Acting and Writing: Creating Characters

I'm a terrible actor.

No, really. Plenty who have seen it would swear to it. But I found that there were lessons to be learned about writing that kept me studying acting long after I knew it wasn't my calling.

A rare appearance onstage as Lady Croom in Arcadia opposite John Hermes as Septimus Hodge.

Acting and writing fiction both are concerned with creating believable characters, but they approach it from different directions. For a play or film, it's a sequential process: the writer starts from nothing and ends with the text. That text provides a starting point for the actor. Konstantin Stanislavski referred to that starting point as the "given circumstances," the facts set out in the script and those implied by the script that the actor has to flesh out.

Although actors start from the script, writers start from nothing, just their imaginations. I sometimes think of it as the same process in different directions: an actor is trying to take those given circumstances and internalize them, while the writer is trying to take what's internal and articulate it into something external, which becomes the given circumstances. In other words, the actor is going from the outside in and the writer from the inside out.

However, both are trying to reach the same goal: a well-rounded, believable, and possibly surprising character. A key piece for both actors and writers is finding a way into the character, a connection with the character. No matter how small or minor, every character I write gets a piece of myself, even if it's something as simple as my love of hazelnut coffee. No matter how tiny it is, that's my way in.

For example, while I was developing Deadly Decaf, I was creating a lot of characters. I was looking for names, and decided I liked the name Carmen, inspired by "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?"

Logo from the 1996 series "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?"

But I then started thinking about Carmen, the opera. This is what led to the key kernel of Carmen's character: her mother named her after "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" but she finds that embarrassing, so she tells people that she was named after the opera Carmen instead.

German Lithograph, 1900, drawing by Luigi Morgani with a scene from the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet.

That fact is never mentioned in the novel, but for me, it was central to creating the character. That one fact extrapolated into additional aspects. It implies that appearances matter to her more than reality. If that's the case, she's likely to also care about her physical appearance, so she would wear considerable makeup and have her hair carefully styled. Given her age, it's a reasonable leap from there to wanting to be an influencer, which comes with its own appearance standards.

It also implies that she's a bit of a culture snob. She likes the highbrow opera but not the popular video game and TV game show, so she dismisses popular culture in favor of more prestigious "classics." For a character who's interested in acting, that's a critical piece of background information.

All of those pieces helped me to flesh out her character, but I found Carmen most interesting when the circumstances of the story caused her to abandon her concern with appearances. Understanding what makes a character tick is key, but understanding when a character will do something contradictory is what makes them interesting.

So, what was my connection to Carmen's character? I've never liked my name either. I've never gone so far as to lie about it, but it created that connection for me.

Signed Deadly Decaf Hardcover

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My way into a character doesn't change when the character is unlike me, as most characters are. My approach is the same regardless of the character's race, gender, age, sexuality, ability, or belief system. I suppose that reflects my belief that human beings are all more alike than we are different, but that's not to say I don't take the differences into account; those differences are critical.

However, I view those differences like layers over the core of the character. Things like societal expectations have a huge impact on behavior. For example, in white middle-class midwestern women, they are more likely to turn anger inwards as self-harm than external as interpersonal violence because social expectations are for women to be "nice." External demonstrations of anger aren't socially acceptable.

Does that mean that men never self-harm and women are never physically abusive? Absolutely not, and just like a character acting contradictory, some of the most interesting moments result from characters going against those societal expectations. But understanding those elements allows me to take them into account, and then I can imagine how I would feel and react under those circumstances.

Konstantin Stanislavski called this the "magic if." If I were in those given circumstances, how would I react? When considering that if, those layers of differences are essential to making a character believable and relatable.

For example, several years ago, I was grocery shopping when I felt someone stroke my hair. I turned and saw a woman who I had never met before who had pet my hair the way I might pet someone's dog. She complimented my hair and apologized, and life went on with what I viewed as an odd anecdote.

However, if I were to write that incident as a scene with a black character, I would have to take into account the layers of widespread hair discrimination and non-consensual hair touching that form a part of many black women's experiences. Those layers are part of their given circumstances that have to be taken into account with the "magic if."

If this were to happen to a white character, it might be a weird one-off experience and something to joke about, but if this were to happen to a black character, it might be the latest in a long line of similar incidents and nothing to joke about.

So, as you're creating your characters, find a connection in a similarity, no matter how small, but also understand and take into account the differences.

Do you have any advice on creating characters? Share it below!