Some time ago I stole a book – like you do. Obviously I stole a book – I’ve stolen many books in my life – because someone made the mistake of lending it to me. If you lend a book – and you should definitely lend books – you should become acquainted with the ancient ritual of saying Hey, I lend you my book knowing it means Hey, I’ve read this great book and I give it to you fully knowing that I won’t see it again, but I want you to have it.

I’d like to think that the person who lent me this book I’ll talk about in a second knew about this ancient ritual and isn’t pissed off at me for stealing it.

Creating unforgettable characters, by Linda Seger. It has some good pointers that I’d like to share with you. Let’s just pick up a couple in this post and we’ll follow up later, shall we?

1. You’re doing general research all the time

This is one of my own, but Linda agrees: we’re always researching for characters. Writers are observers. Some writers observe inside their heads, they live way deep inside their neurons, and then we end up with out-of-this-world story-tellers like Ray Bradbury – great, bring it on, I say! Some other writers are always visually hungry and are able to absorb every detail of everything surrounding them, from the wrinkles on someone’s face to the smell of the buses driving by, and we end up with amazing social narrators like Kennedy Toole. I find that Latin American writers in the 70s and 80s found an unbeatable balance of both, and we have Garcia Marquez and his nemesis, Vargas Llosa.

But unless you have an eidetic memory, you better take notes while researching for your characters. One of my first non-optional recommendations for my students is Buy a pocket-sized notebook and carry it with you at all times. Use it every day and write at least three observations. You’ll thank me later.

2. Characters don’t exist in a vacuum

This statement works for two purposes: cultural background and immediate surroundings. For example, I was watching True Detective yesterday and noticed that the bad guy had a strong southern accent most of the time (which makes perfect sense because all the characters live in the south and have the same accent), but suddenly in episode 7 he started talking proper old English. Why? What happened? It’s a good script, though, it gives enough elements to think there’s a logical explanation somewhere. Maybe he speaks like that because his father was an educated man, but the baddie never updated his proper English because he’s been living in the woods. Did he read it in a book where he got the idea of his ritualistic killings? Maybe. It throws you off but remains believable.

Your characters must sound plausible. How they walk, talk, act and how other characters react to them. Nana, by Emile Zola, was a scandalous prostitute-come-actress, so characters around her treated her like the prostitute she was, but given the historical period, it’s decadence more than immorality, what surrounds Nana.