To me, characters are the most important part of story telling. Without characters, there would no villain, there would be no hero. Therefore, there would be no plot, no conflict.
When you write a novel, you have 200-500 pages (give or take) to delve deep into your characters. Their past, present, and future. Their likes and dislikes, their opinions. Their friends and family. Their motive, anything that makes them tick.
When you write a short story, you don’t have much time to go into that much detail. Not all that detail is exactly needed, depending on what’s going on in your story.
So, how do you develop your characters fully in such a short amount of time?
Step 1. Create your characters as best as you can
If you Google “character chart,” a billion results will come up. (It’s actually a tad over 67 million, but who’s counting?)
There are so many charts out there that ask the basic of basic questions:
- Name (first, middle, last)
- Birthday/age
- Job
- Appearance
- Family?
- Close friends?
- Religion
- Single/married?
And then there’s the obvious… favorite color, food, likes and dislikes, phobias, etc.
Pick a chart or two and fill it out. You’ll probably only use 15% of it, but those things are good to know anyway.
Step 2. Get to know your characters 100%
Talk to your characters. Interview them and get to know them as though you’re meeting a new friend. Write basic flash fiction about them and their background.
Again, not everything you come up with will be known to your readers, but at least you’ll have canon scenarios in your head.
Step 3. Sift through all the information and zero in on the four most important aspects of your characters
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE
Allow your readers to imagine what your characters look like through physical descriptions. Skin color, eye color, hair color and length, height, weight, noticeable birthmarks, etc.
Not all of this will be needed, but if it’s important, add it in. If a birthmark has something to do with the plot, then it needs to be known. If not, it may not be needed at all. But you can still write about it and then edit it out later.
EMOTIONAL STATE
This varies depending on the point of view you use, but for your protagonist, allow your readers to get into their mind. What’s their thought process like? What kinds of decisions do they make? Do they have any outstanding memories or fears that are important to the plot and show how the character came to be?
SPEECH
Now that we know how they think, how do they speak? Do they talk loud or quiet? Do they speak their mind or are they more reserved? Do they think out loud?
ACTION
What does your character do? Don’t worry about showing your character driving from point A to point B. Just page-break them there and let them do what they need to do.
In conclusion…
Characters are hard to put together. They’re complex, just like us. Get to know them as though you’re their mother or father (which you are, kind of). Pick out the important pieces needed to showcase them and get through the conflict of the short story.
If your character is trying to get to school on time for an important test, you don’t need to let the readers know that one of your character’s hobbies is playing video games. Unless, of course, the video games were what made your character late.
It can tie in easily with the story or not at all. And that’s up to you to do decide.
How do you go about developing your short story characters? Do you have anything to add to this? Let me know what you think in the comments below!
Twitter | Bookstagram | Pinterest | GoodReads | Double Jump