My wife and fellow author, Kim Conrey, and I interviewed each other recently for an event at the Milton Branch Library. During Q&A with the audience, a friend asked us, “How do you create your characters?” Typically, I respond to this question by talking about how I imagine a character’s needs vs. their wants and a secret need they’re not aware of until the story gets going. The secret need is usually something they’re actively behaving in opposition to at the start of the story (e.g., in my amateur-sleuth murder mystery Aftermath, Janet Wright has a secret need to become independent but is engaging in dependent or codependent behaviors until she has an epiphany during the novel that she doesn’t require anyone else in order to feel good about herself). A million writers have said this sort of thing before—it’s a boring answer, but that’s how I’ve always thought about developing my characters.

Kim, with her usual brilliance, rocked me back with her reply: she thinks about the major obstacle her character is trying to overcome and how they go about doing that. The character is defined by their reaction to the obstacle rather than the hurdle itself.

For example, her heroine of Stealing Ares, Harlow Hanson, was born with a neurological speech and language processing disorder that means she grew up having a hard time understanding others or expressing herself. She compensated for this by making her other senses sharper, her powers of observation keener, and her drive to achieve her goals even more determined. When thinking about Harlow, those are the qualities the reader thinks about, not the obstacle that spurred her to strive harder. When you consider a diamond, you think about its remarkable attributes, not the intense pressure and heat that transformed it from lowly carbon.

This was a revelation to me. I realized that, as a reader, I think of the characters I’m reading about using Kim’s approach. How do they respond to the initial threat or call to action that launches the story? How do they handle adversity and setbacks along the way? How do they respond when all seems to be lost and failure or even death is at hand?

If someone asks me to describe the characters I’m reading about, I talk about the protagonist’s resiliency, moxie, and intrepidness. I speak about the antagonist’s ingenuity, determination, and cunning.

So why don’t I think about these traits immediately when I create the characters for my latest novel? Why instead do these attributes bubble to the surface as I’m getting to know the characters while writing their story?

I dunno. I’ve just never thought of the process that way while forming my Adams and Eves from the mud and ribs of my imagination.

To me, this sort of revelation is the miracle at the center of the creative process. I’ve been writing novels for nearly 25 years, and I can still be surprised by something as basic as how I can change the way I create my characters. It’s an epiphany I want to share with readers because I want to know how you think of the characters you enjoy reading about.

Do you first think of their intelligence, appearance, skills, and other such traits? Do you first think of their response to difficulties or danger? Is it a mix of these attributes and behaviors? Or something else entirely?

Inquiring minds want to know!