Creating believable characters
- Savanna
- Feb 21, 2017
- 3 min read
Characters. They can easily make or break a story. Think about it: How long have you watched a movie with character’s you couldn’t stand? Usually not long, unless you enjoy boring characters.
The same goes for writing. It is going to be difficult for your audience to grasp story and care about what is going on if you have uninteresting characters. Don’t get me wrong, your story can have “bad” characters. Some books are centered on characters with irredeemable qualities. The big difference is making those same characters compelling. It’s like the villain you love to hate. They are so awful, yet you are hooked on their story.
On the writing side, it can also be difficult to care about your own story with poorly developed characters. Since I enjoy diving into writing without much planning, there have been times where I have become bored with my story due to flat characters. In my case, however, character development comes during the writing process, and I will usually go back and change things once I get a better sense of who my characters are. However, it is always best to get a sense of who a character is so that you will know how they will react in the story later.
The key is to make a character believable. Your goal as a writer is to create fictional people that are as realistic as possible. The more your characters feel like people, the more compelling your story will be. Below are some tips that I have found help me the most when creating characters.
Their likes/dislikes
What is their favorite food? Can they not stand a certain type of music? Create a list of likes and dislikes for your character. It will help you get a better sense of who they are and what makes them tick.
Creating a backstory
In order to get a sense of their personality, I create a backstory for each of my characters. Is a character’s troubled upbringing the reason why there are distrustful of people? Do they like spending money on expensive things because they grew up poor? Developing a backstory for your characters can help answer questions about their personality and explain their actions.
Flaws
Although some don’t like to admit it, everyone has flaws. Your characters should too. Creating flawed characters is a sure way to make them believable. A hero that is too perfect and can easily swoop in and solve everyone’s problems is boring. It lacks a sense of peril. What are they bad at? On the flip side, a villain that is too powerful is also uninteresting. They need to have a weak spot that can be exploited. For Star Wars fans, imagine the Death Star. It could blow up planets, but was still able to be destroyed. Your characters shouldn’t be too much of anything. Interesting characters need balance.
Skills/Talents/Job
One of the first questions we ask people when we meet them is, “What do you do for a living?” Which is usually followed by, “Do you have any hobbies?” Ask your characters the same questions. Maybe they are great at painting. Maybe they know how to hack computers. While some talents can be used to flesh out personalities, they can also help you determine how your characters will deal with roadblocks they face during the story. Maybe your character is highly charismatic and can easily talk their way out of a parking ticket. Everyone is good at something.
Making them relatable
Your audience should care about your characters. When you put your heroes through hell during the story, the audience should be able to sympathize and stick around to see the outcome. In order to do this, you have to give your characters human-like qualities that are easily recognized. Maybe they have superhuman abilities, but they are always misplacing their keys.
Making them interesting
Why should the audience care? What has happened in this character’s life that will entice the audience to follow their story? In order to do this, they need motivation. Why do they get out of bed every morning? If a conflict happens during the story, the character can’t just sit there and do nothing. That’s not a story. The need something to motivate them to take action, whether it is a loved one, a prized possession, their own livelihood, etc.
Creating compelling characters takes practice. Below is a short cheat sheet that offers other questions to think about when developing characters. There are also character writing prompts and other development exercises on our Pinterest page.
Happy writing!
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