Character Building Ramble Post (Patreon)

So this question came to me via my author facebook page, and since I get asked about this kind of thing a lot, I thought I’d share my answer. (As a Patron, no matter what level, if you have questions, please feel free to message me. If it’s something I think everyone would want to know, I’ll do more posts like these.) Welcome to my ramble-y take on character building!

Characters—they are a sticky business, but they are the most important thing in a book as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care how great your plot is, if your characters are boring, I’m going to tap out as a reader. It’s just the way of things. So what makes a character interesting? First, as the creator, you’d better find them interesting or it won’t work. You have to love your characters, even the bad guys. How? You need to find a way to connect to them as people so that your readers can do the same. What makes them interesting? Why do they do what they do? What are their flaws? Strengths? What do they want? What do they need? How do those things conflict?

These are things you need to think about and discover while you write. Some authors do character sheets—I’ve never done that. The most I will do is a cast sheet with names and connection to other characters. The best way for me to discover my character is to put them into a situation and to see how they react. Not how you as an author would react, mind you, but how the character would react. There’s often a big difference. Secondly, how would your character react to other people? A lot of character building relies on asking a lot of questions.

I once had a teen ask me why I chose to reveal a sympathetic side of Douglas in NTS. Why make you care about a villain? Part of that answer is because if you care about him, then the end resonates more. You also had to understand why James is torn between his relationship with Douglas and his new one with Sam and his friends. You had to understand why James cared, so you could understand why he made the choices he made. Because James’s wants and needs were clearly in conflict—which is bad for him, but great for reading, right? All of this means that Sam’s choices at the end of the book cost more, because he now knows that Douglas had the potential to be a good person, but he survived terrible things, and those things changed him. Douglas also serves as a warning to Sam—you could turn into this kind of person, too.

Let’s take a second to look at Sam. The impetus for his character was a factor of many things. First, I wanted to know how someone who was a vegetarian like me, who has a hard time killing things even for survival, would function with death magic. Sam has to use his magic, and the cost is blood and death, and that stuff isn’t easy for him. I also wanted to write a horror/urban fantasy style story with a male lead who wasn’t a brawny, super competent, alpha male, mostly because, well, most of the guys I knew in High School fell firmly into the beta male category. I wanted to see a guy who couldn’t rely on muscle or amazing magic (because Sam has no idea what he’s doing) to save the day. Sam, like most people at that age, is suddenly thrust into the adult world, and like many of us has no idea what he’s doing. He has to fumble, screw up, and learn. Again, like the rest of us. So many can connect with his struggle. 

Sam also has what is usually termed as a broken home. No contact with his biological father, the father that raised him is dead—there’s a lot of pain and loss there. Sam’s struggle with his family—both biological and found—is something that will resonate in the majority of humanity. Growing up I could count the number of families I knew that hadn’t dealt with divorce on one hand. Sometimes kids get torn up about this, thinking that a cobbled together family is somehow less, and maybe they don’t deserve more. With Sam, you can see that isn’t true. Through friends and family, Sam has built himself a great community, and you can’t say it would be better if he were actually related to all of them.

I know what you’re thinking—Lish, what about the fiddly stuff, like how did you decide that Sam would work at a terrible burger place? Or ride a skateboard, albeit somewhat poorly? Or be a drop out? How did I decide how he speaks, or what he wears, or…etc. First, I’ve trained my brain to do this stuff almost unconsciously over the years. I build characters; it’s just what I do. I do this by studying people. I watch and listen. I studied a little psychology. I do research. I knew a lot of guys like Sam, and I wanted him to be kind, so that drives many of his choices. That same heart causes a lot of his pain. A lot of Sam is also predicated by place. It’s Seattle. So he wears lots of layers, T-shirts, skate shoes, and hoodies. A lot of these things are pulled from my own experience of growing up near Seattle and working fast food jobs. (I was also a drop out. Writers steal heavily from their own lives and the lives of those around them.)

For Ava, I had to do more research. She lives in Maine, and though I’ve been there, I don’t know it well. So I had my brother and his wife read through several drafts and I asked them a lot of questions because that’s where they live. Ava is also coping with an unorthodox upbringing and has a limited understand of human connection. She was taught to hide herself and avoid friendships and people. As a result, she’s prickly, occasionally difficult, and gets confused by social situations. Strong emotions can make her panic. She’s still learning the basics in some ways. 

I know what you’re thinking—but what about getting that right amount? And do I need to know all of this before I start, and keep it in mind while I’m writing?

Nope. As for how I pick all these things and get the “right amount” the answer is simply that I write a lot of drafts. I average eight to ten per book, not counting copy editing. I get the rough mess down on paper. Then I go through and examine it with all of these questions in mind. You can’t get it all in one go. Then I share it with beta readers. Some of those readers are there for general reading. Some, like my brother, are told specifically to look for certain things. For him, it’s getting Maine right. For Ramon’s short story, I had several Hispanic friends, and those steeped more in the culture, read it to fact check his character for me. For medical stuff, I bug my mom, because she’s an ICU nurse. If I don’t know someone who is an expert on the thing I need, I ask around until I find someone. People like to share their knowledge, generally.

Readers and editors also get to know your characters and can start telling you when they are saying and doing things that they wouldn’t. James, for example, is very persnickety and formal. If he showed up on the page in one of those full body Pikachu pajama outfits saying, “What up?”  you would know something was wrong with him because that’s not how he acts. Honestly, that’s really how characters are built—piece by piece, draft by draft. Some take longer than others. It took me a few drafts to get Ava’s voice right. It took me longer to find a way to sympathize with Ryan. Characters take work and time. You add things and cut things until you get it right. If character sheets work for you, use them. I’m just leery of anything that takes time away from putting words on the page, you know?

There are a lot of different approaches to character building out there. Chuck Wendig has written a lot about character, plot, and the business of writing. I like his stuff because it’s funny, full of profanity, and gets to the point. You can read it on his blog or download his collection of essays about writing. Ilona Andrews has also posted on her blog lately about plot and character. Many writers do this, and it’s worth checking out their websites to see if they talk about it. Another thing you can do is look at some of your favorite characters. What did the author chose to show you about that person? Why did they do that? How did they do that? And keep in mind that they didn’t get it all in one go, either.