Who inhabits the world of your novel?

An essential element of creative writing is fabricating believable characters. If we do our jobs right, our readers may relate to characters as friends, see themselves reflected, or dislike who they are, even if they like how they’re written. But where do characters come from? How do we make them three-dimensional? How do we decide who gets to stay and who must go?

I had the advantage of “stealing” from real-life people, many of whom contributed elements to composite characters, in my first novel, “The Italian Prisoner.” The Italian POWs housed during World War II in New Orleans and their Sicilian-American sweethearts provided a vibrant pool of true stories. I also drew on my own colorful Italian immigrant family. Grandma Speranza generated so many broken-English aphorisms that we put them on a poster at her funeral. My godmother was a direct model for the character of Aunt Inez in the book, right down to the cigarettes, highballs, and timely advice. “Don’t worry about what other people think,” Aunt Inez tells the novel’s main character, Rose. “You’re a woman now. Your life is yours to make.”

Captain McCarthy in my new novel, “Triage,” and Mr. Sullivan in “The Italian Prisoner” are composites of all the great bosses I’ve had in my life. Other characters popped up from the recesses of my brain and from pop culture. Marie, Rose’s best friend in “The Italian Prisoner,” spoke to me with the voice of Rosie O’Donnell’s character in “A League of Their Own,” for example. 

Sometimes, though, even great characters just don’t make the cut. A while back, I wrote a Substack post called “The Island of Misfit Characters,” where I lamented the loss of some of my characters in the revision phase for “Triage.” I’m sad the world will never get to know Enzo the hot handyman, Ellie the rookie nurse, and Carl the Charity Hospital facilities manager. They had their day in early drafts, but ultimately couldn’t find a way to serve the story, so out they went.

For those who get to stay, it’s worth creating fairly thorough backstories for them, even though very little of it may end up in the final manuscript. For me, it’s important to know their family circumstances (economic, social, cultural, religious, ethnic), birth order, education, and milestone events in their lives, among other traits. But we also need to know what our characters want or fear and what (or who) stands in their way. What’s at stake? And what happens if they don’t get what they want? My editor/coach Allison Alsup says: “No conflict equals no story.” She taught me to ask my characters questions and to keep asking, “Yeah, but why?”

New Orleans author, creative writing professor, and newly minted Guggenheim fellow Maurice Carlos Ruffin advises us to find out what’s bothering our characters, “make sure they’re aggravated,” and ask, “What is the wound they’ve been unable to heal?” That question was particularly relevant in writing the main character, Laura, in “Triage.” Laura is the middle child, eager to please, anxious to fix things, and to have everyone get along. Then she’s plunged into the war, where so much is out of her control. She’s a “good girl,” an A-student, a loyal daughter and sister. But war is full of moral ambiguity, people with very different values and perspectives from her own, and life-and-death situations. I know the reader needed to see all that, to feel it, to make what happened to Laura after the war was over credible and compelling. I also needed to get to the bottom of why Laura made the choices she made, particularly when they threatened to upend her life entirely.

The writer Stewart O’Nan, a master of character development, suggests “conducting an interview” with your characters or writing a letter of confession from your character to someone close to them. “The goal is to know your characters better than you could ever know anyone in real life,” he says, so you’ll know what they’ll really do in a certain situation.

In his writing craft book “Aspects of the Novel,” E.M. Forster famously advised writers to make our characters “round vs. flat.” I love it when book clubs argue about the motivations of my characters and speculate about their past and future lives. It means I’ve succeeded in rounding out the characters and that readers care enough to have opinions — sometimes strong opinions — about them. It’s especially important to flesh out secondary characters, who can too easily be rendered “flat” and serve to distract the reader, rather than support the narrative. If they’re important enough to have a name, I say give them a little backstory and a character arc.

Sometimes a single factoid unlocks a whole world we can suffuse into our story. For example, the one-armed veteran Boyer, who plays an important role in “Triage,” was being scouted for the pros as a pitcher before he enlisted in the war. His irretrievable wound makes him a sympathetic character, despite his bitterness.

Some writers fill out an exhaustive dossier on each major character. What’s their favorite color? Their favorite flavor of ice cream? One writer I know gives her characters fake Myers-Briggs-based personality tests. Another does their astrological charts. I’ve tried to find a balance — the road to hell is paved with procrastination.

Finding authenticity for all the characters can be challenging if we don’t have the same life experience they do. “Triage” is a story about World War II Army nurses. I’ve never been a nurse or a veteran, and I felt a heavy obligation to accurately portray those who served. Extensive research was critically important, of course, especially from primary sources like letters, journals, and oral histories. Then there’s “what comes for free,” as one writer said. Sadly, I was able to draw upon direct family experience with untreated trauma, addiction, and survivor’s guilt. Beta readers — nurses and veterans — also provided valuable insights on military, medical, and historical aspects of the story.

My writer friends and I often talk about our fictional characters as if they were real people, with minds, thoughts, and feelings of their own. The first time one of my characters woke me out of a sound sleep to tell me something important, I realized it was true. Now I’ve made up a spare room in my heart for all of them, and for those who are just a gleam in my eye.