Having great character is so important to writing great fiction that I’m devoting five workshops to character alone (and, believe me, we could do lots more workshops and still have more to say about character!)

First of all, let’s define character. I’m going to use a definition taught to me by Steven Galloway. Steve said to me when I was in a workshop with him: CHARACTER IS ACTION. This definition was not one I expected him to give, and it is one that took me a while to understand.

To me, it means that what your character DOES is WHO THEY ARE.

An example: if you met me in the street and I shook your hand, smiled at you, asked a couple questions about your writing, you’d assume that I was a nice person (character), right? If I yelled at you that I hated reading stuff by other writers and then slapped you, you’d know I was a, well, a jerk. The things I do make me the person I am.

What your character does makes them the person they are.

There are two things to take away from this.

First, your character needs to do something for us to get to know them. It’s all well and good to have them sitting in a room looking out the window, but it’s hard for us to get to know them. MAKE THEM DO SOMETHING.

Secondly, remember that the actions your character makes gives clues to your reader. If your character bursts into tears when they hear about a death in the family, we know they are sad. If they clap their hands and smile, we know something else entirely, right?

Think about this as you write, think about what your character is doing to and why.

Now, we’re going to be delving further into the heads of our characters. We’re going to be asking uncomfortable questions, thinking about how CHARACTER IS ACTION, and discovering how your characters need to grow and change to make your stories work.

Getting into your character’s head is key to good writing. It means you have to dig deep into your own imagination and pull out every detail that lurks inside. You already know your characters better than you think – the art of writing them well is sharing that information on the page.

So this week, we’re going to get to know a character from your head by asking them to REACT to the following situation.

This week’s writing prompt:

Take a character, any character, perhaps one you’ve been working with for a while, perhaps someone who has only surfaced in your imagination today.

Here’s an image to get you in a watery mood.

Now, imagine that your character is on a ship that is starting to sink. What do they do? Write 300 words describing their actions so we can get to know what sort of person they are.

If you want to push yourself a little further: take another character from the same situation and describe (again up to 300 words) what they do as the ship begins to sink. How are their actions different?

What does this make you think about the statement CHARACTER IS ACTION?

Last workshop I said: Getting into your character’s head is key to good writing. It means you have to dig deep into your own imagination and pull out every detail that lurks inside.

But how do I do this? Well, I use a CHARACTER INTERVIEW.

The following questions about character help me get to the heart of who my characters are so I know what ACTIONS my characters are going to take.

What’s your name?

Where do you live (describe it)?

What’s your earliest memory?

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?

Who do you love?

What’s your favourite food?

Describe a perfect day.

What do you do when you wake?

In this moment, what do you most want?

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?

As my characters answers these questions, I find I know who they are and how they are going to REACT to the situations my stories put them in.

For me, characters float into my mind as I get ideas for a story. Let’s say I want to write a story about a girl who is very in control of her life (which I did in my third book). Ping. Into my head popped a teenager who wrote an online advice column. In the story, she needed to be confident advising other people how to live. Then as she starts to unravel in my story, she has a long narrative journey to take.

So, there she was in my mind. This teenage advice columnist. But who was she? How could I know the things she was going to do in the book until I’d got to know her?

I started with her name: Amy Finch, nicknamed Bird. Having a name makes writing easier for me. That’s why it’s the first question on my list.

Then I like my characters to answer my character interview.

One great thing about the questions, I find, is that if you’re the sort of writer who can’t think of a character, by the time you’ve got to the end of the interview, there’s normally someone lurking about in your head ready to star in your next story.

And if you already have a character in your mind who you’re trying to get to know, like I do when I write, then this interview gets right to the heart of who they are.

This week’s writing prompt:

Interview your character using the character interview.

What’s your name?

Where do you live (describe it)?

What’s your earliest memory?

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?

Who do you love?

What’s your favourite food?

Describe a perfect day.

What do you do when you wake?

In this moment, what do you most want?

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?

And one bonus question: What did you do last time you were in trouble?

If you have a character you’re working with already, then use that character. Otherwise, just start answering the questions (as many as you like of the ten) and discover the character appearing on the page.

REMEMBER these questions are for an IMAGINARY character to answer (unless you as the writer decide otherwise).

All characters have sayings, gestures, habits and personal objects that are unique to them. This week, we’re going to be thinking about the material goods in a character’s home, bag, office, locker, or wherever, we’re going to be listening to our character’s voice, studying them as they move, and trying to figure out from these details who these characters really are.

Let’s think about OBJECTS first of all.

If a female character lives in an apartment with nothing but fluffy teddy bears and Hello Kitty dolls lining the walls that shows you something about her, right? If she has a small dog that she dresses in sunglasses, if she only drinks cream soda with ice made from the water of a river in Fiji, if she has a romance novel in her purse, do you get a sense of who she might be? The things a character owns are HINTS for a reader.

Now, imagine you were given two suitcases to go through. One was full of neatly folded clothes, neatly filed paperwork, on top of which lay a photograph of two young children, smiling. The other bag was messy, stuffed with scrunched up T-shirts, a novel by Arthur Slade poking out. What assumptions would you make about the owners of each of the bags?

How about the objects a character puts in a shopping cart?

What do your characters buy and what does it say about them?

What books does your character own and read? What movies?

Every object that you place in a character’s possession gives you as the author the OPPORTUNITY to give the reader hints about your character.

Moving on from objects, think about how your character SPEAKS. Is there a particular word they use all the time, a quirk of language (each character in your book might have one of these, which is a great way for a reader to feel like they are getting to know your characters).

For example: Does your character always use the word, ‘like’, as a filler in sentences? Or does he enjoy long words that most people never use?

Now think about in what way your character talks. Do they shout? Or whisper? Do they rattle out sentences or think before they speak?

Can you see how all these details make a character different from someone else (both in real life and on the page)?

Does your character have a ‘characteristic’ GESTURE? Do they wipe their nose all the time or pick at their front tooth? Do they giggle a lot? And what are their HABITS? What does your character do every day, every week?

Notice the word I used there: CHARACTERISTIC. What we’re thinking about this week are your character’s CHARACTERISTICS – the things that are TYPICAL of them as a person, the traits that make them unique.

If you’ve already finished a novel, I suggest going through and making sure that your character’s CHARACTERISTICS are the same all the way through. And, this is key, that EACH OF YOUR CHARACTERS has DIFFERENT CHARACTERISTICS. If all of your characters are pushing their hair back from their faces, texting all the time, etc, can you see that it makes it hard for a reader to distinguish one from the other?

If you haven’t started your book yet, use this opportunity to think about each character’s traits so you know them all well before you begin.

This week’s writing prompt:

Moving forward from the character interview that we did last week, we’re going to answer more questions about our character focusing on their CHARCTERISTICS.

This time, it’s not the character answering the questions, but you as the writer.

What would your character pack on a trip?

What objects are in your character’s room?

What books has your character read in the last year?

What three habits does your character have?

What would be something typical that your character might say?

Describe a typical gesture your character makes.

And this is a bonus question, suggested by BurntWords (thanks for your input!), and it’s an excellent one: Tell me one of your character’s secrets.