One of the most challenging (and the most fun) things writers do is create characters. If you’re a fiction writer, this means imagining an entire personality, a network of relationships, a web of memories, a whole life, from scratch. It’s an act of sheer audacity to create this person that people will come to know, believe in, love, or hate. At its best, it’s a miracle: Imagine breathing life into an Atticus Finch, a Hester Prynne, a Lisbeth Salander.
If you write creative nonfiction, you’re not off the hook. Just because you’re writing about real people doesn’t mean you aren’t also creating characters. The people you write about aren’t actually real people, they’re your interpretation of real people. They’re real people seen through your lens and, in that way, they’re your creation. They are fashioned and shaped in much the same way that fictional characters are.
Creative writing teachers have come up with scores of techniques for helping students give their characters dimension and depth. Some ask them to write biographies for their characters. The idea isn’t to use that biographical material in your story or essay, but to get to know your character inside and out. That way, your characters will come alive and will respond to situations in ways that seem authentic. Other writing teachers have their students write detailed descriptions of their characters’ physical appearance. Or they have them describe exactly how their characters would respond to specific situations, as in “Describe a scene in which this person loses his car keys and is late for work.” How your character reacts to a specific problem or interaction can often tell you more than any elaborate description of her personality.
I have used all of these techniques in my writing classes. But I also do something else—something a little different. My students often start out thinking it’s dumb, but they eventually come around. It doesn’t take long to see that this technique can provide some surprising information about your character.
The key is to ask one question: What does my character eat for breakfast? If you’re wondering how this could help you create a character, look at the following breakfasts. Then write a description of the person who might be eating it.
- A cup of tea and two slices of toast with no butter.
- Two rashers of bacon. Two pork sausages. Two fried eggs. A shortstack of pancakes.
- A cup of coffee from Macdonald’s, black. Nothing else.
- Organic granola with soy milk and a cup of herbal tea.
- A croissant stuffed with custard, and coffee with half-and-half and two packets of sugar.
- Kellogg’s Fruit Loops Marshmallow®cereal with chocolate milk.
Need I go on?
I often have my students describe the people they imagine eating these breakfasts. They don’t come up with identical images. What they do come up with are characters who have personalities, lifestyles, beliefs, attitudes, and bodies. What a person eats for breakfast says a lot about how they feel physically, how they are preparing for their day, what they enjoy in life. The person with the custard-filled croissant clearly has a different relationship to food from the one nibbling on dry toast. The one munching on organic granola is going to feel and probably look different from the one with the bacon, sausage, and eggs. Even political and religious attitudes can be reflected in breakfast. Personality certainly can.
You don’t have to rely on stereotypes to do this exercise. An interesting alternative is to write against type. Describe an austere Supreme Court justice who can’t start his day without his Cap’n Crunch. Or a yoga teacher who begins her morning with leftover pizza.
Try this: Pick one of your characters and imagine them sitting down at the breakfast table. What is in front of them? How do they feel about it? How does it make them feel? What does that one simple choice—what to eat for the first meal of the day—tell you about the person you are creating on the page?