I wasn’t looking for a NASA researcher, I was looking for goat cheese. I must have seemed perplexed as I surveyed the half-dozen or so options in the display case. My mission was to find a goat cheese to substitute for ricotta, which my daughter has problems digesting. Instead I found characters.
Enter the cheese stocker guy. You know, the one with the big apron whom you usually hope doesn’t ask you if you’re looking for anything, even though you are. I might have replied with a dismissive, “Nah, I’m good,” but for two reasons: 1) I actually needed help, and 2) I’ve developed a fondness lately for getting into unusual conversations with strangers.
I’m a writer. I write fiction, and all fiction is character driven. There is only one way to create great characters: know people.
It was with that in mind that I noticed the NASA pin on the cheese guy’s lapel. I spotted it while he discussed the way I could pulse blend a goat cheese gouda with almond milk to get the substitute I desired. I was skeptical but I put the cheese in the cart and said, “That’s a cool pin. Is there a story attached to it?”
“Oh, I’ve worked for NASA since the mid 70’s.” He smiled and went back to stocking cheese.
I could have walked away at this point, but I was all in. I simply had to know what an almost fifty-year NASA veteran was doing, working the cheese counter at Freddies. Is he retired? Did he spend a decade working on how to cram 500 calories worth of dried cheddar into an ice cube tray for Skylab?
“Which project?” I asked, confident that the book I’d just read on the history of NASA research would yield me at least some reference point for conversation.
“Oh,” he sheepishly grinned while opening a box of gruyere, “I worked on the Andromeda project…” and then he listed several others, including a study he headed with a very NASA-esque seven -word title that I can’t remember. Something about refractory, maybe?
I shook my head and thanked him for his advice, convinced that when a NASA researcher gives you culinary advice you take it. It worked marvelously, by the way.
I love characters, real or imagined, and the more unique the better. It didn’t take me long into writing my first novel to realize that creating believable, interesting characters wasn’t as easy as it seemed. Some characters are disposable; I’ve offed hundreds of bad guys, enemies, and no-names over the course of my three novels. I just killed three the other day, and good riddance.
But you can’t just kill a character like Andy, for instance. Andy might have a wife or a girlfriend you’ll have to deal with. He certainly has a mother who’s going to cry at the funeral service later on…if you decide to write one. So Andy needs fleshed out a little – and so does Abby, or Archard, or even the scary old man you don’t plan on naming, not yet anyway, because maybe he’ll pop up later. Maybe even in a different book.
Characters you didn’t know existed come into the story when you least expect it, because they need to. They’re what make the scenes memorable. Otherwise, it’s just another routine trip to the post office. And believe me, the post office, or grocery store, or the dump (especially the dump) are teeming with characters. You just need to look for them.
I recently switched my PO Box to a USPS auxiliary location closer to my house. It’s tucked away inside this quaint thrift/general store along the highway, and it definitely has some characters. I enter past rows of tires and bug spray into a hallway flanked with framed Marvel Comic images. I check my box and then ring the bell on the counter, because the lady who runs the place bounces around between the other counter where they sell soda, screwdrivers, paint, used DVD’s, and a thousand other useful things. She appears with a smile at the sound of the bell – like Jadis from Narnia, minus the homicidal bent – and knows your box number without having to check your pick-up slip.
As I wait at the counter, one of the dogs who lives there – not Apollo, the other one – walks by. Another patron steps in line behind me and he also has a dog, which prompts Apollo to leap up from behind the counter and wait, panting, in between the flat-rate envelopes and the package scale.
The man behind me breaks the news to the dog. “Sorry, Apollo. Jane’s not with me today.”
The dog’s face droops at the lost opportunity of canine love, and he lets out a sad whimper before slinking back into his bed next to a stack of Amazon boxes.
An old timer walks in a second later and asks if my kid wants an unopened box of cookies. “Go ahead if you want one,” he says. “I bought five of ‘em.”
“Characters,” I say to my five-year-old when we were back in the car. “We’ve got characters.”
I LOVE THIS PLACE.
Most of my book characters begin as he, or she, or the soldier, or something equally vague. Pronouns are important in my line of work, but they’re not fluid, no way. These identities are set in stone. The backstories of how they attained that identity are what occasionally shift with time.
But that, too, is part of the fun. For instance: I had no idea that one of my characters had a father who was a Coast Guard veteran, and we’ve known each other for years. I’m not exactly sure how old he is either, or what he plans on doing when I’m done with him. We’ll figure it out.
I’ve heard that some writers create elaborate histories for their characters before they ever write their first scene. Maybe that’s the way to go, but it’s not my style. I meet the characters as I write about them. They show me who they are by what they do, and only after we’ve gotten to know each other do I feel the freedom to put them in greater and more dangerous circumstances. Because I don’t know what might happen to them there. They might live, they might die. They might win, or they may suffer a trauma worse than defeat. You just never know until you get there.
If you want to write good characters, you need to experience some real ones. Look around, and don’t be afraid to speak to some strangers (it’s okay, you’re a big kid now). You might even develop a hunger for it. People have interesting stories within them that are dying to get out. Even the cheese guy at Freddies might surprise you.
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Want to read about some of those book characters I mentioned. Check out my books, Beyond the Golden Hour, The Stars and Their Places, Pegasus.
Interested in my take on fixing Hollywood’s bad character decisions? Check out my series: The Nerd Cut, where I take movies that bug me for one reason or another and produce an alternate cut of them.
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