Creating Characters

Ideas for creating believable characters

Photos copyright: The Author

I have not written much about writing recently, so here are some musings on creating believable characters. These articles give some insight as to what works for me. There’s a link to the full list at the bottom of the page.

When a writer sits down to write about a character they have created, they need to be able to put on that character’s skin like a suit of clothes. Once inside, their mindset will change; like an actor playing a role, they will become that character for the duration of the performance.

To create a three-dimensional character I need to be in that person’s head. Even in a short story, where the reader only sees part of the character; like the tip of an iceberg that is above water level, I need to know how that character thinks, how they move, what drives them, how they are influenced by the people around them, the places they live in or visit and the social mores of the time they live in.

I’ll be honest about my writing style; I like to call it spontaneous - others might say it’s chaotic. It starts with an idea for a story, which might have been rattling around in my head for days or just popped into my mind over a breakfast cuppa. At this point, all I have is the skeleton of the idea.

Often, the first thing I write is some dialogue. Why dialogue? Humans deduce a lot about people from the way they speak, the vocabulary they use, how they phrase their speech, how they react to what the other person has said. This is the first step in getting into my character’s head.

At this point I will probably only have a vague idea of what they look like. They are moving across the page like a black and white pen and ink cartoon sketch. I will know whether they are male or female (in some of my supernatural stories this can be quite fluid), their approximate age and a general idea of their build. Their actions and mannerisms are visible but not clearly defined.

With the story beginning to materialise, I will need to go back and flesh the characters out a little. If I have been lucky, maybe another character will have mentioned something about their appearance, or maybe they have done something that suggests it.

In a short story that is probably all a writer needs to do. Collaborate with the reader - present them with a fluid watercolour sketch of the character, with any pertinent details defined, and let their imagination fill in the rest.

In my serial stories the characters are going to develop and change more. They are going to face a wider variety of challenges and scenarios than in a short story, so I need to know how they are going to react.

Enter the character sketch.

Rule Number One: Get as carried away with this as you like; create reams of detail, but do not add it to the manuscript. Only the most relevant, choicest details should be plucked from its pages and placed in the story.

I find one of the most useful sections of my character sketch is: Characteristics (In 1-4 words). For the first episodes of The Diary of A Victorian Disciplinarian, Emily Havercock existed as a short story character (I was not planning a serial). Her characteristics were: saucy, devious, empathetic, bisexual.

As the story progressed, I needed to explore her true character, know her motivations and understand a bit more about the society she lived in. I have written several stories set in the Victorian and Edwardian periods. I do not profess to be an expert on the history of the times (I use Google to check dates of major events and find out if props I refer to have been invented and are in general use) but I have got a feel for the society of the time. Very simplistically, it ran on two levels; one was the prudish, reserved, well mannered version we think of today. The other was the equivalent of what you can now find on the smutty side of the Internet.

Two books created the spark that started me writing The Diary of A Victorian Disciplinarian. The first was A Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito and the second was Gentleman Jack - The real Anne Lister by Anne Choma. The first conjured up the image that the governess was an outsider; someone who was neither servant nor a member of the family. The second, the idea that even respectable, church going, upper middle class people could adjust their mindset to indulge in premarital sex. Anne Lister’s story also suggested that lesbian or sapphic sex was more accessible, easier to ‘get away with’, due to the social mores of the time than heterosexual relationships between people of the same class.

Emily lives in a time when people like sex and have as many kinks as people do today; they just do not post about them, or know that they are not alone in being excited by them, unless they have access to certain books.

I now have a deeper understanding of Emily’s character; she is devious, controlling; to some extent, she has to be as she lives in a society where she can be dismissed on a whim. She likes sex, both sapphic and heterosexual, but likes to be in charge.

There is a hint in the first episode that she was dismissed from her previous position ‘under a cloud’. Referring back to the character sketch, there may have been good reason for this, but I will not tell the reader unless it becomes relevant to the story - the hint is enough.

Empathy is Emily’s biggest asset; she can read people, see their kinks, work out how to get in their heads. She is aware that she lives in a time where sex is a commodity, it can be used as a bargaining chip and she is more than ready to use it to, as my mother used to say, ‘get her feet under the table’.

Jocelyne in Painted Stripes also has a hidden, but in her case relatively boring, back story, much of which is not revealed, but it shapes her reactions to the sexual encounters she has. Her character blossoms from mousy housewife to someone who grows in confidence and relishes every new experience.

Sandie is a foil to Jocelyne, she is there to emphasise Jocelyne’s character and is the facilitator of much of the hedonistic sex, so most of her back story is about her sex life. I have character notes on her, but most are not included in the story.

To create believable characters who may behave outlandishly, the writer needs to understand why characters behave in the way that they do. They need to show the reader why the character is motivated to run, fight or have sex with someone without boring them with a complete biography.

More thoughts on writing fiction

A list of all my articles on writing