How You Can Use the World Around You to Create Your Characters
- Cully Perlman
- 23 hours ago
- 6 min read
It’s easy to block out the world when you’re writing. As writers, we get caught up in things like the plot of our story, who our characters are and how we’re inventing them out of thin air or based on someone we know, what the central conflict of our novel should be (or is), the structure of our novel, how to capture the dialect of a certain region or country, and so on. During the process, it’s easy to get tunnel vision. And that’s a mistake. Or not a mistake, but it creates missed opportunities we shouldn’t dismiss as obstacles or distractions to what we’re trying to achieve.
As we write, and especially during the beginning days of a new novel or short story, we must try to be hyper-aware of our surroundings. We should pay attention to how people look around while they’re pumping gas at the Shell down the block. Are they aware of their surroundings? Looking at their feet? Daydreaming? Paying close attention to the numbers flipping on the pump because they only have three bucks for gas and not a penny more? It’s the details that we’re able to pull from the world around us that, if need be, we can leverage for our writing. A friend of mine does this thing called “found poems.” They’re always short, and they’re always hilarious. Typos. Misspellings. Adding or subtracting words. And like that. (Ironically enough, I think I just stole his “and like that.”
One of the best ways to pick up characters is by listening to the conversations around us. When you’re at Starbuck’s with your computer, listen to the conversations the people around you are having. Are they excited? Sad? Perturbed? Perhaps angry about something that’s happening to them at work? In their lives? Between them and their significant other? If so, write down the interesting parts. Or tape the whole thing, if you don’t feel like you’re being too creepy. Look over from time to time. Are they using their hands in some way? Being expressive? What are their facial expressions? Can you describe them? Anxious? Thrilled? Depressed? Do you have any characters in your novel that may benefit from something you hear the barista telling one of his colleagues about a customer when the customer steps away from the counter? It’s all great stuff. Or most of it is, anyway. You’ll have to get rid of the “ums” and the inconsequential banter and actions, or maybe not; it’s up to you. Remember, communication doesn’t just have to be verbal—as I mentioned above, hand movements and other nonverbal communication is just as important (and often more important) than what a character says. If your character punches someone in the face, that person gets the point. No words need saying.
Paying attention to the world around you for character inspiration is one of the best and most effective ways for you, as an author, to not only glean information but, in many instances, for you to create your characters. The world is full of eccentric and exaggerated and quirky and dramatic and gullible people. It’s full of empathetic and brilliant and cruel and, well, different personalities that you can leverage for your fictive pursuits. Most of us base our characters in some way on the people we know, be they friends, family members, acquaintances, work colleagues, or other people we come in contact with who make an impression on us. I know I do. I don’t create characters that are exactly like the people I know, but I do take traits from different people I find interesting and mix them together to create one character, at least when I think it’ll create someone worth keeping around.
Here’s how you can use the world around you to create your characters:
1. Check out the dynamics of your colleagues at work. How do people interact with each other? Do they act the same when interacting with the higher ups? Does anyone stick out for their quirks? For their demeanor? Is anyone a troublemaker for some reason? A prankster? Write these things down, at least the interesting things. Use what you want; discard what you don’t. But keep it all somewhere. You never know when something you’ve jotted down will come in handy.
2. Pay attention to how people dress. Do your neighbors go out in thirty-degree weather wearing shorts and T-shirts? Does everyone at your local grocery store dress in skinny jeans, band tees, and dark hair? You may be living in a neighborhood where a lot of emo (emotional hardcore rock music) followers reside. The streets covered in dockers, light pink and blue polos? Brown leather belts? You may just be in Charleston, South Carolina or Atlanta, Georgia, where the preppy look is always in style. Use these things to create your characters and draw in the surrounding atmosphere of where they’d be at home.
3. Keep your eyes and ears open for why people do the things they do. Character motivations are critical to driving your novel’s plot. If we don’t know what a character wants, then that character is probably expendable. Sure, there are secondary characters that are just there to get our heroine where she needs to go, but characters who don’t have clear motivations for their actions are, well, boring.
4. Ask yourself “what if” questions. What if that woman at the drive-thru decided to ram the car in front of her? Why would she do that? What if your mother just up and left your father one day? She left a note, sure, but that was it. No talk about it. No discussion. Just up and left. Why would she do that? And how would you and your father react. What if? questions often lead to a plethora of interesting questions and then responses that can drive your fiction forward, and you’ll probably enjoy where that drive takes you.
5. Dive deep into your characters by imagining their flaws. How many times have you read a novel or short story and thought, that is her Achilles heel? He can’t handle rejection. They are incapable of showing empathy? His grandfather can never admit he’s wrong, even when he knows it? List out some flaws and apply them to characters you have, or build characters around those flaws. If it works, great. If not, well, it’s all just part of the writing process.
6. Are your characters ethnicities different than those around them? Drop a Spaniard with little English skills into Alabama. Have them walk into a biker bar. There are Confederate battle flags all over, right next to Don’t Tread on Me flags, and maybe worse. What happens? How does our hero react when she walks in? Is she afraid? Is she a no-nonsense woman who won’t put up with disrespect, or anything like it? What does she do when a tatted-up biker tells her they don’t allow her type in the bar?
7. Does your character have a tic? Maybe they walk with a limp. How’d they get that limp? Were they shot in Iraq? Did a car hit them on a street in Brooklyn when they were playing stickball? And that scar from ear to ear? They can’t stop sliding their finger across it at least twenty times a day. Did someone try to slice their throat as a child? Did they do it themselves, and thus touch it as a reminder of where they used to be mentally? Figure that out and see where it leads you.
Now, I know I’ve worded all of the above from your characters’ perspectives and point of view, but think about people around your protagonist being the ones I’ve described above. How do these things affect them? Does your character take on the traits of your other characters to advance their goals in life? To manipulate their situation(s) in order to benefit somehow? Does your Spaniard have the ability to mimic the southern drawl and toughness of the bikers in our rebel bar? Maybe she does and maybe she doesn’t, but figuring these things out leads to more interesting characters.
And that, my friends, is how you can use the world around you to create your characters, characters that will not only be round characters but interesting ones as well.
If you’re interested in a free Characterization Dossier Template, I included one in the December 22, 2025 post, which you can find by clicking the link for it above.
Below you can download a free copy of our Characterization Checklist in order to help you hash out the various elements you'll want to consider when creating well-developed characters for you fiction.
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Cully Perlman is author of a novel, THE LOSSES. He’s also a substantive editor. If you need help with your novel, send him an email at Cully@novelmasterclass.com
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