So where do characters come from?
Whenever I meet people and tell them that I'm an author, the response I get most often (after have you been published?) is how do you come up with characters?
I'm sure it's different for every writer but for me it all begins with an idea. And to be clear, an idea is not the same thing as a plot. Sometimes an idea is just that. I'll have a vision of a scene that would be cool to write but nothing else. It's a neat idea but won't support a novel and so to the scrap heap it's resigned.
But assuming the idea will support a novel, well then I need to populate the world I'm contemplating building. Rather than talk in generalities though, let's use specifics and focus on my debut novel Stillness.
The original idea for Stillness is vastly different than the book that has been published. Originally I titled it Stillness of the Heart after an old Lenny Kravitz tune. It was to be a round the world adventure story in the grand tradition of Rollins or Reilly where my main character would need to discover hidden artifacts at ancient sites in a race to stave off calamity.
If you haven't read my finished book I won't spoil it for you, I'll just say it's nothing like that!
I did write about 20 pages of the original concept but scrapped them because my characters had failed to come alive. It wasn't going to work; what I thought was a decent plot turned out to be only an idea in my hands. So I dropped "of the Heart" and got back down to work.
I decided the better plot was an outbreak of plague in a small town in Iowa. So with that decision made...I needed to populate my world with characters!!
Given the plot I knew I would need someone from the CDC as my lead (hello Lynne) and with the bioterror aspect law enforcement was a given (hello Caleb). Rather than spoil the book for anyone though, let's go through the whole process with a minor character so that you can get a feel for it without ruining the story.
Since one of the central locations of the story was a small town that gets ravaged by disease, I knew the mayor would play a role so I crafted Donald Lincoln. My concept for him was a mild-mannered, weak, subservient, spineless jellyfish. I wanted him to engender pity from the reader. Given that he's involved in a love triangle, I thought the reader would feel bad for him.
However, his first scene proved that he was anything but spineless. And that's the beauty of characters, sometimes they follow the script and sometimes they don't. As authors all we do is give them life; what they do with it is often up to them.
And yes, of course I could've rewritten Donald to force him into being the mousy character I thought he was but that would've been a disservice. No, Donald works better as the brash, arrogant, a-hole that he is.
So where do characters come from? For me they're centrally important to the story I'm telling. I write character driven fiction first and foremost.
When a plot comes to me (and we'll discuss where plots come from at a later date) I think about what type of characters will be needed to make it work. What profession will I need them to have? What type of personality will work? What motivations are necessary? These are just some of the questions that lead to the genesis of creation.
Naturally I'm also asked if I ever draw inspiration from the people I know in life. To be truthful, I have on occasion thrown a model of someone I know in life into my stories. Always a minor player though and usually to honor the person.
There was one time though where a real a-hole pissed me off to the point that I wrote him into one of my novels. His description was spot on to what he really looked like and I made him the unlikeable a-hole that he really was. And no...it's not Donald!
And that brings us to names. I know some authors painstakingly contemplate what to name their characters for months on end, just trying to come up with the proper moniker. And in some stories the name is just that important. For me though, all I try to do is place first and last names together that sound real and flow together. My only real rule when it comes to naming characters is that with main ones I won't give them long or complicated names because I'm going to have to type it hundreds of times!!
So that's it then, that's where characters come from. Feel free to ask if there's something I didn't cover :)
I'm sure it's different for every writer but for me it all begins with an idea. And to be clear, an idea is not the same thing as a plot. Sometimes an idea is just that. I'll have a vision of a scene that would be cool to write but nothing else. It's a neat idea but won't support a novel and so to the scrap heap it's resigned.
But assuming the idea will support a novel, well then I need to populate the world I'm contemplating building. Rather than talk in generalities though, let's use specifics and focus on my debut novel Stillness.
The original idea for Stillness is vastly different than the book that has been published. Originally I titled it Stillness of the Heart after an old Lenny Kravitz tune. It was to be a round the world adventure story in the grand tradition of Rollins or Reilly where my main character would need to discover hidden artifacts at ancient sites in a race to stave off calamity.
If you haven't read my finished book I won't spoil it for you, I'll just say it's nothing like that!
I did write about 20 pages of the original concept but scrapped them because my characters had failed to come alive. It wasn't going to work; what I thought was a decent plot turned out to be only an idea in my hands. So I dropped "of the Heart" and got back down to work.
I decided the better plot was an outbreak of plague in a small town in Iowa. So with that decision made...I needed to populate my world with characters!!
Given the plot I knew I would need someone from the CDC as my lead (hello Lynne) and with the bioterror aspect law enforcement was a given (hello Caleb). Rather than spoil the book for anyone though, let's go through the whole process with a minor character so that you can get a feel for it without ruining the story.
Since one of the central locations of the story was a small town that gets ravaged by disease, I knew the mayor would play a role so I crafted Donald Lincoln. My concept for him was a mild-mannered, weak, subservient, spineless jellyfish. I wanted him to engender pity from the reader. Given that he's involved in a love triangle, I thought the reader would feel bad for him.
However, his first scene proved that he was anything but spineless. And that's the beauty of characters, sometimes they follow the script and sometimes they don't. As authors all we do is give them life; what they do with it is often up to them.
And yes, of course I could've rewritten Donald to force him into being the mousy character I thought he was but that would've been a disservice. No, Donald works better as the brash, arrogant, a-hole that he is.
So where do characters come from? For me they're centrally important to the story I'm telling. I write character driven fiction first and foremost.
When a plot comes to me (and we'll discuss where plots come from at a later date) I think about what type of characters will be needed to make it work. What profession will I need them to have? What type of personality will work? What motivations are necessary? These are just some of the questions that lead to the genesis of creation.
Naturally I'm also asked if I ever draw inspiration from the people I know in life. To be truthful, I have on occasion thrown a model of someone I know in life into my stories. Always a minor player though and usually to honor the person.
There was one time though where a real a-hole pissed me off to the point that I wrote him into one of my novels. His description was spot on to what he really looked like and I made him the unlikeable a-hole that he really was. And no...it's not Donald!
And that brings us to names. I know some authors painstakingly contemplate what to name their characters for months on end, just trying to come up with the proper moniker. And in some stories the name is just that important. For me though, all I try to do is place first and last names together that sound real and flow together. My only real rule when it comes to naming characters is that with main ones I won't give them long or complicated names because I'm going to have to type it hundreds of times!!
So that's it then, that's where characters come from. Feel free to ask if there's something I didn't cover :)
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