Welcome to Part Three of my workshop on how to write stories so horrific that they’ll cause your granny’s false teeth to fall out and your teachers to run screaming into the broom cupboard never to emerge again. If you haven’t already seen Part One and Part Two then check these out first because they’ll help you come up with a terrifying idea for your story based on your own worst fears!

Today, however, I want to take a break from ideas and plot and talk about something even more important. Yes, there is something more important than plot. In fact, it’s the most important thing in any book. Or should I say the most important things in any book – because what I’m talking about now are your characters.

Part 3: Getting to Know You!

Creating believable characters who seem as rounded and as real as actual people is the difference between a brilliant book and, well, a pants book. It doesn’t matter if you have the greatest plot in the world, it doesn’t matter if your idea is so gobsmackingly amazing that it will make every single other writer retire in a fit of jealousy – if the characters that populate your plot don’t seem real, if they don’t act and think in a believable way, then nobody is going to care what happens to them, and nobody will finish reading your book. In short, if your characters don’t leap out of the page, readers won’t want to leap into it.

The other reason that you want to create realistic characters is because they can do quite a lot of the hard work for you. How? Because if you know your characters inside out and back to front, if you discover everything that has ever happened to them, the good and the bad, if you know more about them than you do about your brothers and sisters and best friends, then those characters truly do come to life. Instead of you making up what happens to your characters and forcing them to obey, you’ll find that your characters won’t always do what you ask of them. They’ll make their own decisions within the story, they’ll take their own paths, they’ll act just like actual people when faced with difficult choices. I don’t know why or how this happens, but it’s one of the most amazing experiences a writer can have. Just like Geppetto, your creations develop a mind and a personality of their own! And again, this will make your writing so much better because readers will sense that these are real people in the story.

There are many different ways of getting to know your characters, and I’ll hopefully cover a few more during the course of this workshop. However, the one that I find most useful is to ask your characters questions about themselves. Okay, this may seem a little weird, but it really does help you understand who these people are, and how they are going to cope with the events of your plot. Create a questionnaire and pretend that you’re interviewing them. Ask them everything about themselves and really think about how they’d answer. I’ve included some questions for you to ask below, but use your imagination and try some more!

This fortnight’s homework is to start a profile for your main character. Cut pictures from magazines of hairstyles and clothes so that you know what he or she looks like, doodle some pictures, add some clues to their personality (write down a few examples of what they are like as people – rebellious, scared of everything, friendly, evil, smelly, popular, a bully etc) then add the answers from your interview. We’ll be building up this profile as the weeks go on!

Try the questionnaire now, starting with your character’s name then asking everything else!

Favourite foods / drinks:

Favourite Films / TV / Music:

What kind of house they live in / grew up in / how many times they have moved:

What their parents / guardians are like:

Brothers or sisters:

Favourite Hobby:

Worst Habit:

Pets:

Best Friend:

Worst Enemy:

Favourite / Least Favourite Subject at School:

What they want to be when they grow up:

Five things they never leave home without:

Their worst experience:

Anything Else?

The chances are you won’t use everything that you find out, but I promise you if you force your characters to answer every question as honestly as possible they’ll come alive when you start to write about them, and your story will be so much more engaging!

Good luck! Part Four of the workshop will be available in a couple of weeks. And as always you can download the worksheet here!

UPDATE: Part Four is now available here!

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