Estimated reading time: 5-7 minutes
Try this: give your character one thing they can’t forgive themselves for, then watch what they do with it.
A character comes real to me when they stop behaving the way I’ve directed them. Instead, I can understand how they would react separate from me. Sometimes it feels like having a split personality for every character I create. But when I start sensing one as an entity apart from myself, I know I’ve got somebody real.
Halsey has a song about villains that live in her head and beg to be written so they never die when she does. That resonates with me, because it’s about creating something that can exist outside of you, something understood strongly enough to have its own presence. That’s Omega and her team for me.
Nothing Is a Copy, Everything Is Inspired
Whatever you create, whether it’s a character, a song, a story, or an art piece, is composed of you. Your experiences, emotions, thoughts, observations of other people, and understanding of the world all go in. No character is ever a copy of reality, but every one is inspired by it, and that is what makes them real.
How I Build a Character
My process moves from the surface down to the hidden parts, and each layer shapes the next. Here’s how it goes.
Starting With Broad Strokes
When I create a new character, I start with broad strokes. I start with the main idea of their personality and how they come off to others. Then come general looks, like short or tall, curvy, quiet or loud. These pieces begin to shape each other.
The third piece is the name, and I’ll admit I spend more time researching names than almost anything else. To me, a name means a lot. I choose it based on who the character is and what they mean to the story, and it helps define what drives them.
Drilling Down to the Opposite
My first round of details is shallow and high-level: specific physical traits and the more positive parts of their personality, like whether they smile a lot. Once I have those positive vibes, I look at the polar opposite. What might they be hiding? What created them, or what drives them?
That’s where backstory comes in: their past, the relationships they’ve had, and the good and bad things that shape how they behave now. It’s the challenges a person faces in life, whether they create them or others do.
Two Characters Who Proved the Process
Two characters from my Zombie Girl Omega series show this best, and they came at it from opposite directions.
Chi: The Character Who Surprised Me
Chi started as a counterpoint to Omega’s dramatics and fiery temper. She was aloof and cool, and honestly a little cliché and flat. But the more I wrote her and thought about her past, the more I understood that her aloof front comes from a deep need for control, shaped by external forces in her formative years. She’s disconnected from strong emotions and doesn’t always understand other people’s humor. She learns to, slowly, by being with Omega and the team.
That took her from a flat character to one with depth and a soul. Chi has a beautiful soul, but only a select few get to see it.
Omega: What Drives Her
Omega’s need to protect the people she cares about drives her choices. It seems at odds with how apathetic she can act at times, but she feels deeply for her team and carries the responsibility any team leader does. They are her family, and that’s what makes it hurt so much when things go wrong.
This comes out most at the end of Book 3, in a scene I wrote long before the book existed. At first I imagined only Omega’s fury and pain. What I didn’t realize was that the other side of that fury is a need, and that the need can be met. I worked that into a later draft, and the scene became about a breakdown and the dissolution of the image she’d built of herself, so she could rebuild stronger while staying true to who she is. (No spoilers, I promise.)
What They Want vs. What They Need
The profile tells you who a character is. The story layer tells you what they’re doing here, and it starts with two questions: what do they want, and what do they need? Those are rarely the same thing.
Omega’s want and need live in the same house and argue constantly. She thinks she’s after being the best leader, but what really moves her is protecting her people, and it hurts most when she fails. Chi’s want is a wall. Doing her job without interference keeps everyone at a distance, but what she needs is the opposite: permission to feel and let someone see it.
That gap between want and need is where an arc lives. A character’s story is the slow, often painful process of discovering which one they’ve been chasing. If you’re stuck on an arc, try writing the want and the need in one sentence each. If they sound the same, you probably haven’t found the need yet.
Are Characters Ever Finished?
Mine never are. I’d say they’re 95% there. People evolve and change over time, and characters do too. There’s a baseline version when the story begins, and sometimes an idea or flash of inspiration comes mid-writing and adds to them. It doesn’t make them bigger or raise their stakes. It rounds them out and gives them depth. When I can understand their motivations and behaviors intrinsically, I know I’ve got a solid character.
Try It Yourself
- Start broad: personality, how they come off, general look, and a name that means something.
- List their most positive traits, then look at the polar opposite.
- Ask what they’re hiding, and what in their past created it.
- Write what they want and what they need, then see where they collide.
- Write them into scenes and notice when they stop doing what you told them.
- Let them stay at 95%.
Get the Template
I’ve put my character profile template together as a free download:
the O.T. Riesen Character Profile Template. It starts with high-level details and drills down into the personality quirks. I’ve refined it over time, with help from Andrew at Craft Better Books, who helped me round out my characters and add elements that build more depth.
And if a character ever starts telling you what they’d never do, listen. That’s when you know you’ve got somebody real.
Listening to on Spotify: Blinding Lights by The Weeknd
Chain Reading: Slewfoot by Brom, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Simon Armitage, This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, The Gift by Lewis Hyde, UX for AI by Greg Nudelman, Surprise, Kill, Vanish by Annie Jacobsen
Writing Nook: Zombie Girl Omega: Defection (dev edit for line edit prep)
Latest Run: 10 miles
