Show; don't tell

Sometimes a character idea just comes to you; maybe they’re based on yourself, somebody you know or a combination of personality traits that you think fit together nicely. They could even be based off another fictional character or perhaps embody an ideal such as the ideal hero, ideal lover or ideal mad scientist. It makes things so much simpler when you already have a profile set out ready to be slotted into your story but pre-existing character profiles can often make writing a lot more difficult than what you originally intended.

I tend to have a general concept of what I want from a character but for them not be too restrictive or flat in shape. I have in mind their age, gender and then run a few demo interactions early on in the novel to see how I find myself writing their response. I didn’t even know what my main character’s age was until the end of the third chapter. Generally, personality outlines run the risk of sounding thin and false and often run the risk of falling into stereotypes that don't exist in reality. Take the example of your regular old mad scientist. There’s a lot of them in cinema, books, general fiction but not too many in real life and these kind of crazy scientists seem to unanimously share a soul which is, well, boring. Yes, he’s brilliant, he’s crazy and he’s probably got some questionable morals to be doing the sorts of things he’s doing but is that all there is to him? He’s a flat character and even if you bulk things out a bit; he has a troubled past, a phobia of water and sleeps in very late, it’s still pretty boring and 2D. You also risk restricting the way the character evolves and may even stop them from evolving at all because you already have them where you want them. Evolving characters are essential to make their progress in the novel worthwhile and realistic. By putting walls up all around him and telling him how to be and how to act you're essentially listing flat facts about him which doesn't make for good reading.

You carbon copy you!

Think more into extending and then balancing him out a little; does he genuinely think he’s helping out, does he stay awake at night ashamed of what he does or is he somehow being forced to do it? Why is he crazy? What kind of crazy is this? Check out mental health issues; schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder, manic depressant. All of these things could be construed as ‘crazy’ but they all exist in the real world; and your characters, unless they’re aliens, need to follow some kind of logical structure. And, if you're writing science fiction and they are actually aliens there's nothing wrong with creating your own version of a mental illness to enforce a self contained logical structure.

With my characters I tend to let their personality flourish as I write; my lead character freezes every time she gets scared, I didn’t intend to do this but it happened about three times without my realizing how consistent I was being. Why did I do it? Well, that’s not the real question really, rather it's; why does my character do it? Well, she’s young, inexperienced and indecisive, apparently. I could have listed these things prior to my writing and wrote accordingly but I feel there would be a temptation to make her inexperienced to the point of annoying and indecisive to the point of never getting anywhere. I already knew my character was young but the other things are more down to the individual personality rather than age. You could argue that young people tend to be more inclined towards these traits that I’ve just outlined but frankly there are plenty of preteens who are brash, confident and headstrong so it didn't guide how to wrote the character.

Another risk that I always try and avoid is telling the reader what my characters are all about before they have a chance to discover for themselves. You don’t want to feed the story to your audience hand to mouth or lead them by the nose. Your audience or readers are not stupid and they’ll probably enjoy drawing their own conclusions and forming in their mind their own idea of what the character is like. I remember reading a series when I was a teenager and I was never told what the main character looked like; I just sort of assumed and made it up and in that sense your characters are becoming individualized in each reader’s mind. This is not to everybody's taste of course but it always exists as an option and there are plenty of books that do this to no ill-effect.

When you meet somebody in real life you get to know them in a natural, gradual and very organic way, unless you meet them online but even then it is a journey of discovery about one another. Your reader should get to know your character in the same way they would have they met him or her in real life.

In essence it breaks down to showing but not telling. When you want your reader to know what a character is like you show them and this rule of 'show, don't tell' applies not only to characters but to everything in fiction. Here's an example to compare -

“She was young and inexperienced; not knowing how to properly align the gun and even forgetting to take the safety off as Jane had never handled a gun before.”

Vs

“Fumbling awkwardly with the firearm Jane lifted it again, aimed shakily at her target before squeezing the trigger with a trembling hand; but, for some reason, nothing happened.”

Now, I don’t know which you prefer but I find that the second one feels more real, less like a documentary and more in the moment. This is only a couple of sentences but if you put that kind of writing style into an entire paragraph you’re more likely to get a scene that is emotionally charged and realistic. It also has plenty of unspoken detail in it also that's not so apparent in the first example. We, as readers, can draw from the second example that Jane is afraid and that she’s physically shaking she’s so scared. Maybe it's because she’s under pressure. Maybe she's not scared but the pressure is very intense and the adrenaline is getting to her; maybe there’s a time limit, maybe she’s at risk of hitting a friend of hers. There’s a lot more here than in that first paragraph which is a short description that sounds like it belongs in a witness report. Like your 2D characters it's best to be descriptive, thoughtful and emotive; not listing qualities or facts about the scenario.

Generally we’re also going to want regular human error in your characters; they’re not psychic, they don’t know half the things that are going to happen to them. Jane here is struggling with a gun because she's never used one before; it's simple and it's logical but sometimes people forget the implications that comes with the character that they have created. On a related note it's important to not make your characters be able to do all the things you may take for granted; driving a car, putting the laundry on, cooking a simple meal or ordering a ticket on a bus. Most people know how to or are able to but not necessarily all. There’s always something that someone is unable to do either out of no experience, social anxiety, confusion, youth, age, whatever it is. I can cook; not all my characters can. I struggle to buy a bus ticket; my characters probably won't. Diversity and breaking away from what you're used to is all part of developing unique characters but, like I say, don't tell your audience what they can and cannot do; show them steadily and gradually.