creating characters

It starts with a need.

Creating characters that is.

For me when I think of creating a character for a story typically think of a role I need to be filled. This is especially true for my supporting cast/  Around that role a (hopefully) three dimensional character is born.

I wrote an award-winning MMA script called Caged Angel that presented a rivalry between a down on his luck former champion and the young man who took his belt. I had the basis of the script in my head, but I didn’t totally have who these men were down. Nor did I have their rivalry rooted in a deeply personal issue. I needed a character who would bound these men in a sympathetic knot. Someone who could drive emotion greater than a contested title belt could. So I created a daughter. A teenage daughter of the grizzled fighter, Mason Howard. I made her estranged from Mason along with her mother. Then to properly seal the emotionally complicated deal I made them the brand new family of Mason’s rival, Christian Angel. With those two characters something relatable to the audience had been created.  They also gave the two men something to fight over beyond a title belt. Naturally, Mason is going to hate Christian. What man wouldn’t? Unless he had an extreme cuckolding fetish (no judgment here). And of course Christian will despise Mason. Who would want their girl’s baby daddy in their shit when they’re trying to fuck? Not me!

Like any story I write I needed some good comedy in Caged Angel. That came from fight promoter Gretchen Arsen, a charismatic, quirky, and eccentric young woman. Originally the fight promoter character was an old male with a mean spirited and greedy bent. What I wanted out of that role was someone who was like no one you had ever met before. I wanted this person to be loud, wild and free. And Gretchen was born. What I really wanted for Gretchen was for her to be blunt, bold and a little insensitive. So she said things like this:

“I’ve had more fun reading my aunt’s autopsy report then I’ve had hearing some of your interviews.  When did you get a personality?”

Then, of course, she would be quick to make a joke about her rude comment to soften things up:

“That was the liquor talking, baby, don’t hate me.”

For Splendificent, creating characters was an easy natural process. Giselle was the most challenging as I originally thought of her as a shy, mousy, easily frightened character. But when I went to write her it seemed boring as as an 8^th grade algebra class. Writing her in the third person made me think I’d have a better chance of selling ass to a nun then selling this book.

I could have written the urban fantasy Splendificent and its erotic fiction predecessor Giselle and The Hot Squad in first person. That would have given more insight into a shy character. Yet I wanted to be able to explore the minds of the other characters as well. So I was left to craft a new Giselle.’ A proactive, oversharing, lovely Giselle. I made her a nerd that tries hard to be cool because I thought her failings to be down would make her endearing. I gave her the trait of extreme klutziness to make her sympathetic, provide comedy, and give her a weakness. Surely having the ability to accidentally start fires is a weakness. And isn’t an unwitting pyromaniac someone you feel sorry for? Who cares if she burned down your house and all your possessions? It was an accident! I also made her bolder which led to her being proactive and taking the lead instead of a shy character who was led around by the others.

Of course, there’s more to creating characters. There are likes and dislikes, personal history, family history, appearance, where they’re from, etc. But this is how I start things off when creating characters