Writers: how do you go about creating new characters?

August 2, 2013 2:41 AM

Writers: how do you go about creating new characters? I've tried in the past, but they usually end up a combination of tired cliches and quotes from old movies. They never feel real. If I don't have a natural talent for doing this, how do I get better at it?
posted by archagon to Media & Arts (18 answers total)

Yep. Drop a friend into your story, then adjust the friend as needed. Your character is real friend Bob if Bob were a little bigger and smellier and sold used cars. When you need to know what happens next, ask yourself what (bigger, smellier) Bob would say and do. He'd call his girlfriend and whine about it, of course, and you know exactly how Bob whines and what his girlfriend would tell him to go and do.
posted by pracowity at 3:34 AM on August 2, 2013

Anotherthing you can do is to base your characters on different aspects of yourself. Have a weakness for hotdogs, but you rein yourself in because of your weight? A tendency to geta tad jealous? Takes these traits and magnify them. So your character loves hotdogs, to the point that it becomes a running joke among his friends. Another character could have jealousy be her fatal flaw. Pick interesting characteristics from yourself and people you know and write them in, so that your characters don't become too one-dimensional. Also, think about how your characters' traits might influence one another, to come up with more interesting combinations.
posted by satoshi at 4:19 AM on August 2, 2013

I usually take a situation, often something somewhat absurd, then put 5 - 6 blank characters there. Let them talk to each other, ask how they ended up where they are, what they can do to help in their given situation and see where it goes. So you have 5 blank dummies who just crashed with a plane in a remote forest and need to get home. Then start writing dialogue.

Without names or a visual idea of them, you will automatically start to give them something that becomes recognizable - the one who stutters (why? only when nervous? totally owns it and has surprising confidence despite the stutter?), the one who always has to add a snarky comment (jaded bastard? terrified and trying to overplay it?), the one with the job/skills that come in handy (why did he/she become a Forest Survival Guide author? family tradition? going against the father's wish? inspired by a mentor?) and so on.

Then put them in a new situation - after getting out of the forest, they meet again on a cocktail party, in a relaxed situation (or whatever contrasts the previous scenario). How do they look back on their adventure, how do they talk to each other now? What would people immediately notice, what traits would only show under stress?
posted by MinusCelsius at 5:34 AM on August 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

Start by figuring out where they fit into the story. The hole in the story should already be about the size and shape of the character. Does someone need to come in and mess things up? Does someone need to represent a counterpoint to your protagonist? Be the responsible one, to emphasize the chaos around them?

Take that role and build around it. The role they fill in the story will inform their most prominent character trait.

Then, add texture. You should always be paying attention to other people, to the way they talk, to their little verbal tics. Keep a mental file of these, and refer to it periodically. A nervous laugh? Repeating phrases? A particular turn of phrase? Keep it. Use it.

Add quirks, if you'd like. Figure out what this person would have for breakfast, given their druthers. Would they have cereal? Greek yogurt with granola and berries? Crepes? Would they have a screwdriver and not much else? Go from there.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 6:07 AM on August 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

Give them tension, conflict - how do they deal with it?
posted by entropone at 6:15 AM on August 2, 2013

I find that there are plenty of great characters in real life. I just use the people I know. Apparently Raymond Chandler did it this way too.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:49 AM on August 2, 2013

A writer of detective stories gave me the following advice when I said I was struggling with characters. He said, "What's the last thing you finished writing?" I answered that I'd just written a personal essay about the evolution of my relationship to rock and roll music, from being taught as a child that it belonged to the devil and was filled with rebellion, to my belief as an adult that it is faux-rebellion produced and sold by capitalism to make people think they are expressing their individuality.

He smiled and said, "those are your two characters. They are detectives, trying to solve a crime. They are soldiers, surviving the night in the trenches. They are best friends, torn apart by tragedy. Those two perspectives -- both of which are yours and both of which are different and conflicting -- can be two different people with the addition of just a few details."

And that's helped me a lot. I imagine multiple sides of an argument first, and then draw the characters outward from there. "What kind of childhood did you have to have, to find this persuasive? What experiences make you disagree? Would you still see it that way if you were, say black, or a woman? Okay, now let's make you an immigrant from a totally different culture and find that your belief hasn't changed -- what's that about?" This lets me build up the characters from the inside out and try things on for them until they have a complex and textured psychology that I can work with and push against.

So the takeaway is, any time you find that you can see both sides of an argument, you are starting to make two characters who are in conflict. Take those two sides and run with them.
posted by gauche at 7:08 AM on August 2, 2013 [4 favorites]

One thing that I've found helps is to think of voice as another version of acting. When you write in first person, you're not just watching that person (as you would a movie on a screen), but inhabiting that person's skin. What they notice, the things they think about--those are all as significant as what they say, and do, and the conflict between their thoughts and actions is often what takes a character from stock to real, for me.

Once you've practiced that for your narrator character, all you have to do is write a few first-person paragraphs for your secondary characters. Usually that will tease out some depth that would be otherwise lacking.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:10 AM on August 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

I just steal other people's characters and change them up to fit whatever I'm doing.
posted by nooneyouknow at 7:14 AM on August 2, 2013

1. Go to a diner and watch people. Especially the regulars. They tend to arrive very early for breakfast, and for early dinner. (That way, the servers have time to chat with them before it gets busy.)

