Developing Fictional Characters

Characters are the building blocks of fiction. There’s the whole “which comes first, the characters or the plot?” discussion, which will likely continue as long as fiction writers write. The answer for me, is both. Some stories I had a plot idea first, and others, the character came first. But I will confess I am predominantly a plot-firster.

This post will share the character development method I used for my current work in progress, which is a murder mystery.

I probably have a dozen (or more) character development questionnaires gathering dust on my computer’s hard drive. Most of those questions, however, focus on physical attributes. It’s important to have a good idea of what your characters look like, but looks don’t make a person (fictional or otherwise) who they really are.

What separates us from others? What makes us unique? Individuals?

Typically, our core values, belief systems, experience, environment, how we were raised. I was raised in the Los Angeles area for the first not-quite-10 years of my life. When my father got a job in rural Arkansas, we moved. I started the fifth-grade in a small town school. My physical appearance wasn’t any different than most of the kids in my class, but, having been raised in one of the largest metro areas of the country, I was in many ways, nothing like any of them. The proverbial fish out of water.

Putting a character who is different from those around her is a great way to create conflict in your plot, but that technique is more about setting, which we’ll discuss in a future post.

Character development goes deeper than appearance. For my characters, I started with their family dynamics. I “interviewed” the main characters, and wrote a short backstory of where they grew up, how they got along with their families, how they felt about their upbringing, what they learned, how they were educated, etc.

Then, I included a few unique talents that each would need in order to fulfill their part of the story. For instance, my sleuth is a sports photographer. Her photography experience comes into play during the story, as does her love of sports, which stems from her own athletic ability. If you don’t already have a plot idea for your character, choosing some unique talents/abilities can help you grow your plot.

Most characters have some “beef” with the world, something that nags or haunts them that, whether real or imagined, just isn’t right or fair. My character was a daddy’s girl growing up. She followed in his footsteps professionally, yet he died saving her life. So, she’s angry. Angry with her dad for sacrificing himself. Angry with her mother for never (in my main character’s mind, anyway) truly understanding her father. Angry with God for allowing her dad to die. She feels as though it isn’t fair that such a talented, fairly young man should have to die. And she’s right. It isn’t fair. But those feelings help me develop her character arc.

What exactly is a character arc? It’s the growth cycle the character (typically the main character) goes through as a result of the events that take place during the story (plot). My character begins with somewhat of a selfish attitude, and through the course of the story, she grows.

The character arc and the plot are separate, yet inseparable. The plot presents the character with situations where he must change or die (either physically or metaphorically).

Each of my main characters has a story goal, and part of the plot process (and character development, too), ensuring some of those goals are diametrically opposed, which creates conflict. It also helps the reader “root” for the character, hoping she will overcome the obstacles and reach her goal. Because this is a murder mystery, the primary story goal is to solve the crime, but she has other personal goals as well. So, goal-setting is one of the steps in developing fictional characters.

Another key factor in my fictional character creation process is personality. I’ve taught personality training using the basic four personality traits (Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, Phlegmatic), so I’m familiar with how the main personalities interact with one another. But to develop a deeper sense of character, I used archetypes instead, for the base of each of my main characters.

There’s a great book by Victoria Schmidt titled 45 Master Characters: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters (Writers Digest Books). Since I already had a general idea of the background and “wound” for my main characters, I sifted through the models in Schmidt’s book and found archetypes that went well with the characters I’d begun to develop. These archetypes gave me a better understanding of things that motivate my characters, frighten my characters, lessons that can help my characters, and traits of the dark side of my characters. It’s a very useful book.

I added physical description last. Since I don’t have the patience to answer hundreds of questionnaire items, I just jotted down the main physical attributes about each character and wrote a sample paragraph of their speech or made notes about their speech characteristics (Southern, educated, etc.).

That’s pretty much all I did on this step. Now that I’m in the revision process, I’m working to enhance my characters to make each of them unique and to make sure I’ve included motivations/fears/speech, etc., in the scenes that are consistent with the core character. As characters change throughout the course of the story, I make notes in their character description sheet within Scrivener.

And that sums up my character creation process for this novel. How do you develop your characters?