How much research time do you ...

[CharleyH]

put in for a character. I'm not talking about research about a particular era for setting, but when it comes to your characters what sort of research do you do for them?

I research (sometimes - not always - depending on a story and how much importance I invest in it) my characters choice in colours, clothing, furniture in their living room and even get down to the nitty gritty of plates and silverware when the story begs for it. I want my characters to be 3-dimentional, which is why I sometimes do unnecesary research that I don't always use, but how about you?

I suppose this is more a question of how detailed your character sketches are for a sex story or any other story, and whether or not you research for place and time only, or also for your characters.

 

[rgraham666]

I research for time and place. If I'm doing something away from the modern North America era.

As far as characters go, the best description if I 'accrete' them. I have a pretty clear idea of who they are when I first conceive them. Then I 'attach' things to them as the story goes on, to fill them out.

I only research if I can't fake it really good.

 

[CharleyH]

I research for time and place. If I'm doing something away from the modern North America era.

As far as characters go, the best description if I 'accrete' them. I have a pretty clear idea of who they are when I first conceive them. Then I 'attach' things to them as the story goes on, to fill them out.

I only research if I can't fake it really good.

LOL - good one - you shut me up thru laugter for now, Rob. In the words of the Terminator "I'll be baack."

 

[3113]

Characters are a lot easier for me than just about anything else. If I get them right the first time (and don't realize later that they are completely wrong for the story--which happens all too often!), then I usually know a lot about them. Their favorite color, ice cream flavor, neat or sloppy.

The research for them comes, most often, with occupation. If they ARE a football player, and a good one, then how do they think? Live? Work and play? Because certain people who are happy in their occupation often have similar traits. I can be in a room filled with writers and we can ALL talk about those times we zone out and get lost in the story. We might have real difference in how we like to write--some in a quiet room, some at a noisy cafe, but we all love to write and love best those times when we're in "the zone."

Likewise for other people happy in other professions. A football player HAS to like being part of a team. A golfer, however, isn't interested in teamwork. I would be utterly miserable in an office doing filing work. But if I create a character who is happy doing that, I'd better research and find out what kind of person they'd be to enjoy that.

That's where the research comes in. And how much or how little I have to do depends on how un-like me that character is. How far from my understanding they are.

Does that makes sense?

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Hard question. To be honest it depends. Sometimes the character just jumps out and it there. Sometimes it cooks in me head for months. It's all a matter of how the character wants to be born. And yes, I do carry on conversations with the characters

As far as settings goes, that's a different thing entirely. Most of my stories are set here where I live. Makes it a lot easier when you know the territory.

 

[rgraham666]

Oh yay! I shut Charley up!

That doesn't happen often.

 

[Weird Harold]

put in for a character. I'm not talking about research about a particular era for setting, but when it comes to your characters what sort of research do you do for them?

My character research has been on-going for 57 years now. I've never actually written out a character sketch because my characters are drawn from a lifetime's worthof people watching.

I suppose Rob's idea of "accreting characters" applies to me as well, but it's also about revealing secrets about them that I already knew.

 

[ibhard]

I spend more time on my characters (and sometimes setting too) than required because it's my favorite part in the story writing process and they're the story themselves. I'm a very character driven author.

 

[CharleyH]

That's where the research comes in. And how much or how little I have to do depends on how un-like me that character is. How far from my understanding they are.

Does that makes sense?

Complete sense. I also base character on certain friends, mainly their looks or mannerisms at times, but not all my friends are like my characters so I need to go deeper and I am never satisfied that they just say something, or gesture. There are times when certain tatoos describe a character - a car they drive, the colour, the food they eat, what they drink or what their room looks like. I believe character is as much important to research time as place and era - if not more so?

You hit it on the nose for sure in my opinion 3113 - but then why (and this is just a question to everyone, not to you specifically) why do people spend more time researching settings or era's than their characters, who, I assume, are much more important to a plot and conflict than a setting (with exception)?

 

[oggbashan]

I think about a character and their story for a long time before I type a single word.

If the character doesn't fit when I start writing the story I file it in the pending folder and wait until I can think about the character again - maybe two or three years later.

I have two sorts of characters - round and flat. Round characters are the main actors in a story and have to come to life for me or the story won't work. Flat characters are incidental to the story. A flat character might become a round character in their own story. If there are too many round characters in one story the plot and subplots can get too complicated unless I'm writing a Novel/Novella.

