Category Archives: Creating Solid Characters

Save the Cat and Keep ‘em Reading

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Can you escape a dystopia in under 500 words? THE BREAK is up at Brain Harvest. Go read it and see.

That was awesome, wasn’t it? And now, today’s post.

Amy’s recent rave review of Save The Cat inspired me to get my own copy. She and other writers have praised Blake Snyder’s system of organizing a screenplay (or novel). It’s the outline for pantsers, apparently.

Well, I would love to tell you that I sat down, read the entire book, and immediately adopted the system, but the truth is that I haven’t made it past the book’s opening. Not because StC is bad, but because StC knocked my block off in the first pages, and whenever that happens with a book on writing, I stop reading and think until I’m all thunked out.

The first thing your protagonist should do is save the cat.

Or tell off a bully. Or comfort a friend. Something small but kind, something that makes the reader understand who this person is, and more importantly, something that makes the reader like and identify with the protagonist. Even if he’s an antagonist, hell, especially if he’s an antagonist.

No one is horrible all the time, everyone carries within them the spark for redemption. So maybe your antagonist robs a store- and gives some of the money to a soup kitchen. Or better yet, maybe he’s got partners in that store heist that decide to rape the girl behind the counter, and your antagonist stops them. Maybe he does it in a sneering, smarmy way, but he still stops them. In that case, saving the cat is committing the lesser evil, but it still makes you like the guy. He’s a jerk, but he’s an interesting jerk. He makes you want to keep reading.

Liiiiiightbulb!

And yes, Gru from Despicable Me is a perfect example of this- in his opening scene he teases a little kid, freezes everyone in line at Starbucks with an ice gun, takes someone else’s coffee- and tips the barista. Perfect. He’s weird, ugly, and selfish, and we already like him. Even his crime is pure wish fulfillment- I mean, who hasn’t longed to freeze everyone ahead of them in line at Starbucks with an ice gun?

So whether your hero is a goodie or a baddie, make a strong first impression. Save the cat!

Unstoppable Serenity

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This week the PLC is going Beyond the Bookshelves, to examine other aspects of pop culture that inform our writing. We also are unrolling a fantastic new feature this week- Guest Spot Tuesday. Our first guest blogger is Sam Sykes, author of forthcoming fantasy novel Tome of the Undergates.

For my first Beyond the Bookshelves feature, I want to talk about my favorite tv show.

Eight years after its cancellation, Firefly is still garnering new fans. And not just any sort of fans, but fans who get all foamy-like at any mention of their favorite series. (Hello, my name is Amy McLane and I own two bottle props from the bar set of Serenity and have a River figurine in the mail and no I do not own any other merch from any other SF franchise, TUVM)

Why? Why do people love Firefly so much? Why does it inspire me to heretofore unknown levels of fandom? Well, I can’t speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself.

Here’s my theory.

I love Firefly because I am given a fairly large ensemble cast of characters- Jayne, Wash, Mal, Zoe, Inara, Simon, River, Sheppard, and Kaylee- and not one of these characters is flat. All of them have depth, all of them are capable of surprising us. All of them are capable of changing.

A great example of this is the episode Jaynestown. Jayne is the hired muscle of the crew. He’s not the brightest, and he’s also greedy, lacking in moral fiber, and very self involved.

In Jaynestown, Jayne is faced with the mudders of Canton, an entire village of indentured workers who, living in muck and misery, worship him as a Robin-Hood style folk hero.

Seems Jayne botched a robbery on Canton a few years ago, accidentally dropping the loot on the impoverished town. First Jayne is wary of stepping foot on the planet. Then he is angry when he remembers the money he lost. Then, when he is recognized, he gives in to his unwarranted fame and drinks all the eye-searing booze and humps all the floozies he can get his hands on (one).

But at the end of the episode, Jayne denies his legend and pushes over the statue the mudders have made of him. You can see him feeling real pain for the people of Jaynestown, and in the closing shots he talks to his captain, struggling for understanding.

Mal reassures him by saying, “It’s my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sumbitch or another.”

In addition to being a very funny episode, it’s a very touching episode. Jayne is capable of surprising depths- and that’s just one character. Many other things happen in Jaynestown I haven’t touched on- like the job Serenity landed on Canton for in the first place… Kaylee and Simon getting drunk together… Inara’s adventure with the magistrate’s son… River going toe-to-toe with Sheppard and his “broken” Bible.

