All great lives start with death.

I hold this statement firm to my heart whenever I write a new character. It’s a tip that can take on a lot of meanings — “death” doesn’t have to mean the death of a person; it can refer to the death of a dream, of an ideology, of an ecosystem, of an identity. The “great” events tied to a character’s life don’t have to happen at birth, nor do said events have to be morally good. A boy can set forth on his hero’s journey once he comes of age; a king or queen can set forth a reign of tyranny with a single command; a villain can redeem themselves on the brink of their own demise.

Of course, all of these options hardly make killing someone and replacing them any less appealing.

Lucia Hunter was an awkward, yet passionate alchemist, engineer, ex-pirate, and lover of the paranormal. She died at the hands of a large simian guardian at the top of a mystical tower, at what was likely the penultimate moment to her party reaching their desired riches. Tis’ often one’s inevitable fate — at least when you’re a character in Dungeons & Dragons.

With Lucia gone, I had to create a new character for this city-sprawling D&D campaign. You could say that one life was exchanged for another, in the sense that I was replacing Lucia’s role in the party. This may seem like a weak base to build a character from, but oftentimes necessity is all the writer needs to be exceptionally creative.

I always ask myself the same question when creating a character:

“Who do I want to play as?”

As in — what type of person do I want to be for this story? In the context of D&D, this question encompasses the character’s race, class, background, personality, skills, flaws, and dreams. Needless to say, it tells you a lot — probably everything you need to know to play a character. Though, that only works in the context of some dumb roleplaying game, right?

What if I told you that this question can work in almost any context? That by asking yourself this one question every time you wish to introduce a new character, you can begin writing your story without having to stop and plan? That by allowing yourself to roleplay every character you create, they will all turn out to be intriguing, three-dimensional individuals who complement your storyworld?

Does all of that sound too good to be true? Well, that’s because it probably is. I’m still in university after all; I haven’t extensively tested these theories myself. But I can easily state that this approach is infinitely better than allowing yourself to fall within the trap of “planning for eternity”.

Keep in mind that I’m not encouraging all authors out there to make all their characters “self-inserts,” or characters that completely mirror their authors’ identities. I’ll delve further into this matter later, but to explain myself for now: there are many more diverse and subtle ways to express yourself than by creating a self-insert character.

To get back on track, let’s focus back on my new D&D character, and how I wrote him to fit into our campaign. You might notice that I haven’t referred to this character by name yet — that’s because I didn’t come up with his name until the day before I first played as him (it’s Welvtel, to make things easier on me).

That’s right. The name — the detail requested on the very first line of most character templates, was one of the last details I wrote for this character. That’s not all; other details, such as his appearance and mannerisms, I decided on-the-spot, while I was playing as him.

What did I first write about Welvtel then, if not a single typical detail about his identity?

Well, I’ve already explained that. I wrote who I wanted to play as. I put forth a concept I could sell to the others playing with me. The concept was simple: a smug (yet rightfully so) planar-walking archer from a disgraced race of elves known as drow. Think Legolas, but much snarkier and with the ability to shift through time and space.

Depending on the story you’re writing, your concepts might be much different. You might be thinking of a suave bartender with the ability to manipulate the mind of others, or an infectiously optimistic schoolgirl in the midst of an apocalypse. You might be thinking of a shrewd politician whose worldview shifted after a tragic accident, or a seemingly ordinary pet parrot with a vast knowledge of an ancient language. Further details don’t matter; all that matters is that the concept grips you, and that you believe you can sell a character like this to your audience.

Give yourself more credit.

The people you create, your ability to empathize with them, and the plot you’re throwing them into — they’re all you need to write likeable and complex characters, and the more characters you write this way, the better they’ll get.

Everything about Welvtel’s character was decided easily after I settled on his concept, due to the excellent story my Dungeon Master and I were placing him into. He already has the ability to walk through planes of reality, so why not have him come from the future? The world is at risk of being conquered by a clever mercenary, so why not have Welvtel come from a future under that mercenary’s tyrannical empire? After developing Welvtel up to this point, I decided that I wanted him to be good rather than evil, so why not have him be a spy against his future’s empire?

“Why not?” — why aren’t you asking yourself this question whenever you write?

“But what if it turns out bad?”

Umm, so what?

Writing something bad is much, much better than planning for ages and never writing anything. Besides, you’ll find that writing characters you can empathize with will steer you away from writing stale, contradictory, or cliched characters. Why pretend to be your everyday “damsel in distress,” when you could write a hot-blooded ex-soldier who hijacks the adventure the moment she’s supposedly rescued?

And if you think you’re only capable of selling one type of character or something like that, then, again, give yourself more credit. Every mood you’ve ever felt, every nuance to what triggered each of those moods in you — each of them has the potential to be a character. You can write someone with a radically different personality from you, but as long as you keep yourself tethered to them with that one vivid connection, you’ll be able to make them interesting.

You’re more creative than you think. So go write some inspiring stories, already.