How do you design your main characters?

[Wolfram]

I start with an image in my mind, then give it a name. next the class and powers, then how the character became that class/personality. backstory and motivation next. then role in the story. why is this character important, why do we care , like or dislike?

 

[Weaver]

Do you fill in some questionnaire or do you have an idea that you develop with plans on developing the idea further as the character develop?

So glad you asked...

I strongly dislike character-creation questionaires. As someone else said in a chat-room discussion, "I don't need to know how many moles my MC has on his butt to be able to write his story." Also, too many typical questions are simply irrelevant to most of my characters, and I end up feeling (wrongly) as if I've invented an incomplete person because there is no answer to a question like "What is your protagonist's favorite sports team?"

I did once answer several items on one of those questionaires as one of my characters would answer them, or rather, I wrote it as me interviewing him. I had fun, but apparently he didn't.

North of Andover: A character creation questionaire - my way

I like discovering things as I write; I'd get bored if I planned it all in advance, not to mention the fact that, precog though I am, I cannot foresee how I'll feel about a story once I'm well into writing it. (Yes, that's a joke. *shakes head*) I start out with a general idea, maybe character and plot and setting, and maybe only one or two of the three, and I start writing. There's no way for me to know before I start every detail of what I need my characters to be, nor who they will become through the influence of events and other characters.

As for how deep my characters are... I may not be the best person to ask. I know them well, and sometimes that makes writing certain scenes difficult, but whether who they are comes across strongly in the writing is another matter.

 

[Zero Angel]

I think it's a good idea to ask your characters questions that you might not normally think of or ask them or might not normally come up in the everyday action of your stories. It helps your characters be more fleshed out and have depth. If you never ask the question, you might never know how your character treats something and might, if you're not perfect, cause them to do something out of character in a tangential situation that does show up in your novel.

 

[Weaver]

Right now, even as I type this, there's a sucessful and well-known novelist sitting in his home in Ohio and struggling to write his current work-in-progress because he has already done all the planning out, and now he's slightly bored with the story that he hasn't even written yet and wants to move on to something else. The fun part - the act of discovery - is already over for him.

When I was a lot younger (this was back in the last century), I was told by one intructor that outlines are essential for writing any fiction, even short stories. "You wouldn't build a house without a blueprint, would you?" was her explanation. My response to that was, "I don't build stories like houses; I grow them like trees." I have an idea for where to start, I have a few things that need to happen in the middle, and I have a general idea of where it will all end up, but I don't want to know in advance how it all works out. (I watch British television sometimes - imagine how difficult it is for me not to use what I watched this weekend as a metaphor to illustrate my point.) I don't want my characters to be no more than a list of responses to frequently innane questions. (I don't know Jason Grey's favorite color; I don't think he has one. This in no way hinders my ability to write about him. On the other hand, I do know Carl Corey's favorite colors - his author made sure that was obvious - but that never seemed to matter one way or the other when I was reading about him.)

Might cause them to do something out of character... or might learn something new about that character when they do something that you weren't expecting. I learn new things about Geoffrey all the time, even though I've been writing about him for years. I like that. When we write, we're forming a kind of relationship with our characters and settings. That relationship would get stale if we knew everything about those people and places from the very start. ([sarcasm] Yeah, my brain is wired wrong and I cannot understand nor use metaphor... [/sarcasm])

If a woman who has a close and relationship with her older sister suddenly stops talking to that sister, is she acting out of character, or is there something about her and her sister that wasn't obvious? Real people often act in unexpected ways. That doesn't mean it isn't realistic for them to act that way, only that the surface isn't the whole picture. (I'm avoiding my standby metaphor about chaos theory and how not seeing the patterns doesn't mean there are none... Since, y'know, mentioning chaos after that mention of favorite colors could be taken as a veiled pun, and for once it isn't.)

Another reason why I think character questionaires are not necessarily a good thing is that fantasy/sci-fi writers are notorious for their worldbuilding and their lists and all those things that they obsess over rather than get to the actual writing of the story.


Any writer should use whatever works best for them. Writing is not a performance art. No one cares (or ought to care, anyway) HOW you get the story written, only that you DO, and that the end result is what you were aiming for. If using character lists hinders the act of creation, they're not for you. If using them is helpful, keep using them, create lists tailored to the kinds of stories you write ("What is your character's favorite sports team?" is not useful for historical fantasy set in ninth-century Norway), and keep writing.

 

[It's a Squirrel...Moose?]

I personally feel that characters should be a natural development of the plot and idea for my story - and sometimes a plot is concerned with a character. I admit, I tend to 'over construct' my ideas which gets in the way of me actually writing most of my ideas (and my stories have an annoying habit of becoming novels - which I lack the time to write). But I find that the most natural, and therefore better, characters are those that arn't solidly defined with a list of attributes, but ones that change and react to how the plotline develops.

Not that I wouldn't stop anyone carefully constructing a characters life story - if that's how they work, all the best to them. But I find that a simple though experiment of 'what would bob do?' normally creates bob in his entirety without me having to do any expansive work on bob as a character.

