How YOU Can Create Your Characters: How My Characters Actually Show Up

For me, characters don’t arrive politely. They show up like trouble — loud, messy, magnetic — and immediately start arguing with me about who they are.

I never build them from a checklist. I meet them.

Usually, it starts with a spark: a line of dialogue with too much attitude, a contradiction that won’t leave me alone, a desire they’re trying (and failing) to hide. Sometimes I see the way they stand before I know their name. Sometimes I hear their laugh before I know what scars they carry. But the moment something about them hits with that low, electric oh… you, that’s when I know I’ve found someone worth writing.

From there, it’s all about pressure. Not “what do they look like?” but “what do they want so badly it terrifies them?”Not “what’s their trauma?” but “what would wreck them if they had to face it?”Not “what makes them strong?” but “where do they secretly hope no one touches?”

I build characters by throwing them into the emotional deep end and seeing how they swim. Their voice sharpens. Their flaws flare. Their desires get louder. And somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, they start telling me truths I wasn’t expecting.

And because I write romance — especially the messy, magical, high-heat kind — my characters always come in pairs (or trios… or more 👀). I’m obsessed with contrast: the way one person’s wound fits too perfectly against another’s want. The way chemistry becomes a plot device all on its own. The way love forces people to change in ways they swore they wouldn’t.

My job isn’t to make them perfect. My job is to make them alive — complicated, hungry, flawed, and deliciously human, even when they’re not human at all.

By the time I’m drafting, it feels less like creating and more like channeling. These characters have opinions. They fight me. They flirt with me. They surprise me. And that’s exactly how I know they’re ready: when they feel like real people who could walk off the page, kick open my door, and demand I tell their story correctly.

B.A.R.