All these full, round characters, all 9 of them, are always interacting,  playing off each other, fighting and bantering in a way that is both entertaining and heartfelt. And the space-western Firefly universe functions as a 10th character, constantly throwing new challenges at Serenity‘s crew.

As a writer, I think that’s something to admire, and something to learn from.

Tune back in tomorrow for Sam Sykes!

For the Sake of Being Evil

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By S. C. Green

This week I want to talk about antagonists, villains and your overall not-so-do-gooders. You know the ones, the characters that are forever plotting to take over the world or bent on destroying it. The character your hero (protagonist) is continually bumping heads with. Whether they’re actively seeking them out or coincidentally crossing paths, one won’t be happy unless the other is removed.

I think most authors share my next opinion.

Villains are the most fun to write.

Through our villains we can shuck off our normal inhibitions that prevent us from performing these acts in our own lives. By day, we’re all politeness and smiles. However, once we reach the keyboard the solicitous mwah-ha-ha-haaaaa echoes in the backs of our brains, and we deal out penance for all the little injustices we are forced to suffer throughout the day. The repairman that kept you waiting all day to show up only to say the part he needs he doesn’t have, and he’ll have to come back tomorrow is now forever immortalized in your fiction as the guinea pig used to test out your newest strains of incurable diseases. Boils bursting, keeping anyone from ever getting close enough—

Amy N: *cough* Uh, S.C.? You’re…uh…getting off track here. Your point?.

Ahem. Right. My point.

Villains are fun to write. So much so, we might forget to add some needed humanity to them. That’s right, humanity. No matter how interesting and cruel your villains can get, being evil for the sake of being evil gets old fast. They need a reason for doing what they’re doing, and “just because they can” isn’t good enough.

There might be a tender moment in their past, something that your reader can relate to, something real that goes wrong or maybe they made a poor choice that’s forever changing their future. Say for instance a husband and wife science team, while working to study the effects of black holes, unknowingly creates one, killing the wife. The husband spends the rest of his days trying to recreate the experiment so as to either bring her back or destroy the world trying. The Director of Science at his lab threatens to shut down his project for lack of funding or some such and the husband retaliates by opening a black hole right wear the director’s heart should be, slowly expanding to envelope the entire—

Amy M: Whoa there SC. Back on track, please.
 Amy N (to Amy M.): Man, what’s up with S.C. today? He’s usually not this…
Amy M: Twisted?
 Amy N: Yeah.

Oh, yes. Where was I?

By adding a strain of humanity in their character, your villains become more life-like. The reader has to believe that these bad things are happening for a (not-so) good reason. The best story endings, I find, are the ones where the villain’s ultimate demise is bittersweet. That bittersweet sensation is caused by that small thread of humanity. When your character’s story ends, that little bit of good must fail as well.

My point is that every character has their own story, and that story has to be believable. Do I care about the guy that likes to blow up buildings just because he likes to see them fall? No. That’s boring. I want to read about the guy that blows up buildings because the old cemetery was built over the resting place of his great-grandfather. Through a strange twist of fate (or a poker game) he discovers that buried with his grandfather was a deed and will that would have proved that he was the rightful owner of half of Los Angeles. Now he takes his vengeance out on the city of angels for stealing his future. So he’ll steal its future by planting bomb after bomb until each and every building is as low as—

Michael: Dude, buddy. You really need to get control here.

Sorry. It’s just when the villainy is given a little leeway, it’s hard to keep it from flooding through.

I’ll wrap up by saying, give your villains some humanity and purpose. Your readers will thank you for it. After reading this, if you feel the need of a writing fix, check out our Thursday’s 500 Club post. Maybe you could incorporate a villain.

Amy M: Okay.
Amy N: Cool.
Michael: Finally.

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Characters on A Wire: A Study of HBO’s “The Wire”

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My boy: Omar Little

By: Michael James Greenwald

Well, Happy Sunday Funday everyone!!  And Happy Valentine’s Day to those who celebrate and Happy Anti-Valentine’s Day to those that don’t.  For my topic on this glorious Sunday in Chicago, I was going to select love…love, love, love.  But love is theme, love is emotion, and this week, my pets, we are discussing characters, and I had a revelation on Thursday night while watching my favorite show of all time, “The Wire”, which really folded nicely into this week’s topic, CREATING SOLID CHARACTERS.

