Today, I had a character pop into my head. It was the clearest I have ever seen one, it was great! I am relatively new to writing, so I haven't developed many characters so far, but the one I "met" today is definitely my most exciting starting point I have had! Is it weird how excited I am about someone who randomly popped into my head? I honestly feel like I know her so well that she is a part of me, like an alter ego type thing (I'm not crazy, I swear!) For others that have their characters pop in to their head and just create something right then and there on their own, how did things end up? Did you go with the original story that popped in your head with the character, or did it end up being nothing like the original thought? Just curious. I am excited to see where 'she' takes me!
Congrats, all good characters live in your head. If you write one that doesn't you may just want to kill them.
I'd say that I come up with characters in two distinctly different ways - there are those that just pop into my head, and stories grow from them, and there are those I come up with because I need a certain character to fit a certain place within the story. The former tend to be my main characters, and I build entire stories around them, while the latter tend to be more minor characters.
There's no rule for me. Great characters have developed in the midst of stories and others had stories grow from them after they popped into my head. Others I don't even remember how they originally got there and just that they are there now and are never going away. IMO, it doesn't really matter HOW they got there and it's just more what you do with them. But hey, if characters just pop into your head, I wouldn't necessarily consider it a bad thing. So congrats.
I like to keep collections of the 1st kind of character floating around in my imagination. Then when I write something I can pull several in, instead of just one.
I've definitely had both those experiences, but I especially had a great case of the latter not too long ago. I basically had to force myself to come up with a character to make some scenes in my novel worked, and I hated the guy because it didn't come easily. Then, about two-thirds of the way through writing, something clicked. The character's motivation, and everything else about him, suddenly became so obvious. I had to go back and re-write every scene he was in, but it was so worth it
Unlike the method actors of the writing world I do not immerse myself in "getting to know" a character I conceive. In fact, I strive away from them, and give them their own space to live and breathe and adapt. When I write dialog I tend to stick to conventional techniques of personality, using baseline "tropes" of people or family I know, and then adjusting them to the demeanor that I envision this person might construct. I am often times quite wrong, and it takes dozens of drafts to find the character. Often times I take the biographical approach or even more simply I only use characters as a living visage for a particular moment or emotion. A 'sad' character, a 'pensive' character, etc. They often never transcend their roots.
My first-ever character "popped" into my head like that. She's a complete sociopathic sadist (completely my opposite), and I love writing little scenes with her in them but I have to really be in the mood for it. All my other characters, minor or major, I've literally dreamed up. I'll wake up with this charater idea or "personality" and immediately write them out before I forget their details. Generally the storylines of all my characters are all close to their originals but there a few I've changed to better fit the story of another character. Keeps things interesting, having two/three/four different "lives" for one character. Their personality/mannerisms/habits/etc. remain the same, but their "history" changes if I need it to.
My MC "popped" into my head years ago. Some of the other characters grew when I was writing about her. Unfortunately, I've borrowed a couple of characters from real life - mannerisms and personalities - because I felt they were too unique to not write down. I hope they never find out.
