by Robert Lambert

Created on: December 17, 2009

What is a character made of? This is the first question we must ask if we wish to create characters, for to try and make them without knowing what it is they're made of would be much like trying to make cookies without knowing what the ingredients are. You've seen finished cookies before, and you might be able to luck out and make something that looks rather like one, but it's not likely to taste very good.

It is a common mistake of beginning writers to think that a character is made of a list of features. These include physical features, like the color of one's eyes, one's race, or one's sex, and psychological features, like being quiet or clumsy or courageous. This may seem reasonable because this is the way we often describe people, and one can also describe their characters in this way, but describing a thing and creating a thing are surely different actions. So in order to create a character, we must ask, what creates a person?

For creating a person in the physical sense, it seems likely that you've already had a conversation with your parents about how that happens, and perhaps watched an awkward video about it in elementary or middle school. This sounds like a joke, and there's some truth to that, but it's actually an important thing to keep in mind. Your character's parents and their relationship are also part of the story. They may never appear in the novel or even be mentioned, but as long as your character is there, they are too. This is a bit different for characters who are orphans or adopted, but it's still present. This extends to an extent to the next issue I'll discuss, the psychological creation of a character, but as much as a character might transcend beyond their low beginnings or fall short of high expectations, they can never escape their upbringing and physical makeup entirely. However, of course it's true that not all physical characteristics come from one's parents. A person might be born to thin parents and then fall into obesity from a vicious cycle of overeating and depression. A person might lose a limb or an eye in battle. Or for more cosmetic features, they might dye their hair, wear colored contact lenses, or get tattoos. And of course, there's simply the question of how they cut and style their hair, how frequent and detailed their grooming is, and what sort of clothing they wear.

But again, here we're just listing features. And as essential as it is to know what your character looks like, and to describe them well, it

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