Creating Characters in Fiction Writing

Have you ever had a great story in mind, complete with a beginning, middle and end, but just cannot for the life of you develop decent, believable characters? It happens to every writer, and so I thought I might share a few of my own thoughts on the subject.

Get a picture of the character in your mind first.

I find it best to figure out if I want the character to be short, tall, fat, skinny, male, female, dumb, smart - or even human at all, before I begin writing about them. Do not be afraid to stretch your imagination to the furthest dimensions of reality or fantasy. Keep in mind that clichés are just that - played out, stock pictures of what the public in general would already envision. It is okay to have a skinny lumberjack, or a muscle bound computer repairman! It is also acceptable to employ female truck drivers or male Yoga instructor - they do indeed exist!

Create a personality for the character.

All of us have quirks about us, and your characters should be no different. Details about them which make them more human really speak to your reading audience. Their likes and dislikes, religious beliefs or non-beliefs, favorite colors, worst fears - whatever you can add in to make them believable gets a thumbs-up. Remember, no one is just a body walking around with no opinions, experiences, or dreams. Make them real and your readers will read.

Stay in character!

This one is very important in my opinion. If your character does things in the story that someone of a similar nature would never, ever do in real life, it adds enough "BS" factor to the pages that your reader just might stop turning them. Whatever you decide the character's personality is, stick with those qualities unless they endure dire / life-threatening circumstances, at which point almost anyone can be a hero. You won't find Mr. T. singing a duet with Dolly Parton at a country concert any time soon, and it is unlikely that Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie is going to sacrifice an animal to satisfy the insatiable needs of some evil god in one of the episodes. Keep them in character, keep them real.

I hope that the above tips, while obvious to some, might just help someone when developing characters in their story. While there are very few hard and fast rules to story telling, I believe that having characters who act within reason for their personality is very important.