I have other blogs and articles about creating characters for books. Still, the question always seems to come up whenever I talk about being an author, "How do you come up with your characters?"
Sometimes the people I speak with have read my novels and asked about specific characters. Whether it is the main character, a secondary, or even a character who will only be mentioned once in a book, the process I use is the same every time, and I will tell you why.
I will reveal a little secret here in my writing. I do not believe I have ever shared this fact before. I will periodically place a seemingly random background character in all of my fiction.
I calculate the placement, and it's usually a location, scene, or situation I may want to revisit at another time from a different point of view or to clarify or dig deeper into a storyline.
An easy one to point out is in Pandemic Dawn Book I. In the book's first few chapters, we find the protagonist meeting with a couple of survivalists. During this time, the protagonist witnesses a seemingly random argument between some men, and one is dragged away. I placed this man here with the intent of revisiting the survivalists later and wanted to leave an opening for backstory.
Now I have begun outlining the fifth book in the series, which is yet to be named. I will revisit this character to tie in one storyline with another. I do this often because I have various storylines in each novel running consecutively and sometimes need a connection between them. It feels much more natural and "real" if these connections are set up in advance rather than popping up when needed.
Have you ever read a book or watched a movie, and suddenly, something extraordinary takes place to "fix" a storyline problem, and you say to yourself, "how convenient?"
My wife Terri and I were binge-watching a series for weeks when we discovered it had been canceled. In an effort to tie up all loose ends, they released a third "season" with episodes that were half the running time of the previous episodes and high-speed storytelling to fix everything, which was terrible.
They ended up creating loopholes and ignoring situations their new storyline made that contradicted their original story.
They may have been better off letting the series die after two seasons rather than ruin it.
So, even with these small-role characters, I develop them the same way I do all the others. After I begin writing a character in a story, they develop further, and their "personality" emerges as they deal with situations and other people. This is natural development through growing within the storyline. You can usually notice this in books and TV, especially a long-running series where the characters have had a long time to develop.
Watch or read the last of a long series, then return to the beginning of the series, and you "should" notice a considerable difference in the undeveloped characters.
If not, the character has not grown or developed, and that book or show is probably dull. We long to see development and growth in the characters, their relationships with each other, and the storyline.
I use a notecard file for creating my characters. If I am writing a multi-storyline novel, I use a colored card for each storyline. If you are writing a single storyline, you could use colors to represent anything you want, relationships, affiliations, beliefs, families, etc...
If you have a lot of characters, it can become challenging to create in-depth backstories for all of them. So I consider character creation to be in "levels" to simplify the process.
Main characters, secondary characters, and background characters. With each, the level of "completeness will deepen. Though they are all basically created the same way. The creating part for me is fun and easy because of all the role-playing games I played growing up. So I have made many, many characters in my life.
Here is a basic outline I use for creating:
Main and Secondary Character
First, middle, last name
race and sex
age
appearance
disposition
siblings
parents and family situation
their childhood
where they are from
where they live now and why
health (physical and mental)
any trauma (physical or mental)
education
hobbies or obsessions
loves
fears
motivation
relationship status
children
Background Character
First, middle, last name
race and sex
age
appearance
disposition
health (physical and mental)
any trauma (physical or mental)
education
This would create the basic outline for my character. Next, I put all of this on a notecard with the character's name at the top and file it alphabetically in the card file for easy retrieval.
Character Development
I like to give my protagonists flaws or hang-ups simply because that's real life. I cannot stand the stereotypical flawless hero character because they are unrelatable. I will never forget sitting in the theater watching Superman struggle with the loss of Lois Lane. Her death profoundly affected him to the point he was no good to anyone because of his grief.
This made the "man of steel" vulnerable and relatable to the average person because we have all suffered loss and know where that can take us mentally and emotionally.
In Pandemic Dawn, Taylor is a career businessman trying to survive the apocalypse with limited skills. However, he is relatable because there are not many readers out there who would actually know how to survive a terrible situation like the apocalypse.
A good protagonist also needs a good story arc within the main story arc. With the various storylines in each book, each has its own story arc. In addition, each primary and secondary character has a story arc. Character arc is essential because as you go through the process of growing, the reader also grows to know the character. It is a discovery the reader gets to be part of.
There are different things you can do to develop the antagonist as well. Firstly is his motivation; why is he doing what he is doing? Then examine why he thinks this is the only way. You can also make the antagonist relatable by developing his morality. Not all antagonists are evil or lack morality; sometimes, they believe they are life's protagonists.
My favorite example of this is Magneto from the X-Men. Magneto seems terrible because he is fighting the government, doesn't care about collateral damage, and is against the X-Men. Yet, he is relatable, and you can see his motivation. The government is trying to register and control anyone who is a mutant, which reminds Magneto of his childhood in the German concentration camp of his youth. In his mind, he is freeing mutants from the bondage of an evil empire bent on controlling and enslaving them.
Magneto is one of those great antagonists who believes he is the hero, which makes him attractive.
Some antagonists can be mindless hoards, powerful government factions, or a gang leader who controls armies of devoted foot soldiers ready to watch the world burn around them.
Secondary Characters
When I design secondary characters, I flesh them out like the main characters. The reason is that they may grow enough to become the main characters. This is the case with Makayla Atkins in my series, Pandemic Dawn. Her character developed, and the story arc brought her to a place where she became such a strong character that I have considered writing a book just about her.
She has grown to the point where her story arc almost overshadows everything else in Pandemic Dawn. So instead of the two-story arcs competing for attention, it is sometimes best to move a character out of the story together. Unfortunately, there are only two ways to effectively do this: kill them or send them off to another book.
So we will see what happens.
Secondary characters, protagonists or antagonists, should complement the main characters. They should share goals, visions, and what they want in life. The exception is when you have competing antagonists fighting for power. Essentially, they have the same goals and visions and want the same things. They just do not want to share it with the opposing antagonist.
Another thing I like to do is reveal the world through the character's eyes. It's a "discover together" technique I like to use. The readers are clueless and discover things as the characters do. It really helps make the readers feel part of the storyline. I hate it when I read a book, and the characters know things about the landscape, other people, and things going on that were not discussed in the story. I love it when the story is personal and discovery is shared between the reader and the character.
I will revisit this again in another article, maybe even do a step-by-step as I develop an actual character for one of my upcoming books.