Hello my beautiful friends!
I hope you’ve been well over the last fortnight. Firstly I want to welcome all of the new subscribers to the Stormhouse letter who are here thanks to downloading A Student Has Drowned (now available in paperback). I’m so glad you’re here!
Last weekend we had a launch party for the first Stormhouse book to hit the interweb waves, A Rockstar Has Exploded.
It was a blast. Special thanks to Sophie for convincing me to do the work involved in getting the paperback to the world, and to Julia for organising a wine hook-up… There is a slight chance we over-indulged, but it was worth it to celebrate!
Check out my character board
It’s a spoiler-free image of my character sheet for the fourth Seen in Silverbridge book. Some of you got in touch to say it was great (thank you), or to ask questions about it, so I thought I’d spend today telling you about:
🧬 Human-Making Magic
First of all, is this a time-consuming process?
Yes.
Is it worth every single second spent and then some?
Big yes.
You can spend as much time on this as you want, but I can’t over-emphasise the value this writing will add to your writing in the long term. Trust me, you will find yourself coming back to your character sheet again and again and again in the process of writing your drafts, and it helps loads.
Stupid small details like your character’s favourite food matter. You might reference them twice over the course of your ten-book series, but when you mention them, they need to be consistent. Even though specific details might seem trivial, none of them is (the difference between a character whose favourite food is McDonald’s and one whose is anchovy and tomato tostada is significant).
This is my process. Feel free to take what you like and leave what you don’t. This resource, your character sheet, is unique to you and your work, so make it work any way you want.
- Create a table
Excel spreadsheet, a Notion database, a table in Apple Notes, Google Sheets, anywhere!
I use Google Sheets for no other reason than I’m used to it.
- Write the names of your lead characters across the top
- Write the details down the side
- Fill out the info
It’s that easy.
🎨 Finding your Character Image
I like to start with a photo of the character. A lot of writers I know have an idea of who they would cast in their dream casting for their characters. We stumbled upon Sophie Turner from Game of Thrones for our lead character of Lucinda Sharp, and her photo has been on the Seen in Silverbridge Hero Sheet since we started.
Look through Pinterest. Google search. Hell, use Bing if you want. If your character doesn’t look like any actors that you know off the top of your head, I find that scrolling through Instagram and Facebook helps. There are a lot of people out there, so if you look for long enough, you’ll find the perfect person.
👾 Pro Tip
If you don’t feel like trawling the internet for hours looking for an overly specific image of a person, you can use AI. I use Leonardo.ai for my character images. You could try www.artbreeder.com, ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com, character-generator.org.uk, or GeneratedPhotos.
Once you’ve got the faces in place, it’s time to move on to the harder part.
🎻 Who Is This Person?
There are a bunch of variables that make up a person’s character, and you can split them up into two categories: Material and Intangible.
Favourite sport, favA Rockstar Has Explodednguishing physical traits…. These can all be measured. But how does someone react when they’re cornered? How does somebody deal with bad news? What’s a formative memory from their childhood? Those are just as important, maybe more so, and a lot harder to pin down.
This is where you stretch your creative muscle. And don’t just write down the first thing you think of. Really consider every one of these variables because they all contribute to making your character feel more like your Character**,** with a capital C and in italics. They become themselves.
A lot of the time, the character will dictate their likes and dislikes and formative experiences for you. It just … makes sense. That’s a treat when that happens. But most of the time, it’s up to you to comb through your breadth of experiences and knowledge about how people work and choose what feels like for your character.
Here’s the list of details I use:
Nickname, Age, Birthday, Ethnicity/Country of Birth, Height, Residence, Relationship Status, Siblings, Parents, Children, Job, Email, Socials, Distinguishing physical traits, Personality traits, Education, Likes, Dislikes, Favourite sport/exercise, Ambitions, Favourite music, Religion/Spiritual beliefs, What they do in their spare time? What would their dream job be? Who is their favourite celebrity? Favourite food, Favourite drink, Favourite clothes, What do they fear? What do they chase?
That looks like a daunting list, I know! But once you start, it is fun. If you struggle to fill out every last thing, I suggest using AI to help. I often write a few prompts into ChatGPT to get ideas flowing. For example:
🧪 Cook Up A Character
If I go through all of these steps and fill out all of those details for each main character in a book I’m writing, I fly through the draft. I can open my spreadsheet whenever I need a refresher, and there is everything I could ever need. Getting to know the amorphous characters inside your head becomes easy once you’ve done this exercise.
Go forth and make your own character sheet!