When editing I consider whether one or more flat characters could be deleted without affecting the story. There are too many flat characters in my Silverbridge stories and they can be confused. I have to keep records about them - where they live, who their current and former partners are, any physical characteristics, speech patterns, etc. I can usually manage my round characters without record keeping because I KNOW what they are like.

I don't do research for characters. I might do research for their career or employment but not for the character.

Og

 

[cloudy]

It's interesting you ask that question now, Charley.

I haven't gotten anything down on paper (as it were) just yet, but I have a story in mind, and the two characters are what are occupying my thoughts right now.

They love each other, but they hate each other, and are sort of forced into each other's company. How do I express that love, and that hate at the same time?

It's the reason nothing's made it from my mind to the keyboard quite yet.

 

[CharleyH]

I think about a character and their story for a long time before I type a single word.

If the character doesn't fit when I start writing the story I file it in the pending folder and wait until I can think about the character again - maybe two or three years later.

I have two sorts of characters - round and flat. Round characters are the main actors in a story and have to come to life for me or the story won't work. Flat characters are incidental to the story.
Og

I totally get that, Og. Do you do more thinking about the round character before and during the story, and what research considerations might you do along the way that you would bypass for a flat character?

 

[Quiet_Cool]

I'll probably get shit for saying this, especially if Charley replies , but my characters dictate the entire story, more often than not. I can say, "Okay, here's the basic premise," but the premise is carried from one point to another through the characters. When I begin to write, I know what the plot it (seldom do I have what I would consider a theme) and a few of the things that will happen along the way.

The details that make the story mine aren't even close to being apparent to me. I don't have notes, I don't have any written guidelines, etc. I have what's in my head, and I know that the character has usually been through something just before the story starts, or at least something that still strongly drives or affects them when the story starts regardless of how long ago it was, and that, meaning the struggle that experience has created, is what drives the character through at least the first so many words, if not the whole story. After that one struggle is decided, I let the character react to it, internally and through behavior, to decide one thing at a time that might affect his/her reactions.

If in paragraph two, a woman's having trouble dealing with a recent break-up, perhaps she thinks back to something her mother said (something that will most likely recur later in the story (the way a mother's influence always recurrs to us in life, but without the depth of thought that might complicate the story and confuse the reader) which limits my second trait; she can no longer be an orphan, or have been raised by a single father.

It goes from there, adding little traits until the character takes such form that she's clearly defined in my own mind. Then, back to rewrite, making sure nothing contradicts (especially her behavior versus what motivates it).

Mostly, it all happens on a whim, and editing and rewriting brings it into one piece. Or I hope it does.

As far as research goes... That's a dirty word.

Q_C

 

[CharleyH]

I'll probably get shit for saying this, especially if Charley replies

ROFLOL NEVER! (she says with halo on her head).

 

[CharleyH]

The details that make the story mine aren't even close to being apparent to me. I don't have notes, I don't have any written guidelines, etc. I have what's in my head, and I know that the character has usually been through something just before the story starts, or at least something that still strongly drives or affects them when the story starts regardless of how long ago it was, and that, meaning the struggle that experience has created, is what drives the character through at least the first so many words, if not the whole story. After that one struggle is decided, I let the character react to it, internally and through behavior, to decide one thing at a time that might affect his/her reactions.

Q_C

I understand what you do and what you have said, but what details bring your characters to life in your opinion, QC? Is there only action, or does mise-en-scene play a part, for example?

 

[Antfarmer77]

All my characters are people I know in RL

 

[3113]

You hit it on the nose for sure in my opinion 3113 - but then why (and this is just a question to everyone, not to you specifically) why do people spend more time researching settings or era's than their characters, who, I assume, are much more important to a plot and conflict than a setting (with exception)?

There are writers who, like Dickens, have characters who appear full grown in their heads, multi-dimensional and talking and brilliantly true to life. And if that's the case, then they've a gift. What they've been and done and seen in life has already given them all the research.

HOWEVER, I think the more likely answer is that a lot of writers have a blind spot when it comes to characters. They THINK characters are easy to create and need no research. They think this because characters play around in their heads all the time, speak and talk and act out scenes. They think it also because they don't realize, or want to hear, that the characters they've created are cliche. Like the jolly, generic pub owner. The generic grumpy but kind old man. The generic motherly old woman. The plucky streetwise kid who's best friends with the hero...etc.

