I had a fun moment in my character development work this week that provides a good illustration of what happens during my process, so I thought I’d share. This will be more specific about how I go about creating characters, though I’ll avoid specific details since I don’t want to spoil my book, and I don’t even know exactly how it will go in the book because I haven’t started actually writing.

When I began my intense research phase for this series a couple of years ago, I initially was planning to model the main character for this book on a particular historical figure, so I started reading about this person. Along the way, I changed my mind about the character, so although she faces some similar situations as this historical figure, she isn’t actually anything like that person. But there were people in this person’s life I thought were interesting, and there was one in particular whose actions I thought might make for an interesting plot element, so I kept that in mind, jotting down a note in my “things that could happen” list.

Once I started thinking about the plot, after I thought I was done developing the main characters, I decided I needed to use this plot element, and that meant I needed a character to do these things. There was also a trope I wanted to play with, and I figured this character would be the perfect place to use this trope. At this point, the character was just a plot figure. I knew nothing about who he was as a person, just what he would do in the story, so I had to reverse engineer a character who was the sort of person who would do the kinds of things this character does.

The first bit of coming to life came when I figured out what he wanted and why. I knew what he was doing, but what did he hope to gain by doing it, and why did he want or need to gain that? Once I figured that out, I realized that fit well with another idea I’d come up with for this series.

The plan is that this will be a “world” series, with a bunch of interconnected books taking place in the same world, each with a different main character (though as I develop it, I’m thinking there might be miniseries within the series, with perhaps multiple books following some characters). I had a dream that gave me an idea for a later book in this series, and I realized that this character could be one of the characters for that idea, which is great because it allows me to set up that future book here and develop this character as a secondary character before he gets his own book. Pieces were starting to click into place, which is always satisfying.

Then I turned to some of my characterization shortcuts. There are a lot of personality profile things out there, things that give you a fairly coherent list of traits for a given personality type. Some common ones are zodiac astrology signs, the Myers-Briggs types, archetypes, and enneagrams. These are a good way to find a general personality type for a character and then find some common traits and issues that might come with that kind of person. I don’t end up slavishly adhering to any of these types, but they’re a great starting point for figuring out what kind of person a character might be while making the combination of traits feel believable instead of random.

And then once I have the rough basis for the personality, I can start going through a few lists of questions I ask myself about the characters, build a backstory, and generally flesh out characters so they start feeling like a person in my head. I know I’m getting close when I actually picture the person doing things while I answer the questions.

So now a guy who started as a possible plot idea has become a fleshed-out character who may get his own book down the line. I was prepared to dislike him, based on what he does in the plot, but now that I understand him better, he’s growing on me. The real test will be whether I can do him justice in the book and have him be in the story the way he is in my head.