I started taking story requests in 2014. Little did I know my skills would be called on for 400+ story sketches and short stories. (To say nothing of my own collection of over 100 stories.)
Working with members of the small creative community of Subeta was a great way for me to learn what people want from their characters. It also made me think about what’s essential for a basic character.
This guide is adapted from the intake form I’ve been using for years to help half-formed characters come to life. It will touch on other basic story elements but its primary focus is on building a character.
Name
Like any living, breathing person, your character is going to have a name that most people associate with them. If your character’s full name is Chester D. Longsnout, he might be Chessie to his girlfriend and Snoz to that particular bully he’d like to pop in the nose. To most people, he’ll be plain old Chester. I don’t recommend more than two or three nicknames for your main character. Too many names get confusing for the reader.
Setting
You need a basic idea of where your story is taking place. Characters react to their environment. An average day at the market is very different for a desert traveler than for an arctic nomad who goes to the nearest village once a month or an art student living in a busy metropolis.
Personality
Make a list of adjectives that best describe your character. How does each and every one of these play into the story? How they speak (sarcastic vs. professional), how they act (total clown vs. serious all the time) and what they choose to do (studying for five hours every night vs. playing beer pong) are all affected by personality.
Point of View (PoV)
Does your character do all the talking? Do they address your reader to lure them into the story? Or is a narrator telling this story? You’ll want to determine what point of view you’ll use right away and stick to it.
Physical Traits
You can give every detail down to your character’s shoe size but most readers won’t thank you for detail overload. Give details that are critical to the story (i.e. your character is the only redhead in a village of silver-haired scholars or your character’s facial scar is hugely important to their backstory). If you must give a heavy physical description, try to break it up within the first few chapters – even your die-hard fans won’t want to read three page-long paragraphs about your two main characters. Unless you’re Leo Tolstoy, I suppose.
If your story will be published digitally with art or your book will have detailed cover art, you’ll likely only need minimal physical description. A picture really is worth a thousand words, in these cases.
Likes/Dislikes
While I’m not a fan of heavy physical descriptions, I do highly recommend details that reveal more about who your character is as a person. Do they have a favorite food or a clothing item they wear until it falls apart? On the flip side, is there something they hate so much that the mere mention sends them into a rage? Let your character’s quirks speak through their likes and dislikes.
Relationships
Your character has to interact with somebody. Who is that somebody? What’s the relationship? It doesn’t have to be romantic. It can be a family member, a friend, a roommate, or a co-worker. It could be someone they met today while returning a library book. It could even be their pet or that third house plant they managed to kill this month. The possibilities are endless.
Conclusion
Know your character as you begin to write your story. By pinning down these basic elements, you can take your concept for a story from a half-baked idea to a fully formed, glorious character worthy of an attention-grabbing novel. (Or series!)
You’ve been staring at your cursor for twenty agonizing minutes. You plead with your muse to send you something…anything to keep your current story flowing.
Your muse, like your cursor, is mocking you.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
You question whether you are, in fact, a writer. You daydream about chucking your laptop out the nearest window. You fantasize about the contents of your liquor cabinet (or that annoyingly high shelf out of reach of children and dogs.)
Writer’s block has struck in earnest and it can feel like you’ll never come up with a clever sentence again.
Take a deep breath. Close the window. No matter how stuck you feel, I promise you ARE a writer with a message worth sharing.
This guide provides ten strategies to get you out of a creative rut and back to making the writing magic happen.
Get to Know Your Character In Depth
Little details make a big difference in allowing your reader to get to know your character.
Who are they, not just in the action of the story but as a human being? Here are a few questions to consider:
Physical Appearance: What does your character look like? (Hair color, eye color, etc.) What kind of clothes do they wear? Do they have any unique physical features that play into the current story or backstory? (For instance, do they have any notable scars?) Given the choice, what would they change about their appearance?
Relationships: What is their birth family like? What about the family they chose (spouse/lover/roommate)? Who are their friends? Enemies? Co-workers? Do they have a mentor or are they a mentor to someone? Do they have pets? Even a total loner has to interact with somebody, be it the UPS delivery person or anonymous visitors online.
Personality: What adjectives would you use to describe your character? What are their greatest dreams and fears? What motivates them? What are their greatest strengths and what are their flaws?
Likes/Dislikes: This can range from favorite color or food to what they love (or hate) to do with their time. Occupation also plays in – do they adore the work they do or would they literally kill to get out of their job?
Background: Were there special circumstances surrounding your character’s birth? What important events have taken place up to the point where their story begins? What education have they received so far and how does that impact their current situation?
There are so many options for character profiles. In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be creating an in-depth guide for how to create character profiles and organize your writer’s notebook. (If you’re a novelist, you need one. Trust me.)
Humiliate your Hero/Villain
Is Heidi Hero so virtuous that she could give lessons to nuns? Put her in a scene where she has to break into her own car to get her keys. Does evil ooze from every pore of Evil Edgar’s body? Stick him in a leotard and force him to host a dance recital for preschool children. These scenes probably won’t end up in your finished piece…but they’re a lot of fun to write!
