How do you develop characters? Do names matter? When creating a story, how important is who is driving the story?
Meeting The Characters
When I start any story, it begins with a who, not a what-if. It’s as if I meet an invisible friend who tells me a story, and then I ask them questions. When I met Charlotte, she came to me right after a visit to Wilson’s Creek Battlefield, and she introduced herself. She had a name before we had the details of her story. In fact, I still need to get all the details of her story. The outline is like an extended interview.
Other characters have been the same way; Molly came to me in college to tell me how the love of her life vanished without a trace. His family tried to convince her that he abandoned her and their daughter, but she always knew better. These invisible friends have always come to me with a story, and then we develop it into a book.
Character Interviews
If you have a Molly or a Charlotte that comes to you, you might take a blank notebook and start jotting down some questions. Full name, birthdate, age, what they look like, eye color, hair color, height. Then, as you go on, ask them who they are, their story, and why it is important.
Why would someone care that Molly’s boyfriend disappeared? Millions of people disappear every year. So, what makes her story unique? Charlotte’s husband cheated, and it is important it isn’t as important as who Charlotte is. If she wasn’t an anthropologist, then her friend Michael wouldn’t have called her to the dig site with the Civil War remains, and if it weren’t for that, they wouldn’t have discovered a woman who fought and died at Wilson’s Creek. However, if Charlotte’s husband hadn’t cheated, she wouldn’t have been wallowing around waiting for a phone call from a hero to pull her out of her misery.
Do Character’s add to the Plot.
The answer to this one is simple: of course they do. Without characters, there wouldn’t be a story; it might be a report. “A body of a female soldier was found in a civil war grave by archeologist this week.” the end. No character, no story, no nothing. So the who is just as important, if not more so, than the what. Spend some time today talking to invisible friends and see what exactly they tell you about their lives.
Happy Writing.