A writer "creates" these characters and thinks, "Easy!" no research necessary. And it's not. You just order them up from central casting.

And if the character is not generic, then often they are a lot like the writer (main character is a writer--no reseach required--lives in an apartment in city where writer lives--no research required--likes the same foods as the writer, drives the same car....). Either that, or they're "wish-fulfillment" characters. Characters that are the writer's dream self. You've only to read one bad fantasy story or romance to see this: The shy, "odd girl" who no one understands but whom the hero finds fatally attractive with her long, raven-black hair and large, sad green eyes, her hauntingly musical voice and her supernatural ability to heal others and communicate with animals!

Classic "dream self" that one. Likewise, writers will create dream lovers. The hero/heroine who is the writer's ideal man/woman. Blond, sexy, strong but hiding a deeply wounded and vulnerable side that needs healing

Finally, writers often WANT a character to do certain things and be a certain way. And they're very stubborn about it. They want their character, for example, to be a very rich man from Kenya who is now a private detective working in Harlem by day, while playing piano with Philharmonic at night. And he's also a Wiccan.



Okay. That's a little extreme, but you see the problem. The more research the writer does on his character (what it takes to be a concert pianist, what it takes to be a P.I., growing up in Kenya...), the more he's going to be faced with the disappointing reality that such a combination is going to be hard to pull off. Not impossible, but hard. And the writer doesn't want it to be hard. He doesn't want to surrender his artistic vision/dream of his beloved character...and he'd much rather research the setting where his character is going to play and the clothes his character is going to wear than try and figure out how to make his character work.

It's a combination of laziness (I don't wanna have to work at characters! Characters should be fun and easy, no homework required!) and willfullness (I want him the way I want him! No! he can't be from New York City, he has to be from Kenya!).

Writers!

 

[AchtungNight]

This thread is giving some decent insights.

I create my characters based on people I know or have heard about, celebrities mostly. I research them somewhat heavily on the Net and try to incorporate gossip, trivia, and things of that nature. I also plug some of their work so that the reader who comes across the story not knowing them can find out more. Kind of a bibliography within the text. Most of my research and development, though, plays out in my head. I sketch out the character, look for the things in their personality that could easily be satirized, parodied, slutified, what have you, and then bring those out. Sometimes I also discover aspects of a character that bother me, and I either airbrush them out or use them in a way that makes the story I want to do make more sense. Often fansite message boards are helpful with this. I also always incorporate my own thoughts and spin. Good stories are the result of this process.

 

[CharleyH]

There are writers who, like Dickens, have characters who appear full grown in their heads, multi-dimensional and talking and brilliantly true to life. And if that's the case, then they've a gift. What they've been and done and seen in life has already given them all the research.

HOWEVER, I think the more likely answer is that a lot of writers have a blind spot when it comes to characters. They THINK characters are easy to create and need no research. They think this because characters play around in their heads all the time, speak and talk and act out scenes. They think it also because they don't realize, or want to hear, that the characters they've created are cliche. Like the jolly, generic pub owner. The generic grumpy but kind old man. The generic motherly old woman. The plucky streetwise kid who's best friends with the hero...etc.

A writer "creates" these characters and thinks, "Easy!" no research necessary. And it's not. You just order them up from central casting.

And if the character is not generic, then often they are a lot like the writer (main character is a writer--no reseach required--lives in an apartment in city where writer lives--no research required--likes the same foods as the writer, drives the same car....). Either that, or they're "wish-fulfillment" characters. Characters that are the writer's dream self. You've only to read one bad fantasy story or romance to see this: The shy, "odd girl" who no one understands but whom the hero finds fatally attractive with her long, raven-black hair and large, sad green eyes, her hauntingly musical voice and her supernatural ability to heal others and communicate with animals!

Classic "dream self" that one. Likewise, writers will create dream lovers. The hero/heroine who is the writer's ideal man/woman. Blond, sexy, strong but hiding a deeply wounded and vulnerable side that needs healing

Finally, writers often WANT a character to do certain things and be a certain way. And they're very stubborn about it. They want their character, for example, to be a very rich man from Kenya who is now a private detective working in Harlem by day, while playing piano with Philharmonic at night. And he's also a Wiccan.



