STRUGGLING TO DISCOVER CHARACTER? Top 3 Favourite Methods

One of my favourite parts of writing a book is discovering the characters. Maybe it has something to do with my INFJ tendency to find people fascinating. Maybe it's because I love psychology. Whatever the reason, it's da bomb.

I've multiple WIPs at the moment (none of them close to having the planning finished, haha) and as much as I love characters, it's taking a lot of time to fully discover and develop them. I've experimented with questionnaires, interviews and archetype plots, but none of them clicked with me. 

It's only recently that I have found these methods, but I'm 100% won over. Let's get to my three favourite methods for uncovering characters. 

Disclaimer: I'm not really sure how necessary this warning is, but these methods all require a basic understanding of your character's journey and personality. It doesn't have to be much, just a bit is enough.

1. Music Playlists 

Source: Tenor

I love musicals. I love music. Why not use music to discover my characters? A typical piece is around three minutes. And you could go through hundreds of pieces. 300 minutes at the least, not including relistening. But guys, it's SO worth it. There are two key things I look out for.  

1. Lyrics

Firstly and most importantly, I make sure the piece has lyrics. As authors, we understand the power of words, so when it comes to finding a character's life story, the lyrics are right there. They're just waiting for you to pick them up and use them.

As I listen to my playlist, I either search up the lyrics and read along as I'm listening or if I'm feeling particularly musicky, I'll act cool and pretend I know what they're singing. If the lyrics work with the character, I'll save it to that character's specific playlist. 

After a huge listening spree, I'll sit down (if I'm not already...which is most of the time) and relisten to the songs in the character's playlist. Based on the lyrics, I'll order the songs in chronological order. Of course, the order is not set in stone and I'll often reshuffle them as I add new songs. But it's all part of the fun! 

2. Genre 

Genre doesn't relate much to the character's backstory, but it does have a lot to do with personality and mood. (Angsty teen who listens to metal music, anyone?)

Your music taste has a strong correlation with your personality. Academically advanced people tend to prefer classical or jazz music. Introverts who may have low self esteem tend to prefer heavy metal. Extroverted, outgoing people tend to prefer pop. This also applies to characters, because what are characters but people first seen by their authors?

A character's playlist should be made primarily from the genre that defines them. The easiest way to pick the right genre is by asking yourself what your character would listen to. Their genre represents their personality. What you need to remember is that just because a character is introverted, it doesn't mean they automatically hate pop or rap music. I know many introverts shun classical and embrace pop. If research fails you, go for the vibe that works. 

There is one exception to when I'll break away from the character's genre. I like to make a separate playlist for the plot and it will have its own genre. Based on the plot's genre, I'll search for two pieces per character: their "theme" song and the piece that represents the turning point in their arc. Personally, I think it's a nice touch to tie the characters back to the plot. 

2. Pinterest Boards   

Source: Tenor

If you don't have a Pinterest account yet, I highly recommend getting one. It's probably the biggest source of inspiration for everyone, not just authors. I have a Pinterest Board for each of my WIPs and in those boards, there's a section for each of my characters. It's incredibly useful for coming up with appearance and the character's journey. 

3 Types of pins to look for

1. Portraits

The most obvious thing to start with is finding pins with faces on them. While there's millions of portraits, I find it hard to find pins that I feel truly match my character. My top tip for this is to pin as many faces that somewhat resemble the face you're after. Pinterest is a visual based search engine, so it suggests pins that resemble the image on a saved pin. Once you have enough portraits, delete the ones that don't fit and keep the ones that do.

The portraits don't necessarily have to be photos. A good portion of the portraits I've saved are artworks. What matters is the emotion and vibe. Would your character make that expression? Is the vibe you're getting from the picture the same vibe the character gives? If the answer is no, delete the pin. There's thousand more pins that can replace it. 

2. Quotes

After the portraits, the next thing to find are quotes. They are particularly useful to capture the direction of their character arc. Don't focus so much on how much a single quote relates to the character. Instead, look at how the quote fits in with the big picture. 

Find quotes for each major turning point. What quote/s represent what the character was like at the start? What quote/s represent the characters fate? What quotes are the stepping stones between those points? 

3. Symbolism 

Finally, I'll look for pins that symbolise events that happen to the character or show their emotional state. For example, a character going through an identity crisis could be represented by a smashed mirror with their reflection in it.

These are heaps of fun to find! The main thing to think about is the mood and aesthetic. If it fits the character, the mood of the board and the aesthetic, you're good to go.

Aesthetic work

After the pinning spree, there are two things left to do. It's not entirely necessary, but it improves the overall effect by a kilometre.

1. Delete the unaesthetic pins

Scroll through the pins. Are there any pins that are too different from the others? Delete them. Does the pin just not work? Delete them. If you think it's too hard to delete a pin because the content matches the character, there's an easy fix. Add another section labeled something like "Unaesthetic Pins" or "Archive" and move those pins there. Even if it doesn't really do anything, it personally makes me feel better. 

2. Order the pins

Whoop! Now comes the fun and most time consuming part! With the pins left, you want to order them in a way that makes sense. You can do it in whatever way makes you aesthetically pleased, but here's how I do it.

First, I order the quotes in chronological order, according to whichever arc the character has. At the same time, I'll order the non-quotes in chronological order, according to the events that happen to the character. Secondly, I disperse all the pins in a quote-image-quote-image pattern. Or image-quote-image-quote. It depends on how many pins there are of each.

It's almost guaranteed that you'll have to go back and delete some more pins, but that's just part of the fun. I spend hours trying to make my character sections look nice and stare at it for several more hours, haha! 

3. Random RPs

Grandma, it's me, Anastasia!

Source: Gfycat

On a particularly upsy day, I'll roleplay with my characters. The scenario is the first idea that comes to my head, no matter how crazy. I've had RPs where my Medieval characters are in a helicopter over a cliff to normal ones where my contemporary characters are in a cafe. 

It's more of a personal preference, but I RP super casual. Instead of writing like I'd actually write in a book, I do it mostly like an unformatted script. Take this for example.

Zack: *falls* Dude, what's that for?

Dilan: *crosses arms* That's for TOUCHING MY LAWN. *kicks Zach* And that's for polluting the air with your noise.

Zack: *sniffs* Says you. 

Dilan: *grins evilly* Says me. And my word is law. MwahahahaHAHAHAHA.

It's not well written and it's not meant to be. What matters is that you capture their personality and how they speak. In my example, I made them both up right then, so their personalities and voice are weak. But as I read through the RPs I've done over the weeks for my more developed characters, I see their personalities distinguishing and strengthening. I see their voices become their own instead of a version of mine. It's like magic. 

~ 

At the end of the day you're another day older, you develop your characters the way you want to. These three methods are ones that work well for me, but it might not for you. You do you, yeah? 

Quick Summary:

1. Music playlists - Check the lyrics and genre.

2. Pinterest - Collect your pins (portraits, quotes, symbolic pictures) and make it look aesthetic.

3. Roleplaying - RP with your characters for personality and voice. 

Related Posts:

The Basics of Character Arc

Have you tried any of these methods? Which ones worked best for you? Have you tried any other methods? Which ones were you favourites? Leave a comment below. If you liked this post, be sure to share, follow and eat chocolate for more content! (Eat chocolate anyway.)