How to Write Compelling Characters—Wielding Your Writing: A Guide Series for Writers
- writer_alexandra_lee
- Oct 1, 2019
- 6 min read
Updated: Feb 23, 2020
Creating characters is like trying to create new people, and people are complex. It's a challenge, but it's a challenge that must be overcome to create a great story.
- Alexandra Lee
People are interesting, and we're always watching them. We connect with them on a daily basis whether at work, school, or with our families and friends. People are fascinating creatures, but more than anything they are complex.
If people are so complex, how are we supposed to create characters based on them?
Creating good and well developed characters is one of the hardest things we have to do because we have to look at people, and decipher not just the good things about them, but the bad, and the ugly, and the things we don't want to acknowledge about ourselves and our nature.
We have to understand what motivates our characters—what their goals and fears are, and what they have at stake. We have to understand how people think, how they act, both consciously and unconsciously, and why we do the things we do.
Creating a character is so much more than making a sketch or listing some likes and dislikes. In essence, we're building a whole new person inside of our minds.
This is where the lovely concept of character arcs, profiles, and creation comes into play. How are we as writers supposed to create basically "new" people? We want our characters to be as similar to real people as possible, right?
We went them to have hobbies, quirks, likes, dislikes, flaws, secrets, problems, etc. So here are some tips on writing real and compelling characters.
Characters
The first thing I do when writing a new character is make a character profile. I focus on four main "categories" and those include—physical description, personality, background, and forward looking, which could be what's at stake for the character, how they feel about that, and how their personality, morals, world views, etc. are going to change as the story progresses.
You probably have some idea of what you want your character to look like, their age, gender, and basic personality traits, but creating this more in-depth outline of your character will help you understand them fully. This will help you create a plot with stakes they care about, fears that actually scare them, and conflicts that are straight out of their nightmares.
Writing is so fun!
Physical Description: Knowing what your characters look like and describing them to the reader is a big part, and one of the first things, that connect your reader to your character. Describing your characters gives the reader a better picture of what they look like and the person whose story they are about to embark on.
When I'm building my character's physical description, I start with eyes, hair color/style, skin tone, weight, build, height, clothing, and then I try to come up with something that makes them unique, whether that's a tattoo, freckles, or even a disability.
Another great reason to have this layout of your character is because some stories can have a lot of characters, and it can be hard to keep them straight. Now all you have to do is go back and look at your list. It will save you time and confusion, and will keep you from giving your MC blue eyes when they had brown at the beginning of the story.
Personality: What would people be without personality? Pretty boring that's what, and what reader wants to read about a boring character?
Some characters are witty, some extra caring, some always gloomy, and others, well, they're just flat out weird. While these are all great adjectives to describe characters, you don't want your character's entire personality to be one adjective.
A huge mistake writers make when it comes to creating personalities is they make their characters stereotypical. We don't want anymore bad boys, annoying cheerleaders, mean girls that make the character's life terrible and that's there only reason for existence, or "strong" female characters that have no feelings. These are just a few examples.
Every character should be unique. They should have a twist in their personality that the reader didn't see coming.
A character's personality is what's going to draw the reader to them and their personality is going to be how the reader creates opinions on them. You as the writer have to figure out how you want each character to be perceived by the audience.
Another thing I want to bring up is good vs. evil. A lot of times the main character is good and the villain is evil. That's how it's been forever, since the beginning of story telling for thousands of years. Here's the truth though—your villain should think what they're doing is right, and your protagonist should have moments where they question their morals, their thoughts and feelings, and their motivation for what they're trying to accomplish. In the end your characters are all human, and in order to make them realistic you have to give them human characteristics, both good ones and bad ones.
Make your characters flawed. Make them make mistakes. Make them have moments where they doubt themselves and doubt if what they're doing is right.
“We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on...that’s who we really are.” -Sirius Black
Background: It is no secret that our pasts and childhoods shape us. They should also shape our characters. Understanding where our characters come from and the kind of environment they grew up in can help us make them more realistic and show the reader how they've developed into the person they are.
I don't know about you, but I love coming up with backstories for my characters because it helps them come to life. They no longer feel like figures of my imagination. When they're just looks and personality, they're very one dimensional—a lot of people are kind and a lot have brown hair. It's not until you dig deeper and ask the question, "Where did these characteristics come from?" That you get to understand your character's mentality, and why they fear, love, dislike, and want all of the things they do.
Forward Looking: I find this part of my characters the hardest to build and the hardest to understand.
The "Forward Looking" part of your character profile, outline, arc, whatever you want to call it, should focus on what the character is going through during the story, and where they're headed.
What are their thoughts? Do they think they have a chance of winning the battle in the end? Do they have predictions of what's going to happen next in the story? Do they like those predictions? What are their goals, and what forces, challenges, and struggles (either physical things like the villains, nature, other people, etc. Or internal struggles like thoughts, feelings, fears, false beliefs, etc.) are holding them back from achieving those goals?
What have they accomplished before that motivates them to keep fighting and working towards their goals? What do they care about enough to work through all of these challenges?
I know that's a lot, but forward looking is all about asking questions about your characters, and these questions can be hard to answer. You might not even have an answer, but that's okay because you're improving your characters by looking at and thinking about these things.
Even if half of this stuff doesn't relate to the story, you as the writer need to know all of it.
Here's a list of questions you should ask about your characters for forward looking
List of Questions for Forward Looking
What are your character's goals?
What motivates them to complete those goals? Or what can they lose if they fail to complete them?
What things are holding them back from completing their goals? Is it fear, external conflict, internal conflict, the villain?
What have they accomplished in the past that keeps them fighting and motivated?
What do they think is going to happen in the future? Do they think they can overcome the challenges and complete their goals?
How are they going to be different at the end of the story than they were at the beginning? What beliefs or truths or morals have the gained or lost? What have they physically lost? People, money, possessions?
Answering these questions is going to make your characters and story more compelling. Your characters influence your story at one point or another, regardless if it's plot or character driven. Forward looking is where you see these two, plot and character, come together and interweave the most.
You do not have to go this in depth with all of your character profiles. I do it for my main characters and the villain(s) if there is one, and keep the minor character profiles simple and straightforward.
Creating characters is like trying to create new people, and people are complex. It's a challenge, but it's a challenge that must be overcome to create a great story.
I hope you learned something from this post, or some part of it spoke to you. Good luck on your journey to creating characters, and like everything else, it takes trial and error and lots of hard work.
Happy writing!
Thank you for reading this post on creating compelling characters. What is a character building tip you have? If you would like to see more posts on building characters, let me know in the comments!
It's been a pleasure writing for you and, until next time—stay weird and stay writing. - Lexi
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