Emma Kavanagh

For me, stories come from characters. Whilst I will often begin with the vaguest idea for a story, it will not begin to take its fullest shape until I have an understanding of the characters who inhabit it. Just like we change the world around us, simply by moving through it, the same is true for the world of stories. A story that is nothing but twisting, snaking plot reads as thin, unsatisfying. That is because, ultimately we read stories in order to allow us an insight into the minds of others.

As a new writer, characters were tough for me. They felt…unreal. I mean, obviously they were unreal because – hello – fiction! But when a character is truly working well, it should feel to us that we know them, that we could imagine them walking in through our front door, sitting down with us for dinner. Elizabeth Bennet. Samwise Gamgee. These were not two dimensional word drawings to me. They were people. And yet, creating that seemed beyond me.

So, I did what I always do whenever a problem hits. I research. I read. I dig. There are some wonderful books out there on developing characters. I personally loved ‘Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint’ by Nancy Kress, and the below is my adapted version of the character biography checklist suggested within it. It’s been 7 years and now I would not even consider writing a book without first figuring out just who my characters are. And this checklist is critical to that.

So I’m sharing it with you. Because I love to read wonderful books. And if this can help any budding authors to write those wonderful books for me, then I will be an extremely happy writer! Use what you like, ignore what you don’t, add in the bits I’ve forgotten.

And enjoy! Then write…