Creating Characters

Everything I Need To Know About My Main Character Before I Start Writing

Photo by Steven Jones

So you want to flesh out your OC (original character) and don’t know where to start. I’ve got you covered.

The chart below combines the three key elements of any novel: character, plot, and worldbuilding because I believe the best characters intertwine all three. I seek out a character's motivations and emotional beats rather than play twenty questions about their physical appearance or likes and dislikes.

While I have done the twenty questions and super in-depth character questionnaires and charts before, I haven’t found them to be as useful as the chart I’ve created myself which has taken inspiration from my favourite authors, writers, and my own experience.

One of the main authors I draw inspiration from is demonstrated in the following section.

Learning from the Masters

Victoria Schwab is one of my favourite authors (as I’ve mentioned many times before). When she creates her characters, she asks herself three questions:

1. What is this character’s greatest fear?

2. What do they want most of all?

3. What are they willing to do to get it?

I love these three questions because they get to the heart of the character and help guide the writer on where the plot should take them.

The plot becomes:

• How the character gets what they want more than anything,

• By doing whatever they're willing to do to get it, and

• Facing—or if they’re unwilling, not facing—their greatest fear.

As I discussed in the first part of this series, Ally Carter does something similar when worldbuilding by asking herself questions around what the characters know or don't know about the world they’re living in. Then that informs how the plot takes shape because not every character is going to know about all the same things, and even if they do, their backstory and personality are going to influence how they react to that knowledge.

What We’re Covering

I’m going to use my main character Iliza Lysander from Unnatural Secrets, my current work in progress (WIP). I created a two column chart/table in a word document to include the following headings on the left side:

• Profile

• Goals

• Strengths

• Flaws

• Fear

• Emotional Beats

• Arc

• Backstory

• Additional Notes

Below I’ll break down each one and provide practical examples (hopefully without giving away too many spoilers).

The Character Chart

Note: I’ve combined some of the headings here because they often go hand in hand and influence each other.

Profile and Goals

I start with a simple profile. I like to include those first key points I just knew about the character from the start. It’s something quick I can refer back to easily and encompasses the vibes of the character.

I also find a face claim, meaning I find a picture of a person to represent the character. I used to use Pinterest, but now I use stock photos (Pixaby, Pexels, Unsplash) to find portraits that match the character's appearance. This helps when I’m creating moodboards and need visual elements to aid in my writing.

Profile: This is the profile for Iliza Lysander, my female main character (FMC).

• Abandonment issues.

• Badass.

• Survivor.

• More than a little touch-starved ok, but Oliver’s working on it.

• Clever, observant, meticulous.

It’s not much, and it’s not meant to be. The goal of a profile is to give a quick overview to serve as a reminder of what the character is all about when writing or switching perspectives and you need to get into their head again.

For example, Iliza is a very observant character so she’s going to notice details others don’t so I need to show her paying attention to those details when I’m writing from her perspective. She also has abandonment issues and is a bit of a lone-wolf, so while she will notice these details, she also might not share them with the other characters.

Goals: These are Iliza’s goals, internal and external, and known and unknown because sometimes a character isn’t even aware of a certain want/need/motivation.

• Iliza wants connection and is tired of being alone despite not wanting to admit it.

This is a known internal goal, however, it’s not one she wants to share so I use that in my writing to create this push and pull between her and the male main character (MMC) Oliver, who is also the love interest.

• She wants to find out what really happened to her parents.

This is an external goal, but with an internal motivation. Both her parents died somewhat mysteriously and she’s never found out the truth, so with the recent disappearances and murders that form the basis of the plot, she wonders if there's a connection between what happened then and what’s happening now (but is that desperation and grief seeing a connection that isn’t there?).

• She wants to solve the murders and follow the clues, even though she suspects the truth is not one she will like.

Iliza is a character who enjoys solving puzzles, it’s just how her mind works, but she also feels she owes a debt to her community. They helped her survive a dangerous side of the city as a child (she was never as alone as she thought, help was always there, right in her blind spot), so when people she knows start going missing she believes it’s her duty to figure out what happened to them—even though she doesn’t want others relying on her (see abandonment issues).

Strengths, Flaws, and One Fear

One of the things I love about creating characters is how a strength can also be a weakness or a flaw depending on the context.

So Iliza’s strengths and flaws are:

• Strengths: Heightened senses, determined, secretive

• Flaws: Distrustful, disconnected, secretive

I included secretive in both categories because in some cases keeping a secret would literally save her life, while in others it’s probably hindering her ability to connect with and trust others. She’s so used to moving through life alone, she doesn’t know how to move with someone else next to her.

I don’t want to give too much away, but Iliza’s worst fear is:

• Fear: Facing a dangerous person from her past (who has a connection to her parents deaths) and losing to them.

She’s terrified of disappointing her parents and being unable to avenge their deaths. Her worst fear isn’t failure per se, it’s being too weak to face the same demons she had to witness as a child and still being too scared to truly overcome them. It’s about not wanting to be that scared little girl again.

Emotional Beats and Arc

I create, at most, three emotional beats that happen throughout the story. I don’t want just an external or an internal arc, I want the characters to go through both (conflict, conflict, conflict). Their feelings will influence their experiences and their their experiences will influence their feelings.

Emotional Beats:

• Iliza's foundation of self crumbles when she learns the truth about who her parent’s are.

• She has to accept care when she’s hurt.

• She tells Oliver her truth and is vulnerable with him.

How Iliza reacts to each emotional beat will differ, but the key thing is that they build on each other. The next one is harder for her to accept and act on than the last.

Character Arc:

I divide the character arc into the beginning, middle, and end so that I know not only what’s happening in each act, but that there is something happening and planned beforehand.

Each bullet point describes the kind of state Iliza is in or what she has learned. These go hand-in-hand with the emotional beats.

Beginning

• Alone and secluded. She has only herself to rely and depend on. She’s had to survive so long by herself that she’s not sure how to let Oliver back in.

• She is always ready to strike and never tells the whole truth.

Middle

• She starts to warm up to Oliver on a more personal level after establishing their partnership. With the prospect of secrets coming to light, she just might be able to believe everything will be ok.

• She learns it’s vital for others to be kept in the loop and to trust Oliver has her back.

End

• [Redacted so there’s no spoilers].

Backstory and Additional Notes

The last two sections of the table are for the backstory and any additional notes I make as I write the book. For this WIP, I also have a semi-detailed timeline so I can keep track of what ages the characters were at key moments in their history and at present.

The backstory provides details about the characters experiences, and also informs the shape of their values and beliefs. It’s one thing to have a tragic backstory for your character, but another to flesh out the how and the why.

Conclusion

Ok, that was a lot to take in, I know. However, I didn’t create this in a day. There are still sections for some characters that are completely blank, even though I’ve already begun drafting. You do not need to have it all figured out before you start writing. Especially so, if you’re more of a pantser than a planner. This chart is also helpful to fill out after you complete the first draft. Working backwards is acceptable.

For me, I just know I need to have a solid outline and understanding of the characters before moving forward, or too far into the story, and each of these sections deepens that understanding. I know what Iliza wants, what she’s scared of, what she has to learn, and what she has to unlearn. I know how the story is going to change her, for better and for worse. I know who Iliza is as a whole and complex being, and because of that she is going to feel real and relevant to my future readers.