Alchemy

...is part craft, part alchemy.

The craft part is relatively straightforward. Sketch a family background - how did they become who they are? Is their job important to the story? If so, research what characteristics they would need to make them good at their job - or bad, if the story requires - and how that effects their relationships with other characters. What do they want? What do they need? Does their psyche help or hinder them in getting it? Why?

And so on.

But there's something else. I tiptoe round them, filling in bits and pieces that seem to fit, sizing them up, sticking in a failed relationship here, a guilty conscience there, an obsession down in that damp patch in the shadows, circling them warily with but one question; that's all very well, but who are you?

And then, if I'm lucky, I get it. A sudden insight - something which takes that patchwork biography of attributes, desires, and contradictions and links it - no, merges it with the story that is simultaneously taking shape. Hard to explain, but for me it's often linked to an understanding of the overall theme of the piece. He is like this, which is why it makes puts him in conflict with that in the third act, which is why he... will pursue vengeance at the cost of all he loves... pursue love in spite of the world being against him etc. And so the biography becomes a character, and the character, story.

Character is story, story is character. They're not linked - they are inextricably intertwined and inter-dependent.

I only mention this because it happened a couple of days ago - I've been wrestling with a character for a while, compiling notes with a frustrating lack of direction and then PING - she came alive, and the story with her. Magical.

Alchemy.

I'm sure I could analyse that process in the hope of making it systematic and reliable, but you know what? I prefer the magic. It's those precious, rare moments that make the slog worthwhile.