Writing A Novel - Character Development

Without characters novels are nothing more than setting descriptions. Characters make stories happen. However, you can't just throw a couple of stick figures into your fictional world and expect your story to come to life. The characters in your novel must be as real and believable as the people who live and breathe in your daily life. There are a couple of things you can do to help you in this venture.

First Option: Write, Write, Write!

When I wrote my first novel Dear 302 in November 2011, I started with a story idea, not characters. There were some kids things were happening to in my fictional world, but I didn't know too much about them. Since I was part of the NaNoWriMo challenge, I felt the need to write every single day for hours on end, even though I hadn't figured out who my characters were, in depth. By the end of the first week of daily writing an amazing thing happened, each character was coming to life.  Their unique looks, unique voices and attitudes developed as the narrative unfolded around them.

How does this work? Simply put, conflict defines us. When we write novels, we present conflicts to our characters and, as each conflict is presented, characters define themselves. Everyone can't react the same way, so how each individual reacts to a situation begins to tell the tale of who they are.

Second Option: Interview Your Characters

Even after you've put your characters through tons of conflict, you still might not know everything there is to know about them, so why not ask them who they are? If you are not sure where to begin with your questioning, then you will have to check out Laura Cushing's article containing 100 Character Development questions for writers. To get you started, here are the first five questions in the category entitled Mandatory Questions:

1. What about you is heroic?
2. What about you is social? What do you like about people?
3. Of what benefit could you be to the current group?
4. Why would you choose to join the current group?
5. Invent an adventure/plot that your character would actively undertake (as opposed to just tagging along)?

The ninety-five other questions are separated into the following 11 categories:

• Personal Questions
• Familial Questions
• Childhood Questions
• Adolescent Questions
• Occupational Questions
• Likes & Dislikes Questions 
• Sex & Intimacy Questions
• Drug & Alcohol Questions
• Morality Questions
• Post-Supernatural Awareness Questions
• Miscellaneous Questions

Just think about how much of yourself you would reveal if you had to answer all 100 questions in these twelve categories. That's how well you should know your characters (of course all of that doesn't need to be detailed in your novel!).

Finally: Test Your Character on Reddit!

If you don't like the idea of a set of questions pre-created for you and you want to have a more natural type of interview with your character, then you need to check out IAmAFiction on reddit.com. Reddit is an online community where like-minded people share web links, pictures, videos and stories. There are plenty of subreddits (reddit communities) for writers, but IAmAFiction is specifically created for fleshing out characters.

Here's the description of IAmAFiction:

If you are unfamiliar with Reddit's "IAmA" subreddit, this is a place where you say to the reddit community, "AMA", or "Ask Me Anything". Therefore, in IAmAFiction, you pose as your character and tell the reddit community to "AMA". It's fun to just jump in and see the other characters people are creating and the questions being asked. Also, there are weekly "ICD" (In Character Discussions) and Scenarios (ie. "Timetraveler Convention") where you can take your character out to socialize!

All of the Other Options

In my opinion, nearly everything we do when writing a novel is character development, and a lot of the other things I will be writing about this month in this Writing a Novel From A to Z Challenge will deal with this topic, so while I offered some tools to enhance the process, just remember, if you are writing, you are developing your characters. Keep up the awesome work!

thanks for reading!

Do you have any tools or tricks you use in helping you develop your characters?

Do you have an "mandatory questions" you need answered by your characters before you truly "know" them?