I find I meet them at some key stage in their life which may or may not have relevance to the book but does to them as characters. I had a real cipher of a protagonist for a while, as the characters I was really interested in were her clients and their dodgy mates. So i dug about and suddenly discovered three small things about her that brought her utterly to life. It was odd how she was not there at all and then she was utterly formed, like those one off conversations you have with people you don't know that well which mark a sudden transition into close friendship.

I write a history of each character, sometimes

I think writing a history helps me, maybe that's why the interview was a good exercise as it helped me to draw answers from my character that I wouldn't have found had I simply asked "do you prefer tea or coffee"? I just have to watch that the interview doesn't become too drawn-out!

Cherys, it's quite amazing that it can only take one or two things to form a proper off-the-page character. There's hope for mine yet.

Wow, there are some brilliant replies here. Thank you

Sharon
xx

It's really interesting that lots of people don't visualise their characters' physical appearance in much detail. That's absolutely crucial for me to feel that I "know" my characters. I don't think I even put pen to paper without being able to see them in my head. Some are clearer than others, and occasionally I'm aware that I'm pretty much grafting a famous person's face on to my character, but if I didn't know what they looked like, they wouldn't feel like real people to me. Errrrm, I mean, I'm aware that they aren't real people, but...

Beyond that, I'm not sure what I do. I tend to write from multiple perspectives, so I suppose I try and build up the characters narrative voices so that they are distinct from each other. It's something I'm not sure I did particularly well in TAOL, to be honest - I think the two main characters sound fairly similar. I think I'm improving with every book; well hopefully in any case.

I've never been one for "interviewing" characters or writing down their responses to questions, though - it feels fake to me and I can't get into it. I suppose I try and isolate the essential characteristics of their personalities and build on them from there, rather than thinking about their hobbies, backgrounds etc.

Does anyone ever find that they feel much closer to some characters than others, even when they aren't the ones you'd expect? In my second book, for instance, there's a character called Roman who only appears in about twenty pages of the novel, but I really felt I knew him inside out and cared about him - I'm not sure why.

With my manuscript assessment hat on, though, I would say that a lot of the time, far, far too much of that carefully worked-out history/physical description/ gets into the final novel.

It's not that you as the writer don't need to work that stuff out - though you may not - it's that the reader doesn't need to know why the character's behaves as they do now. What matters is that their behaviour is convincing because consistent - suited to our instinctive grasp of the character - across a range of situations in the novel. That consistency may be rooted in lots of history or whatever, but we don't need to do a soil analysis to admire the flowers.

You won't make a reader believe in a character by describing their hair or eyes or car or long-gone nursery school, if they're not convinced by in the character's behaviour now: character in action. You may need to do a full psychoanalysis, along with an ed. psych report and a full horoscope. But that's all just fertiliser dug into the soile in which you'll grow the character in the book

Emma

<Added>

"character's behaves"

Eeek! But, in self defence, that's not a grocer's apostrophe - well, it is - but as the result of having written 'character's behaviour' and then re-shaped the sentence.

Becky, so I'm not alone in needing to visualise a person to make them "real" to me. It doesn't mean that all of that detail will end up in the story but if I can see them in my mind I find it easier to try and develop them.

I sometimes think up an idea with a character already formed (rare but it has happened) and I too have found myself drawn closer to secondary characters rather than the main character. Having said that I do have this horrible habit of making my main characters complete passive wimps and giving all the life and energy to secondary characters.

And Emma, I think it's the lack of consistency with my main character's relationship with other characters that has forced me to stop writing and make a bit more sense of her and them. I need my main character to want to marry the character I'm attempting to develop but at the moment I can't even work out why she would fancy him! Which is pretty ridiculous seeing as I'm the one who is supposed to be in control. That has also led me to question my main character's motivations - and I believe that brings me back to the fact that I am not asking "why" enough.

Sharon
x

I think it must be very, very hard, to write a convincing love interest. Thankfully there's little call for it in children's fiction!

I need my main character to want to marry the character I'm attempting to develop but at the moment I can't even work out why she would fancy him!

Oh, how we plot ourselves into corners!

I think it must be very, very hard, to write a convincing love interest.

I find that my narrator's beloved is always the one I really struggle to bring off the page. Though sometimes that's a clue, in the sense that the narrator him/herself doesn't actually see their beloved very clearly. And then I realise I've got the task of making her/him sharply alive and in focus for the reader when my narrator has the writerly equivalent of vaseline on their PoV...

Emma

<Added>

Oh dear, that last phrase looks a bit rude, somehow...

I need my main character to want to marry the character I'm attempting to develop but at the moment I can't even work out why she would fancy him!

That is the joy of good plots. I love romances where half way through I'm thinking - how can she ever change her mind on this one (Pride and Prejudice is the perfect example) and gradually she does.

Last night in Small Island there was a breathtaking bit of plotting where a Jamaican girl who's desperate to go to England meets her friend's boyfriend, he tells his girl he's going to England, she says she'll come too and he agrees. Within seconds, the protagonist manages to split them up and replace the girlfriend. I was watching thinking - how's she going to scheme that one? and she did it straightaway. Very clever and so enjoyable.

Longwinded way of saying your problem at getting her to like him could end up being your plot's greatest strength!

I wrote a reply to this last night then lost my internet connection. Gah! So, what I wanted to say was that I really enjoyed watching Small Island on Sunday. It's one of my favourite reads so wasn't sure how they would adapt it but I thought it felt true to the book. That scene that you described, Cherys, was stunning and made me realise that my main characters are so wimpy because I won't allow them to do anything spiteful, naughty or ... well, human so how can I make them seem human. A small breakthrough moment perhaps?

I actually have had an idea of how to solve my dilemma mentioned above which will require some moving around of earlier plot but I think will hopefully tighten it so all to the good after a large amount of deliberation.

Now I have to carry on writing ....

Nice approach that taken for questionnaires i keep in mind i used to analyze first so that it may be easy to answer