Thoughts on Character Generation

How to make a convincing male character? How to make a convincing female character? The answer in both cases is the same: make a convincing character. Don’t try to make a male or female character. First make a character, then decide on the gender.

There are several layers for making a character. First, give them a purpose. A reason for being in your story, a reason for carrying it. What is the story about? What will they have to face? What qualities, what abilities, what characteristics do they need for that? Then, give them a back story which will fit with their character. What sort of life would they have led? Then look at the society they live in. What kind of limitations does society put on them? Finally, decide which gender would suit them most. Gender is not biological or genetic sex, keep that in mind, too. Gender is a social construct, the way a society splits abilities and characteristics between ‘male,’ ‘female,’ and ‘neither or both.’

Let me give you an example. Jane/Jack Carter was created for a series of novellas (even though I still have to publish the second one, but it is written). Her back story is that she is one daughter of seven in a middle-class household of a Victorian age. She is sterile and couldn’t find a husband because of that (the most important job for a wife is to give her husband an heir, something she couldn’t do). Her parents expected her to take up work, as a governess or a lady’s companion. Jane/Jack refused to do that kind of work. She cut her hair, dressed as a man, and came to London to work as a clerk. But she would have needed some kind of recommendation for that, so instead she became a penny-a-liner, a freelancing journalist. At the beginning of the first story, “Vengeful Spirit,” all of this has happened already. Jane lives as Jack Carter in London, writes articles under both names, and just makes enough not to starve or completely drop into poverty. She knows she needs a better job. So when she finds a personal ad of a man looking for a secretary who is adventurous and ready to travel, she decides to apply. And despite the fact that her future employer sees through her disguise, he hires her. I do not show her transformation from Jane to Jack, because it’s not necessary for the story. She has learned to behave like a man, to be a man in every social aspect of her life, except for one (she is not a lesbian and takes up a sexual relationship with her employer). Jane/Jack, who defied expectations and rather led her own life instead of conforming to society, has the necessary balls (not literally, of course) to become Lucas Swenson’s secretary and assistant. She has the courage, she has the scepticism, and she has the patience sometimes needed. Society has forced her to adopt a male alias and she has grown used to it. The changes in her life come from the identity of her new employer, who is not human, but Loki, the Norse god, again exiled from Asgard for a while. Jane/Jack, who thinks very practical and doesn’t believe in the supernatural, has to face the fact that, in her world, the supernatural exists, in the form of the god Loki, in the form of a Sidhe called ‘Miss Underhill,’ in the form of the vampire Elisabeth Bathory, and in many other forms.

Jane is a woman, because this is essential for her back story. I could have created a young man who has come to London and has ended up as a penny-a-liner, too, but the back story is stronger with a woman here: Jane has to fight much harder than a man would have to, because she has to fight her upbringing as a woman as well.

On the other hand, I have written a host of stories (both published and unpublished) with Loki as the main character, showing him in a variety of roles from really close to the Marvel universe (The Loki Files) over stories in between Marvel and Myth to stories clearly inspired by the Norse god. And while Loki might actually be the ‘wife’ in a political marriage, he is always male by definition (although Loki is a Frost Giant and those are both male and female at the same time). I have written Yaoi for a while, working almost exclusively with male characters. The point is always to start with the story and purpose and then to decide how to write the character.

Jane Browne/Jane Doe started out as a female character, because I wanted a parody of the espionage genre with a female agent who was as badass as the men. But she developed into a different person. She has many ‘male’ abilities and characteristics, but that doesn’t make her a man. It makes her a highly-trained agent with specialities which are often considered ‘male.’ It makes her a very reliable and loyal right hand to a criminal mastermind who raised her for that position. In both cases Steven (as her mentor and as her boss) saw her potential and worked with it - not because she was a woman or despite of it, but because she had what it needed to become the agent or the right hand. Her abilities, her likes, her dislikes, her back story, all make her a real character. A person who is as real as they get within the pages of a novel.

Stay away from stereotypes. No matter whether it’s the buxom blonde who doesn’t have much of a brain or whether it’s the ruggedly good-looking man who is secretly caring, but openly daring, they have no place in the world of a story. Your characters can be blond and a little on the stupid side, but that shouldn’t be all which defines them. Your characters can be ruggedly good-looking and daring with a soft and caring side, but they should have more to offer than that.

Make sure that they do. Make sure you feel the characters, you understand them. Make sure they whisper ‘that’s not my way’ into your ear when you decide on a scene which shouldn’t play out like you planned it, because the characters would never act like this. Because then you have full-fledged characters, characters which can carry their story.

Full-fledged, breathing characters with a real soul - don’t accept substitutes.