How to write compelling characters

There’s nothing quite like a character that jumps off the page. I love reading a book and being able to picture the person and scene. So when writing She Came To Stay, it was crucial that I could picture everyone involved. My writing is set in the 1950s, and heavily influenced by the movies of the time. It seemed only right I should look at the celebrities then for inspiration.

Using famous faces

The photo here shows some of the research I did when trying to create the four characters for She Came To Stay: Dina, Bebba, Peter and Andreas.

Dina

I used two pictures. The first shows what she looks like before meeting her friend Bebba (wide-eyed, innocent, less polished). This is from a vintage hairstyle poster. The second photo shows her more sophisticated and worldly now she’s been to hell and back (actress Eleanor Parker).

Bebba

For Dina’s glamorous, mysterious friend, I found a photo of actress Kim Novak with a certain slinky attitude I wanted to describe (see that pose, second left). The second photo underneath shows actress Beverly Michaels; I found this photo after my editor said she couldn’t picture Bebba’s hair. This is her hairstyle!  Short, quite severe at the back, curls at the front.

Peter

Dina’s brother is a small-time gangster with big-time aspirations – hence this photo of Richard Attenborough as Pinkie in Brighton Rock. Peter doesn’t literally look like this (he’s much darker and a bit underfed). So I’ve scribbled some notes on this that say ‘Peter - but tall and slim. He’s all angles’.  It was the menace and opportunism here that I wanted to recreate in Peter’s scenes.

Andreas

Dina’s secret boyfriend is older than her by a decade or more and, with his swept back hair and that devilish moustache, she tells him he looks just like the actor Clark Gable. ‘No,’ he responds, ‘ he looks like me.’ Which just about sums him up. Of course this is a photo of Clark Gable.

What will they wear?

Every writer is different – some spend ages thinking about their character’s home town, family background or favourite colour. I’d say make notes on whatever helps you. For me, one the key questions is how they dress. As Dina is a seamstress, clothes are very important in She Came To Stay. I spent ages poring over McDowell’s Dictionary of Twentieth Century Fashion  by Colin McDowell, checking the fashions of 1952. I do have lots of old photos from my parents’ era, but there’s nothing quite like a thick encyclopaedia of fashion to answer random questions like ‘what underwear would she have worn?’ (often a girdle and a full slip) and ‘would men always have hats?’ (pretty much, yes).

How other writers do it

Here’s a video of a chat I had with Louise Hare, author of This Lovely City, and Charlotte Levin, author of If I Can’t Have You, on how we write our characters. Hosted by author Trevor Wood (One Way Street), it’s a good insight into how different our approaches can be.  

• Think of a book you adore – who is your favourite character in that book?
  How do you picture them?
  Does a clear vision of what they look like matter to you and why?
  If you’re writing, what do you do to bring your characters to life?
  I’d love to know, so do leave a comment below.