The issue I have with rigid starting points like 'Bob is a swordsmen, who loves figs' is that you are creating artifical statements that will impede the story before you've even begun. What I find is that such a start means that you are twisting the story about getting bob to demonstrate his unrelenting love of figs, rather then allowing the story to grow and develop into it's own unique form.

 

[Zero Angel]

Might cause them to do something out of character... or might learn something new about that character when they do something that you weren't expecting. I learn new things about Geoffrey all the time, even though I've been writing about him for years. I like that.
...
If a woman who has a close and relationship with her older sister suddenly stops talking to that sister, is she acting out of character, or is there something about her and her sister that wasn't obvious? Real people often act in unexpected ways. That doesn't mean it isn't realistic for them to act that way, only that the surface isn't the whole picture.

Sounds like you are asking your characters questions in the form of your story. That's fine too. In fact, that is the best way to ask them questions. But the important point here is that your characters should react to the "question" (or situation) instead of making them do that which is convenient to you or serves an ulterior purpose. The important thing as an author is to figure out how the character would react and how that can be utilized by you for the overarching story. It's possible it would not be a convenient reaction. Sometimes this can result in something new and wondrous, and sometimes the situation needs to be changed.

My point was not directed at you per se, but rather to anyone that would force their character down an avenue without thinking how their character would react in the situation. Sounds like you already think of your characters as living, breathing entities with a mind of their own. This is great, this is how I do it as well. For many people, characters are not living, breathing entities and they are not able to have them react naturally.

For them, it would be good to ask them questions outside of the story to get in the mindset of their character and see how they would react. Again, you do not seem to need to do this since you did it with your earlier interview example, but this is a great writing exercise for those that struggle with thinking as their character would think.

And I'm not saying questionnaires are the way to do this, but interviewing your character or just thinking to yourself, "What would they do in this situation? What would they do in that situation? What do they think about X or Y? What if their friend Z attacked their friend W, what would they do? Would they stop it or help one over the other?" You don't even have to ask these questions, but being able to answer them is important.

I haven't addressed the sports team example because I think it is silly. Clearly, you should not ask questions that do not apply. For instance, I wouldn't ask a male character what brand of tampons they wear (sorry to be crude), and I especially wouldn't ask this if was in a setting where tampons didn't exist.

On the other hand, if your setting does have competitions, then it is not a silly question. Whether these are Olympic style competitions or just games that are played, then they could have favorites or at least an opinion--even if that opinion is apathy. The logical follow-up to that would be, why don't they care? Why don't they have a preference? What has influenced them this way? But you don't need to ask this question because you should already know why--for those that don't know, ask.

 

[Jabrosky]

Right now, even as I type this, there's a sucessful and well-known novelist sitting in his home in Ohio and struggling to write his current work-in-progress because he has already done all the planning out, and now he's slightly bored with the story that he hasn't even written yet and wants to move on to something else. The fun part - the act of discovery - is already over for him.

When I was a lot younger (this was back in the last century), I was told by one intructor that outlines are essential for writing any fiction, even short stories. "You wouldn't build a house without a blueprint, would you?" was her explanation. My response to that was, "I don't build stories like houses; I grow them like trees." I have an idea for where to start, I have a few things that need to happen in the middle, and I have a general idea of where it will all end up, but I don't want to know in advance how it all works out.

I can relate to these sentiments, especially the part about growing bored of your story before actually writing it. While I do need a certain degree of direction whenever I write, I have found that putting too much thought into the preliminary planning does sap me of energy that could be spent on the writing. In my experience, the best method that works for me is to start writing with only the sort of vague ideas you describe in mind, but then let the plot grow in my head as I write.

 

[Weaver]

For many people, characters are not living, breathing entities

I think you've identified the heart of the problem: if the author cannot at least pretend that his/her characters are real, they won't ever feel real - not to the author, and not to the reader. (To paraphrase Frost - the poet, not the dragon-kin - if you don't care, neither will the reader.)

I blame the anti-RPG campaigns of the 1980s, myself. Telling adults that children with too much imagination would grow up and kill someone because they read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi and played those evil let's-pretend games with funny-looking dice and maps and stuff... So kids instead grew up fearing to play let's-pretend, even in their own heads, because someone might think they're, y'know, crazy.

I talk to my story characters all the time. Not usually out loud, mind you. But there are times when the only way to figure out what a character is up to is to ask him or her.

 

[Ireth]

I talk to my story characters all the time. Not usually out loud, mind you. But there are times when the only way to figure out what a character is up to is to ask him or her.

I do that ALL THE TIME! Glad to see I'm not the only one.

 

[thedarknessrising]

I do that ALL THE TIME! Glad to see I'm not the only one.

I have never tried that. That seems like a good idea.

 

[shangrila]

I do that ALL THE TIME! Glad to see I'm not the only one.

I don't talk to them, per se, but I definitely play around with them in my mind.

 

[Ireth]

I don't talk to them, per se, but I definitely play around with them in my mind.

