Making Your Characters Real

One of the most important elements of any novel is creating characters that come to life in the pages of your book. We’ve all experienced the sorrow of finishing a book and realizing we have to bid farewell to a character in the novel whom we practically felt we had befriended. Then we wait anxiously for the novel’s sequel so that we can resume that friendship.

How does a writer create characters who appear to be made of flesh and blood?

Although some authors prefer to come up with the basics of their characters and then simply allow them to reveal themselves as the story moves along, a lot of experienced writers recommend that would-be authors create character profiles, at least of their main characters. How detailed you make your character profiles depends on what works best for you.

What You Need to Know About Your Character

Some of the things you'll probably want to jot down about your characters are the following:

• Age
• Appearance
• Occupation
• Income
• Education
• Marital status
• Recent relationships
• Children / siblings
• Likes and dislikes
• Favorite music
• Hobbies
• Strengths and weaknesses
• Special characteristics (movement, speech, laugh, and so on)
• Favorite sayings
• Idiosyncrasies
• Birth date/ Sign of the Zodiac
• Knick name

Six More Things You Can Do

Six more things you can do when it comes to creating your characters are the following:

1. Write what a typical day looks like for your character.
2. Create your character's backstory; even if you never include a word of the backstory in your novel, if you know your character's past you'll be able to make him or her more convincing to the reader.
3. Create a profile for each of your characters similar to those of popular socializing networks such as Myspace, Twitter, or Facebook.
4. Draw a family tree for the character.
5. Make a sketch of your character so that you can get a better idea of what they look like.
6. Research your character's job or career if it's different from your own.

Character Profile Worksheets

Here are some links where you'll find worksheets to help you create character profiles:

• How to Create a Character Profile
• Character Creation Form
• Developing Fictional Character Profiles
• Creating Character Profiles
• Character Development Worksheet
• 100 Character Development Questions for Writers

For more tools, tips, and resources for writing your novel, visit my Squidoo lens "NaNoWriMo - Write a Novel in 30 Days".