Characters are the heart of any story. They’re the ones who drive the plot, evoke emotions, and keep readers invested from beginning to end. But crafting characters that feel real, compelling, and unforgettable is no easy task. In this post, we’ll explore practical strategies to help you write characters that resonate with your readers long after they’ve finished your book.
1. Start with a Strong Foundation
Know Your Characters Inside and Out
Before you can write believable characters, you need to know them intimately. This goes beyond basic details like their age, appearance, and job. What are their deepest fears, dreams, and motivations? What past experiences have shaped them? Understanding these aspects will help you create characters that feel real and three-dimensional.
Exercise: Write a character profile for each of your main characters. Include not just physical details, but also their background, personality traits, strengths, weaknesses, and key life experiences. This doesn’t all have to go into your story, but it will inform how your characters behave and interact.
Define Their Motivations
A character’s motivation is the driving force behind their actions. It’s what they want, and it’s crucial for making their behavior believable. Whether it’s a quest for power, love, revenge, or redemption, understanding what motivates your characters will help you write their decisions and reactions in a way that feels authentic.
Tip: Ask yourself what your character wants most in the world and why. Then, think about what they’re willing to do—or sacrifice—to get it. This will guide their actions throughout your story.
2. Create Complex, Multi-Dimensional Characters
Avoid Stereotypes and Clichés
It’s easy to fall into the trap of writing characters that fit neatly into familiar archetypes or stereotypes—the brooding anti-hero, the damsel in distress, the wise old mentor. While archetypes can be useful, relying too heavily on them can make your characters feel flat and predictable.
Tip: Give your characters traits or backgrounds that subvert expectations. For example, a physically imposing character might have a soft spot for poetry, or a seemingly carefree person might struggle with anxiety. These contrasts make characters more interesting and believable.
Give Them Strengths and Flaws
Perfect characters are boring and unrealistic. Real people are a mix of strengths and flaws, and your characters should be too. Flaws make characters relatable, while strengths give readers something to root for.
Example: Think of Sherlock Holmes—brilliant, but also arrogant and socially awkward. His flaws make him more human and compelling, despite his extraordinary abilities.
Exercise: For each of your main characters, list at least three strengths and three flaws. Consider how these qualities will affect their relationships and decisions throughout your story.
3. Show Character Growth
Develop Their Arc
Character development—or the lack thereof—should be an integral part of your story. A character arc is the transformation or journey a character undergoes throughout the narrative. Whether they’re learning a lesson, overcoming a flaw, or failing to change despite numerous challenges, this arc is what makes a character dynamic and engaging.
Tip: Plan your character’s arc alongside your plot. Think about how the events of the story will change your character, and how their growth will, in turn, influence the plot.
Use Internal and External Conflicts
Conflict is at the heart of any good story, and it’s crucial for character development. External conflicts—such as a battle against an antagonist or a struggle to achieve a goal—push your character to their limits. Internal conflicts—such as self-doubt, moral dilemmas, or fear—reveal their true nature and force them to grow.
Example: In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen faces external conflicts in the form of the deadly games, but her internal conflict—her struggle between survival and maintaining her humanity—is what drives her character arc.
4. Write Authentic Dialogue
Give Each Character a Unique Voice
Just like in real life, your characters should have distinct ways of speaking. This includes their choice of words, sentence structure, tone, and even the pace at which they speak. A character’s dialogue should reflect their background, education, personality, and emotional state.
Exercise: Write a scene with multiple characters, then go back and remove the dialogue tags (like “he said” or “she asked”). Can you still tell who is speaking? If not, consider how you can adjust their dialogue to make each voice more distinctive.
Use Dialogue to Reveal Character
Dialogue isn’t just about conveying information—it’s also a powerful tool for revealing character. How a character speaks, what they say or don’t say, and how they react in conversation can tell the reader a lot about who they are.
Tip: Show, don’t tell. Instead of having a character say, “I’m angry,” let their words and actions reveal their anger. For example, they might speak in short, clipped sentences or use harsh, sarcastic language.
5. Build Strong Relationships Between Characters
Focus on Interactions and Relationships
Characters don’t exist in a vacuum—they interact with each other, and these interactions can reveal a lot about who they are. Relationships—whether they’re between friends, family, lovers, or enemies—add depth to your characters and give them something to care about (or fight against).
Tip: Develop the dynamics between your characters. Consider how their relationships change over time and how these changes affect their development and the plot.
