Character Creation Tips from an Aspiring Author

Welcome back to Musings of an Arthritic Artist! 

Today I'm going to be going through my tips for creating characters. I would arguably say that creating characters is my favorite part of the writing process, though if I'm being fully honest, there's really nothing about the writing process I don't enjoy. I even enjoy editing.

I am not a published author, however I have gotten compliments on my characters in the past. 

Keep in mind that these will not work for everyone. Tips are subjective. What works for me may not work for you. There's not one way to create a character.

On that happy note, let's get right into the post!

King, Alexandria. Musings of an Arthritic Artist. 2021.

1. Create Character Playlists

This is a personal favorite of mine. For every protagonist I create, I make a character playlist on my Spotify. These songs help me flesh out my characters. The songs either have a certain sound that makes them sound like what my character would listen to, or the lyrics describe parts of the character's personality or emotions.

This is the thing I do most often when creating characters. Then, while writing a certain character, I'll turn on their playlist. Because I tend to write from the perspectives from many different characters, it can be hard to switch to another character's voice. 

Creating playlists helps to keep me in a character's mindset. Then, if I write another character, I can switch to their playlist and repeat. It keeps me in check. It helps me to make sure my characters don't do anything/say anything out-of-character. 

2. Create Character Profiles

Another tip I can give is to create a character profile. On my profiles I tend to include name, nicknames, appearance, age, history, personality, family, talents and skills, positive traits, negative traits, habits, relationships, goal, motivation, fears, and songs that describe them. 

It's very detailed, but it's very handy to refer back to. I don't know how many times I've had to reread the history and appearance sections to make sure I've gotten everything right.

3. Use Pinterest To Create Character Boards

This is another step I do when creating characters. Basically, I create character boards on Pinterest. I name the character and use that board to pin things that pertain to them, whether it be quotes that sound like their personality or appearance things. 

When I first began doing this, I mixed both personality and appearance things. This became very problematic when I created the boards for my characters in one of newest novels. When the two things are merged, one of my boards would end up having 3,336 pins, while another would have 1,921. 

You could imagine how impossibly hard it would be to scroll through looking for appearance/personality things. So, I separated them into two different sections. One with appearance and the other with personality. 

Example - Evelina Perry: Personality and Evelina Perry: Appearance

This makes it way easier to find things. For the record, none of my characters are named Evelina Perry, nor do I know anybody with that name. I just got it off a random name generator.

This step is very useful when it comes to descriptions. I am a very visual person, often to the point that if I don't see an example, I can't imagine it. Having a character appearance board helps remedy that, allowing me to think of ideas. 

Alexandria K: Characters (opens in new window)

4. Look at Personality Traits

There are plenty of lists online full of personality traits for writers. If you haven't fully got an idea for character it can sometimes help to look at personality traits. Choose an equal amount of positive and negative traits. You can use these to create a character. 

I'd recommend choosing different personality traits at different times. I find that I tend to gravitate toward certain traits, especially for guys, so I have to force myself to get outside of my comfort zone a bit. Minus villains, most of my male characters are loyal, fairly sensitive, and protective. My female characters tend to be empathetic, stubborn, and independent.

5. Look at a List of Fears

Fears are very interesting. Sometimes, you can create characters from these fears. This isn't something I've done often, but it can help if a character refuses to formulate. Looking at a list of fears can help you choose what your character is afraid of, which will determine how they react in certain situations. 

You can also base a character off a fear. I've done it in the past. It takes a bit of work and creativity, but it can be really fun and interesting. This can especially be interesting to create villains. How many times have you heard someone compare another person to a snake? 

That's it for this post! I hope you enjoyed it! 

See you Thursday, 

Lexi K🖌