One Character’s Character
So my current main character is Anna. I’m still exploring Anna’s personality and she’s still surprising me with bits of background and quirks she had forgotten to mention, like her fanatical love for speed.
Whenever I’m in doubt about details, I hop on the web and start looking. Only the car really mattered; the rest was for my benefit. It took some time to find her speed delivery system, but I think I have one selected.
Just thought I’d share a bit of method in case you ever get stuck on aspects of your character’s…well, character. None of these things are described in detail in the story, but they are fleshed out in my mind, which makes them more real as I move characters around on their stage and write what they do.
The Saleen S7 is a 2005 model year. The story takes place circa 2020, so this car is fifteen years old. It’s a bit offbeat, known to sports car junkies but not everyone else, and fits her love for speed. The S7 has been clocked at over 200 mph.
Anna doesn’t care about clothes (and wouldn’t be caught DEAD in the dress above). She shops out of catalogs. 
She hangs out in long sleeve t-shirts with a flannel thrown on over blue jeans. I’ve tired to dress her in a skirt. The best I can get is a laid back L.L. Bean kind of business casual with loafers. That’s Anna when she’s dressed to the nines.
Anna’s cat loves to purr…for other people. It’s not the cat’s fault. Anna is away a lot, leaving kitty with the lady next door (who takes good care of her) or boarding in a kennel for short periods. 
Anna met her kitty, Amber, at a local shelter in a moment when aloneness was overwhelming. She thinks about Amber every time she’s gone and knows that her responsibility to the cat has brought her through times when she’d rather have given up.
I know so much more about this woman on the job, and of course that’s why I spent a few hours researching the rest of her life. I wanted to get to know Anna better. She is so different from me.
Her house even took me by surprise. I expected urban or modernist. I did not expect slightly outdated contemporary. Her condo was probably the height of fashion when she first moved in (and her sister decorated it). She hasn’t changed a thing since, leaving the atmosphere as sterile as a hotel room.
And no, none of this is crucial. But now I can move Anna around her world in a bit more realistic fashion and find I add little details without thought that help the setting or her character come alive. Minimal detail, but rich and consistent.
Great post! It’s those ‘little details’ that can make a character really come alive. Your character Anna seems well rounded enough to be believable in any fictional tale.
I still struggle with making my characters more realistic, but this post gives me some good inspiration.
Keep up the good work!
I enjoyed hearing about your character and how you develop her. I’m going to see if I can fit a link to this somewhere in my ongoing series on creating fictional characters.
@Brad Thank you.
I started creating a story poster last spring and put pics of these things on it. Helps me to remember details.
@Lillie Your series is great! And it would be an honor.
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