top of page

Who Are You? I Really Want to Know…

Writer's picture: A D RiemerA D Riemer

No, this is not Writers’ CSI edition. This is all about who you are and how it can inform your writing.


What jobs have you held? Have you travelled widely? What are the life experiences that have shaped you? What do you do as a hobby? What are your most profound beliefs?

Think about this deeply for a few minutes, and then write a list. If you keep a journal look back at some old entries and see who you were. That will better inform you of who you are now.


Look back at all of this and then ask yourself how you feel. If you weren’t you, who would you be? Choose a profession, any profession, but not one that you’ve done. Apply the questions that you’ve just asked of yourself, but from the standpoint of that profession. Who is this person? Did a name pop up in your head? Is there anything of your life in them? Or did you come up with… a lawyer who plays the banjo in a coffee bar on Saturday nights? #mittsoffhesmycharacternow


We’ll call this guy Phil Dudley, he’s thirty six and going through a messy divorce.


Why?


Well, Phil was playing the banjo one night at… Mastello’s Koffee Klub. He saw a guy wearing a man-bun and a beard, and it struck him that his life had always been as clean shaven and bare as his face. So he thought that growing a beard would be a great idea. At first his wife thought that the stubble was cute, but then she kept finding hairs in the coffee that Phil made for her every morning — sipping it before her, to make sure that it wasn’t too hot.


Phil still needs fleshing out, and his wife is just a shadow at this point, but do you see how you can create a character from nothing? Details may change as you get to know Phil a little better — he may have gone with the man-bun instead, or decided to really walk on the wild side and do drugs. Now he’s helping the Mafia hide their money in exchange for cocaine… oops, Phil may need to be an accountant instead.


Funny thing. I’ve never been a lawyer, or an accountant, but I can relate to the pain of a broken relationship, and this is how you engage the reader. They don’t want to read all about the tedium of tax returns, they want to understand what makes your characters act. What motivates them to behave in the way that they do, and what moves your characters will always come back to you. Like it or not, your experiences are what motivates your characters. #freetherapyadvicerighthere


Now, you may have never been divorced, played the banjo, grown a man-bun or beard, done drugs… but you’ve experienced breaking up with someone, you probably have something that you love doing simply because you love doing it. You know how that feels.

Writing isn’t about words on a page in a neat little row. Writing is a willing collusion with your readers. They allow you to take them to the edge off the cliff and send them into freefall. In return, you have to make them feel, and the way to do that is to have fully-fleshed, relatable characters that the reader cares about. The way to do this is to understand yourself and your motivations, and the way to do that is to look at your life with compassion and detachment. Who was the person who did this? Whatever it may have been. Why did they do this? Oh, because of Experience X, or Z, or Q, that’s why they reacted in the way that they did. Just remember the detachment portion though, you’ll need it later when you’re putting your characters through hell.


Emotions may be expressed differently by different people, but the actual emotion is the same. Anger is anger — whether caused by the toilet seat left up, or hideous injustices. Fear is fear — whether it’s vampires or fluffy kittens.


Remember all of this the next time you are creating a character. Look at yourself first — you may be surprised by what you find.






5 views0 comments

Comments


  • Instagram
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • Facebook
bottom of page