Character is Everything

I got a text message a while back from a friend that made me laugh. This friend and I met through NaNoWriMo, started a writing group together, discussed writing over the last 8 years, and we've read one another's work. During the conversation today, which was quite long, he paid me the nicest compliment anyone has ever paid me. Here is the initial message and the praise that followed.  

"Do you have a process you go through to create a character, or do you just say I need this and sit down and "pants it" and the character comes naturally?"

I responded, "LOL, say what? Give me a minute to reread and process that." 

After digesting it I took several minutes to explain several aspects of my character creation techniques, and how I might be crazy. His response was so nice.

"You are BRILLIANT with characters. If that's crazy, I'd take it in a second. Yes REALLY! You have characters that just come to you. You take a simple character and make the reader care, even if they aren't doing anything. I see plot. I can create setting. I suck at character.You SEE character, that is by far the most important of the three."

I was a bit taken aback because I'd never thought about it much. And certainly no one had ever told me I was brilliant, except family.

My friend and I have discussed this character creation issue several times and he does seem to have a mental block when it comes to it. But in some of his stories I've read, he has some wonderful characters. So, it confuses me when he says he has difficulty creating one. I can't even imagine not being able to do so.

Still, the conversation made me think about my process in a different way. I had playmates as a child but I distinctly remember playing alone quite a bit and I always made up characters and played parts, like a play. I was a nurse or a teacher. My made-up characters might be a doctor, or patient or a student. Or all of them. I suppose you'd call them imaginary friends but I don't remember anyone ever saying that and, in fact, no one ever said a word but they must have heard me because I talked! 

I created stories with characters in my head long before I could write. My grandmother said at three I sat on the sofa and "read" the comics. Dick Tracy was apparently my favorite. She said I couldn't actually read but it didn't matter because I made up my own story based on the pictures and read that aloud. I was three! That shocks even me. 

What it amounts to, then, is for nearly 60 years I've created characters. I've made them walk, talk, and act. I've imagined them doing and saying things and things happening to them for decades. Not until I was 11 did I start writing it down. 

So do my early years have anything to do with my ability to create a great character? Maybe it does. I do think I'm good at creating a character. I wish I had my friend's talent for plot. The man can sniff out a plot hole faster than a bloodhound could find your mother-in-law. 

Toward the end of our conversation he said "Character is everything." I agree with him. I've always believed the best stories had characters that reached out and grabbed you and it didn't matter how exciting the plot, if the characters were flat, I wouldn't read it. It was quite nice to know that  my characters can reach out and grab someone.