Personality
This is the most important element in your character creation, if not the whole story. How the character responds to the shit you throw at them is the driving force behind the plot points and is what readers are going to connect with. Nobody wants to read a book with a humdrum protagonist that just floats through life like the meh emoji, or a flawless miss perfect for that matter—unless you intend to break your character, then by all means have at ‘er. But the most interesting characters are the ones we can relate too, with their bad decisions, debilitating fears, or quirky sense of humour. Inspiration can come from anywhere, like basing them off a person you know or another character you like. You can use the zodiac signs or numerology as well, or use a master list. Writerswrite has a great list along with character questionnaires you can use for free—follow the link for “A Fabulous Resource for Writers”.
350 Character Traits – A Fabulous Resource For Writers
There are some pretty great books out there too, like these ones:
The Positive Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Attributes
The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws
Note: I am not affiliated with Amazon, I make no money off this, I just really like this series and I highly recommend them.
Another way to create your characters is to use the Meyers-Briggs personality types. You can learn about that here:
Free Personality Test | 16Personalities
Character Archetypes are another way to build your characters, selecting a role for each character and using the associated traits for each archetype. Archetypes are different from stereotypes, and work more like a guide or a foundation from which to build upon. You can learn more about them here:
A character archetype is like a template for the role a character will take within a story.
14 Common Character Archetypes You Should Know
There are also villain archetypes you can use:
15 Types of Villains Screenwriters Need to Know – ScreenCraft
Voice
Just as a writer has a voice when writing, so too does the character, and we “hear” it through dialogue and the narration; especially when the story is written in first person. But finding your character’s voice can be challenging. You don’t want everyone to sound the same, even when they come from the same place, because everyone has a unique way of speaking, and chances are, you’re going to be writing characters that speak differently than you. I grew up in Alberta during the ‘90s and early 2000s—my generation made words like “sweet,” “da bomb,” or “Wassup?” popular—while my kids are growing up right now, and the language they use is so different that sometimes I have no idea what they’re saying. Using text shortcuts—or what they call tone tags—as words, like “/neg” or “/srs,” (and yes, they literally say “slash”) it sounds so foreign even though we live with each other. You can learn a lot about someone by their choice of words, whether they are young or old, what country they are from, and even what social class they are in.
The first article is aimed at script writers who need to convey emotions and personality to the voice actors, but it is a great read on how to capture the nuances within dialogue. And the second article follows it up nicely with the focus on the sounds of a character’s voice.
A Guide To Writing And Describing A Character’s Voice – Performer Life
Tone, Timbre, Pitch: How to Describe Your Character’s Voices
If you just need a quick cheat sheet for vocal descriptions, check out this post by Bryn Donovan
Master List of Words to Describe Voices | BRYN DONOVAN
Something to keep in mind: a common pitfall for writers when trying to show where a character is from, is the use of phonetically spelling an accent in dialogue. It can slow down the reader and even pull them right out of the story, and you don’t want that.
How to Write Accents and Dialects: 6 Tips | Now Novel
Is your character bilingual? Here’s a bit of advice to make it believable:
Gestures and Body Language
Body language is a huge factor in our interpersonal interactions, and in writing it is used to “show not tell” the reader how the characters are feeling. Some people are cool and collected, but watch closely and you might see their eye twitch when they are annoyed while another person might purse their lips, and where someone in Canada will give you the middle finger, a Japanese character might pull on their lower eye-lid and stick out their tongue. So just like the character’s voice, their body language will be influenced by their up-bringing. Everyone uses a variety of gestures and many cultures share similarities, but it is good to have a few specific mannerisms figured out for each individual. Reedsy did a great post about what mannerisms are and how to incorporate them into your work, and Wikipedia surprised me with their handy list of various gestures from around the world.
150+ Powerful Character Mannerisms to Define Your Characters
MASTER LIST of Gestures and Body Language! | BRYN DONOVAN
Names
Whether you love the process or hate it, you have to name your characters. Some people choose names at random or because it sounds pretty. And if that’s your take then it really takes the pressure off and you can just pull a name off any list. But if you’re like me, well, you are probably going to pour over hundreds of names to match their meanings to the personality of the character, maybe use numerology, or search lists that reflect a time period or culture. Baby naming sites are amazing for this, you can search up a meaning or an origin and hundreds of names pop up at your disposal, and there are hundreds of sites you can use. Personally, I like Behind the Name because they also have surnames that you can look up by origin or meaning, which is super helpful. And if you register an account with them, you can save your favourite names for future reference.
Talents/Skills/Hobbies
Just like you and me, your characters are going to have skills, talents, and hobbies. Many of these traits will come from their backstory and, ideally, play a role within the story as more than just side notes. And the flip side of those skills, are things they are terrible at or really struggle with. They can add some humour, realism, and depth to your character and the story. But how you use these traits is up to you.
A List of 125 Talents and Skills
Huge List Of Hobbies & Interests: 1,000+ Ideas To Explore!
Extras
Feel free to use the character template that I made, the link is below:
Unless your character is a child, they will have an occupation. In the modern world, there are an incredible number of careers to choose from, and many you could easily pull off the top of your head, but if you’re stuck on ideas you can look up occupations in alphabetical order here:
But if you are writing a historical or fantasy novel, you can choose from any of this well categorised list:
Medieval Occupations and Careers | The Iron-Bound Tome
Once again, Bryn Donovan has some great posts with ideas to help inspire your next character
35 Character Backstory Ideas | BRYN DONOVAN
Character Arc Generator (50 Types of Character Arcs!) | BRYN DONOVAN
50 Character Goals (With Character Motivation!) | BRYN DONOVAN
Internal Conflict: 25 Examples for Writers | BRYN DONOVAN
Why Do People Kill? 15 Motives for Murder | BRYN DONOVAN
If your character has a mental condition, you should checkout this link:
How to Write Schizophrenia | The Writer’s Cookbook
This post has links to other conditions at the bottom, definitely worth a read if you want to incorporate a character like that in your story.
Verbum Amoris 