2. Surf profiles on OK Cupid. Lots of good material there. Especially look at profiles that wouldn't interest you if you were looking for someone to date.
posted by MexicanYenta at 7:44 AM on August 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

character creation is my favorite. before I start to write a book, usually I freewrite about my major characters, writing down background and facts and inner/external goals. that's a good time to catch cliches. I might not go as far as suggesting you write a friend into your story, but rather borrow traits -- unique qualities from friends/acquaintances/random folk you met momentarily in your past & present. blend them together in unexpected ways.

YA author Laurie Halse Anderson once said she doesn't really know her characters until her first revision. I tend to agree -- that first draft is a getting-to-know-them process. by the time you've spent a whole book with your characters, you'll know how to edit for what they'd really do and say.
posted by changeling at 8:05 AM on August 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

I am a discovery writer so I find cliche characters at the start are not a problem. I find out more about the characters as the novel progresses and as I find more challenges for them to face.

You can always edit them to be more like you found out they were later.
posted by Wysawyg at 8:12 AM on August 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Not every character has to be round. You can develop a palette of flat and round characters for a story, and use as needed. Give them enough small details to make them a believable human, but not too much. For round characters, observe the world around you. Stay conscious of yourself, your own thoughts and reactions. Any thoughts you have that make you go, "Huh, that's weird, better not talk about that" -- guaranteed those are universal thoughts and feelings other people have had, that should appear in your stories and be felt by your characters. Whenever you have an initial idea about what a character should be, try exploring the next idea about that character. Your first idea is often the cliche. The 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th ideas are where the meat is.

PhoBWanKenobi has made the acting/writing point before, and it's so true. Writing is about empathy. To a certain degree, empathy is another form of acting. Take an acting class. Read plays aloud.
posted by Miss T.Horn at 9:04 AM on August 2, 2013

Really depends on the kind of story. In genre fiction, the entire story is built around the action of the protagonist, and most of the characters exist to aid or hinder his or her quest.

Lets say your main character needs to go to Peru in pursuit of some ancient Incan Idol. Now you need some conflict so you stop him at the border with some corrupt customs agent.

Everyone has dealt with sleazy or incompetent public officials, so filling out that character should be relatively easy.

Now you've got a conflict, and let's so you want some fast talking local to get him out of it. Lets make it interesting and make her an attractive young woman, so he can also have a love interest/sidekick. Again, just draw from personal experience with ex girlfriends or whatever. And to add a little twist, make her a double agent, or give her some terrible personal secret that ties into the main quest.

Basically focus on why the character is in the story first, then add flavor around it. And extraneous details, and reuse what start off as incidental characters for different roles to give the story a feeling of depth of plotting.
posted by empath at 10:03 AM on August 2, 2013

Instead of becoming pissed off by loud phone conversations on public transport, take notes.
posted by flabdablet at 10:47 AM on August 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh -- and Ask Metafilter relationship questions are a treasure trove of both characters and dramatic situations.
posted by empath at 2:15 PM on August 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

I do it systemically. This is a pain in the ass till I got good at it, and it probably does not work for everybody. Where and when was s/he born? Whey were his parents there? How did their beliefs shape him? What accent will he have? What are 2-5 major events from his life? Where did he go to school? Who was his first crush? What was his best subject? What was his major? What are his political views? How does he react to stress? The opposite sex? And so on and so on. I'm kinda weird though :)
posted by Jacen at 4:09 PM on August 2, 2013

Like Wysawyg, I'm a discovery writer, so my characters tend to evolve over time. And I'm open to everything for inspiration: songs, Wikipedia articles, characters on a show, etc. I based a character on a specific expression I saw Maria Bamford make at Bumbershoot years ago. This same character is named Frankie because I was watching a lot of Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends and I liked the name, and I wanted my own character named Frankie. And then I started thinking about a character named Frankie who made that expression, and why.

Another character got her most recent trait from one of my co-workers, who reminds me so much of her. So many of my characters have pieces of myself in them. What am I worried about? What am I excited about? And with which character would those fears and interests best fit? And, of course, you could turn that on its head. What are you totally confident about? What if you weren't confident about that thing? What would happen if you changed one of the turning points in your life? Who would you become?

And sometimes it's a lot more boring and forced. This character needs a hobby... aaaand now they're a photographer, what does that mean? This can also mean lots of researching for their seemingly inconsequential hobby, which is a lot of fun.

And sometimes I roll with whatever my subconscious is jabbering at me. I remember suddenly realizing one of my characters was gay. Boom. Out of nowhere. And that's who he became. So how did the characters around him react?

Make a character you want to hang out with, and then add a deal breaker personality trait. Make a character you'd want to stay far away from, but has a super endearing secret. Make a character you want to hang out with, and then add a deal breaker personality trait. Make a character you'd want to stay far away from, but has a super endearing secret. Most importantly, at least for me: make characters you want to read about.

I guess the biggest thing I do with my characters is I let them live. They're always just kind of... around. I think about what they'd think of that customer I just dealt with, or the clothing shop I passed, what they want to eat when they're hungry. They're never far. So you start asking them things, figuratively, and the more you build them, the more clearly they start to answer you.

In summation: everything can be used to make a character. You get to be the filter.
posted by gc at 12:58 AM on August 3, 2013 [2 favorites]