WHOOO...are you? (How Characters Come to Life)

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by Enisa Haines

I love immersing myself in stories where I'm plunged straight into the midst of action from the first page, where I meet characters that yank at my emotions and, as events unfold, I experience what they experience and feel what they feel.

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Stories like Diana Gabaldon's Outlander. I lived that story as if it was real. When Claire Randall was hurtled back in time to 1743 Scotland, I tumbled with her. When raiding border clans clashed, I fought alongside Jamie Fraser. As Claire fell more and more in love with Jamie, their love story enthralled me.

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Sometimes I'll pick up a book but it doesn't captivate me. I'm drawn by the plot and the setting but the characters fail to pull at my emotions. I don't care about them, about what they say or do. Instead, I'm disappointed and in frustration I stop reading.

That's a reader reaction no author wants.

So how do you hold a reader's interest?

Know your characters. Visualise their external appearances and uncover who they are deep inside. Ascertain what they think, how they think, how they react in different situations. Discover their childhood backgrounds and how they relate to others. Identify their likes and dislikes, their habits and mannerisms, strengths and weaknesses, fears and secrets and goals.

Learn everything about them and then they'll be real. You will identify with them and care for them. And as you write about them, fleshing them out in your stories, they'll pull the readers in and grab at their emotions.



How do we learn about our characters?

Fill out character charts, listing basic details such as appearance, background, education, career, personality and desires.

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Interview your characters, asking a series of in-depth questions that will bring them to life.

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Get inside the minds of your characters. Put yourself completely into them, feeling what they feel, thinking what they think, seeing what they see. By being a character, getting deep into their point of view, you will show them to readers and they will experience everything the character experiences.

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Characters are the living heart of a story. Know them well, inside and out, and you'll pull readers into your stories, making them feel the emotions the characters feel, making them never want to put the books down.

That's the reader reaction authors want.

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How do you get to know your characters? Do you have a favourite technique?


Love to love: discovering all the different types of characters.

Love to laugh: when a character behaves in a way I don't expect.

Love to learn: what makes people who they are.