Do You Know Your Fictional Characters So Well They Speak Back?

Some authors mention how they hear their characters speak back to them.

Is this some mysticism or rare magic? I don’t think so.

I think the clues here lie in the practice, the discipline, and the patience.

So how do we get our characters to speak to us so we can write down their thoughts?

How do you get to know someone?

You spend time with them. Ask them all sorts of questions.

Know how they feel about EVERYTHING.

You should really have notes on your main characters and write down stuff you find out about them.

Do they like coffee? Do they like tea? Would they rather go to the movies or stay home and rent one?

What do they do for work? Do they like work? Do they like their co-workers? Do they have squabbles with anyone? Do they despise anyone at work?

Who do they look forward to talking to each day? Who do they dread talking to each day?

What are their doubts, fears, and worries? Do they have traumatic moments in their past? How does that affect their everyday decisions?

What do they believe in? What do they doubt? How are they raised?

What are their daily goals, weekly goals, and yearly goals? What are their ultimate life goals?

There are so many things to know about a character before you can hear what they would say to a person they know or even to a stranger. And also to take into account is why they say things to certain people. How does it affect your plot for them?

Spend time watching them.

Watch them in their daily lives. Observe how they act when they are alone and how they act at work.

Do they act differently with friends? Do they act differently with family members?

What is their “normal” personality and when do they feel so uncomfortable they can’t be normal?

Are they polite normally, is more to the point, brash, and seemingly rude?

Get inspiration from real people.

Your character can easily be based on a real person you know. This is an easy way to find out what someone would do or say in any situation. All you have to do is ask them or observe them in-the-moment.

This might take a bit more research and you might not want to make your character “exactly” like them, because you can’t know 100% what someone will do even if you watched them all the time, but this is where creative license comes in and you do your best to come up with an interesting and meaningful scenario.

Get inspiration from fictional characters.

This is probably easier than inspiration from real people. It’s easier to watch or observe a fictional character than a real one because you technically control the fictional one.

You can watch an episode over and over again to try to nail down what they would do in certain situations. Or you can try to uncover a character’s deeper personality by reading their story several times.

Again the point here isn’t to copy them verbatim, (unless of course, you are writing fanfiction) the point is to get insight on how you want your character to act in any situation and what they most likely would say.

You know what they would say.

After you’ve created the character and done your research, there comes a point where you not only know what they would say and do, but the bigger thing is you get to decide what they say and do, and that ultimately guides them through the hoops and trials of your story.

Once you’ve written it. That IS what that character would do and say because you created them and you said so.

Now a reader might come along and say “Bob wouldn’t say that! Bob wouldn’t do that!” We definitely as writers want to be careful not to go against our main characters deep-seated actions and feelings. But sometimes people change and try new things.

While we do want to be sensitive to these issues (and believe me, I’ve been that viewer before “they completely betrayed so and so’s character because he never would have done that!”) but at the end of the day you decide who the character is and what they do.

Even though it would be nice if they just jumped off the page and we could just write down everything they do that’s not always how the creative process goes.

(Now, I do know that as writers we often watch our story play out like a movie in our heads and we just write down what we see. But we have to realize that we still have ultimate control over the story and what happens next.)

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Do You Know Your Fictional Characters So Well They Speak Back?

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Do You Know Your Fictional Characters So Well They Speak Back?

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That’s all for now.

Hope this helps!

Happy writing!

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Do You Know Your Fictional Characters So Well They Speak Back?

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Do You Know Your Fictional Characters So Well They Speak Back?