Writing Craft: Character Development Chart

One of my favorite writing activities is creating characters. 

A skilled writer will take time before writing to develop their characters. You must learn as much as possible about them.  When you know your characters well, you will have a better idea of :

• what they will say
• how they will react to a situation
• what they are likely to do.

Writing Craft: What is a Character?

What are characters?

• They are the individuals with whom you people your universe. Without them, there is no story. They either do things or things are done to them.

Writing Craft - Peopling Your World

When I started writing my first novel, (which will never get published… to many problems and nothing more than an exercise in futility). I realized I didn’t know what my villain looked like. No matter what I thought about, I could not envision this man.  I could not describe him.

Stumped, I looked through magazines for ideas, but he definitely wasn’t the fashion model type.  National Geographic didn’t help, either. 

Several weeks later I was browsing through my photo file of vacation pictures to Charleston, South Carolina.  Suddenly, I stopped and studied a crowd of passers-by. Right in the center of the screen was an angular, lanky man. His baseball cap crammed down on greasy dark hair pulled at an angle to almost hide his eyes. He had tight lips and a grim expression.  By his stance, I could see he was going some place in a hurry. My villain! I’d found my villain!