How is it that I feel like I meet my characters when my mind is the one that made them up? Its slightly disturbing if I stop to think about it... I do love it when things just fall in place, however. I will be writing and I just know that my character likes green and that she's scared of being vulnerable and that she hides behind her bold actions. It makes it easy to know how she will react and what it will take to motivate her. Sometimes I stop and ponder what my characters are like but most of the time their personalities just show up. I realized this when I was answering a list of questions I found on a blog called Writer of Wrongs. Most of the answers were just there for the taking whether I had thought about them or not. It was really rather fun!
Oh, but there is a limit to this magic. I only seem to meet the good guys in my stories. The bad guys are standoffish and slow to cue me in to their motives and personalities. Its more like I'm chasing them around hoping that they will drop some sort of clue about themselves. They don't even like to tell me their names. Maybe I need to watch more movies with compelling villains. At least my latest villain has a name and he has brown hair. That's a start anyway... I wonder why he likes to pick on my MC so much... Maybe she will tell me, seeing that she is the more talkative one out of the two.
I'd love to hear how you come up with your characters or if they are like mine and sorta just show up!
I tend to think up the characters first and have them hang around while I wait for the story to turn up.
ReplyDeletemood
Moody Writing
The Funnily Enough
My characters come first too. Usually.
DeleteI'm guessing that you're a discovery writer then? One technique that you can try is writing a scene completely unrelated to the book using the characters you want to learn more about.
ReplyDeleteIs that like a pantster? If so, yes. I thought I liked plotting until I realized the plot I made could be used for another book. Its nothing like the book I wrote, at all... but I like my book, so its ok.
DeleteYeah, "discovery writer" and "pantster" mean the same thing. I prefer the former.
DeleteMy characters tend to come from necessities in the plot or setting. I tailor them to the situation I want to write. Occasionally I'll start off with a character, in which case I'll start with small details and build the character as I build everything else, through a mixture of independent thought and plain old writing/discovering (hence "discovery writer").
Thanks for the link! For me my characters have some part of me combined with my friends' personality.
ReplyDeleteYour welcome! Mine too. Sometimes they are more the me I'd like to be than the one I am. My current MC is much more bold than I am. I like that about her.
DeleteMany writers have their characters show up and just be what they are, with seemingly no control over them. It's fascinating to me.
ReplyDeleteIts a crazy thing :) and so fun!
DeleteHow wonderful! I always feel like getting to know my characters is like making a new friend or having the wackiest best family reunion ever.
ReplyDeleteI have a history in roleplaying so a lot of my characters come from concepts or personalities I want to try out. I like to say each of my characters have a small sliver of me. Some are purposeful looking at one of my own aspects or by the end of the writing I've gotten to know that new character so well I've picked up a characteristic.
Yes, it is like making a new friend! I'm having so much fun with it.
DeleteI get that sometimes, too, and I love it! Main characters can be more work, especially in figuring out their motivations (and one of my villains didn't fully reveal his until a very recent round of revisions, the jerk), but the rest of it is often right there. It's a strange feeling!
ReplyDeleteIt is strange but a good strange! I don't know why villains have to be so sneaky and hard to figure out. Maybe that's why they are villains in the first place.
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