by Simon Wright

Created on: March 07, 2007   Last Updated: March 04, 2010

Although the character you have created is fictional, you want them to burst forth from the page as if they were a real life individual. This means that rather than being one dimensional, they will come across as well rounded with characteristics that we can recognize from our interactions with other people.

The process of creating fictional characters differs from writer to writer, but in most cases the birth of your character will come about from a combination of three things:

1) Outward observation.

Most writers are, by nature, observers of life. We observe people and their mannerisms, and often use these real people as a starting point for creating a fictional character. As an example of this, the brilliant Basil Fawlty character (portrayed by John Cleese in Fawlty Towers) was allegedly based loosely upon a real life eccentric hotel owner in England!

Of course, writers usually want to achieve a little distance between the real life person and their fictional character, (both for artistic and legalistic reasons!) so it’s quite common for the characteristics of a number of observed real life people to be blended to create a new and original fictional character.

2) Inward observation.

Writers take feelings, emotions, and behaviors that belong to them and apply these to their own character. You will often hear people reflect that a writer’s main character shares a lot of similarities with the author! Of course, as with outward observation, it’s usually more powerful to take bits and pieces of our feelings rather than to create a character who is just a carbon copy of us.

3) Imagination.

On top of the outward and inward observation, writers add a dollop of personality traits and characteristics that come purely from their imagination. This may be particularly the case where the genre is fantasy, sci fi, or horror and the writer is trying to convey a character who is either not human or is very far from our everyday perception of what it is to be human.

The importance of blended fictional characters:

Creating fictional characters is not always easy but it is a real joy when your initial thoughts take shape on paper and you find that you have a character which is believable and easy to write for.

The key when creating fictional characters is to use a mix of outward observation, inward observation, and imagination in order to create a blended character. You don't really want a character who is exactly like your eccentric neighbor. Neither do you

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