Some thoughts on creating characters...

[This piece first appeared in the September 2024 edition of my monthly newsletter, The Enzograph.]

So, I thought I'd share with you some insights into how I create the characters in my writing but, well... in all honesty, I don’t really know!

A million half-formed people and pairs of legs and rolling heads bob about in the orbit of my brain. Pairs of teeth and velcro slippers and the way someone pronounces "Raleigh" as "Raaaa-leee". I kind of get a wisp, like the beginning of a stick of candy floss and then I begin to gather in the fine strands. Sometimes it comes to nothing and I dissemble it again, like pulling apart Play Doh. But there is always some blue left in the green.

Mostly, I make old ladies. I love old ladies and very camp dogs. They bob in a pea soup and I hook them like ducks at fairs. Study them like goldfish in glass jars.

I’d like to say my characters represent emotions, but that would be giving myself too much credit. They are all damaged. Chipped but functioning, like old mugs. I probably tell my own stories in fragmented ways. Tug a sinewy wad from my chewing gum heart and stick it under a table of chapters.

People with no apparent problems scare me, as do genuinely confident people. I watch them like I do horror films, half-hidden behind my fingers. "Oh God, they are going to politely but firmly tell their nail technician they don’t like the colour!" and "Crikey. They have given someone advice without prefacing it with ‘don’t take my advice’ and now they are talking earnestly about the importance of me-time."

Give me the man in odd socks talking into a banana. Show me the old lady who only wears green or the kid wearing fox ears. Sit me down on a bench with some day trippers under knitted blankets, licking Cornettos in December and I’ll give you stories that would make your ears fall off. If I could be a fly on the wall I’d buzz quietly in the corner of care homes and graveyards. Offices and nightclubs hold nothing for me. I want the weird and wonderful. I want to make people laugh and cry.

Having read that back, it is all entirely unhelpful if you're actually looking for some character creation insights. So, here's some practical advice... Keep a notebook on you at all times (and don’t forget to tie on a pencil). Follow people off trains. Get that book out of the attic; that 1950s kids' book where you can swap the legs of the policeman with Cleopatra’s - remember that? It’s a good starting point. Join a Dungeons and Dragons club and volunteer as a porter in the nearest hospital.