Getting to Know Fictional Characters

Why is it important to get to know your fictional characters before you start to write?

Because if you are too eager to push on with writing the novel and you skimp on taking the time to get to know the fictional characters before you begin, you will have little sense of how they should act and react to what is happening around them in any given scene.

Let's say that your central character's wife confesses to him in the opening chapter that she has been having an affair...

• Does he remain calm or hit the roof?
• Does he want to know the details, or is the fact that she has been unfaithful all the information he needs?
• Does he tell her to pack her bags, or does he leave the house himself?
• Does he visit the man she has been seeing to punch his lights out, or is he not the violent kind?

You won't know the answers to any of these questions because you really don't know who the character is. So you make it up as you go, trusting your instincts.

If you are talented enough (or lucky enough) you might create a great character for a novel by "winging it".

More likely, the readers simply won't believe in the character - because neither will you.

Of course, you can never get to know your characters perfectly before you start writing. I usually advice people to try to get to know them as well as they know themselves, but in reality that is clearly impossible...

• It takes a lifetime to truly get to know yourself.
• And with characters in fiction, you will always learn more about them as you bring them to life through the writing.

Nevertheless, the more spadework you do on character creation at the outset, the stronger and more believable your characters will end up.

So, how do you get to know fictional characters?

In exactly the same way that you get to know people in the real world - namely, by spending time with them, hanging out with them, asking them questions...

• To start with, you will concentrate on discovering the bare essentials of who they are - an overall impression, if you like.
• Later, you will refine this initial impression with more subtle details - just like you do with real people.

How do you accomplish that in practical terms? Easy. You spend two or three work sessions on each of the characters in your novel, writing mini biographies for them.

Did I say each character?

Sorry, but yes - the major characters, anyway. You obviously don't need to put as much effort into the biographies of characters nearer the bottom of the cast list than the top...

• The minor fictional characters - or Flat Characters - will be two-dimensional stereotypes, and you can create stereotypes with a few broad brush strokes.
• But the Round Characters - and the central character, in particular - need to be fully-rounded human beings, and that means getting to know them in much more detail.

Here are the 12 questions you need to ask when Creating Character Profiles...