Thursday, May 7, 2015

Where Do Your Characters Come From?


As a reader, do you ever wonder if the author has based any of the characters on themselves? Or did they base them on a friend or relative?
As an author, where do your characters come from?
Is it a friend., or maybe someone you work with and don't like? What about a relative? Or maybe you saw someone on the street and jotted down a few notes and they become a secondary character in your book.
Did you see a character on TV and adapt them to your book?
I find most of my characters in my mind as I'm waking up in the morning. When I go to bed I think about the character I want to write and the plot. Who would fit?
Sometimes I find a character in a newspaper article and think - "Oh, I'd like to make him a villain in one of my story's." I write everything I think I need and save the info until I have a story he'll fit in to.
And I admit to including people I worked with who I disliked and I put them in a book as an unpopular secondary character and maybe killed them off.
Are any of my characters based on me?  I think I'll pass on that question.
What about you?
What are your thoughts or questions on the characters you read about?
Where do your characters come from?
And I wrote this from my point of view - contemporary. What about those who write historical or sci-fi? Where do your characters come from?

6 comments:

  1. Hi Beverley, some of my characters are based on real people, including myself. A nice article. All the best to you.

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  2. That's interesting and so cool, that some of the characters ate based on yourself. Now I'll have to read the books and try to figure out which ones. :) Thanks for sharing

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  3. My characters come from pieces of people I know or see. For example, Steve in Second Time's the Charm came from my ex-husband with a bunch of anger issues.

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  4. Now that I can relate to. Thanks Melissa.

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  5. For me...it's experience and imagination mixed with curiosity. I personally don't prefer to write directly from my life but things hit me all the same. :)

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  6. Oh, I like that. Love 'the imagination mixed with curiosity', Thanks, Christina.

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