Flushing out your characters

Flushing? Down the drain? Like a barbie doll going playing in the toilet?

/kidding.


Some people just write with them and flesh them out then. Some people go all out. Me, I fit them to the story I'm writing. Their actions decide the story, their backstory decides their characteristics before the story. No sheets, no bios, no interviews, no sacrificial ceremony.

I thought you were going to ask when it's time to get rid of a character.

I have a notebook(s) where I write everything that comes up about the characters. Once I know enough about them, I can start writing. I can't write before I know my characters. But yeah, I never do character bios. It's just organic writing about the characters in different situations. And I only do this for the main characters. Minor characters get developed as I write.

Obviously for everyone it is different. Some people like to use character sheets/bios/lists of questions/etc. but personally I feel that is time consuming and much prefer to spend time planning the main points of the story and simply writing it.

Saying that, I do have a rough idea of a character in my head before I write and then just go from there and just by writing I get to know them much better.

I just write, and they tell me who they are as we go along. Sometimes that means I have to revise a lot, but then that would happen even if I had a plan. Characters are very stubborn about themselves, and don't listen to authors.

I find songs quite helpful. Once I have a general idea of who my character is, I look through my music collection (or sometimes surf around the iTunes store for days) for a song that I feel fits for that character. Once I have it (or them), I listen to that song for a while and think about the character, and I find they really come to life. Then I jot down anything about their personality or backstory that comes to mind.

It's an odd system, I know, and I think I've come to rely on it too much, but it really seems to work for me.

Some people hate character charts, but I found a great one that I use all the time here. I don't stress over what I put on it. It's really comprehensive, so lots and lots of fields won't apply. I just fill in what I want to remember, and I only use it for my main characters. Minor characters either get a couple of notations or I just kind of keep them in my head.

I've also just run my characters through random scenes to gauge how they react, which can tell you a lot.

Well, you start with a detox diet, maybe add some fiber...

Oh, wait. Misread. Sorry...

Anyway, I've tried the detailed character sheet thing before I write, but usually end up feeling out characters as I go. I do, however, keep somewhat informal cheat sheets on characters, so I can keep track of descriptions and things I've mentioned about them - so they don't have three different mothers in five different birth states - or rough notes on special surprises I have planned for them. It's nothing so formal as a hardcover-sized dossier or a fill-in-the-blank worksheet like I've seen some writers do, but just enough to keep things consistent.

They become more concrete as I write the story. One choice, one action leads to another and by this - by each time the character does something, (including thinking, seeing) the way that person is depicted in the text becomes more concrete. So for me it's by writing the story.

Since I outline my stories, I add some character details there. Doesn't matter, though. My characters always surprise me when they show me who they are as the story develops.

In the editing phase, after I've had a chance to develop my characters, I can take time to bring out the quirks in places I wrote before I learned about the quirks.

I thought you meant "flushing out," as in getting them to fly up out of the brush so you can shoot them. So I was going to suggest a spaniel.

But seriously, my characters often come to me before the other details of the story. The novel I've been working on started when I was walking my dog along a creek bank, and I had this image in my mind of a young woman walking her dog along the banks of a creek in another time and place (which became my fantasy world) and finding an almost dead guy. So then I got to thinking about what she would do (decided she was a healer who was struggling with her own feelings of inadequacy, because her aunt was the master healer at the university, so everyone assumed the character had gotten into the healing school because of her aunt's influence). But she proves her skill by saving this guy's life. And they become friends, and it turns out he's got dark secrets that he's buried, and they're the reason he was beaten up on the river bank, so then I get to imagine all the possible horrible things he's possibly done.

So some aspects of the history of my world and my magic system slowly emerged as a consequence of needing something dark about someone who was basically a decent person. Something that would make him want to be someone other than the person he was.

At first, I just daydreamed about these people, but finally, I had to start writing. And a lot of things changed once I started hashing the details out. Other characters emerged too. For me, the process of writing (not outlining or making character sheets) allows a lot of those details to come out.

And I've got other characters with problems lurking at the back of my mind besides the ones in this story. And I hope to discover more things about them once I ship this novel.

