The Art of Creating Characters

So you are a writer. But you're having a hard time developing your story because you can't seem to come up with anything new.

Let me introduce you to Gathergood and Witherwax.

These are old friends of mine from back in the day when I was working as a night clerk in a hotel. I was an avid writer. I wrote a lot of descriptions and what my father called, "flowery writing". I was really good with adjectives and ideas. I did not completely understand how characters enrich the story sometimes much more than just good descriptions.

I came across a time when I was having difficulty developing the story any further as I could not develop the right characters and for whatever reason I could not be creative enough to create the characters out of thin air. That's really when my friends came to the rescue. You see Gathergood and Witherwax are the last names of two people that stayed at the hotel. One name sounded really good and the other one sounded really dark.

Most of the time, as in the movie Usual Suspects, there is more than enough interesting information around you to develop the characters you need. Start with names. For me the name of the character starts me on a journey of discovery. The name gives me a premise to begin developing who that person is and what drives them forward in the story. Search the Internet for directories, socializing networks, white pages, etc. and look for interesting names. It will be obvious to you that without ever having met the person it would be practically impossible to write a story similar to their life. Therefore their name becomes your name to create a new person.

Search your daily news, videos, documentaries, etc. and you will find some of the most engaging people you have ever read about. Search the socializing blogs for clues about human behavior. Go to the mall and listen and watch the people around you. You would be amazed at the incredible ideas you can get from watching people at the mall. Think about your relatives or past relationships/acquaintances that you observed quirky or interesting conversation or behavior that would help to develop the personality, traits, and driving behaviors of your characters. One hour of searching the net, flipping through newspapers/magazines will give you more than enough information/ideas to create some amazing characters.

I carry a small pocket notepad with me everywhere I go and write down any interesting names or conversation, slogans, catch phrases I come across for future musings. You may write down practically anything. I write down everything from ideas for zombie stories to ideas for children's books. The information is right around you. Open your perspective and you will easily find the ideas around you to develop some of the greatest characters you have ever written or read.

One of the most dramatic fictional stories I have have ever written was based on an interview in a documentary about a man having to deal with his son's death. This created the exact tone/quality of the material I was trying to write and moved by my own emotional investment in the true story it lent truth to my fictional story in a way I might not have been able to create not personally experiencing it.

The more open you are to being creative the faster it will happen for you. Develop a consistent method for documenting new ideas, words, names, phrases, etc. The more you use a method the more a method works for you. Just look in your local yellow pages and you will find thousands of different kinds of businesses, professions, ideas for parts of your stories. Look in the white pages and you will find street names, people names and further ideas for your stories.

I like to read the obituaries, especially the long ones because it gives you a couple of paragraphs about that person's life and how they are remembered. Start here with your characters. Good, bad, crazy, sane, write the character's obituary and it will give you a better understanding of the character.

These ideas might sound strange, but I try every kind of method that keeps me productive. Writing is about moving forward and creating. If you aren't creating look around you for help. We all need help. The world is trying to help you.