Serial characters
Creating complex well-rounded characters takes time — time spent thinking about how your characters look, where they’re from, and what motivates them, for instance. The questions below provide structure to this all-important thought process.
While the reader will not need to know all the details, it’s important that you do. The better you know your characters, the more realistic your story or novel will end up being. The main character, your protagonist should be likeable. The character should resonate in your readers thoughts after the book is finished. I often use the example of Rachael in the Kim Harrison series because from the first book forward, I wanted to BE Rachael. No she doesn’t have a “charmed” life. She has lost every man she has loved, usually to death. She gets in more scrapes and death defying situations than Bruce Willis in the Diehard series. But she doesn’t have self-confidence, just tenacity and a desire to do the right thing, to help her friends and family, and the hope to be happy, to fall in love, to live comfortably in peace.
This becomes ever more important when you begin a series involving repeat characters. Their history should remain the same and then the experiences they encounter during the early books build their character as the books progress.
1. Where does your character live?
Character, and often story, in many ways grows out of a sense of place. What country does your character live in? What region? Does he live alone or with a family? In a trailer park or on an estate? How did he end up living there? How does he feel about it? Rachel lives in Cincinnati (in an alternate plane since the world is populated with werewolves, vampires—living and dead—elves, witches, and demons). We learn in a short paragraph of each book of the virus that decimated humanity making it possible for all the other species to make themselves known to humans, providing the reader with the suspension of disbelief.
2. Where is your character from?
In a similar vein, where did your character’s life begin? Did she grow up running around the woods in a small Southern town, or learning to conjugate Latin verbs in a London boarding school? Obviously this influences things like the kinds of people your character knows, the words she uses to communicate with them, and the way she feels about a host of things in her external world.
3. How old is your character?
Though this might seem like an obvious question, it’s important to make a clear decision about this before you begin writing — otherwise, it’s impossible to get the details right. For instance, would your character have a cell phone, a land line, or both? Does your character drink martinis or cheap beer? Still get money from his parents, or worry about what will happen to his parents as they get old?
4. What is your character called?
Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Names have subtext and identity. If your main characters are Ramans, you’ve got yourself a Muslim novel, and if your hero is Charles Winthrop III, you’ve given him a trust fund or made him a black sheep ousted from his inheritance. Nomenclature done right contributes to characterization.” Your character’s name provides a lot of information — not only about ethnicity — but about your character’s age, background, and social class. If a character’s name is Marshall or Gertrude they are likely to be well over 60, Amber, Tiffany, Bambi, Aiden, or Wolf are likely under 20. When was the last time you heard a mother call out “Theresa Susanne, get over here?” Or “Frank Clarence, if you aren’t cleaned up and at the table in one minute you are going to bed hungry.” The internet can give you the popular names for each decade. Of course if you really want to give a young child an old name, explain how they came to get the name. Is it passed down generation to generation? Maybe a parent saw a movie or read a book and really liked the name, or maybe the parents were illiterate and had no idea how to spell, and made up a completely new name.
5. What does your character look like?
Is your character tall enough to see over the heads of a crowd at a bar or to notice the dust on the top of his girlfriend’s refrigerator? Does she deal with weight issues and avoid looking at herself in the mirror? Are they attractive to others? To themselves? What we look like often shapes our interactions with others. Though you need not have a crystal clear picture of your character in mind, physical details help your readers believe in the character, and help you imagine how your character moves through the world. Does she look like a waif? A strumpet? Does he look like a troll? Fat? Skinny?
6. What kind of childhood did he or she have?
As with real people, many things about your character’s personality will be determined by his background. Did his parents have a good marriage? Was she raised by a single mom? How your character interacts with other people — whether he’s defensive or confident, stable or rootless — may be influenced by his past. This is extremely important for your antagonist’s background. The reader will need to understand how a person could go so wrong, become evil. Don’t forget to consider their religious background and their current beliefs. You should know their values and their traits in order to create “real” characters. Do they cuss? Does the mother love her daughter or resent her? Do they drink? Smoke? Go to church? What do they eat? A vegetarian will have a totally different reaction to a date serving her steak and lobster than a meat lover.
7. What does your character do for a living?
As with all of these questions, how much information you need depends in some part on the plot but you’ll need some idea of how your character makes money. A dancer will look at the world very differently from an accountant, for instance, and a construction worker will use very different language from either one. How they feel about a host of issues, from money to family, will be in some part dependent on their choice of careers. Cops and psychics are regular fodder because these careers put them in situations where they are more likely to encounter bad people, evil incarnate. On the other hand a lingerie salesgirl will react completely differently from an ex-Marine when she ends up in the middle of a life-threatening situation.
8. How does your character deal with conflict and change?
Most stories involve some element of conflict and change — they’re part of what makes a story a story. Is your character passive or active? If someone confronts her, does she change the subject, head for the minibar, stalk off, or do a deep-breathing exercise? When someone insults him, is he more likely to take it, come up with a retort, bash the person’s head in, or excuse himself to find someone else to talk to?
9. Who else is in your character’s life?
Relationships — how people interact with others — reveal character. Think about who will best help you convey information about a character, and what kinds of people would realistically be in your character’s world in the first place. In Janet Evonovich’s Stephanie Plum series, the main character goes to her mother’s house a few times a week for dinner because she NEVER has food in the fridge. This exposes us to her entire family and the interactions build character and move the story ahead through dialogue.
10. What is your character’s goal or motivation in this story or scene?
In longer stories or novels, you will have to ask this question repeatedly. Many of your character’s actions will result from the intersection of what she’s trying to achieve and her personality, which is composed of everything you’ve invented in answering the above questions. When in doubt about how your character should behave, ask yourself what your character wants from the situation, and think about the answers you’ve given to all of the above.
Exercise: Write down your protagonist and antagonist and answer the above questions for each. Knowing your main primary and secondary characters before you start writing makes it easier to just throw obstacles and conflict into their path as they head for their goal and you show us the reactions and results. The book will often seem to be writing itself.