Create A Fictional Character
So you’re interested in writing a short story and want to know how to develop a character for the story.
There are some very simple steps you need to take. Is your character going to be male or female, young or old. Is the character going to be the hero (protagonist ) or the villain (antagonist) And of course what type of story (genre) is the story going to be in.
Give your character an age, and a name. It is surprising but once you name the character you get to know them and once you know their age you can, sort of, talk to them and know how they talk. At this stage of the process I also like to build a picture of my character. The length of the story will depend how far I go into this process.
Another tip, and one which professional authors use, is very simple to observe people. The landlord of the pub, a work colleague, Uncle Bob or Auntie Mary. You are not going to lift their characters completely but you could possibly use them for descriptive purposes. You could adopt their quirks to suite one of your characters.
In building up a character I’ll put down on paper:
- Age
- Height
- Where they live
- Pastimes
- What type of music they like
- What type of story they buy
- Their daily newspaper – you can tell a lot about a person by their newspaper.
- What type of car they have
- How they dress; is it sloppy, causal, formal
- And of course there is the physical description: height, weight, colour of eyes etc.
Once I have all this I can of course get to know my character and even though a lot of this material will never make its way into the story it let’s me know how the individual thinks and feels. One of my favourite TV detective characters, ‘Morse,’ plays classical music, goes to the opera, is constantly doing the Times crossword – that tells me a lot about the character.
It is also interesting to know what the character wants out of life: do they want love, do they want to raise a family in a safe environment, if it is a one off story what’s their objective, fore example, in a horror story their want might just be to get out of danger as quickly as possible. If it is a romance the main want will be to get the partner.
Where does your character live, what kind of car does he drive, what kind of clothes does he drive? If you can answer these questions then you’ll have a very good idea of what your character would do in any given circumstances.
You are not going to use all this information of course it is just to know your character. The whole idea is to make the character as real as possible in your own eyes, it is only then that you can make him/her come alive for your reader.
When I’ve done all this I’ll sit down and write a kind of CV for my character, writing it in the first person. My name is Jack Sharkey, I’m 46 years old and live with…..
One final piece of advice while you have all of this information at your disposal there is no reason for the reader to have it all, certainly not all at once. Keep a little bit back, encourage them to use their imagination.
