As a few of you know, I’m having trouble with my characters…especially with making them realistic and lifelike.
Sure, they’re there, and technically they’re breathing and their hearts are beating, but they don’t feel real.
I’ve tried those ‘character questionnaires’ and while they have some merit, some benefit, I’ve found that I only one or two are helpful.
Doing thousands of character questions will make you knowledgeable about the minutia of their lives…but not about them.
You have to grab a character and toss them into a scene. Sit down, picture a scene or an event, and write how your character will react. Make them live.
Take your Colonial, someone you’ve always disregarded, exempted from the hours of thought you’ve had about your story, and put him in a bakery.
Or your Cook, someone who says ‘yes sir/ma’am’ and prepares the meals your more major characters eat, and put him in a tuxedo. Stick him up with the masters-of-house, make him negotiate for land titles or whatever.
The whole point of this is that just like in the real world, it’s easy to read about something, but harder to do.
It’s easy to make your character, but harder to make them live.
Jared Glass Writing 