Building Characters
Feb. 3, 2025. Great Egret at sunset, Moss Landing, CA
“It’s not until you really throw your character into the story that you can genuinely understand who they are.” — Elijah Bynum
As a novelist you can have your character do anything at all. That may feel like an enviable position to be in if you’re a non-fiction writer. But creating a character can be as tricky as getting to know a real person.
Maybe you begin with a list of personality traits. Is your character fearless or cowardly? Prudent or indiscreet? Skeptical or gullible? It’s a good start. But once you are telling your story you may find that strait jacketing her into specific attributes has limitations. You may need to give your character the freedom to do what your imagination dictates in any given moment. Go with your gut. Your typically loyal character may have a reason to be disloyal in a particular scene.
People are complex and so are your characters. Get to know their biggest fears and greatest desires, their strengths and weaknesses, their longings. Know what haunts them, Jordan Rosenfeld suggests in her book, Writing the Intimate Character. Well yes, you have to make all that up. And then you need to throw them into some action. How they react and the choices they make will ultimately be what defines them.
