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How do I create characters? That is one of the most common questions I get as a writer. Yesterday’s blog answered the question would I date the imaginary men I create, and one fan didn’t like that I stuck to physical description of the men and didn’t delve into their personalities. She had a valid point pretty isn’t enough to make a character interesting. You want a character that you as a writer and your readers will want to follow not just for a few pages but for hundreds of pages. In my case I want characters interesting enough for me, and the readers, to want to play with book after book. So, how do I created characters that make people want to follow them, dream of them, befriend them?

I realized that yesterday’s blog was about the physical because that’s where I usually start with a character. I need to know how tall they are, color of hair, eyes, skin tone, build. The physical is my foundation. I’m writing my 19th Anita Blake book, and the 8th Merry Gentry book just came out in December, so I have the added complication that I don’t want too many people with the same hair, eyes, etc . . . Anita is more limited on color palette, because she has to stick mostly to real world colors for people. One of the reasons I let Merry’s people use every color they wanted is so I wouldn’t have to remember how many blondes I already have, which is a consideration in Anita’s world. It seemed like a good idea for Merry and her world, what its led to is a real problem for me as a writer as I now have to remember what Crayola color I gave who for hair, or eyes. Some people have triple irises with a different color in each ring. Such a cool effect, but a bear to remember as a writer. You have to balance the cool factor with the difficulty factor of your characters. The more alien you make them the harder it can be to keep it all straight.

I either begin with the physical, or with the name. If I have the physical then naming is next; if the name comes to me first then it helps me pick the physical.

I’ve collected names for decades. I bought my first baby name book when I was fourteen to help me name my fictional friends. I have three Celtic baby name books alone for Merry and her crew. For them I also go to books on myths, and folklore of the Celtic people since I’m dealing with the modern day versions of some of them. The name the character chooses helps shape him, or her. Anita chose her first name and I knew it was Hispanic in origin and suddenly she had an ethnicity I hadn’t foreseen, but once she chose it, her background story of her Mexican-American mother and German father, first and second generation in this country respectively, just came logically from the first name. Genetically black hair beats blond so Anita had black hair suddenly, and from there the rest of her physicality just came.

Nathaniel and Jason are two other characters whose names came first. Micah’s physicality came first and then his name. Asher’s physical came first. Doyle was a firm character once his nickname, “The Queen’s Darkness”, came to me. He just walked into my head and onto the page tall, dark, handsome, and deadly. Frost was the same way, it was his sobriquet that nailed him in my head, “The Killing Frost,” what else would he look like except Christmas, winter, and so handsome that it was almost painful to look at him.

Jean-Claude’s physical came first, but it wasn’t until his name came and I stopped fighting him on it that he stepped full blown onto the page. Characters can get very picky about their names, and then some seem not to care.

I have been inspired by real life events a time or two. Nathaniel’s back story was inspired by real bondage and submission, BDSM, research that I did. No one looked like him, but I found out about people that truly were as submissive and as into pain as he is, people who have no safe word, because they won’t give it in time. They’re rare, but once I learned of the concept I knew I would use it. So that idea was floating in the back of my head, and Nathaniel would be the ultimate result.

Edward, my assassin to the monsters, was inspired by watching the original “Day of the Jackal” with Edward Fox as the lead actor. Edward doesn’t look exactly like the very young Edward Fox, but the actor was my physical jumping off point. I even kept the first name which I’ve never done before or since.

Narcissus was inspired by a man I met at a convention. Not the personality, but the outfit we first see him in, and a man with short hair that would dress in a black, lace 1950s style dress with spider web hose, well that just nailed his character for me. He’s nothing like the man who I saw, except for the physical description.

Right now I’m trying to come up with new werelions to fill out the St. Louis pride. If a bit player they can be sort of generic muscle, or generic woman, but if they have to do more than stand around I need to know who they are, how they’ll react to Anita and Jean-Claude. How they’ll interact with their pride’s lion king, their Rex, Haven. All the new lions seem to have begun with the physical, but are only fleshing out once a name comes. Though one of the new females had quite an attitude before her naming, and it was her bold personality that made me look at a list of names that are more boyish than long and feminine.

For name choices I will usually choose a letter of the alphabet and start looking at all the names with that letter and make a list. I’ll try the names out on the character until one sticks. As above with the female werelion, sometimes the character has had enough on screen time to nudge me toward certain types of names. Nathaniel’s name needed to be long, and roll off the tongue. It needed to be a name that was sensual even to say. Try saying his name, see how many times your tongue touches the inside of your mouth, your lips, say it slow and feel the name caress your mouth with sound.

I’ll scour magazines, calenders, photography books in search of new faces, new body shapes, something fresh to put in the sifting process. People watching at conventions can spark something by a head movement, the way someone walks, a gesture. I’m always collecting little bits of people. Malls can be good people watching, too. Anywhere there are people there maybe some bit of humanity that inspires a writer.

A few last things for character, is if the character is still reluctant on paper I’ll pick a short play-list that makes me think of that character. I had to do that with Nathaniel. “She’s Your Cocaine”, by Tori Amos; “What would happen” by Meredith Brooks; “Your Cloud”, by Tori Amos. Why these songs? Not sure. I know I listened to these three songs over and over when I was fleshing out Nathaniel in the later books. Jean-Claude can be hard to capture on paper if I’ve been away from him too long, and I have resorted to lingerie for me, something silky and lacy, but soft, and even candlelight to help set the mood. Sometimes its enough to just rub a piece of silk cloth over my hands. Its a sensory memory that helps bring Jean-Claude alive for me. For Anita, just the smell of coffee helps me hear her in my head. Wearing a holster complete with gun will do it, too. For Merry, I find that visiting Los Angeles was helpful. I am a very physical writer so driving the streets I’m writing about is helpful. Its one of the reasons Anita is set in St. Louis so I can drive around and decide where the bodies go without getting on a plane.

That hits the highlights of character creation for me, and of course there’s one thing missing. That certain, undefinable magic that bridges all the nuts and bolts and how-to and helps words on a screen become real enough, alive enough, to make people love them, hate them, lust after them, want them to be really-real. I’m not like a magician who won’t share how the trick is done, but in honesty that last little bit of life for a character is a mystery even to me.