Today we will be studying the enemy:  television writing.

I will present a short sequence in two episodes from season 4 of The Wire (Episodes 46 and 47) then we’ll talk about some of brilliance in the writing and how we can steal from it.

THE SHOW:

Basically, the show is about the law and the street in the inner city of Baltimore.  Cops on one side and highly organized drug organizations on the other side.  Characters are either on the side of the law or the side of the street, though lines are blurred throughout.

THE CHARACTERS:

Chris

Chris Partlow: Mid 30′s, enforcer for drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield, cold, calculated killer

Michael Lee: 14 year old “street kid”, who takes care of his little brother Bug, has a drug addicted mother, and is wary of adults

Michael

Cutty

Cutty: Former enforcer for drug kingpin Avon Barksdale, did prison time and came out to build a boxing gym for disenfranchised inner city youth

Bug: Michael’s little brother

Michael’s Step-Father: Bug’s dad, not Michael’s, has been in prison for a long time

Snoop

Snoop: Chris’s partner, a female enforcer for the gang

THE SITUATION:

We follow MICHAEL as he deal with pressures at home (his mother, who sells their groceries for drugs) and pressure from the street (the drug dealing game).  He’s a quiet and shy kid, but has taken over a parental role for his little brother BUG and begins boxing at CUTTY’S gym and shows an aptitude for the sport, yet for no good reason, he balks at all attempts by CUTTY to assert himself as a father figure role in his life.  For instance, he bolts CUTTY’S van when he drives him and another boy home from a boxing fight rather than be alone with his boxing coach and whenever CUTTY puts his arm around MICHAEL, MICHAEL shrugs away and appears very uncomfortable.  No explanation is given, yet we wonder.  In addition, as his peers fall into roles as drug dealers, MICHAEL refuses to do so, even going as far as to decline a sizable cash present from CHRIS and the drug kingpin Marlo, even though every other kid takes the money and standing his ground could very well lead to violence upon him.  Seeing his boldness, CHRIS tries on multiple occasions to recruit MICHAEL into the role of his protege, yet MICHAEL spurns all his advances.

We follow CUTTY as he struggles to teach hardened street kids boxing skills and keep them away from the violence that surrounds them.  He reaches out to MICHAEL, in what appears to be a parental way, but when MICHAEL spurns him for no good reason, we begin to doubt CUTTY’S motivations.

We follow CHRIS as he basically kills anyone who stands in the way of his boss building a drug empire in Baltimore.  He’s cold and calculated (watching him, you shiver, trust me), yet when it comes to killing his victims, he takes care to execute them in a way where they feel the least amount of pain, shooting them in the head.  He has spotted MICHAEL and seeks to recruit him as his protege.

THE CONFLICT:

MICHAEL’S step-father returns home from prison, and though MICHAEL’S mother promised her two sons she’d never let the man come back to them, he moves back in.  He acts very friendly to the boys, picking BUG up from school and helping the young boy with his homework, yet MICHAEL acts very coldly toward him and begins to have trouble in school.  MICHAEL’S step-father tells MICHAEL that he has returned home to take everything over and he wants MICHAEL to pay him money that MICHAEL earns from the street for living in “his” house.

MICHAEL is provided several options to deal with his situation.  He can talk to his teacher in school, ask CUTTY or CHRIS to help him.  The first two choices are obviously the correct ones, but ultimately MICHAEL goes to CHRIS and asks him to help him.

In this scene, CHRIS and his partner-killer SNOOP stand in the shadows as MICHAEL points out his step-father, who’s buying drugs on the corner.  In three short lines of dialogue, MICHAEL and CHRIS’S characters are developed more than they have ever before.

MICHAEL: I just want him gone, away from me and Bug.

SNOOP [Incredulous]: Why? What the hell he do to you?

MICHAEL opens his mouth to say, but can’t.  CHRIS and MICHAEL look at one another.  MICHAEL lowers his head, obviously ashamed.  CHRIS’S facial features tighten.

CHRIS: We take care of it, boss.