Get Another Character’s Perspective
Heidi and Edgar are in an epic fight scene, exchanging blows and witty banter while costing the average taxpayer thousands of dollars when suddenly…
…you’ve got nothing.
You’ve been so focused on these two for so long that the rest of your world has become a rather nondescript blur. Time to remind your characters that they’re not the only ones in the universe.
Who are the bystanders? Are they grateful to the hero or desperately wishing they could live in a boring town? If there are no other people in the area, write the scene from the perspective of the pigeon on a nearby rooftop or the poodle decorating a fire hydrant. Personify the hydrant, if you like. Writing something, even something seemingly irrelevant, is better than writing nothing.
Write More Backstory
Unless you are literally starting with your main character’s moment of birth, there were events that took place in their life before the current story. Past events affect how your character looks, acts, speaks and thinks.
Maybe your character is an avid bubble gum chewer hoping to make it in the Big Leagues. What started them on the habit? Create a story centered around this unique character trait. Maybe they discovered the flavor when their grandfather took them to their first-ever baseball game. This also allows you to build on how close they were to their grandfather, how his death devastated them and why becoming a professional baseball player is so important. As with any sample writing, this story doesn’t have to become part of your draft but it gives you greater insight into this person whose life you’re writing.
Set the Scene
If you’re stuck on what your character should be doing, step away and imagine the setting as vividly as possible. If your setting is a classroom, visualize the motivational posters on the walls. Is there anything written or carved into your character’s desk? What color are the floor tiles? Are there any classroom pets? What sits on the teacher’s desk?
What your specific character notices is impacted by personality. Do they study the water spot above their head because they’re always daydreaming? Can they tell you the exact number of floor tiles because they hate to be called on? If there are 30 students in that room, there are 30 unique points of view about what it contains. How does your character see the world differently from the other 29?
Work on a Side Project
Maybe you’re that rare writer who can strictly focus your attention on one project from start to finish without ever once letting your mind wander to a new story idea.
For the rest of us writing nuts, there are side projects.
I currently have four novel series, two short story collections and a second poetry collection in the works. To say nothing of the writing I do to actually earn a living.
You don’t have to be as crazy as me but I do recommend having at least one side project for those times when your main project doesn’t capture your interest.
Journal
Putting something down on paper, even if it has nothing to do with your current project, is so important. I made a pact with myself that if I didn’t write a single page toward my novels on any given day, I’d write at least one journal entry. I’m currently keeping two journals. One is a writing prompts journal (500 Writing Prompts) that I picked up on sale at Barnes & Noble. The other is an old notebook left over from college that I use to write down interesting dreams, both from my childhood and more recent. You’d be amazed how many story ideas your dreams can provide!
Pick a Random Word
Get out your dictionary. (A thesaurus will work in a pinch.) Close your eyes and flip to a random page. The word your finger lands on is your writing prompt. Connect it to your character in some way.
Do a Sentence Exercise
Maybe you’ve made it to the revision stage and you’re hung up on a sentence that’s keeping your story from progressing. Here’s an exercise that will help you find a good alternative.
Rewrite your sentence using five emotions. Odds are, at least one of your alternatives will be an improvement and you might discover an interesting new direction to take your story. Here’s an example of a sentence that’s been put through the exercise:
Original: Heidi walked down the driveway to get her mail. (*yawn*)
The following sentences are not only more detailed but give a clear indication of what the character is feeling when the piece of mail she wants (or dreads) proves to be in the box.
Happy: Heidi skipped past the hydrangea, tossing open the mailbox door with a flourish. She crushed the thick yellow envelope to her chest, her squeal of joy startling a trio of pigeons into flight.
Sorrowful: Heidi’s eyes remained on the gravel until the mail was in her hand. Her fingers trembled as she carefully slid a finger under the envelope’s top flap. Had the neighbors been looking out, they could have testified that her mascara was definitely not waterproof.
Humorous: Three more hydrangeas fell victim to Heidi’s flailing feet as she caught herself on the mailbox post. In her haste to free the mysterious envelope, she sent half a dozen other pieces of mail flying into the neighbor’s yard. The Rottweiler who resided there thoroughly enjoyed this unexpected flurry of flimsy chew toys.
Suspenseful: Heidi’s fingers hesitated, hovering just over the innocuous white latch. A single brown paper package that just fit within the limitations of the mailbox. Was it…ticking?
Thoughtful: Heidi’s gaze swept the gravel drive; the mailbox in bad need of repainting and the hydrangea bush wilting in the merciless heat. The mail would be the usual round of bills she had no money to pay. Murmuring a prayer under her breath, she pulled the stack of envelopes free and began leafing through them one at a time.
Revisit Your Inspiration Sources
What made you fall in love with writing?
Was it a favorite character? A specific song? Something (or someone) you saw out in the real world?
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you have to step away from the desk and seek those things that drew you into this world of character creation. Give yourself permission to take a break and refresh your inspiration, whatever the source.
Then sit down, curse your cursor one last time and make it dance over the page.
