How do you name your characters? Do you just pluck something out of the air? Do you use an automated character name generator?

Here are a few ideas for coming up with meaningful, original names for your characters...

Look up baby name meanings

It's very simple to find a baby naming site, enter in a leading trait of your character and then browse the list to see if any of them suit. Of course, this tends to work more for goodies than baddies, as names with negative connotations are much more rare. Can't think why.

Foreign words

Why not enter some of the character traits into Google translate and see what some foreign words look like as names. You may need to try a few synonyms to get the right thing, and obviously the language itself needs to sound appropriate.

Scientific names

Like the infamous Katniss, names of plants and even rare animals can bring depth and meaning to your character and even add layers to their history.

Maps

Maps are full of weird and wonderful names, especially the small places around the outskirts of the cities or deep into the counrtyside.

How do you choose names for your characters? Do you think it's important to get the right name, or that it doesn't really matter? Do you have any other ideas for discovering interesting names?

Bring to mind someone you have strong feelings for, someone you’re indifferent to and someone you hate. Try to think of what kind of circumstances could swap those positions around.


For example, you’re out for dinner with your spouse (loved one, hopefully) when they tell you that they’ve been cheating on you – with the waiter (who you were indifferent to, but now hate). Your overbearing boss (hated one) happens to be in the same restaurant and comes over, whisking you away and comforting you with brandy and kind words. Huddled on their sofa under blankets, you notice for the first time that your boss actually has the most beautiful sparkling eyes, and seems to have the exact same love of jazz as you…

Now you try.

For more articles about creative writing and novel writing, visit The Novel Factory website.

The character tab in The Novel Factory software

Good characters are the holy grail of compelling novel writing. Some action packed novels may be able to get away with cut out characters, but having smart, funny characters that the reader can empathise with and identify with, will lift the novel to the next level.

Our novel writing software takes you through a step by step process of developing a many layered character, and we'll run through the basics here.

Character Development Step One - the basic introduction

We start with what you could call the gameshow introduction. A simple, single sentence which can be used to describe the character, usually not using there name. For example:

A perfectionist accountant from London, with a love of roller blading.

Then we break down each section of the introductory sentence, to delve into each part in more depth and found out: in what way this perfectionism manifests, what sort of accountant they are, whether they like their job, and how high up they are, whereabouts in London they live, have they always lived there, do they like living there, how much to they love rollerblading, do they do it every day, where do they do it, how long have the been doing it. This will give you a nice starting point.

Basic character interface in the Novel Factory

Character Development Step Two - the statistics

If you're going to visualise your character, you need to know exactly what they look like - and having all of this noted down somewhere is a good idea to avoid rookie mistakes like changing the protagonists eye colour halfway through a paragraph. Note down age, hair type, eye colour, distinguishing features, height, weight etc. You should also think about and make a note of, their motivation and a summary of their role in the story. Now is a great time to try to hunt for some pictures to represent your character as well. Photos can provide a lot of inspiration.

Questionnaire supplied in the Novel Factory

Character Development Step Three - the questionnaire

Not all authors like the questionnaire, but I think that's because it's sometimes been presented as the be all and end all ofworking out a character. I certainly don't think that, which is why it's step three, but I do think it's useful, and using a questionnaire can help prompt inspiration about things you might not logically get to. Our writing software includes a detailed questionnaire that covers everything from what's in their fridge to how they treat people better than them

Character Development Step Four - History

You probably won't want to do full histories for every single character in your story, but I find it extremely useful to write the histories of all my main characters, all the way from being a baby. It means you have to think about their upbringing and parents and it helps you really get a rounded view of a person.

To take advantage of our novel writing software to guide you through this process and keep all your notes safe and organised, download a free trial of the Novel Factory.

Even if you’re telling the whole story from one character’s viewpoint, it’s a great idea to walk through the story from each character’s viewpoint.

This can highlight continuity errors, and also add dimensions to your characters.

For each character, make a note of the scenes they appear in, then walk through that list - ignoring the scenes they’re not in. Make sure their appearances make sense from their point of view, and then imagine what the character is doing while they’re not present in a scene.

This helps you avoid ‘teacher syndrome’ where pupils assume teachers only exist during school hours with the idea of them having lives of their own being quite unimaginable. By filling in the gaps in your character’s existence, you give them their own life and realistic motivations.

This can add flavour to your story, for example, outside of a story a character may have just had a fight with their partner, so when your lead turns up they’re in no mood to chat. This adds more realism and interest than every character your lead encounters being in a neutral mood.

