Inspiring Life to Fiction

Over ten years ago a reader-friend of mine flew over from Japan for a surprise visit. She had recommended my non-profit novella I'd e-published some years before that to her reading group, and got in contact to organise a meet with me to sign some dead tree copies for family and friends.

To be frank, it's a gross understatement to say I was surprised, and not because it seemed people were getting on with their normal lives so quickly following the huge quake that had struck the country back then. Experience often shows true courage lies in getting on with daily life in the face of adversity, and nowhere in human history has courage been such a marked facet as in people facing elemental disasters. No, I was surprised anyone cared enough about the story I had written to make such a long trip. It was the characters, she told me. She asked me if I knew them, were they real?

It's a question asked time and again on characterisation: what is the trick to inventing characters people can believe in? In answer to that question, the theory I put forward to my friend is what I call the two ticks theory. Before a writer of any medium can write honest fiction (and let's say I'm running that race but haven't passed the line yet) he or she must first know how their characters tick, and second, what makes them tick.

In my reading, I've always found that an effective writer breathes life into his or her characters by having a good knowledge of human nature. Knowing what makes people tick can clock up a timeless story, because although many things change, the basics of what moves us seem to always stay the same.

Writing Life into Fiction

I read somewhere once that writing a book is like giving birth to an entity that never existed. In my opinion writing a book should be like giving birth to characters that could well have existed. When writing fiction, in whatever genre, for that fiction to work the characters need to be realistic and credible so that on some, or many, levels the reader can connect with them.

American author James A. Michener is quoted to have said that he tried every device he knew to breathe life into his characters, because he believed there is little in fiction more rewarding that to see real people interact on a page. I agree. A writer focusing solely on elements of dialogue, theme, structure, plot, story, setting and conflict is not enough.

A story is only as great as its characters, but a character can be greater than its story. Think of some of the best stories you know, they all have great characters. Now think of some great characters you know, they don't necessarily all come from the best stories. For example, while Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan, and Ian Fleming's James Bond are prime examples of how great characters can transcend lesser stories, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Charles Dickens' Scrooge are central characters that have become so well-known as to be synonymous with the stories themselves. In a more recent example, BBC News arts editor, Will Gompertz, touched upon the subject in an article about the Harry Potter phenomenon:

People knock JK Rowling's literary talents. Some say her books have crater-like plot holes, others that she ran out of ideas early on, and several have pointed to Dahl, Tolkien and Lewis saying she's a bit like them, but not as good. Well, she's got something. In fact she's got the one thing that novelists crave more than anything else: the ability to create characters that readers care about.

This ability comes from the most important character in a story, which is, of course, the writer, because a writer's most potent source is his or her inner self. Filled with feelings, passion, desires, psychology and vision, writing life into your fiction means writing about life as seen by you. It's human observation from its most personal viewpoint, where the writer gets a chance to face their ghosts, free their inner child, or loose the monster inside themselves.

And because the greatest source a writer will have is their own honest self, whether the story is about heroism, love or murder most foul, a writer should write their characters from the inside out, and not cheat by plucking characters solely from real life (from the outside in so to speak). Playwright Tennessee Williams termed it as honest writing when the work could not be separated from the person who wrote it, and being honest in this sense is not just about writing what you know, but what you feel.

Write What You Feel

In answer to my Japanese friend's question at the start of this post, that's the type of honesty I aim for when I write to give credibility to my characters.

Some writers do extensive research for their books, but the essential components for creating believable characters with emotional depth come from inside. All meaningful writing must connect to an inner world where the narrator's heart and spirit can be heard by the reader. For if writing is exploration, then real characters are at first instance an honest exploration of the writer's own psyche.

Powerful writing must come from the heart, and it must naturally originate from the writer's own psychology and feelings. A writer needs to ask why of human behaviour (especially his or her own behaviour) in a way that a psychologist does, not to gain answers, but to gain a better understanding of the life on the page. Too often a story that doesn't work reveals that a writer can master the rules of craft, but still write stories without heart. Every hero, heroine and villain will have their flaws and their virtues. We are all capable of better or worse things. It is this requisite emotional depth that sophisticated readers look for in complicated and unique characters.

That's not to say that a writer needs to be a certified psychologist (or certifiable) but he or she needs to be a keen observer of human nature. It was American psychologist and philosopher William James that said human beings by changing the inner attitudes of their minds can change the outer aspects of their lives. When this ring of truth is worn by fictional characters - and we see their inner attitudes affecting the outer aspects of their lives - then this makes the story unfolding believable, and more importantly, makes the reader care about the characters and what is going to happen to them.

We like our heroes and heroines flawed; we want to believe that even the worst of us have a good side. We like our characters to be human, even if the story calls for them to be physically superhuman. We care more for a character if we believe in them, or at least, believe we can see something of ourselves in them. If we feel we could be the portraits of the people we read about, give or take a few brushes strokes of serendipity, or that we can at least understand them, then this is when the all-important connection between the character and reader is really made.

When the characters and their stories make a psychological connection, they can become charismatic, and even symbolic. It is this connection with readers that gives a character's voice the longevity to speak across generations, and for generations. Even when characters that possess this type of charisma are fantastical ones where you have to suspend believability (think comic book heroes), they will still personify some important, credible facet of human quality. And it's a credible, charismatic creation that breathes long life into its fiction and comes alive for readers.

Inspire Your Fiction to Life

A great, believable character also inspires, and it's another component to a character's longevity when an honest portrayal is fleshed out with a driving motivation that acts as inspiration to others. People can be attracted and influenced by strongly-driven characters in fiction, even if it's done subconsciously, by the words they use for instance.

We all know words are more than just points in a game of Scrabble, they are powerful tools in a greater game; tiles with which to spell out charms; bricks with which to build insurmountable walls, or the steps to lead over them. When these tools are placed in the hands of inspirational characters, then that power doubles. They can inspire us to do the right thing, the wrong thing, or simply the living thing. Romeo and Juliet are the melodramatic epitome of star-crossed lovers, call someone a Romeo we know what you mean; put Superman on a little boy's pyjamas, and it makes him feel invincible and want to fly. He might even want to help a cat down from a tree.

Proof in point is a story that has now gone down in the relevant annals of history: film-maker Quentin Tarantino is said to have been so influenced by Elmore Leonard's stories that in his youth he would do anything to get his hands on the author's books. Leonard is a novelist and screenwriter known for his gritty realism and strong dialogue, and praised for his intimate portraits of real people and his ear for realistic dialogue.

Tarantino, who used the basis of a Leonard book for his 1997 film Jackie Brown, has talked in interviews about getting caught stealing a Leonard novel, and that despite being in serious trouble, his real disappointment had been his failure to appropriate the book. Stealing is definitely the wrong thing, but it's hard not to see Tarantino as a reader so inspired that he had to get the book at any cost. And, like something out of a Leonard novel, two days later Tarantino went back to steal the book again, successfully this time. Now, if that isn't inspiring your life to fiction, what is?

So, to end with advice from the inspirational Leonard, who has his own ten rules for writing fiction, the most important of which, he says, is the one that sums them all up: If it sounds like writing, rewrite it. Ultimately when all is said and done, there's no better advice than this in keeping your characters real.

Published 17 January, 2026

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