Create Your Fictional Characters

Great fictional characters are arguably the most important element in any novel, and so it is worth taking your time on this task.

How do you create fictional characters?

I'll talk about that in just a moment. Before getting down to the nitty-gritty of character creation, the first job is to draw up a cast list.

The chances are that you already know who your novel's central character - or protagonist - is. You probably already know the identities of a handful of other characters, too.

If you don't know these things, or if you have some idea but aren't certain, the best way to draw up a cast list for your novel is to ask yourself this: What characters do you NEED?

If you are writing a murder mystery novel, for example, you need to include in your cast list:

A detective
A sidekick for the detective
A victim
A murderer
Several suspects

If you are writing a love story, the characters you need are:

A man
A woman (or possibly another man, of course)
A love rival
A best friend
And so on

Of course, you will need more characters than that, but by beginning with the essential ones - the ones who need to be there - you won't waste your time on fictional characters who have no role to perform in the story.

As you develop your plot, and you realize that extra characters are required, you can add them to your cast list then. But don't begin the process by creating a whole bunch of people who really have no place in the plot.

As always, don't worry about the details just now - you will find all the help you need to carry out this step in the comprehensive section on Creating Characters.

"People are endlessly fascinating, endlessly surprising, endlessly strange; just pick up a newspaper. Any newspaper. If you start with people - characters - as you feel your way into your novel, it, too, can become fascinating, surprising and strange."
- Nancy Kress

Getting to Know Your Fictional Characters

Now that you have a rough idea of the most important characters in your story, the next job is to get to know them, just like you would get to know a stranger in real life.

You do this by writing mini-biographies for each character on your cast list - the more detailed, the better.

Oh, and you must do this before you begin to write your novel's first draft. Why? Because if you don't, the novel you write will fail to convince.

Unless you know characters in detail - just like you know yourself or a close friend - you will have little idea of how they should react in any given situation. And so their actions - the plot, in other words - will fail to ring true.

How detailed you make the character profiles is up to you. (It depends on whether you are more of a "planner" or a "writer" by nature. (Click here for more information on Planning a Novel vs. Writing a Novel.)

If you are a keen planner, you might write 20-page profiles for each character (or at least the most important ones).
If you are more of a writer by nature, preferring to do as little planning as possible, you might get to know you characters in your head while you are out on a walk.

I am more of a planner by nature, so that is what I would recommend, but whatever works for you is what is best.

How do you write mini-biographies for your fictional characters?

Again, you will find instructions on doing this - plus loads more besides - in the section on Creating Characters.

Next Step...

So far, we have dealt with three of the story elements that you need to work on individually when planning a novel in detail...