I normally start my stories with a character who is a type of me, because that is usually how my stories start. I ask myself who I would be and what I would be doing if I were in such a situation.
And I normally appear something akin to myself. It isn't pride as much as a realistic grounding. I might have been fourteen when I started imagining myself, albeit with cool hair or a better figure, instead of some beautiful blond girl. That was one of the moments where I realized I couldn't change what I looked like, but I could control what happened to me. In the story, anyway. To this day, many of my characters will posses some of my physical flaws, like freckles. I might change my eyes to green, because if I can't have green eyes in my own story, then what is the point? And it's a much smaller change than being a blond.
So I have this little me-type. Another reason I start with myself is because I believe I understand myself, and when in doubt, my character can just do what I would do. Then, I put the little me-type in the story, where she must become acquainted with her new world. See? I'm already referring to her in the third person. This is where we tend to part ways. Because now that she is in the story, I am only experiencing it vicariously through her. She might have been me, but to give her a place in the world, I have to figure out what she is doing there, and how she got into such a mess. And in discovering these things about her, I discover that she has deviated from me. With a different past, she becomes a different person. And as is the case with some characters, I end up trying to understand them, like we only recently met and I hadn't created them in the first place.
When characters take on a life of their own, the author is no longer really in control. If you want a character to do a particular thing, you have to come up with a situation in which it would be natural to do such a thing. One story I wrote was based merely on the premise, "what would it take to make Jasper swear?" Jasper is a pacifist, kind, and very even tempered. So the answer to that question is, "really, quite a lot." And poor Jasper really had a bad time of it. He ends up becoming almost suicidal, and I wouldn't have expected that from him. And then, in reverse, you can simply put your character in a situation, and hope for the best. Your character should then respond with whatever is natural to them, even if it is inconvenient to you. I don't have such a specific example for this one, but I know I've encountered it. And something that can really make your book seem like it is trying too hard, or is more your dream romance than an actual story, is to force a character to behave in a way that is unnatural. I hate that.
So, in example of character creation, I recently created a character. A type of me, in a steampunk world. I think she will be Irish. So she can inherit my pale skin, freckles, and dark hair. She gets green eyes, CAUSE SHE CAN. She also gets dreadlocks, cause I think they are fun. Now, I like my steampunk character to have mechanical skills to get her foot in the door with gadgetry and still have the potential for full blown inventor status by book three or so. And for some reason, maybe to push her into the life of crime, I made her poor. So my poor Irish dreadlocked mechanic girl has wound up in the Americas and I am going to push her at a cowboy who is also acting as a thief. But something changes from me.
First, I am not Irish. Secondly, she had to have some sort of background to become a mechanic and end up in America. Now she has tragically been separated from or lost her parents. And she has to be really stubborn in the face of Victorian convention to continue plying her trade. I don't know if I am really the convention-breaking sort of stubborn. Obviously, I'd like to think I am, but I rather doubt it. Then, when she meets my cowboy thief, she has to be just enough seperated from my legalism which cannot really fathom why someone might go about breaking the law.
And in the end, Brianna is an entirely different person than I am. She somehow became slightly eccentric, very focused while working, excitable, unable to really fathom her own danger, and somewhat absent-minded. And now that she is no longer me, I have to begin again attempting to understand her and what drives her and what she might do in any given situation.
Then, creating characters for a role-playing steampunk game, I think, oh, I'll just make a mechanic named Brianna Lynch and play as my character. And then suddenly I am on an airship, and then we've decided I am actually crew, maybe even head mechanic. My story has changed again.
I love writing.
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