Note - If you’re nifty with excel, and have followed the previous step you can create a new column for each character, mark the corresponding box that lines up with each scene, create a table, then filter by character to do this in a power-user type of way. But if you didn’t follow any of that, don’t worry about it – you can generate the same results by hand.

Read more about this character viewpoint technique here.

Ready for Step 11? Blocking is the last step before you are ready to write your first draft. 

The Novel Formula - A Novel Writing Method: Step Seven

Full Character Profiles - Character Questionnaire

By now, you should already have a basic character profile for each of your main characters - comprising name, age, motivation, a single sentence summary of their role in the story, and a single paragraph summary of their role in the story. Also, you'll have completed an initial investigation into what makes each character tick.

If you don't have these things -click here.

Next, we're going to complete a detailed questionnaire about each major character. This is useful because it makes you look at  them from all kinds of angles you might not have thought of - such as: what do they have in their pockets? Or, how do they treat people worse off than them? And these little insights and details may help add interesting twists and layers to your plot.

If things occur to you while you're completing the questionnaires, it's a good idea to note the changes on your synopses - it should be a working document, constantly being updated and fine tuned as new strokes of genius occur to you.

Even the answers you discover that have no direct impact on your plot are invaluable. The information will help round out the character in your mind, and when you write from their perspective - this will come out, whether you notice it or not.

It's best not to try to complete the questionnaires for all characters at the same time - do each character at least one day apart, otherwise you'll rush it and burn out.

Another reason it's good to spread these out over a little time, is to give you a chance to people-watch in between. With the questions fresh in your mind, observe all the people around you - family, friends, colleagues, strangers - watch them all, and see what inspiration you get to supply interesting answers to the questions.

Completing these questionnaires should also highlight if any of your characters are too similar. If you're finding yourself writing too many of the same or similar answers then your characters may not be unique enough, and it may be worth doing more to make them stand apart.

If you have two characters that both have wild hair, sharp blue eyes and a cocky, outgoing personality, you've got to ask yourself, do you really need both of them? Could their actions be merged, streamlined into one? (Compare the Trainspotting film and book for interesting examples of how this can be done). More importantly, if your characters are too similar, your readers might get confused between them, and that's a sure-fire way to ruin your carefully thought out plot.

The questions in the character questionnaire are deliberately vague, they are meant to be open to a bit of interpretation.

One final note - don't get too dogmatic about it - if you want to skip a question, skip it. It's not an exam.

So, here's the character questionnaire:
Update - Click here for the new updated Ultimate Character Questionnaire

1.            First name:

2.            Surname:

3.            Middle name:

4.            Nicknames:

5.            Date of birth:

6.            Age:      

7.            Height:  

8.            Weight:  

9.            Hair:

10.          Eyes: 

15.          Skin:

20.          Hands:

21.          Scars, handicaps: 

24.          Family:

29.          Best friend:

34.          Other friends:

39.          Acquaintances:

44.          What makes them laugh:

45.          Ambitions:

46.          Philosophy of life:

47.          Hobbies:

48.          Music, art, reading preferred:

49.          Style of dressing:

50.          Favourite colour:

51.          What is in her purse or his wallet: 

56.          What is in their pockets:

57.          Favourite food:

58.          Allergies:

63.          What is in their fridge:

68.          Possessions:

69.          Most treasured possession:

70.          Educational background:

71.          Work experience/occupation: 

72.          Enemies and why:

73.          Description of home:

74.          Description of bedroom:

75.          Strongest character trait:

76.          Weakest character trait:

77.          Sees self as:

78.          Seen by others as:

79.          How do they treat people better than them:

84.          How do they treat people worse than them:

85.          Strongest childhood memory:

88.          How do they react to praise:

91.          How do they react to adversity:

Ready for the next step - Structuring a novel plot? Click here.

The Novel Formula - A Novel Writing Method: Step Five

Character Viewpoints

This is a really fun step, in which you get inside the skin of your characters, discover if there are any impossibilities in your plot and give the story a level of depth that you just couldn't get by coming at it from your omnipotent author viewpoint.

What you're going to do, is write a synopsis of the story from the point of view of each of the major characters - taking about a page for each. You should let you imagination loose at this point, so don't worry too much if you run over, just don't burn out before you've done them all!

