Do write up descriptions of them? Write mock interviews? Get a physical image that you keep in your head? Just work from inspiration on the fly? Something else?
I'll answer first: I don't write things out - I keep a description in my head. One of the things I track is how a character reacts to a problem; with his/her fists, or by thinking, or running and hiding, planing, acting, etc.
Addition to answer: I will sketch out characters on paper and list emotions and motives for individual scenes, but I don't keep a write up that I keep track of for the book.
[This message has been edited by Bill (edited August 14, 2007).]
quote:Do write up descriptions of them? Write mock interviews? Get a physical image that you keep in your head? Just work from inspiration on the fly?
Pretty much all those things. I write very lengthy descriptions which approach long-ish short stories in their own right. I've written character sketches as short stories. I keep a physical mental image - and I've been trying to get someone to illustrate that image though I haven't found a lot of takers. I just write and keep a lot of notes.
posted
The first few chapters of Noah Lukeman's _The Plot Thickens_ provide a billion (give or take) questions you can use to "interview" your character. Worth reading for the rest of the book, too. Find it here on Amazon.
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posted
I usually base my characters on someone I know, then add more stuff to make the character more real than real. R. A. Lafferty once said that all of his characters are composites of five or six different people he knows.
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posted
I love writing stuff up about my characters! Once I have a story idea, and sometimes even after i've started it, I'll sit down with a notebook and brainstorm about them. I have a whole list of questions I got from a fellow writer a long time ago. Most of them pretty standard: family, age, health, relationships. There are a couple that are really good, though, like most embarrassing moment and most vivid childhood/ teen memory. Both of these seem pretty key.
I used to try to keep track of everyone my head, but I just couldn't do it. So as i write I have a notebook and when I introduce a character, or when I do something new with an existing character, I write it down, or cut and paste the description into another file. This includes tidbits ranging from where they were born to how they react to anger.
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I'm not a fan of interview questions, because most of them are superficial, and don't really tell you much about the character.
I've found that the best way for me personally to get in touch with characters is to playact in your head. Get a feel for them during the prewriting process when half the story is still in your head. Also, as I work on outlining and worldbuilding, the characters become more distinct and developed, so when I sit down to write the first draft, I know enough about them to understand how to write them. Then, I continue learning about them all throughout the first draft and apply that knowledge to the second draft.
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I start by establishing a one word steryotpe/archetype to describe a certain character. Then I go on to embelish and elaborate and create histories and stuff like that to flesh them out. You obviously have to be careful not to be too predictable and give the character a few unique twists, but it is very helpful to me to be able to describe your character's type. Also, I was in theater in High School, and I still have a bit of an actress in me, so I often find myself acting like one of my characters in the mirror. It's kinda silly, but fun, and it helps me to visualize what that person acts like.
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I actually, odd is this may sound, see them as actual people. They're personalities are so well defined in my mind that when I write them and I ask "what would (character) do?" it's as easy--and sometimes easier--than asking "what would john (my friend) do?"
I've never even thought of writing up mock interviews. It justs eems that if you have a scene and you know where it's going, and you put a character into the scene, you'll just know what he'll do, how, and why he'd do it.
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One way is to pick some important scenes, anywhere in the story, and write dialog. Establishing the voice of the character goes a long way towards defining him/her.
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posted
I have the Lukeman book mentioned by Oliver House above, but I haven't gotten to it. The main problem I have faced with the books I have worked through is that they can go a little overboard. The process can become burdensome. Of course, you don't want to short change your character development either. The best balanced method I've found is in Elizabeth George's book Write Away.
She uses a character prompt sheet that isn't too huge, and then she does a write up on them. I would probably do more if I had more time--but I don't, so it's pretty straight forward and relatively effective.
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I mostly write short stories, and haven't yet had the need/opportunity to really do a character write-up, but I think there are some good reasons to do so. I find that as I write, I am often making it up as I go along (I'm not a big planner in my writing - I'm experimenting with doing more planning but I find that if I go too far I shackle myself and I don't want to write that piece anymore, if that makes any sense.) Because of this, I think having a better defined set of characters would help me and I plan to do some of the ideas people here suggested - notebooks with characteristics, etc.
I also keep a small notebook in my purse that I use to describe people I see or make observations. I hope that all the tidbits in there can help contribute toward characters in the future. For instance, the woman who isn't particularly old but has a used look about her. Or the observation that most kids who work in movie theaters seem to have acne problems. Chicken? Egg? (lack of sunlight? proximity to junk food? acceptance because other kids with bad acne work there? Hmm...)
Anyway - I find the more I notice and observe, the more it helps me build the characters I need. The thing I find hard is then portraying them to the reader so the readers get the point I typically want to make - that even with a few flaws or personality quirks, there's a central nobility to the characters I want to write, a trueness, you know - something!
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Well, for me, they really don't come in until I fill in some of their background---usually not written down or directly involved in the story.
(What can you do about background, sometimes? Most characters don't seem to have parents or family. Even in The Lord of the Rings, most of the characters have somehow shed one or both parents, or never had any.)
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I sometimes use a cut down Myers-Briggs like analysis on them. This can help, especially when trying to depict a character that is very different to my own personality type. (This probably also shows a little of my personality type too )
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