How do you get to know your characters?

Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Zaphina, Apr 3, 2014.

  1. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    This is such a useful exercise. Can't agree more.

    Once you get your character in action—either on his own or interacting with others, even if the scene itself won't end up in your final draft—you will know him. No amount of planning can substitute for actually writing the character into a scene. That's where the surprises may come.

    Suddenly what you'd planned for the character doesn't seem right any more. Or in an exchange of dialogue, the character says something way OUT of character, and you realise there is more to this guy than you originally thought.

    The way other characters react to him lets us know more about him. Are the other characters wary of him? Do they dismiss his contributions to the conversation? Do they hang on his every word? If he's the POV character, how do his inner thoughts tally with what is happening around him? Go with whatever develops as freely as you can. Your character will shape himself, give you something real and interesting to work with as you work your story into shape.
     
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  2. Bjørnar Munkerud

    Bjørnar Munkerud Senior Member

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    For me it varies greatly. Sometimes I plan a character out complete with age, sex, sexuality, occupation, familial relations, background, where they live, when they're born and skin, hair and eye colour years before I even start writing the story in question, just to choose not to include them in the text when I come to the point in which they would be introduced, other times I merge them, change them so that they are unrecognisable, move them over to another writing project or simply scrap the story and the character with it. Sometimes I invent the character right at the moment they're to be introduced when I'm writing, if I suddenly come to the conclusion that I need another character to fill some role, or I decide including another character will make for better or more reasonable dialogue or whatever. Sometimes I begin with a character and make up a story which includes it, while sometimes I think of the setting first and have to sit down and devise an appropriate and interesting character for it. Sometimes I just think of an interesting combination of character traits or a name or something and then write it down and put it on the shelf until I find an appropriate place in a story to include him or her. I suppose my point is that it can be done whatever way it lends itself to. Do what suits you. If the characters come to you first, you should probably just let it be that way and create their universes later and vice versa.
     
  3. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    I write with @KaTrian, and since we both have our own characters in each story, in order for her to understand my characters and for me to understand hers, we have to use character data sheets. Otherwise it would be annoying 'cause we'd constantly have to ask each other questions about the characters.

    Of course, no sheet is perfect, so we still end up asking each other lots of questions and brainstorming each other's characters, but the sheets do help a lot by at least explaining the more superficial stuff like looks, preferences, personality, history etc.

    We also do what @minstrel and @jannert mentioned, writing scenes that involve the characters, knowing the scenes will never make it into the story. Sometimes we also "over-write" scenes on purpose, i.e. we write a scene that will be in the story, but when we write the first draft, we throw in everything and the kitchen sink and later on cut out the stuff that doesn't need to be there. Kinda like sculpting, really; take out things as long as there's nothing left to take out without hurting the story.

    We also go for "story walks," where we go to some remote location or to some public place at an odd hour (like at 3 in the morning) so we can freely discuss our stories and characters. Sometimes those walks go on for hours when we discover new depths of characters we thought we already knew and some completely new but essential attribute or plotline springs up. It can be quite exhilarating, really.

    Just two days ago one relatively small character turned into a POV character and last night her history just opened up to me and lo and behold, we got something we feel is much better than what used to be there, especially since the character, as she is now, really helps bring the plot together.

    She also opened lots of new doors for us, granting us eyes into rooms that we previously didn't have access to. I mean that literally: we knew things were happening behind closed doors, but we didn't have any POV characters who'd have a reason to be there and we didn't want to manufacture a reason just for the sake of having a POV character there.
    And then this character comes along and kicks the doors down and now I'm really excited, anxiously waiting the day when I finally get to write her even though I know that most of the things on the six pages of notes and stuff I wrote for her last night will never make it into the actual story, but we need to know that stuff or she'd come out wrong.

    I've also found that sometimes you can know a character so well, it hurts the story. This happened with one character in our current WIP; I created him 12 years ago in a short I was writing then, so I've known him for a long time. The way it bit me in the ass was that since I knew him so well, I considered a lot of stuff about him self-evident and, as it turns out, it's not; I ended up confusing a lot of people and had to take a step back and look at his parts in the story as if I had no idea who he was. It was then that I understood how I should write him to give the most accurate and truthful portrayal of him to the reader.

    And yes, our characters definitely surprise us now and then. Sometimes it's by doing something unexpected, making a choice we hadn't planned (or the opposite choice of what we'd planned), completely changing the story, or something might happen to them we hadn't intended. And sometimes they reveal a new side of themselves to us that changes everything and then we have to go back and rewrite a shitload of stuff.

    It can get frustrating sometimes, but despite their faults and failures, we love all our characters who keep us up all night and send us to work and school dead-tired from lack of sleep, with bloodshot eyes and unfinished homework, the little rascals.
     
  4. aikoaiko

    aikoaiko Senior Member

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    So what I wondered is how do you get to know your characters?

    Find an interesting place to sit and go to work! I saw an interview with Donna Tartt and she said her favorite place to work was the New York Public Library. Anytime she needed an interesting character all she had to do was look up:).
     
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  5. AlannaHart

    AlannaHart Senior Member

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    When I invent characters I become obsessed with them. I daydream scenarios that expand their personalities without conscious intent. It's one of my favourite pastimes. I end up doing it when I shouldn't be, like in the middle of a conversation I'll just zone out thinking one up. Maybe two characters who wouldn't meet in the actual storyline run into each other, or a random scene from one of their childhoods will occur to me.
     
