Getting Started With Character

Character is a tricky element to work with in a piece of fiction, but it's the most important. The success of a story hinges upon the believability of its characters. The question, then, is "How do you write a believable character?" The answer involves a number of things, too many for one entry, so we'll just start at the beginning.

Most story ideas allow for a wide range of character types. The first step in creating your characters is to narrow your selection. Suppose you want to write about college life. That is a subject that could involve people of all ages and from any background. Get a little more specific. We'll talk about plot and setting in detail in the future, but consider those things. Who would be present and participating? If your idea involves an introductory Algebra class, you're looking at one teacher and twenty to thirty students. Let's say our idea involves four people meeting for lunch - two students, one professor, and one graduate.

Now stop for a minute. I mean it, this is important. You need to ask yourself why they are having lunch together. Your answer isn't going to be "because they are hungry," or "because they haven't seen each other in a while." Those might be the characters' reasons, and they are plenty sufficient for the reader, but as the writer you need to know much more than that. These four people need to have a reason to get together, otherwise their interaction won't be believable.

Start with the students. Make one male and one female, just for kicks. How do they know each other? One option is that they are dating. Another is that they have a class together. Maybe they are siblings who are following in a parent's footsteps. What are they majoring in? What do they want to be? Do they know yet? These are all things that will affect the way they act together and around others.

Moving along, what about the professor? Let's have a female professor. How old is she? What is she teaching? Is it what she wants to do, or did she get her Ph.D. at a time when her field was full? Have the students taken her class, or does she know them some other way (friend of family, distant relative, etc)? Know these things - again, they will affect her relationships with other characters.

Finally, the alumnus. Why is he in town? Maybe he lives there, or maybe his out-of-state company transferred him there. Or maybe he's just passing through for the holidays. How does he know he professor? Was he one of her students at one point? Maybe they are related - he could be her son, her brother or her father. Maybe they're married or divorced.

What's important in all of this is the common ground that these characters are meeting on. Obviously the college is a part of that, but it isn't enough. A writer needs to know the specific reason that the characters are being brought together. "Random chance" isn't good enough for the writer - each character has his or her own reasons for being where they are at the time the story takes place. Those reasons need to be known to the writer, even if the reader is never aware of them, because they are what make the character's presence in the story realistic.

Remember, this is their story as much as it is yours, so make sure you know who they are.

Challange: Take one or more characters from something you are working on and write a page about what they were up to ten years ago.