Okay. That's a little extreme, but you see the problem. The more research the writer does on his character (what it takes to be a concert pianist, what it takes to be a P.I., growing up in Kenya...), the more he's going to be faced with the disappointing reality that such a combination is going to be hard to pull off. Not impossible, but hard. And the writer doesn't want it to be hard. He doesn't want to surrender his artistic vision/dream of his beloved character...and he'd much rather research the setting where his character is going to play and the clothes his character is going to wear than try and figure out how to make his character work.

It's a combination of laziness (I don't wanna have to work at characters! Characters should be fun and easy, no homework required!) and willfullness (I want him the way I want him! No! he can't be from New York City, he has to be from Kenya!).

Writers!

LOL - I completely LOVED this post - it made me laugh and go "unh huh" in agreement. I love an observer of life and of human idiosyncracy. Thank you for your take, 3113.

 

[scheherazade_79]

I can't sit down and plan my characters out. They have to formulate in daydreams. I imagine how they'd react in certain scenarios, until they seem real in my mind.

Extra details, like what music they like, what their favourite colour is etc. only come to me when I'm writing - and only if I 'know' the character well enough beforehand.

A while ago, I created my first bitch character. I had a ball doing it! I think she was quite convincing, too, because the people who've read what I've done so far have claimed that she makes their blood boil

I find it hard to base my characters on real life people. I had a good story once, based on a real event. I got as far as changing all the names of the people involved - but it felt weird, and I had to give up.

My characters exist only in my imagination, until I can breathe life into them on the page.

One other thing I try to do is make my characters not so perfect - every one of them has at least one flaw.

 

[CharleyH]

I can't sit down and plan my characters out. They have to formulate in daydreams. I imagine how they'd react in certain scenarios, until they seem real in my mind.

Extra details, like what music they like, what their favourite colour is etc. only come to me when I'm writing - and only if I 'know' the character well enough beforehand.

But then how do you "know" your character well enough before hand? What do you know about him or her? Og said he has two types of characters - what do you think about his post?

 

[kendo1]

I know my characters before I start writing. I know how they will react to situations I put them in.

Most of my research is on places and times. I would hate to be wrong.
Historical accuracy is very important to me. I have visited all the places my characters will encounter. ( I love Scotland and France )

I try to reveal a bit of my characters throughout my stories. Not too much. some has to be left to the reader.

Ken

 

[AchtungNight]

I too like to give characters flaws and add correct personal details. I'm writing fictional alternate history, after all.

 

[scheherazade_79]

But then how do you "know" your character well enough before hand? What do you know about him or her? Og said he has two types of characters - what do you think about his post?

I imagine what it would be like to sleep with them, and then fuck myself. You can find out everything you need to know about a person that way...

Only kidding!

Ok, let me see if I can expand on this one. I agree with Og that too many flatties can make things complicated. Saying that, my peripheral characters are never bland - or even if they are, they're so bland it makes them remarkable. I don't believe in cardboard cut-outs / bums on seats. Everyone has their own story. Sometimes you can just hint at it, other times it's so interesting that you just have to find a way of working it into the plot. By and large, it depends on the size of what you're writing.

As for how I 'know' a character well enough beforehand... You're getting complicated now, Charley. I'm not in the most sober frame of mind, and although I'm capable of flashing the most beautiful smiles at everyone around me, I'm not sure I'm up to dissecting the inner workings of my mind. I might get lost in there.

But - if I start writing something without knowing the characters well enough, it's obvious from the first paragraph. Usually I have the sense to stop. I ploughed on regardless with my last story, and it turned out to be a pile of shit.

 

[CharleyH]

I imagine what it would be like to sleep with them, and then fuck myself. You can find out everything you need to know about a person that way...

Only kidding!

Ok, let me see if I can expand on this one. I agree with Og that too many flatties can make things complicated. Saying that, my peripheral characters are never bland - or even if they are, they're so bland it makes them remarkable. I don't believe in cardboard cut-outs / bums on seats. Everyone has their own story. Sometimes you can just hint at it, other times it's so interesting that you just have to find a way of working it into the plot. By and large, it depends on the size of what you're writing.

As for how I 'know' a character well enough beforehand... You're getting complicated now, Charley. I'm not in the most sober frame of mind, and although I'm capable of flashing the most beautiful smiles at everyone around me, I'm not sure I'm up to dissecting the inner workings of my mind. I might get lost in there.

But - if I start writing something without knowing the characters well enough, it's obvious from the first paragraph. Usually I have the sense to stop. I ploughed on regardless with my last story, and it turned out to be a pile of shit.

See?

Thanks love, you have said some amazing things that I might even heed!