If your story is primarily told from the point of view of the lead character, you will have to be really strict about their synopsis - if you're getting to the point where you have five pages and you're still in the early stages - it's getting out of hand.

Do your best to try to really get into each individual character; speaking as they would speak, noticing what they would notice and even using metaphors that they would. Does your character use a lot of long words or a lot of slang? Do they immediately scope out the decor of a room, the people in it, or the escape routes? Do they use a lot of sporting metaphors or sea ones, or sensory ones?

Personally, I like to imagine the character sitting on a stool in the middle of a room, being asked to explain what happened - but you don't have to do it that way.

Before you write each character story synopsis, make sure you check over the notes you already have to remind yourself of what you've already learned about your character. This will help you keep it consistent and also inspire the synopsis.

The character story synopsis should not tell the entire history of the character, starting when they were a child (unless that's relevant), but should start at the first relevant point to the story. This may, however, be before the story begins for the lead.

Think about what the character is doing in-between encounters with other characters and appearances in the story. You don't have to know every single detail, but they should never vanish from existence.

By doing this sort of synopsis, not only will you get to know your characters better, but you will make them seem much more real, as it forces you to think about what they're doing when they're not in your main narrative. This starts to give them their own lives, and can affect how they behave when they are in the main narrative.

For example, if you haven't thought about what a character has been doing immediately before your lead encounters them, they may tend to be in a neutral mood, and just hanging around doing nothing, or doing something vague. Once you've walked through the story in their shoes though, you might know that they've just had an argument with their sister, or just received a long awaited letter, or simply just stubbed their toe. How will this affect how they receive your lead?

In this way you can add more interesting complications and conflict, adding depth and realism.

So go ahead and get started on your character story synopses.

Click here for the next step in the Novel Formula - extending your synopsis.

The Novel Formula - A Novel Writing Method: Step Three

Character Introductions

Note - if you haven't already, you may wish to read the previous steps of the first novel writer's method: step one or step two.

Now you've got a basic grasp on your plot, it's time to bring in the cast.

We're going to use a technique to quickly build a basic character and then will build on that foundation in later steps to ensure each character is layered with depth, inner values and mannerisms.

As you write your story, you will probably find that the characters will change the plot from what you envisioned and characteristics will emerge as you put them in different situations.

So we're not going to try to proscribe and pin down every aspect of each character right from the start. 

We'll begin with a broad brushstroke, then slowly fill in the detail and dig down into the character's persona until we discover what really drives them, then we'll keep adding spices and surprises until we have a fully formed, contradiction prone character with history, values and motivations.

Carry out the following steps for each of your major characters:

 

Layer One: The gameshow introduction.

Write a gameshow style  introduction for your character, a single sentence. This can be fairly flexible, so it'll probably be easiest to demonstrate the right kind of thing with examples:

·         

• A depressed housewife whose closest friend is her little terrier.
• A geography teacher with sweaty armpits and lots of nicknames.
• A naive young prince with a good heart.

Good - so far so shallow, right?

 

Layer Two: picking apart the overview

Now take each word or cluster of words in the gameshow introduction and ask and answer as many questions about it as you can think of.

 

A depressed housewife whose closest friend is her little terrier.

Depressed - How does it manifest? Is she actually on medication? How long has this been going on? Does she confide in anyone about it? 

Housewife - Does she have children? If so, how many? How big is her house? Where is her house? What does her husband do? Is it a loving marriage? Does she enjoy being a housewife? Is she a good housewife or a bad one?  How long has she been a housewife?

Closest friend is her little terrier - What kind of terrier? How long has she had him? How did she get him? What do they do together? Are they ever apart?

 

A geography teacher with sweaty armpits and lots of nicknames.

Geography Teacher - Is he a good teacher? Did he always want to be a teacher? What age does he teach? What sort of school does he teach at? What sort of methods does he use? What sort of geography doe he teach?

Sweaty armpits - Why does he have sweaty armpits? Is it a medical problem? Does he wear too many layers of clothes (why?)? Do they smell? Does he exercise on the way to school?

Lots of nicknames - What are they? How many kids use them? Do the teachers use them as well? His wife (is he married?)?

 

A naive young prince with a good heart.

Naive - Why is he naive? Is it a lack of education? A lack of experience? Is he deliberately sheltered? Or is he simply a bit slow? Or maybe just optimistic about people?

Young - How old? Does he act young for his age?

Prince - Prince of where? Where is he in line to the throne? Does he have servants doign everything for him? Does he have brother to temper how well he's treated? Is he being lined up for responsibility? Being groomed to be King?

