The first step in writing a book is always the inspiration; the book starts with the author becoming inspired to write their book. Once the writer has become inspired to write their story, they generally begin by writing an outline or a rough draft and then they begin to fill in the supporting details to flesh out the book. These supporting details are generally character research or creations, and setting creation or research. These supporting details are not often the first thing the writer thinks of once he or she decides to write a book, and yet they are crucial details that bring the story alive to the reader. For fiction books, the writer will generally create their own characters from scratch and while, in theory, that is easy to do in one’s head, it is actually much harder in reality. When creating a character most writers will have a general idea of the character’s personality and appearance, but in order to truly make the character come alive the writer needs to give their character a full appearance, background, and personality.

Appearance

First, the character’s appearance should be more than hair color, eye color, and gender. It also needs to include things like a general feel of the character’s height and weight; these traits do not have to be specific numbers, but instead could just be descriptions in relation to other characters or a general description. For instance, J.K. Rowling used a good appearance description when she wrote: “Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinner than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes” (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, p.20).

Background

Second, the character should have a full background and this should include things like: childhood, desires, fears, career, education, dreams, relationships with other characters, and anything else that makes the character feel like a real person. The character’s background should not generally be short enough to fit into just a couple of sentences, but should instead either take up chapters, be written in flashback, or spread throughout the book. The only time this would not hold true would be for very minor characters or if the character has a reason why they should not have a background, like amnesia.

Personality

Third, the character needs to have a real personality that is based on their background and it should be more than a single term like brave, cowardly, compassionate, and/or intelligent. It is all right to make use of these terms when creating the character’s personality, but the character’s entire personality should be more complicated and in-depth than any single word. The character’s background should be heavily referenced in the personality creation process to keep the character realistic. A good example of character personality description was written by Charles Dickens when he wrote: “He was a rich man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not. A big, loud man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh. A man made out of coarse material, which seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him… A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility.” (Hard Times, p.18).