Nahno McLein

For some time now I have been wondering why  writing the story seems so hard. Well, I'm only at the beginning but still. Then I heard from fellow students that they are doing character sketches and I thought to myself: Nahno, why are you not doing this? You're perfectly capable of having some sense.

Yes, I think it's one of the most sensible things to do as a writer. What do you think? Are you using character sketches?

I started doing one for my main character. Of course I had thought a lot about his character already, where he is from, when he was born, why he is studying in England and not in America. I decided what his main character traits would be and how he would deal with some difficult situations. Well, I thought it's enough, but then I figured it wasn't.

How?

Well, when I was looking for dialogue for Felix, my main character, I always felt that I have to think really hard about what he would say compared to what I said. I just wasn't completely into his character yet.

So, now I did a character sketch and it does help. For some reason I felt that he would most likely study something like architecture but I was never really sure why? It had to be something smart, something where you can physically influence the world So, I invited an architect graduate over to tell me about the life of an architect and how students are like.

The way in which my imagined character fit to general architect students was amazing. Apparently they are all obsessed and have an underlying indisposition. Exactly what I wanted.

So now I have answered hundreds of random questions about my character, about him and from his point of view and I think I know him so much better now.
What are you experiences with characters? How do you make them cohesive?