Character Creation

I get a lot of questions regarding my characters. More specifically, how I create them. This is probably a question every author gets.
I don’t really have a set way of creating a character. Generally what I’ll do first is think about the story concept. For example, I have an idea knocking around my brain about a dystopian book. I have a few elements to the story I want to encompass, and a few social positions within that society that the characters have to fit into. Just like real people, surroundings have a part in making a character.
For the world forming in my head, my heroine will have to maintain a top level position in a very sterile society. Without going into too much detail about the world I am creating, I envision a place where mammoth corporations and the government kind of bleed into one entity. There is, of course, stringent monitoring of reproduction, since this is in the future and the world is dramatically overpopulated, and technology regulates most everything. To exist in this world, as one of the prize defense programmers specifically bred for the role, my heroine must be fiercely smart, stern and efficient. Tense, focused, and embodying the role assigned to her.
I am always very broad at first glance. It’s just a general feeling, like you’d get if you people watch, or met someone for the first time.
I think, then, of key elements around the character. For example, procreation is not a choice in this world. Sexual attraction plays no importance in that equation, which means the characters can suppress sexual desire if they chose. I definitely think she’d choose to suppress it. She’d have no need for it, and not bother. So, she is extremely logical. (I am literally making this up as I go)
She probably doesn’t have a lot of hobbies. She was bred for the job—that is her place in life. I bet she doesn’t even drink a glass of wine with dinner. Just wouldn’t understand the point. Her life is colorless, but since she doesn’t realize it can be any other way, she doesn’t worry about happy and unhappy. She just does. Much like a human robot; suppressing baser instincts and all information not especially relevant to her function in life.
I have just created a sweeping conflict—she is not a robot. She might act like one, but under that, she is human. Putting voice to what I would unconsciously do—her character arch will be emerging from this shell of suppression, and learning to feel.
I just got a warm fuzzy. It means I’m on the right track, because I want to meet her. I want to live that journey with her. I know that she is capable of great depth, and her story will reveal that.
As I make all this up, I have in my head that the hero will like all the things she’s never bothered to explore. He’ll get no end of enjoyment out of ruffling her feathers. He’ll think it’s funny, and she won’t see the humor, which will completely exasperate her. (That’ll be a side conflict)
Back to the heroine. Once I have a basic understanding of her, and the world she lives in, I start writing. I put her in situations and just…react. I let her make decisions, like an actor improvising, and let that shape her.
For example, as she walked into her office building, a street guy advances on her lewdly. What does she do?
Well…let’s see. Does she step forward with two well-placed punches and drop him? She’s bred for the best, does that include self-defense?
……?
No, I don’t think so. She is a prized asset in the company and closely monitored. I think she would continue walking normally, chin slightly elevated, and trust one the guards on the sideline to step forward and quell the lewd advance. We know now that she is continuously monitored, and has no real free will. At the moment, that doesn’t bother her.
At the moment. In the future, however…
Someone remind me to return to this post when I start writing this story to pick up all these nuggets.
So, we now have a scene. It helps us define this world a little more. When that guard steps forward, he will brutally bash the bum over the head, grab the now bloody, limp body, and toss it across the wet, dirty curb; no regard for lower-tiered human life. This brutality is commonplace.
So we know she continues forward, but what of her inner feelings? That’s the defining question.
When in doubt, I put myself in the situation.
If I was her, and saw a gross, dirty man step forward and try to grab my crotch, I would get a jolt of fear, flinch away, and try to cover myself. If I then saw him brutally bashed over the head, probably killed, I’d be haunted.
Because she is not, what must that mean for her life and surroundings? A hard, desensitized woman, probably.
Ooooor… is she outwardly pretending to be unruffled, so she avoids scrutiny, and inside dread is pinging around her body wildly?
Yes, I think that’s the winner. A little root just dipped into her humanity. We’ve just cracked her shallowness and had a peek inside.
Well, happy days.
Each little thing that happens fleshes her out until she’s an imaginary friend. Soon I’ll end up in the loony bin waving around a feather quill and bottle of ink, but at least my characters will be realistic.
But anyway, that’s how I work into a character. At the end of the book they’re usually defined, and I go back to the beginning and rework to make sure they are all fleshed out from the get-go.
Voila.
Which character was your favorite? And don’t say your book boyfriend just because you want to see him naked J