Like a lot of people here, I start with some doodles and bio sheets but a good character will always reveal themselves to you as you write them. And as your characters get together, they'll find for themselves the appropriate reactions to the situation and you mind find that they're changing asyou write them... maybe a lot more than you anticipated.

I think you mean fleshing out your characters, no?

I give them a problem to solve or a goal in mind and let them have it. It's through their actions where the meat of characterization takes place.

I just write them and let them do all the flushing/fleshing. Seriously, character sheets, outlines and notes are just too restricting (for me.) But I do know some writers who won't start a story without having it all laid out beforehand.

But it's not necessary for many of us. So if you fit in this category, don't worry about it. There is no one model-fits-all for writing, pre-writing, outlining, etc. etc.

Some of us just sit and write and what happens, happens.

Fantasy_fan said:

How do you get to know your characters? Interview, character sheet or do you write a bio for them? And is your method for all your characters or just the main one?


Oops...spelling error. actually it is spellchecker. I hate spellchecker. Thanks Osulagh. My proofreading sucks.

Click to expand...

I don't get to know them. If there's anything I need to know, the story brings it out. If the story doesn't bring it out, I don't need to know it.

I mix things a little. When writing someone new I generally just go with it at first and see how they act, but once they remind me of someone I start to fill in the other details.

On a related note, I'm a teacher so I have a lot of people that I know fairly well to choose from. However, I (joke) rule is that I never write someone thinking about a current student so that my thoughts about the written character don't interfere with my teaching.

My characters talk to me as I write. Their fleshing comes out as soon as I type their dialogue and actions.

One action leads to the next to the next to the next. The character writes the story. Not me.

I used to just dive into a first draft and the characters came alive that way. But a friend came back from a writing conference with a great idea--to make a list of a 100 things your main character wants. I did it for my upcoming project, so I feel like going in, I'll know more about my character so I'll know how to flesh her out in my hideous first draft.

Incidentally---I was born in a part of Queens, New York called Flushing. So you meant how to trick out your characters like they're from Flushing, right? ;-)

Sunflowerrei said:

I used to just dive into a first draft and the characters came alive that way. But a friend came back from a writing conference with a great idea--to make a list of a 100 things your main character wants. I did it for my upcoming project, so I feel like going in, I'll know more about my character so I'll know how to flesh her out in my hideous first draft.

Click to expand...

Yeesh - I don't even think I could list 100 things I want, let alone a character!

Interesting idea, though, if the number seems a trifle high...

Sunflowerrei said:

Incidentally---I was born in a part of Queens, New York called Flushing. So you meant how to trick out your characters like they're from Flushing, right? ;-)

Click to expand...

OT alert: I can't hear the name of Flushing, NY (and Flushing Meadows) without thinking of this scene from the Simpsons.

Yeah, mine pretty much tell me who they are and what they want to do. I've had the same pair of characters I have been trying to force into a fantasy story and every time ended up not getting very far. Then I tried a different setting and it's like they just gave this sigh like "Finally, this is where we belong."

I don't. I just work things in as they arise from the story. I'm on the third title in a planned series and I've only just discovered some of the history of one of the most steady, frequent characters.

Not the nine hundred and ninety nine springs, Roxxsmom?

Fantasy_fan said:

How do you get to know your characters? Interview, character sheet or do you write a bio for them? And is your method for all your characters or just the main one?


Oops...spelling error. actually it is spellchecker. I hate spellchecker. Thanks Osulagh. My proofreading sucks.

Click to expand...

I think you can edit the subject line yourself.

I get to know characters in the crucible of the story. I don't plan them, I don't do character sheets, I don't write bios. I just put them in the story and throw problems at them.

Fantasy_fan said:

How do you get to know your characters?

Click to expand...

By writing stories they inhabit. Seriously. I know that sounds glib, but it's how my mind works. Details about characters emerge as they do stuff. I don't overthink or overplan such things. I don't see character characteristics as something separate from story. No character exists without a story. No story exists without characters. Even Ray Bradbury's famous short story "There Will Come Soft Rains", which was inhabited by zero human characters, featured an automated house, long deserted, still performing its tasks, as it always had. That house was the character.

caw