested in the plot.

Both have to work together, but I do think it is the character(s) that are the central thing the story pivots around.

When people say "plot" as distinct from characters, they're usually thinking of external conflicts and events. But a plot can be entirely something going on in a characters' heads, with only internal conflicts. See "Flowers for Algernon" as an example.