In the next scene, CHRIS and SNOOP lead MICHAEL’S step-father down a dark alley, guns drawn.  CHRIS is drilling MICHAEL’S step-father about whether or not “he likes boys.”  MICHAEL’S step-father denies having ever touched the kids.  At the end of the scene, CHRIS pistol-whips MICHAEL’S step-father in such a vicious, horrifying way, even SNOOP, a hardened killer herself, stares on in shock, as CHRIS beats the man unrecognizable.

ANALYSIS

What can we, as writers, gain about how to build characters from these two short scenes (and, I realize, the episodes before these which laid the framework)?

1) Situations must always, always place incredible pressure on your characters.

As people, we learn the most about ourselves when placed in pressure-filled situations.  Do we run away?  Do we drink malt liquor?  Do we stand tall and face the pressure directly?  Do we create to-do lists?

Putting a character in a situation where they must choose a direction will illuminate depths of characterizations that can never be reached by saying: MICHAEL was molested as a kid so adult male attention makes him leery. Showing MICHAEL shrugging CUTTY’S arm off of him and bolting from the van to not be alone in the van with the man reveals this character depth in an impacting way.

The more pressure from the most angles will create a tension the reader will feel.  I mean, MICHAEL has pressure at home from his horrible mother, pressure from having to raise his brother BUG, and a constant lure from the street.

2) Good ambiguity is your friend.

Question: Do we know MICHAEL was molested as a child?  Do we know CHRIS was?

I don’t think so.

But we think there’s a pretty good chance one of them or both of them were, and we salivate with the idea of not knowing, don’t we?  We want to know!  We need to know!  But the writer is not giving us the satisfaction of knowing, and this drives us crazy…in a great way.  I watched this episode three days ago and find myself wandering off in the shower, while munching on a bologna sandwich, or before going to sleep, wondering: was CHRIS molested?  was MICHAEL?

This is good ambiguity.  Don’t feel like your readers need to “get” everything.  Present credible situations which give your characters opportunities to react and see what happens.  Life is not cut and dry, black and white; life is blurry and gray.  Your goal is to present your scenes in this fashion.

3) Be so very specific

This is actually a Jim Sallis mantra, which I listened to, when in his class, and believed I understood it, but now realize it takes a lot of practice to be as specific as you need to be.

This is what I mean.  If we hadn’t been presented the way CHRIS usually executes his victims–promises of pain-free death followed by a professional double-tap to the head–then we wouldn’t have been able understand the impact and reasoning when he pistol-whips MICHAEL’S step-father.  The depth of character only opened up once we understood context.

Same with MICHAEL.  Writers took care to present MICHAEL as an amazingly responsible older brother, great friend, skilled boxer, intelligent student, tough kid, so when his step-father was introduced into the mix and he lost his brother, withdrew from his friends and boxing and school, we understood, without the writer saying, MICHAEL is having difficulty dealing with his step-father being home because the man’s a big jerk and quite possibly might be a molester.

As Jim Sallis always said, “We don’t need that.  We got it; we’re there.”

4) Make your characters walk-the-wire

Philipe Petit on a wire between the Twin Towers in NYC

You ever see that doc Man on Wire, about Philippe Petit’s high-wire walk between the Twin Towers in NYC in 1974?  Well, take a look at the picture on the left.  See, Philippe?  That’s where you want to place your characters.  On a wire, nearly 1400 feet from the ground, teetering to the left and to the right, dealing with high winds, birds, rain, balance, on a quest to reach the other side.

What is at stake for the Philippe Petit?

His very survival.

The stakes couldn’t be any higher, could they.  How about those stakes for MICHAEL and CHRIS.  The same, aren’t they.

And that’s not to say every writer needs to write a gritty, inner-city crime drama.  Because there are stakes just as frightening as death.  And it is up to you to determine what those are for your characters.  Loss of love is pretty horrifying to some.  Debt.  Marriage.  A child.  Abandonment.  Loss of powers.

Whatever the stakes are for your characters, place them on a wire 1400 feet from the earth and toss every obstacle at them you can think and see what they do.

5) The past is the present and future

Everyone of our characters has lives before we discovered them.  They were all babies, children, teenagers (AYYYYKKKKK!!!), maybe mothers, college students, acne-covered wizards…

We might begin a story when a character is 80 years old, but whatever happened before our readers join our characters on whatever journey will place them on a wire, is vitally important.  As writers, we must know what our characters childhood, high school years, college dorm time, was like.

