What makes characters real are details, and if you're crafting a person from scratch, you're probably not going to pay as much attention to a question like, 'Does this person bite their nails?'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Among adults, we can admit that of course, characters are creations. They aren't real people.
All I can guess is that when I write, I forget that it's not real. I'm living the story, and I think people can read that sincerity about the characters. They are real to me while I'm writing them, and I think that makes them real to the readers as well.
Kids often ask me if characters are real or made up - and I always tell them, 'I hope they're real but I made them up.'
I treat all my characters as if they were real, and I am scrupulous about the details of their lives.
I've always remembered something Sanford Meisner, my acting teacher, told us. When you create a character, it's like making a chair, except instead of making someting out of wood, you make it out of yourself. That's the actor's craft - using yourself to create a character.
To me, my characters are more real than most people I meet.
We, people, are so very, very complicated that no matter how well drawn a fictional character is, they can't get anywhere near as complex as a real person.
I'm not in the business of meddling with people's destinies - and yes, my characters are real people to me. They have histories and thoughts and yearnings and hurts and misgivings and pleasures that don't belong to me.
Creating characters is like throwing together ingredients for a recipe. I take characteristics I like and dislike in real people I know, or know of, and use them to embellish and define characters.
In order to make characters real - no matter what the character is doing - you have to see yourself as capable of having done that.