How Do Authors Create Characters?

To generate blog post ideas, I asked readers what topics they’d like me to address. One question raised was:

What is your process for creating your characters? How do they then become real to you? Something must happen, because they seem alive to your readers.”

Honestly, creating characters doesn’t come easily to me, but it’s something I’ve learned to do better. In fact, it’s one of the topics I’ll be talking about during the fabulous and affordable Northwestern Christian Writers Conference (online; July 24-25, 2020) along with co-teacher Michelle Griep. Many other authors, editors, and agents will also be speaking and taking appointments. If you are an author or dream of writing a book, we’d love for you to join us!

I’ll give an abbreviated description of my process here, though keep in mind every author has her own way of doing things.

Creating characters

For me, characters often start out as simple outlines in my mind or sketches like this one, until I flesh them out. The goal is to create believable, compelling characters that readers can relate to and want to spend many hours with through the pages of a book. In Christian fiction especially, heroes and heroines should be admirable, likable, or at least empathetic—meaning, even if they start out as prickly, deeply flawed, or behaving badly, I let readers see into their hearts or pasts to learn the reasons behind that bristly façade or poor behavior. But I try not to leave them there. Don’t we all love to see characters grow and change over the course of a novel? I do! I especially enjoy redeeming curmudgeons. 🙂

Character Profiles

Yes, authors devise Personal Profiles for each main character: physical appearance, family, age, education, etc, but most go deeper than demographics. One of the most important things authors determine about a main character is: What is his/her goal & motivation? What’s at stake? Ideally, we give our character(s) a noble quest or goal. Here are two very simple examples. Perhaps a character’s goal is to win a race or save an inn. But why does he want to succeed? Does he need the money to help his younger siblings or keep a town afloat? That makes the goal more worthwhile.

Character Interviews

Another method I use is asking my main characters a series of questions. It may sound strange to suggest interviewing fictional humans, but I promise the exercise is fruitful! The questions came originally from author Susan Meissner, but I have added to the list over the years from other classes I’ve taken, like one taught by Susan May Warren. There’s always more to learn!

Here are a few especially profitable questions:

1. Do you have any secrets? (The answer should usually be, “Yes!”)

2. What is your view of God, and why?

3. What stands in the way of your happiness right now? How will you get past it? What will happen if you fail?

Casting Characters

I also find it helpful to “cast” my main characters by finding photos of actors or models who embody the physical aspects of the character I have in mind. It helps me describe them and keep them distinct from one another. In the past I used a bulletin board for this; now I use a writing program called Scrivener, while Michelle Griep uses Pinterest.

Depending on the publisher, this step may eventually influence the model chosen for the book cover. In the case of The Girl in the Gatehouse, I think the designer did a great job matching the actress I had in mind.

That’s a quick run down of my process. I hope you found it helpful. Author-friends, what do you do differently?