Creating characters
When I begin work on a book, I need to do quite a bit of thinking first. Once I get a rough idea of what it will be about, I go to work discovering who the people are in the story. I don’t write anything down. I don’t give them names. I just start with a general idea of who they are, and let them say hello, one at a time.
It takes months sometimes, to be able to see and understand who the characters really are, what their motivations are, their history, how they walk, talk, act, move, like and dislike. They need to be three-dimensional characters before I write about them, or they will be transparent, unbelievable, and “fake”.
When I came up with the idea for Jared’s Island, it was a simple thought about a boy who runs away to an island and lives there. That idea sat in my head for more than a decade before the character of Jared came to life. In this case, he was based on the strongest aspects of my son, who was the catalyst for the book. The old man, Sam, took time in coming to life. Much of his belief system came to life as I was writing his lines.
The characters writers create, will actually create themselves when given enough time. Anyone can make up a name and have the person follow a storyline. The difference is when characters begin to make their own decisions as the writer writes. I know it sounds strange, but it happens. In Jared’s Island, Jared made several decisions about how to react to a situation, even though I was thinking something completely different. Sometimes I found myself typing excitedly, wondering what was comiing next. I was never disappointed.
When I was starting Providence, my current work in progress, I had it in my head that Jared – same name, different person – would be happy to see his long lost father. Instead, he decided to be angry that his father had been gone for four years. It wasn’t my idea. I was writing, but different words were going on the paper than I had anticipated writing. I thought I was a bit insane for a while, but then I read Stephen King’s, On Writing, and he said the same thing! ��Sure, he’s insane, but at least I’m in good company.
I recently read somewhere that if you create a back story for your characters,along with pivotal moments in their lives, you will create their personalities in such a way that will reflect their past, even though you may never write about their past. I can see this working, and I’m going to try it on my next book. ��It;s harder to write a book if you’re not comfortable with who the characters are, because you find yourself discovering them as you write the story. This causes re-writes – lots of them. Perhaps creating their past will speed up my way of doing things. ��I’ll try anything once.
