Sept 19, 2023
Where do authors get their characters?
People ask me, “How do you come up with characters?”
But really, don’t we all know “characters” in life? People whose hearts break, people whose dreams go unfulfilled, people whose courage inspires, people whose beauty redeems, people whose scabs and callouses cover early betrayals and sin-soaked sadnesses?
One important question then becomes, is it safe/fair/smart/ethical to write about other people?
(Cue the famous quote from the wonderful book about writing, Bird by Bird, by the predictably quirky Anne Lamott:)
“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” 1
Fictional characters may be thought to be totally unique, but are any of us truly one-of-a-kind in our opinions or characteristics? So, fiction writers mingle, imagine, and invent. (When I was a preacher, people would sometimes go out the door saying, “You were talking about me, right?” The answer was always, “No, but I hope what I said helped.”)
Then, of course, there is you, yourself. There are risks here, too!
One of my favorite opening paragraphs comes from Toni Cade Bambara’s short story collection, Gorilla, My Love. (Ms. Bambara was an author, professor, civil rights activist, and film maker. If you don’t know her—introduce yourself to her work!)
“It does no good to write autobiographical fiction cause the minute the book hits the stand here comes your mama screamin how could you and sighin death where is thy sting and she snatches you up out your bed to grill you about what was going down back there in Brooklyn when she was working three jobs and trying to improve the quality of your life and come to find on page 42 that you were messin around with that nasty boy up the block and breaks into sobs and quite naturally your family strolls in all sleepy-eyed to catch the floor show at 5:00 A.M. but as far as your mama is concerned, it is nineteen-forty-something and you ain’t too grown to have your ass whipped.” 2
My bottom line is, there is enough humanity on display in myself and others that there is never a shortage of characters to create or difficulties and challenges to write about. The protagonist of the novel I am writing is a young woman born to a single mom with a gambling addiction—a mom whose picture appears in the “stunningly gorgeous” entry of the dictionary, a mom who not only tweaks the truth but builds bonfires of facts to hide her past, a mom who uproots her child again and again as she runs from herself, not to mention irate wives and landlords.
The young woman becomes an architect, desiring to create the sense of home she was largely denied.
I find that characters, like people in real life, try their best to compensate for what was denied them early on. Think about your own life—what motivates you to live as you do? Have you made peace with past hurts? Do valiant role models propel you from strength to strength? What would you write about yourself?
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- Lamott, Anne. 1980. Bird by Bird. New York, NY: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group. ↩︎
- Bambara, Toni Cade. 1960. Gorilla, My Love, NY: Vintage Books/Random House, preface. ↩︎
About Beth Ernest
Beth is a writer, spiritual director, and retired pastor living near Grand Rapids, MI. She is thrilled to be making her lifelong passion for the written word a more full-time priority. She holds a Doctor of Ministry in the Sacred Art of Writing from Western Theological Seminary in Holland, MI. Beth’s husband, James, works in theological publishing. Their adult daughter and son make them grateful daily for the love of family. The antics of their Welsh Terrier keep them humble.
Ernestly Speaking 
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