Now, do we need to provide a timeline?  No.  Do we need to have like forty flashbacks to when our 80 year old character was being spoon-fed plums by their now long-dead Aunt Carol?  Probably not.  But we, as the writer, must know how the past shaped our characters into the decision-making people they are now.  So when we show the specific details of their lives, put them on the wire, put incredible amounts of pressure on them, we’ll have a much better grasp on what they’ll do, and we can then see their decisions better.

MICHAEL may or may not have been molested in his youth by his step-dad.  But something sure happened to make him wary of adult male attention.  Something happened to cause him to go as far as to succumbing to the gang life he’d spent all his energy avoiding when his step-dad comes back.  We don’t know anything about CHRIS’S childhood, but something drove him to become the psychopath he becomes, and something even more terrifying must have happened to drive him to react out of character to even the suggestion MICHAEL’S step-dad touched him.

I hope this blog will drive you to think a bit more about your characters, because I don’t care whatever anybody says, characters, not plot, drive stories.  The Wire writers created characters so riveting I stayed up late at night thinking about them, and as writers, there isn’t anything we could wish for more.
I wish you all good words!!!!!

Where all the magic happens...

MJG

If y’all want to get to know me a bit better, check me out on FACEBOOK, follow me on Twitter, or at my personal blog.

Make Them Real

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By S. C. Green

S. C. Green

How do I create solid characters? Well, I hate to dispel the magic here, but they don’t happen from the get go. I have to finesse them onto the page one word at a time. Let me give three techniques I have used on numerous occasions.

1. Visual Aids

For me, knowing what the character looks like is extremely important. This is the image that will play out in my head for the remainder of the story (and beyond, if he/she is compelling enough). This is also helpful in keeping descriptions straight throughout. If you happen to find a random picture that resembles your character, cut it out or print it up. Stick it in your writing area and let it help give you insight on the character.

I have a character in my book named Zeke that for the longest time didn’t pop off the page. He was boring in two-dimensional black ink. Then I went to my cousin’s wedding. The gentleman that officiated the ceremony captivated me. He was the physical embodiment of my character, Zeke. I have no memory of what his real name is, nor do I know anything about him. All I have is his image, and from that moment on, Zeke was alive.

2. Occupation-Situation

With a body and face picked out, now it’s time to fill it with brains and emotions. I need to know where they work. This gives me an idea of their level of intellect. Remember, just because they empty your trash, doesn’t mean they can’t correct your calculus. In other words, whenever possible, avoid stereotypes. Not that they can’t come in handy, but they usually become boring fairly quick. Since most people are familiar with stereotypes, it’s easy to guess at what decisions that character will make. The dumb jock will always do dumb jock things.

From this point you have to throw them into a situation. Find out what they’ll do. Yes, this is organic writing. Let it happen. It doesn’t have to end up in your final piece. Most likely it won’t. It took me several hypothetical situations before I realized my main character in Raven’s Mark was a thief. At one point he used to be a doctoral candidate working in a lab. It didn’t fit, but I had to experiment to find the right fit.

Hopefully by now you have a grip on who your character is. If you don’t, I have one more suggestion.

3. The Interview

I use this as a last resort. A last resort only because I feel silly interviewing someone in my head. I know it doesn’t make sense. How can I fabricate entire worlds and cultures, but feel weird interviewing one of them? The world is filled with inconsistencies. I’m no exception.

The trick is to write everything down. Start out simple: How old are you? What’s your favorite dessert? Do you like pets?

Write out the answers as they come to you. Don’t stop to think. It could also help to do this long hand.

Ask tougher follow-up questions to the previous answers: Why do you open the former resident’s mail? How does it feel getting passed on that promotion? Where was your father through all of this?

Don’t ever interrupt an answer. You might find your character rambling on for a couple of pages. Whether they answer you boldly or do their best to dodge the question, you’ll get something out of it.

It might be helpful if you have someone else interview you as that character. Again, this feels silly, but it can work if you let it.

There’s no steadfast rule on which you should try first. None of them might appeal to you. Each way I’ve listed resulted in a more vibrant character for me. Some characters needed more than one technique, others didn’t require any. So if you’re stuck on a character, but don’t want to give up on him or her, give one of these a try. If you have another idea, I’d love to hear about it. One can never have too many tools.

Creating Whole Characters

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By Amy K. Nichols

The other day I met my writing teacher, James Sallis, for coffee. He’d chosen a table at the front of the cafe by the window. When I joined him, he said, “Look,” and he nodded toward the window.

