Creative Writing For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 4

Creating Characters

IN THIS CHAPTER

Exploring the range of characters

Digging into the origins of characters

Going into your characters’ backgrounds

Revealing your characters through words and deeds

Giving hints rather than the entirety

Making use of stereotypes and archetypes

Character is fundamental to writing any kind of autobiography, biography, or fiction. A piece of writing can be in the voice of a character, it can be about a character, it can be one character writing about another character. The voice of the character can dictate the style and subject matter of the poem, story, or book, and the reader can be so close as to “inhabit” the character. At other times, the characters are mysterious, kept at a distance, their inner lives unknown.

You create major characters, heroes and heroines, villains and flawed anti-heroes, as well as vividly portray minor characters ...