Writing Tips – Letting Characters Create Themselves

I know, I know, characters don’t ACTUALLY create themselves, but that’s really the best way to describe when the best characters happen. Rule number one: STOP TRYING.

As I said in my post about accidentally neurodiverse characters, if you TRY to make characters act a certain way, a lot of times you’ll end up making them behave very unnaturally, whether that means that they act like a stereotype or whatever else. Instead, just think “what would <insert person that you know in real-life whose personality fits who this character is> think/say/do in this situation?” You’ll find that maybe your cousin’s shirt-chewing habit sneaks into the character, or that they walk like your old English teacher, or their laugh does that cute little squeak like your best friend’s does. Whatever feels right to you.
When you’re designing a character’s appearance, try MANY different features. Shuffle through different nose shapes, cheek shapes, eye shapes, skin colors, eye colors, body types, shirt collar types, skirt colors, pant lengths, etc. Try putting dark circles under their eyes, or giving them wrinkles, dimples, no dimples, a cleft chin, no cleft, big eyes, small eyes, attached vs. detached earlobes, big ears, little ears, thin lips, thick lips, should this strand of hair hang in front of their face or should it be tucked behind their ear? Throw out your ideas of what a stereotypically “attractive” or “ugly” person/animal/etc. looks like. Forget fashion. When you just flow with what feels right to put on this character, eventually you’ll come upon the combination that is perfect FOR THEM. Everyone is beautiful in their own special ways, and when you don’t try to force your character into a mold, they’ll become their own kind of gorgeous. And you’ll probably find, just as a character can accidentally end up neurodiverse when you don’t try to force them into specific behaviors, that your cast will accidentally end up very physically diverse, too. Maybe a character ends up with almond Asian eyes, freckled pale European skin and kinky African hair? There’s no rule that says they can’t! Do what feels right.
When you’re trying to name a character, DO NOT STRESS about the meaning. Yes, sometimes meanings of the names are important, especially if you’re naming them a commonly used word or they live in a culture where people usually name their children words or combinations of words (e.g. Japan, China, Korea, certain African and Native American tribes, etc). It can be a fun little Easter egg to discover that the fairy with floral powers has a name that means “tree,” or that the action-hero has a name that means “brave,” but don’t get too hung up on it. Look at your character, imagine their behaviors, find a random name list online and start reading them off out loud and writing them out. Does it feel right to say this name in reference to this character? Does the look of the written form look like it belongs to them? Don’t worry about whether a name is popular, unpopular or whatever else, just name them what you think fits them the best.
Remember, your characters are not independent from the rest of the story! They’ll have had lives before the main story ever actually takes place. They’ll have come from parents, who had parents, who had parents, and they’ll share a resemblance with any relatives they might have. They’ll have been babies, toddlers, etc. before they were teenage, elderly, etc. They’ll have had life experiences that shaped who they are. Maybe she was a very upbeat person for most of her life and she ended up with pronounced smile lines as an old woman; maybe he had an incident with a neighborhood dog when he was five years old which gave him a scar on his arm and a lifelong cynophobia (fear of dogs); those kinds of things are just as important as, say, laws that ban fairies from using magic around humans in this alternate universe, or the fact that artificial intelligence took over the world in this other alternate universe; it doesn’t matter if there’s no flashback to the event or if they’re an orphan and don’t know their real family or anything, it still existed and it’s still gonna effect them in some way. Take the character of Calvin “Freckle” McMurray from Lackadaisy, he got his nickname from when he was a kitten and his cousin Rocky shaved his face just because he could and discovered he had one, single, solitary freckle. It was never said in the main story, you’d only know if you read this early concept art and this just-for-fun mini comic, but it happened and it effects him. Ms. Butler even says that a lot of childhood memories growing up surrounded by little boys contributed to her creation of Freckle and Rocky’s relationship backstory. And, as a fun little Easter egg, the name “Calvin” means “bald,” haha. Maybe the rest of your character’s story will flow out of what they look like, maybe it’ll flow from their name, maybe it’ll flow from the story of someone you know in real life whose behaviors leaked into your character. Don’t fight what your character and story want to become and eventually they’ll work themselves out.

Hopefully these tips make the process of creating characters a little less intimidating, less confusing and more fun. The characters are one of my favorite parts of writing stories; I like imagining myself in their situations, laughing with them, crying with them, giving them their own unique kinds of beauty, I get to feeling like they’re all like my babies that I got to give life to… I guess they kind of are, in a way… my brain-babies, haha! Final rule: just have fun with it!!

(Figurine photo obtained via Pexels)