Outside, a girl and a boy sat at a table. Both had their legs propped up, and sat not quite facing each other, seemingly relaxed. But as the girl spoke, she smiled and fidgeted. Sometimes her hands grew animated, excited, then she’d control them again. Hold them together, still. The boy remained subdued; though now and again his own emotion showed in a sudden wave of his hand or a smile.

“Look at the body language,” Jim said. “Fascinating.”

Jim is a compulsive people watcher. And it shows in his writing. His characters are authentic. Visceral. If you ripped the page, they’d bleed.

He translates what he sees in people — how they live and breathe — to the page. It sounds easy enough, but takes practice. Practice in seeing. Not only the people around you, but the characters in your mind.

When your character arrives to deliver that bad news, what does he do? How does he move? Where are his hands? Where does he look? How does he interact with his physical surroundings? Taking the time to watch him in your mind before you write him on the page is, I think, the first step toward creating a whole character. And it does take time. Rushing brings cardboard characters (or “central casting” as Jim calls them). Taking time to see them adds roundness to their being and authenticity to their words and actions.

The boy and the girl outside the window got up from their chairs. Jim and I watched them walk to the parking lot, watched them give an awkward hug before going to their cars.

We returned to our coffee and our chat. But even as we talked, I knew we were both still thinking about the boy and the girl and crafting characters in our heads.

Building Characters, One Trait at a Time

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Write what you know. It’s one of those Creative Writing 101 Rules. But what about characters?

A week or two ago on a twitter chat, (I think it was #writechat, but it might have been #litchat, I lurk in both as smolderingink whenever I get the chance) there was a discussion on character building that got me thinking. Many writers model their characters after people they know. This seems to me to be a dangerous way to go about character creation. What if the modeled person recognizes themselves? Maybe they will be flattered. Maybe they will be offended. And if you base your character solely on yourself, you run into the danger of Mary Sue-ism.

Say your character is stubborn. Many of mine are; stubbornness can be a heroic quality, but can also lead to downfall. Instead of making your character behave exactly like the first stubborn person that comes to mind, think about all the people you know whom you would consider stubborn. Compare and contrast them. I have a stubborn friend who is principled in her stubbornness. She never caves in to what she thinks is wrong, and sometimes this behavior rears up and bites her on the buttockal areas. But the way she always stands up for her beliefs is admirable to me. I, on the other hand, am only stubborn at my worst, when I am also being petulant and childish. So I have tried hard to eradicate the trait from my personality. I also know someone else who was raised to believe flexibility is weakness, and so he never gives ground on anything, be it a political stance or where to go for lunch. So, that’s three ways to be stubborn, right there.

How do these different behaviors fit with the other traits of my stubborn characters? Well, one of my characters, Sahrel, is an ex-concubine. Because of her past, she is used to either being spoiled and indulged, or having to obey her owner in totality. She is also used to manipulating others to get what she wants, but she is aware of and doesn’t like this part of herself. So she is often childish, but can be principled on occasion. Over the length of the story Sahrel may choose to shed her childishness and become a more sympathetic character. Or, she may choose to cling to it, perhaps to her downfall. It really depends on the rest of her personality, as well as how the plot pushes her. Another of my characters, Wil Imbrel, is a death priest. He is always principled, according to the code of his order, but doesn’t like to explain himself. So he often comes off as snobbish and inflexible, especially when the code of his order does not adhere to the same morality as the rest of society. So whether Wil chooses to buck up and lead by example or to sneer and put others down depends once again on the rest of his personality, and the demands of the plot.

As you can see, I don’t hammer things down- I like to give my characters a little breathing room to surprise me. If I give my characters enough nuance they begin to act on their own. And the moment  a character begins acting on his or her own is the moment I know I have created a real person who just happens to live in my head. Sure it’s a weird zip code, but it’s not their fault.

This is how I have always written characters, by observing traits in others and melding them into what would be most appropriate for my character given their current situation. This trait-melding is instinctual to me, I had to really think about how to explain it before I sat down and wrote this post, because setting and plot are tied up in this method as well.

So, how do you create your characters? Do you start with a template of someone you know and change things? Or do you piece traits together from scratch, based on the needs of your plot? Or do you do something else altogether?