How well do you know your favorite character?

How do you know how a character will react to something?

• How do you build a character? I mean, I real, real, character that is believable and emotional, but not cliche. Something where something totally terrible can happen to them, but you get to a point where you don't know how to make them react, and how to keep it from getting mushy or as i say "bleck" or even boring. Sometimes, when putting myself in their shoes, I can't comprehend what I would do. I come to the conclusion I would do nothing, but I know for a fact I would not do nothing. For example, a girl who had lived a completely normal life but loses her family in one day. How would she react? Anger? Revenge? Sadness? I'm not sure? I was thinking revenge, but she lived a completely smooth life up till then, so would it be in her character to hate the person who took her family or fear them? Or both?

• Answer:

  You need to create character profiles for your main and secondary characters. Who are they? What is their background (rich/poor family, travelled the world as a child, lived as a military brat, alcoholic father, etc)? What are their personality traits? - Are they ambitious; a loner; slacker; proactive; shy; boastful; eccentric; loyal; untrustworth, etc? What are their goals and ambitions in life? What is it that they want more than anything in the world and what are they willing to do to achieve it? Give your characters characteristics and personalities that real people have. This will help determine how they'd react to any obstacle you throw at them. People who loose their family react in different ways. Some might turn to religion if they're are religious; other might want revenge and seek it themselves; others might want revenge, but seek it legally through court; some might never forgive; and some might see forgiveness as the only way to move on with life. Part of building a character profile will help determine how your character reacts to events in his/her life. I've had to rewrite scenes in my novels because I knew the way I wanted to play out wasn't in line with the character's personality. You need to keep your characters consistent and show how they learn and grow over the course of the novel to become better people. Show your character's personality through dialogue, actions, and reactions, to help the reader understand who they are. It's easier said than done if you're not use to doing it, but the more you work on it then the better you'll get. Reread your favorite novels and see how the author creates the character and figure out how the author goes about showing you who the character is.