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Young Writer's Guide: Making Up Characters
One of the most interesting parts of creative writing is making up characters. The characters in the story or book you are writing make your story come alive, so it’s important to spend a lot of time thinking about them. We call this characterization.
The Hero of Your Story
The most important character in your novel or story is the hero or heroine. He or she has to be just right. Here’s a secret to remember if you want to avoid the mistake most kids make: Your characters should not be perfect. Perfect characters are boring and no one believes in them. Everybody has faults—bad things—and your characters need them too. Often, when kids and teens write their first stories, they make the main character exactly like themselves, except perfect. The hero is the way the author wishes she was. This is fun to imagine, but not good for your story. No one will believe in your character if she’s perfect.
Readers like to imagine themselves being the main character as they read. It’s easier to do this if the character is like other real people you know. Even if your main character is a talking dragon, he should have a personality that is people-like. Don’t turn people you know into characters. Instead, put together pieces of people or just put together your own mix of personality, talents, and faults, but make the character all your own.
The character’s personality should be based on the story. If you want a girl to disobey her mother and sneak into the woods, she has to be the kind of girl who disobeys her mother. If you want a girl who never disobeys her mother, then she has to have something else that will make her disobey. Perhaps she is very scared all the time, and she runs into the woods because something has frightened her. Her personality would be a well-behaved girl who gets scared easily. Well-behaved is what is good about her, and scared is what is not so good about her.
Her age and her looks should also be based on what you need for the character. If your character goes to school, she has to be old enough to go to school. If she is going to babysit, she has to be old enough to babysit. If she is very popular, she might be pretty. If she isn’t pretty, then her personality will explain why she’s popular. If people tease her, you’ll need to know why she’s teased.
Every character has to have a purpose. You can’t put characters into a story without a reason, especially if it’s a short story. Before making someone up, decide if you need another character. If you do, what kind do you need? If you’re going to have a child being bullied, you need to put bullies into the story. What kinds of bullies do you need? Do you need ordinary kids who aren’t usually bullies, but who are just this once? (And if so, why are they being bullies just now? Or do you want a child who is always a bully? Why is that child a bully all the time? It helps to know.
If a child has ten brothers and sisters, there should be a good reason for that. Otherwise, they just make the story crowded. But if you want to write about a girl in a big family who feels left out, you’ll need all those brothers and sisters. If your story is about a girl who goes away to camp, you might not need them.
Keeping Track of Your Story's Characters
Make a list of things you want to know about your characters. Give each character a sheet of his or her own and fill it out for each one. Put the sheets into your writer’s notebook so you don’t get mixed up. I once made a boy an only child in chapter one, but in chapter three, he started arguing with his sister! If I’d had a page for him, I would have remembered he didn’t have a sister. You don’t want to forget what color hair your character has or the name of his school. If you add something new about him as you’re writing, be sure to go back and put it in your notebook.
The best way to learn how to make great characters is to read good books and notice what the characters are like. Try writing down everything you learn about a character in your favorite book and see what the author knows and how she told you about the character.
Have fun making up the characters for your new story!