How do your characters come to be?

My characters have grown from the message I want the story to tell. So far I only have one 2-part novel mind you, but the characters all serve a purpose. The only rule is, I'm trying to avoid flat characters. I have a couple but when I found myself writing a third, I changed it up on purpose to avoid some clichès. I may still change the two that are more stereotypical.

 

I don't know, I think I like not having hordes of angry aliens, or sinister gangs, vying for my death at every waking moment. xD

But I agree with GingerCoffee. That's how my characters are usually born, too.

 

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For me there are two different ways to make a character. The first one is to craft them from a spark of inspiration, and which is how I usually make the characters that I am most happy with, and then flesh them out. The second is to make lesser characters to support the main character and these usually comes from what I think that the story will need. Sometimes the characters develops in a different way than I had imagine but that's part of the charm.

So basically inspiration for the characters that I think comes out best, and dry work for the supporting characters. Now of course work is involved in allowing the seed of inspiration to grow and eventually blossom into a full character, but you probably get the point.

 

I just wanted to say, I'm really enjoying hearing everyone's input on this. It's very interesting how people go about this differently.

 

A character starts, for me, as a single line. A lot of times, it's how someone described another person. Other times, it's a song lyric. On occasion I meet someone that I can't help but basically fall in love with, so some of their traits may be incorporated in my characters. They change though. I get new inspiration, and then BAM. Little Johnny has a deep dark secret.

My stories also tread dangerously on being character-driven. I prefer plot-driven stories, so I have to wring it back in!

 

1. (How do your characters begin? Do you create them to fit a role in a story you already have in mind? Do they come from some random spark of inspiration?)
By the sound of it, I start very similarly to you do. I either think of a situation or an overall theme - the big picture if you will - and slowly start to go into the background and construct my main character from there. Depending on what I want that experiance to be like, I think their personality needs to be a certain way for them to go through that experiance, or their background greatly detirmines what type of struggles they go through and what they gain in the end - maybe what I want the reader to gain in the end. 99.9% of the time, everything I write is inspired by my own experiances and what I observe around me - and honestly I journal more than I write stories but, eh.

2. Hah! I get stuck on this too. I find that character sheets and outlining really helps my thought processes about all the details about the characters, though. And then I sorta "figure it out as I go along" because if I get caught in a web of thinking too much, I start going in circles too much and don't actually get any writing done. (currently is what is happening to me at the moment, to be honest, hah)

 

My characters usually pop into my noggin out of the blue, and once they move in, they never want to leave. It's getting rather crowded up there.

 

Short answer:
Reading other people's work

Long answer:
Typically I read a particular story, find that I like some of the general setting/themes, but get angry about some aspect of it (typically the characters). Then I say "I could do better". The writing part comes when I put my money where my mouth is and actually write something better. Basically I look at the traits I despise in many characters typical of a genre, ask myself how the story suffers (and gains) from them, and decide how to do it MY WAY instead. And if people don't like my version, then they can go read the other crap. There is so very much of it...

 

That's awfully close to what I do. Usually it all starts with an idea; I want to say something. The character turns out so that he or she works as a tool I can use to say whatever it is that I wish to say.

From there on, the characters often take up lives of their own and may end up in places I would've never expected them to go. I like this so I try to give the characters free rein and space to breathe, grow, and develop since quite often the end result is better than what it would've been if I had forced them into a specific direction.

Sometimes characters also change because of something that happens in my life. It can be something as profound as a change in my beliefs or something as mundane as me growing bored with something about the character. Whatever happens though, I always have one golden rule I follow:
My characters absolutely must inspire me. If they don't, the work will soon turn into bland mush and I won't be drawn to write. Sometimes I change characters in big ways even halfway through a story and I have to go back and rewrite a lot of it but it always pays off in the end even it if it's a lot of work.

 

I just imagine what I want them to be and my brain does it for me pretty much

 

Well that's interesting. I've never heard someone start like that before.

I really ought to start doing that. I forget half the stuff I think up before my pen hits the paper.

Same boat! Sad high five.

They have prescriptions for this.

I like this common idea of the character as a story-telling tool. It's an interesting way to look at things...

I like this! So true. No one wants to read about a character they can't care less about.

 

Characters come out of the story, and the story comes out of the characters: you can not separate them; they are one and the same. Plot is a way of describing what has happened after the characters have acted it out.

 

it depends on where the characters heading, if they are in quite a positive position, i profile them (in a handful of sentences about their personality) in a positive way, if they are gonna go through hell, i still write a personality profile, and add traits which could cause the events that are going to happen to them.

i generally think of what the key events are going to be for that character then create a character from there, i dont worry so much about the physical features etc, but more the personality side, how their mind works, and the psychology of it all... i find the more you get into a characters head, the easier everything else falls into place

 

I get an idea for a scene and the characters then take up residence in my head for a while. I then write random extracts till I get something that makes sense. If I write character profiles they tend to be short and are generally incomprehensible to anyone but me. I often find them useful for figuring a character's belief system, e.g. I've got a superstitious character so knowing the particular sign they'd make if a black cat crossed their path etc can be quite helpful when you don't want to contradict yourself.