Example: In Harry Potter, the evolving friendship between Harry, Ron, and Hermione is central to the story. Their relationship strengthens as they face challenges together, and their individual arcs are intertwined with this bond.
Create Tension and Conflict
Not all relationships should be smooth sailing. In fact, tension and conflict between characters can make for compelling drama. Whether it’s a rivalry, a love triangle, or a clash of personalities, these conflicts drive the story forward and reveal different facets of your characters.
Tip: Introduce situations where characters have opposing goals or values. How they handle these conflicts will reveal their true nature and push them to grow.
6. Avoid Info-Dumping and Gradually Reveal Backstory
Drip-Feed Information
It’s tempting to lay out a character’s entire backstory upfront, but this can overwhelm readers and slow down your narrative. Instead, reveal information gradually, through dialogue, flashbacks, or as it becomes relevant to the plot.
Tip: Only share backstory that’s necessary for understanding a character’s current motivations or actions. Keep the rest in your notes, and use it to inform how you write the character, even if it never appears on the page.
Show, Don’t Tell
Instead of telling readers that a character is brave, show them in action. If a character has a traumatic past, reveal it through their behavior, dialogue, or reactions to certain situations. This approach makes your characters more relatable and keeps readers engaged.
Example: In Breaking Bad, Walter White’s transformation from a mild-mannered teacher to a ruthless drug lord is shown through his actions and decisions, rather than being told to the audience. This gradual reveal keeps viewers invested in his complex character arc.
7. Create Memorable and Unique Characters
Give Them Quirks and Flaws
Memorable characters often have distinctive quirks or habits that make them stand out. These traits can be endearing, irritating, or even bizarre, but they help to create a sense of individuality.
Exercise: Think of a few unique habits, preferences, or quirks for each of your characters. Maybe one always wears mismatched socks, or another speaks in riddles. These small details can make a big difference in how readers perceive your characters.
Make Them Relatable
Even if your characters are in extraordinary situations, they should have relatable qualities that resonate with readers. This might be their struggles, desires, fears, or values. Relatable characters connect with readers on a personal level, making them more invested in the story.
Tip: Tap into universal emotions and experiences when writing your characters. For example, the desire for love, fear of failure, or the need for acceptance are feelings that many readers can relate to, regardless of the character’s specific circumstances.
8. Use Secondary Characters to Enhance Your Protagonist
Develop a Cast of Well-Rounded Secondary Characters
Secondary characters shouldn’t just be there to support the protagonist—they should have their own motivations, desires, and arcs. Well-developed secondary characters add depth to your story and can serve as foils, allies, or antagonists to your main character.
Tip: Give your secondary characters goals that sometimes align with, and other times conflict with, your protagonist’s goals. This adds complexity to your narrative and keeps the story dynamic.
Let Secondary Characters Challenge or Complement the Protagonist
Secondary characters can highlight aspects of your protagonist by contrasting with or complementing them. A stubborn protagonist might be paired with a more easygoing sidekick, or a morally ambiguous hero might have a friend who serves as their moral compass.
Example: In Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson is not only a loyal friend to Holmes but also serves as a contrast to Holmes’ eccentricity and a lens through which the audience views the detective’s brilliance.
9. Keep Evolving Your Characters
Allow Characters to Change
Static characters are less interesting than those who grow and evolve over the course of the story. Let your characters be influenced by the events they experience. Whether they change for better or worse, these developments make them more dynamic and real.
Exercise: Review your story and identify key moments where your characters could realistically change. Plan how these changes will be reflected in their behavior, decisions, and interactions going forward.
Avoid Sudden or Inexplicable Changes
Character growth should feel natural and be the result of experiences and challenges the character faces. Avoid sudden changes that don’t make sense in the context of your story. Readers should be able to see the seeds of change planted earlier in the narrative.
Tip: Use foreshadowing to hint at potential changes. If a character is going to betray their friend later in the story, drop subtle clues early on that show their internal conflict or hint at their shifting loyalties.
Conclusion: Writing well-rounded, compelling characters takes time, effort, and a deep understanding of human nature. By knowing your characters inside and out, giving them relatable flaws and strengths, and allowing them to grow and evolve throughout your story, you can create characters that readers will remember long after they’ve finished your book. Remember, the best characters are the ones who feel like real people—complex, flawed, and always changing.
