Every fiction narrative has a cast. A story has to be about someone in connection with someone else, living in a world filled with people, a lot of whom have at least a cameo in the story. So, your cast can consist of so many characters or just one character, but there is no story without one. But where do these characters come from? Character ideas, according to Nancy Kress, come from four sources: the writer, people the writer knows, people the writer doesn't know, and the writer's imagination.

They Come from You, the Writer

Lajos Egri advised that if you truly know yourself, deeply and intimately, you will be able to build grand, complex, and compelling characters. The first source of a character's riveting personality is you, the writer. Something about you will be reflected in them. It could be how they smile, how they act out when angry, how they prefer their coffee and even their love for a particular color or fragrance. It doesn't matter that your character leads a life and exists in a world utterly different from yours. Your forty-five-year-old law enforcement officer in the fantasy world of fairytale creatures might still hold the same worldview as you. Feel free to insert your own experiences and other aspects of yourself into your characters. That was how Charles Dickens came up with David Copperfield and Nora Ephron with Heartburn. You might even create a character totally based on who you are, like Esther Greenwood in Bell Jar.

They Come from The People Around you

A key to captivating creative writing is keen observation. Interesting characters can be crafted from observing the people around us. Your father's wit and dry humor can be stolen to form the traits of your hero's mentor. Your sister's sassiness could be the source behind the attitude of your lead character. Try not to reproduce in totality the people around you and spare yourself a messy lawsuit. Instead, you can create characters the way Frankenstein created his monster. Your lead character can have the sincerity of your mother and the vengeful spirit of your maternal uncle mixed with the gullibility of your estranged friend. According to her diary, the source material of Virginia Woolf's Clarissa Dalloway — from Mrs. Dalloway — was her family friend Kitty Maxse. 

They Come from Strangers you Know Little About

The idea for a great character is not limited to the people you know. They can also come from total strangers whose stories you happen to come across by accident. For example, you might read about a lady in the newspaper who gave birth to triplets and was abandoned by her husband soon after they were born. Then, you begin to wonder who the woman was, and how she ended up with such a terrible spouse and how she will raise three kids all by herself. As you do, an image begins to form in your mind, specific features are identified, and a compelling character is created. You start with second-hand information, and before long, you have a fully-fleshed character that is totally yours.

They Come from Your Imagination

A good imagination is very instrumental in creating riveting characters. You can develop any idea into a character. Start by scribbling a couple of out-of-the-blue character ideas, like a detective with drug addiction, an orphan aiming to be president of America, or a public prosecutor guilty of murder. The more bizarre, the better. From each of these character ideas, you can add layers upon layers of personality, allowing your imagination to run wild. In the end, you may come out with a uniquely intriguing character. William Faulkner once imagined a little girl with muddy drawers up in a tree; that imagination became Caddy in The Sound and the Fury, which Faulkner considered his best novel.