Good heart - How does he show he has a good heart?

By the end of this process you should be starting to get an idea of your character. To tidy up the loose ends, also make the following notes about each character:

• ·         Full Name
• ·         Age
• ·         What motivates this character?
• ·         Single sentence summary of character's role in story
• ·         Single paragraph summary of the character's role in story

Great! Now your characters are starting to take shape,  it's time to paint a bit more detail into your story. To avoid creating a rambling first draft, most of which will need to be cut later, we're going to slowly build our story, ensuring all the necessary elements are in place, and that we're not creating any blind alleys or irrelevant waffle.




Click here for step four - writing a short synopsis.

.

A friend of mine is fond of saying 'character is plot' and the arching his eyebrow meaningfully.

Does he mean plot is meaningless? No, just that almost all plots have been used, but that doesn't matter as long as your characters appeal to the sensibilities of your reader.

Whether it be adventure, romance or crime, there are only so many situations that can take place, but like in real life it doesn't matter if it's happened a hundred times before if your, personal, emotional well-being counts on the outcome.

So you'll have your reader on the edge of their seat if they believe in your character and care about what happens to them.

That's all very well, but show to develop a three dimensional, believable character?

What follows is one way of developing a character with multiple layers and internal personality conflicts. 

It is by no means the only, or necessarily even the best way to build a character - everybody will have their own preferences. For some people, characters naturally spring to life of their own accord, and others base their creations on real life people.

But those of us that only have one personality residing in our heads, and wish to avoid law suits and huffy friends, a guide can be an invaluable starting point to get the process going.

This post is heavily inspired by Brandylin Collins - Getting into Character, and we highly recommend you buy it and read it cover to cover.

Layer One - The One Liner

Start with a  single line description of the character you have in mind, think of it like a blind date introduction (you can even say it out loud in the dulcet tones of 'Our Graham if you like). 

Here are some examples:

·         A depressed housewife whose closest friend is her little terrier.

·         A geography teacher with sweaty armpits and lots of nicknames.

·         A naive young prince with a good heart.

Good - so far so shallow, right?

Layer Two: picking apart the overview

Now take each word or cluster of words in the gameshow introduction and ask and answer as many questions about it as you can think of. 

For example:

A depressed housewife whose closest friend is her little terrier.

Depressed - How does it manifest? Is she actually on medication? How long has this been going on? Does she confide in anyone about it?

Housewife - Does she have children? If so, how many? How big is her house? Where is her house? What does her husband do? Is it a loving marriage? Does she enjoy being a housewife? Is she a good housewife or a bad one?  How long has she been a housewife?

Closest friend is her little terrier - What kind of terrier? How long has she had him? How did she get him? What do they do together? Are they ever apart? 

A geography teacher with sweaty armpits and lots of nicknames.

Geography Teacher - Is he a good teacher? Did he always want to be a teacher? What age does he teach? What sort of school does he teach at? What sort of methods does he use? What sort of geography doe he teach?

Sweaty armpits - Why does he have sweaty armpits? Is it a medical problem? Does he wear too many layers of clothes (why?)? Do they smell? Does he exercise on the way to school?

Lots of nicknames - What are they? How many kids use them? Do the teachers use them as well? His wife (is he married?)

A naive young prince with a good heart.

Naive - Why is he naive? Is it a lack of education? A lack of experience? Is he deliberately sheltered? Or is he simply a bit slow? Or maybe just optimistic about people?

Young - How old? Does he act young for his age?

Prince - Prince of where? Where is he in line to the throne? Does he have servants doign everything for him? Does he have brother to temper how well he's treated? Is he being lined up for responsibility? Being groomed to be King?

Good heart - How does he show he has a good heart?

Layer Three: Inner Values and Mannerisms

It starts to get a bit trickier here, as you're going to have to make more judgement calls. But bear with it, and you'll get the hang of it. 

Imagine you are a psychologist interviewing your character. You're going to ask them a questions, then stubbornly keep asking then: Why? Why? Why? Until they really can't go any further. At that point you'll have found an inner value or trait of your character. 

Then you can use that inner value to inspire a mannerism to go with it. That way your character's mannerisms will feel genuine and not forced (hopefully).

Let me show you what I mean, we'll start with our depressed housewife.

Why are you depressed?

Oh, I don't know - there's nothing to be happy about?

Why?

