Characters

Characters

The most common question writers are asked concerns where the ideas for stories come from. The other one we often hear is “how do you make up your characters?”

Interesting strong characters are a basic requirement for a good book. In my own writing career, my first book, Creatures of the Rock was a memoir. The development of characters was straightforward because the people of the book were either real or composites of individuals I had interacted with. The main character of a memoir is of course the writer. All you need to do to write a memoir is to reach down deep inside yourself and describe what you find. It’s not as easy as it sounds and requires some thought to come up with a character that will somehow resonate with readers. Unless we are egomaniacs, I think most of us wonder how interesting we are to others. Is there enough in us to warrant a book?

I think that writing a memoir is good training ground for developing characters in fiction. The challenges are the same - writers need to come up with someone who readers will find interesting and believable.

Donald Murray says that all writing is autobiography - there is something to that. When writers try to create characters, the most readily available source of material comes from within. We know ourselves better than anyone else, and though our characters don’t need to be exactly like us, it is convenient to find inspiration internally.

Characters may reflect what we hope to be or fear we are.  All of us have parts we aren’t proud of, but these are wonderful fodder for characters.

Other sources of fictional characters are those around us. It’s true that you should be careful making friends with writers - you are liable to end up in a book. When friends and acquaintances end up in a novel, they might not even recognize themselves. At times a character might be a combination of a number of people.

Characters can also come from other places. It’s often convenient to borrow traits and mannerisms from literature or real life. It’s particularly tempting to use public figures we dislike as templates for villains.

Wherever the characters in a book come from, it’s important for the writer to know these people well. Before a character can really work in a book, the author has to know everything about them. Their motivations, dreams and preferences in life all need to be understood for strong characters to develop. Salman Rushdie says you need to be able to talk to your characters before they are ready to be written.

In VIRAL, I had fun putting together the inhabitants of the book. The hero, John, has big parts of me in him. He is a vet student who worked in a bio-secure lab like I did, and he tries to be a decent person. But there are bits of John that are motivated by fears I have about myself. He’s often ineffectual and misses opportunities to act. The other source for John is from literature. He’s modelled quite closely on Odysseus from the Odyssey. A careful read through the book will show how closely John’s adventures mirror those of Odysseus.

I’m always amazed at readers’ response to the character Fletch. It seems most people absolutely hate him. My intent with this character was that he wasn’t to be completely bad. He does have a few validating features. His frustration with bureaucracy is understandable and he is skillful at his work. The worst parts of Fletch come from Donald Trump, but I reluctantly have to admit there are bits of me in there as well.