Character development

It’s not only the main characters in a novel that need to be fully-fleshed out. The minor characters also need to be real to the reader, otherwise they won’t care. To this end, we were given a task to develop a minor character.

Firstly, I thought about which minor character I would develop. Teresa, then Michael, Gavin and Sarah are the main characters. One minor character is Michael’s flatmate, Ben. As I was thinking about him, I realised that I’ve completely ignored a huge part of Michael’s life: his granny. She’s integral to Michael’s story, so we need to know why, otherwise we won’t care if something bad happens to her. It’s important that we do care what happens to her to understand why Michael reacts as he does. And yet she doesn’t even have a name, other than Granny.

I thought about the different ways I could develop her character:

  1. I could use a list of the sort provided by writing tools such as Scrivener
  2. I could use a mind map
  3. I could write a piece of prose that won’t necessarily be included in the final work, but shows what she’s like, what her life is like, how she feels about things, how she moves, what she thinks about stuff.
A partial mindmap that might be generated when developing a character

I find Scrivener’s method too rigid and small. It asks a few questions about the character, such as what their name is, what their role is, what they look like, what they do for a living and so on. Some of these questions are useful, such as their role in the story. However, I can only name a character once I have some idea of who they are.

I enjoy a mind map, but I didn’t feel it appropriate in this case because it’s possible to get stuck down one path of the mind map and neglect others. Of course, like with all writing, it’s possible to come back later and refine it. I also find it a bit limiting, as with Scrivener’s questions because people aren’t bullet points and straightforward answers to simple questions.

I decided to use the last method, because it’s more interesting: it shows me what she’s like and how she reacts to things, rather than telling me. I hoped to be pleasantly surprised, and I was. I found out she’s quite modern in her outlook, not old-ladyish at all, which is revealed by her going by Mags rather than Maggie or Margaret. She’s widowed; her husband was Alfred. Alfred is not to be confused with her ‘companion’, Albert.

Over to you

I enjoyed letting my character take the reins and find out what she’s like, rather than me defining her rigidly. How do you develop your characters, whether minor or major?