Oh, I just don't have anything expect Archie.

Why?

Because my husband owns everything.

Why?

Because he earns the money, he's always earned very well, and made a lot of money.

Why?

Well, he's very smart, he worked hard at school and he works hard now.

Why?

He loves his work. It's the most important thing in his life.

Now we've discovered something. She thinks her husband cares more about her work then about her. OK, it's not exactly the most original inner value, but then humans often are quite stereotypical.

If you think you've got it, go ahead and have a go.

Once you've found one inner value, start again from the beginning with a different question and see where you end up. 

The next step is to pit your values against each other - hopefully finding some inner conflict!

For example, we may have discovered that as well as feeling she's worthless to her husband, our housewife loves the lifestyle in which his money keeps her, and also that she'd do anything for her terrier.

So we try to come up with a really difficult question for her. For example:

What if your husband told you he'd had enouhg of the dog and it had to go?

Would she finally get some self respect and leave him? Or would the lifestyle win out over both her self -esteem and her beloved pooch? How your character answers these difficult questions will start to really give them depth.

You may feel that our example (and possible your own character) follows too much of a stereotype to a be a truly unique and original character. Well, being original does not necessarily mean avoiding stereotypes with a vengence. 

If you try to a create a character doesn't follow any stereotypes, not only will you find yourself fighting a losing battle, but if you succeed, what you end up with is likely to be a disjointed and jarring character. Stereotypes exist for a reason. The key is not to create a character that is completely original in every way, but to take a stereotype and twist it a bit, add flavour and uniqueness to it until you have something which feels like a real person, with depth.

Read more about stereotypes and how to make the most of them here. 

Layer Four: Enrichening Detail

OK, after that challenge, things are getting a bit more straightforward for a while. Simply answer the a detailed questionnaire from the point of view of your character.

You can find a character questionnaire here.

Often in a story you have need of a walk-on or cameo type character for a particular purpose - perhaps the librarian at the local library needs to help your lead character find a tome of ancient evil or maybe the desk sergeant at the police station is booking your lead character for a crime she almost didn't commit.

The trouble is, you don't want to spend too long building up these bit-part characters but you do want them to be interesting and memorable. So you need a way to conjure up the general demeanour and aspect of the character in a few words rather than rambling on for a two or three paragraphs describing all the garments they are wearing.

One way to cover a lot of ground quickly is to appeal to a stereotype. 

Wait. What does that mean?

"Pleeeease, oh mighty stereotype, make my unimportant character seem interesting..."

Well, no.

What we mean is just bring to mind a shared concept which helps your reader fill in all the details from all the other, similar characters they will have seen in movies and read about in other books.

How about our example of the sergeant at the police station? Well, chances are that you've already got some concepts in your mind about the sergeant just from the job description. But what stereotypes can we hook into here? 

The gruff, angry sergeant with a caffeine drip, pile of unfiled paperwork and a face like a bulldog? He hasn't got time to be dealing with lowlife like you - get in a cell and be quick about it.

The fat, bumbling, rosy-cheeked sergeant with a happy, if slightly gin soaked smile. Oh dear. Been a naughty boy have we? Ah well, nothing that you can't sleep off in a holding cell, my old chum!

But.... stereotypes are bad, aren't they?

Well, often they are, yes. Characters that are nothing but a stereotype are nearly always flat, uninteresting and frankly rather forgettable.  But there's something we can do about that. Adding a twist of lime!

Once you've introduced a stereotype based character, always add at least one feature that breaks the stereotype. Use something about that character that makes this character different enough that the stereotype doesn't fit them anymore.  That way you get all the benefits of using the stereotype, namely getting a lot of information about the character across quickly, without actually using a character that is stereotypical. 

So, the sergeant...

What happens if you give the grumpy sergeant a frustrating stammer? Or how about if after showing all the demeanour of the typical "Grumpy Sergeant" they turn out to be soft spoken and actually quite nice?

What happens if the friendly, bumbling sergeant becomes totally anal retentive about procedure and paperwork? What if you give someone who looks like a "Bumbling Sergeant" the personality of the "Grumpy Sergeant?"

The trick is to just play about with it to find something that makes the character step away from the stereotype and stick in the reader's mind.

So next time you're needing a generic bit-part person for your scene, don't write a stereotypical character - but appeal to a stereotype as a shorthand for quickly painting the basics - then add a twist of lime to give the spark of life...

As well as character, you need situation, objective and two more major story elements - read more here.