Building a fictional character is the same thing as meeting a stranger and getting to
know her. Take that meeting one step at a time, or as the old saying goes, peal that
onion one layer at a time. With each layer you'll get to know more about that
stranger, and your character will become a fully developed person to you and your
readers.

Perfection Does Not Exist

No one is perfect, and that goes for the characters in our stories. The hero can have a
heart of gold, eyes as blue as the sky, hair as black as sin, and a smile that can make the
sun look like it is low on voltage. But come on now, shouldn't he have some weakness,
some part of him that is less than perfect?

There are occasions when a crowd is desirable. Rock concerts, parades, football games. But not even the Astrodome has an infinite seating capacity, and a novel or story is a lot more limited than the Astrodome. How many characters can you have in a story? A novel? A single scene? How many can, or should, be fully described and developed?

These aren't trivial questions. Overpopulated fiction can be so confusing that readers put the story down. Under-populated novels can seem claustrophobic or boring. You want the right number of characters for your particular work.

For any great novelist, defining your cast of intriguing characters is the key to the success of your story. So how do you maintain the image of your characters -- both their physical attributes and their personality? It's easy! Build a Character Wall, paper by paper.

Article posted by Nina Davies with the permission of Cheryl Kaye Tardif.

The William Wallace battle cry of "Freedom" in BRAVEHEART launches my every romantic sense onto full-scale alert. What a hero! Images of medieval knights in armor and soldiers astride destriers fill best-selling romance novels. Why?

It's critical to understand these elements and how they are related.

Plot, Style, Character Development, and Length are always related. Any good novel has exactly the right balance of each, one that is appropriate to the genre and story.

Also, it's important to note that genres tend to "weight" those four factors differently. In literary fiction, the weighting generally goes something like this:

If you're having a hard time getting to know your characters, you might want to try putting on your Oprah Winfrey hat and interviewing them. Sitting down at the typewriter for a chat with your hero or heroine is a great way to get to know them. Just pretend you're the hero and type, "Hi, I'm Rhett Butler," and let him start talking. Once you slip into the hero's personality, it's easy to stay in character as long as the interviewer keeps asking questions.

Ah, but there's the tricky part. Where are those questions coming from?

In any story, half of the information given to the reader is never spoken out loud. It's body language, and body language can tell your reader what your character is doing and how they feel about it.

Giving life to a character is one of the most rewarding parts of being a writer. It is also one of the most difficult. Too many times in fiction we witness the "cardboard" or one-dimensional character. Real characters, those we can visualize and root for and love, aren't created with the snap of a finger. Instead, they develop over time, over many hours spent together.