How I create characters

Tell your story

🗣️Silhouette, an anthology of short stories sits somewhere in my drafts. A collection of ideas of character based stories, 📚mostly women, I encountered and witnessed their lives unfold. They were far enough for me to see them whole and close enough to hear their voice. 

Most of my characters are a mix of imagination, inspiration and interpretation. 

💭 Imagination based on their individual quirks. Is it a normal fellow with an interesting life or an interesting character in a real life. You build traits, thoughts, behaviors which lead to action. There has to be a consistency - say if a person likes books then it will be embedded in his life like books lying on a bed side shelf, a study, a book shop or an old library. 

💡Inspiration comes from people around me, books around me, the thoughts, feelings, ideas and conversations. Observing lives unfold and things happening. Why is this person like this? Is there a back story. Once a friend told me about their spouse who had a traumatic childhood and hence they are like this. I often wondered what trauma. Part of it comes from empathy and part to know their story. What makes us what! But these people seep into my characters asking me to tell their story. I often feel I owe them to tell their story. 

 🧐Then comes the interpretation, my interpretation of the story. Even imagination is so unique to me. Only I am thinking what I am. Only I listen from what I hear. Only I have the view of what I can see. Only I have the words to express it. Only I know it has a story in it. Only I can tell it. Cos only I feel what it makes me feel. Say you might tell me a great story about your holiday but I might read it as show off or the exuberance of it.  

🧠But then again as a narrator and writer I keep the rights to my characters. They are real but not real too. They are fiction but existed too. They are quiet but saying a lot. They live in my head and not God’s earth. The wonderful world inside my head where characters have their own story and I am just the instrument to tell. 

Remember, If your story needs to be told, I am ready to tell. 📢