  6. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    Same here. I come up with more characters than stories to put them in. And the more I think about them, the clearer it becomes what kind of a story they'd fit in, and then I have a new story idea. And then I come up with more characters and there you have it, a never-ending vicious circle that'll probably keep me writing with an ever-growing number of stories backlogged until I join the choir invisible. But I'm not complaining.
     
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  7. Zaphina

    Zaphina New Member

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    Some things to consider I'm very interested! I feel quite new to this still, what is a POV character?
     
  8. AlannaHart

    AlannaHart Senior Member

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    Whichever character you're writing from the Point of View of :)
     
  9. Zaphina

    Zaphina New Member

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    Ohh I see! So is it always first person or can it be third person too?
     
  10. AlannaHart

    AlannaHart Senior Member

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    Any person :p
     
  11. Zaphina

    Zaphina New Member

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    Haha okay I got it! :)
     
  12. James Joyce

    James Joyce New Member

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    The best way to make a complex character is to take someone from real life and then have them do their own thing.
    Start with total truth, and then begin to lie until they become their own person.
    Another thing is to start building a personality. The easiest way is to take your own personality and change things about it.
    How much you change is up to you.
     
  13. Gemini_Genie

    Gemini_Genie New Member

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    I've always made up characters ever since I can remember. The thing that I didn't realize until I was older was that my main character was almost always the same. lol Just..a better more sophisticated version of the last. She...and he...grew up with me. They do surprise me when I'm writing. Nothing I put down on paper ever seems to resemble the outline I write up before it when I'm done which leads to lots of editing and re-editing before I'm finished.

    Characters that I don't base off myself...the support characters are an amalgam of people I know and have seen while just walking around living life. They surprise me too. XD I always end up telling way more about them than I feel like I ought to. But then that's not bad is it? Support characters are supposed to support. So shouldn't we flesh them equally as well in the worlds of our mains? If they never noticed anyone else in their world they'd be awfully narcissistic.
     
  14. cazann34

    cazann34 Active Member

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    They talk to you. You, as the writer give them a situation, a first line or a second or even a third and at some point they take over. When I'm writing and I'm in 'the zone', it's almost as though my characters are talking to me and all I need to do is type it down. And yes, they do surprise me and take over and refuse to allow me to mould them. The story moulds the character(s) and the character(s) moulds the story. It's your subconscious that takes over off course. It's the knowledge that you've accumulated over your life time and kept in your subconscious. Some say that we are able to remember everything we have ever learnt, seen or heard. I believe to some extent we can. Memory is like a book. An enormous book with all your memories and it takes effort to remember what memories are on which page. Am I rambling? Perhaps. What I am saying is we create our characters (we learn about our characters by using our own life experiences and what we've heard or seen through TV, interacting with friends and family and of course strangers when we people-watch).
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2014
  15. DeathandGrim

    DeathandGrim Senior Member

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    I like to act out possible scenarios just for fun and it gives me insight into them, the response comes naturally. Like just yesterday I, just for humor, established one of my protagonists as an atheist.

    "Veronica... I hope you're ready to meet God."

    "I'm an atheist..."

    "...it's going to be very lonely for you, isn't it?"
     
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  16. stormcat

    stormcat Active Member

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    I start them off with a few basic character traits, then I let them grow as I write more about them.
     
  17. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    That's one of the problems trying to use character questionnaires. They may have meaningful questions for someone else's characters, but they aren't relevant to my characters.

    If I were going to use a questionnaire, I'd have to make my own questions up. It's not my style. I know my characters because they talk to each other in my head. I live with them.
     
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  18. TheDapperJack

    TheDapperJack New Member

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    Hm, this is the quandary. Tell me, did you ever read the works of Shan Yu? Fancied himself quite the warrior poet. Wrote volumes on war, and torture. He said:

    "Live with a man 40 years. Share his house, his meals. Speak on every subject. Then tie him up, and hold him over the volcano's edge. And on that day, you will finally meet the man."
     
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  19. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    This whole forum is opinion mixed with experience, an excellent resource.
     
  20. FrankieWuh

    FrankieWuh Active Member

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    I love that. That's perhaps some of the best writing advice I've heard in the last few weeks. It is so true. You never really know a person until you meet them in life or death situations. That goes for the author too I would argue. Which makes the process so exciting. I mean what would happen if you put your MC in a situation where they had to kill someone to live, or they had to die themselves to save the ones they love? You'll really get to know your character if you ran that scenario!
     
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  21. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    That's what I do as well. To see them act out in ways I didn't think they would is exciting.
     
  22. Nell Nixie

    Nell Nixie New Member

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    I become my characters. That is how I get to know them.
     
  23. Yoshiko

    Yoshiko Contributor Contributor

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    I let them develop in my head for a least a few days before I start the planning stage. Usually I won't start writing about them for a couple of weeks (but usually months) after they first come to mind. It gives me plenty of time to just think about them.
     
  24. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    I'm a big character sheet guy. I think it is important to have a cheat sheet so that you can remain consistent with your character's actions. It's not for everyone, but it is definitely something that helps me. Now that doesn't mean that you can't deviate your character's actions sometimes, but it is important to also mention that it isn't something they don't normally do.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2014
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