I talk to them fairly often when I'm RPing, especially with my friend Kat, and she does the same thing. Our characters will often speak up to give their opinions on various aspects of the plot, and converse with us and each other. It gets pretty hilarious sometimes. XD

 

[MurkyEarth]

When I create a main character I used to try and use those questionnaires or lists for main characters but I got so bogged down on the detail that I couldn't really wrap my mind around my main characters. Now, I typically go with a personality type. Before I even have a story or goal for my main character, I think of what sort of personality I want them to have and then figure out in general how they would react to certain situations. Once I figure that out, I flesh them out more.

 

[hyluvian]

This one'll throw some of you for a loop... A lot of my characters come out of music. I'm listening to a song or a musical arrangement on my headphones and BAM! A scene starts to take place in my head. It's fuzzy at first, the edges aren't clear, but I know round about what I want to happen. So, I hit replay. The scene starts to come clearer and clearer into focus every time I listen to the music again, the actions solidify and the shapes of characters start to appear to conduct those actions. Undoubtedly each scene focuses on a character, and it's from there that I get the mental image of them. Afterwards, I sometimes write down a biography, sometimes I fill out a questionaire, other times I try to figure out what part of the music is theirs that way I can hunt down similar melodies and see what else they're going to do.

Odd? Yes, but it's how I came up with some of my very best, deepest, most real characters.

 

[Sheriff Woody]

I feel the single most important question to ask about any character is What is this person's goal?

From a story perspective, this will help you find the character's place in the plot and ensure they have a purpose and reason for being in the story to begin with. But from another perspective, you can ask what is the character's goal before the story began, since the world and all the characters in it had lives and were doing things before the inciting incident brought about the plot. Thinking in this context will help give the character some depth and realism, and ensure they are more than just a mouthpiece thrown in for the express purpose of getting the story from A to B.

Giving a character a strong goal is necessary to make sure there is always forward momentum in your story. You don't want anyone sitting around for too long and not accomplishing anything. You want them working at something all the time, and the conflict that arises from the difficulty of their task is what makes their struggle (and thus, your story) interesting.

After I have their place solidified in the story, I find it easier to flesh a character out, in terms of their personality, point of view, attributes, appearance, etc. I always find it easier to build from a foundation than to begin with nothing.

 

[icebladeaskante]

There is a questionnaire that I've seen around the internet that's fairly detailed and goes into everything you could possibly want to know about your character, from where the grew up and their family, to what they do now, as well as a list of goals and fears.

I personally have a plot and maybe a main character or two, and I know them fairly well, so I'll fill out the questionnaire easily, but then I get to the secondary characters or even other prominent characters and it gets harder, so I get a blank page and start filling out details relating to the main characters I do know.

How did they meet, what happened, was it an anecdote or just two similar people take solace in each other in a room filled with dissimilar people, e.g. two sports minded in room of philosophers. What did they get up to together since meeting, how do they relate to my story, why are they doing x in my story, and after a while I can eventually fill out their own questionnaires.

 

[WyrdMystic]

I tend to follow an evolutionary cycle. I start with a concept, a very brief outline and then it just grows as I write - sure it means I have to edit as I go (terrbile habit!), but it also means I don't spend hours and hours outlining characters that I have to re-write when my concept changes tack half way through the first draft. This is just my process and definitely not a recommended way to approach writing.

In short - I don't create my characters, they evolve.

 

[Weaver]

This one'll throw some of you for a loop... A lot of my characters come out of music.

I have no proof (although lots of circumstantial evidence), but I suspect that much of the backstory for one of my favorite characters from someone else's fiction came from the name of an early 1980s band.

Visual artists get ideas from music all the time. I see no reason why writers should be any different. Besides, music is known to 'synch up' the two hemispheres of the brain, allowing ideas generated in the creative half to reach over to the logical half that has to do the actual placing words on the page.

 

[Amanita]

So kids instead grew up fearing to play let's-pretend, even in their own heads, because someone might think they're, y'know, crazy.[/qote]
Luckily, I've never been affected by this. Maybe, because I've never meant to share all the stuff in my own head with people who might think I'm crazy because of this.
My whole story creation process works as some sort of mental role-playing game which I have to sort through afterwards to turn it into a proper story. Takes quite a while. My main characters have never been created but simply exist in my mind for reasons I'm not quite sure of myself. One of my two main female characters has been around for many years for example, even living in completely different settings before. My approach to writing usually is about finding a plot that suits characters and world rather then the other way round. Failing at this is probably the main reason for the many rewrites my story required but I think I'm on a hopeful path at the moment.

With minor characters, I usually tend to use a more usual way. I start with something like "I need a character Y who does X", then I'm trying to find a name. Names are a great source of inspiration for me as well. When I've found one, I'm trying to find reasons why Y does X and usually, this inspires more background for the character. Depending on his or her importance, I'm getting more or less details. Gender is usually defined before, looks depend on the way I'm imagining them in my head.

 

[arroncook]

I diagram. I write their name, age, location and traits, and the from there just draw lines out to other things about them that emerge whilst I'm exploring who they're going to be. I find this gets my initial creative idea down, and from there, I start filling in important details that my initial concept didn't include.