Idea requested by pokemonlover1229 . I hope this helps!

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What is the difference between a person in real life and a character from a book? That's a hard question, isn't it? After all, there are some writers who can create characters that just come off the page and feel like they were someone you've met or even someone you could meet within the next day. They just don't feel made-up. They feel as if they are these breathing living beings that we get attached far too often, even when we try not to get attached.

That's how a good character is born. There shouldn't be a difference between a character in a book and a person you can physically except for the mere fact that the one is only real on paper, and you are flesh and bones. You have your own thoughts just like a character has their own thoughts...or would like to think that they have their own thoughts as in reality, those thoughts were created by the writer.

So how do we get there as writers? Well, that's the first step we need to take. Before you can pick up a pen or open a new document, you need to realize that these characters have their own thoughts, their own feelings, and their own way of seeing things. They may not even think the same way as you. Characters shouldn't always be two dimensional (unless they are a minor character, then a 2-D-like character is fine), but rather have a whole array of thoughts, feelings, and personality.

The biggest mistake I see in storytelling is the cookie-cutter character. This character is perfect in every way. The best way to show this is by demonstrating a two dimensional character at it's basic form. Let's call this character Cadie. Cadie is a cookie-cutter character. She has perfect hair, a perfect body, a perfect friends, a perfect life, but something (let's say, her insecurities) just seem to come out of nowhere in the middle of the book.

Cadie can be this way and still not be a cookie cutter character, but there are some things you need to watch out for. First off, does Cadie have a lot of friends that seem to act the same way as her that they could almost be mistaken to Cadie? Does Cadie just all of a sudden know everything, or maybe it's the opposite, and she seems to fail miserably at everything? Are there things that Cadie does that don't seem to make sense, like knowing that she's incredibly beautiful, but in the next scene, seems to think she's not with no explanations? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may have made Cadie into a cookie cutter character.

That's okay. Before I go on, I want you all to know that I've made too many cookie cutter characters. We all have to start somewhere in writing, so the best thing we can do it catch onto it, and figure out where we need to improve on. It's when we learn how to create characters in another way that we can avoid having too many of these characters. And guaranteed, there are going to be some things you've already improved on and other things that might need a bit of improvement.

First, we need to remind ourselves that our characters are people. Even if they aren't really people—but are actually animals or a Pokémon because that's what you've created your story to be—you need to remind yourself that they have thoughts and feelings that have meaning.

What is meaning and where does it come from? It's a philosophical question that has be debated for ages, but for the sake of time and writing purposes, meaning is something that gives us purpose. If a character is hangry, and sees a person with the last triple chocolate cookie, are they going to grab it out of the other persons hand like a cave man, or are they going to be reserved and not do it. There is conflict being shown, and a person's personality and purpose can probably determine what happens next.

This brings me to the biggest hack in writing history: creating a character development sheet.

The first time I came across a character development sheet, there were some things that confused me. The questions seemed a bit stale. These questions had questions like, "what does a character look like" and "what is a character's favorite color." While these questions can be helpful, they don't exactly get the root of the person.

While character development sheets can be helpful, I've realized you can narrow it down to two categories to help keep your characters in line. These categories are the basics and the action.

Let's start with the basics.

Basic questions are something that you need to make sure that stays the same no matter what. The following are the biggest basic questions you need to keep in line.

1.) Name, appearance, age, gender, and sexuality...

2.) Where they are from, where they live, what is their job...

3.) Introvert vs. Extrovert. Likes and dislikes. Friends and people they don't get along with.

4.) What was their past like? What are their dreams?

Basically basic questions are something that you can ask anyone and everyone, and they can give you a quick answer. This part is actually the easier of the two because of this. Unfortunately, writing a good character gets a bit tricker than that as we get into the action part.

Action is the reasoning behind things. Keep in mind, people can come from the same background and view life very, very differently. This is because of their perspective.

These questions are a bit more time consuming to create and sometimes time consuming to answer cuz you've really got to know your character for this. Questions can look like the following.

1.) What kind of quirks does my character have and why is my character like that? Is there an underlining reason as to why my character is chewing their nails every time they get nervous, or is it simply because the character doesn't like long nails. If it's the earlier, what is that reason, and where did that reason come from? Is the character even aware this is an issue?

2.) What makes a character tick? For some, it can be because it builds up overtime that it seems random. Other times, the character can just be in a certain situation and just no matter what, it's going to anger them. You need to keep in mind this needs to stay constant, but the biggest thing is that does it make sense? Why would a character get angry at this situation? Or are they the kind of character that can't get angry for some reason? If that's the case, is there a reason for it?

3.) Why does the character want to achieve the goal that they want to achieve? It's not always about beating the bad guy if there isn't an ulterior motive. Is it because they have a caring heart and can't bear to see someone else suffer through it, or maybe there's something in the past that has given them that extra push. If you can't think of anything, think about it this way: what career do you have/want to achieve, and why is that? How were you introduced to that? What motivated you do achieve that goal?Apply that thought process to your character.

As you can tell the action part of this is a lot more intense. It's a question that transforms into another question that will then evolve into something else until we've reached the root of a character. When you figure that out, you start to realize what drives that character. It's these kinds of questions that will have them pop off of the page and gives them a bit of life. They have their own actions, and they speak louder than the basic questions that were given in the basic category.

Okay, so you have that, but what happens when a character is supposed to change during a book? Like, for example, let's say Cadie was this wholehearted character, full of life and love until her boyfriend breaks up with her and now she no longer is interested in having a boyfriend at all. Well, okay, with detail on how that event happened, you've now created a reasonable character change if you go back to her action questions. What is it about that break-up that was really devastating? Was it because her boyfriend cheated on her, and now she's worried the same thing will happen again? Or is it because Cadie just realized she doesn't like men in a romantic sense and has realized that she's attracted to women? Or maybe Cadie just needs a break to find herself before she finds herself another relationship of sorts?

Notice how it was that action question that lead to the change. There are different traits in that category that are going to lead you up to those pivotal points in a book and push them into a new direction. If your character learns a key value, that's awesome if there's a reasonable how they got there. Characters are allowed to drop and/or add other traits as the story progresses, but these changes are more effective if they are gradual or have a reason behind it.

On top of all that character development, there's one key element that's really going to help your character grow, and that's knowing that they aren't perfect. Sure, it's okay to have a character or two who are essentially perfect, but how is that character going to grow if they are perfect? How are your readers going to connect with them if they seem like there's nothing to learn. Beyond that, even the most perfect people have their own flaws. Find out a bit about your character's flaws and try to figure out why that it is they have those flaws.

When you're all done with the character building, hopefully you'll realize you've created a cast of diverse characters because no two people are exactly the same. They can share a few qualities and be similar, but essentially, when you dig into the deeper questions, no two characters should be the same. If your cast is filled with people that seem the exact same, then you may want to try and figure out some more facts about them that separate them from the rest, and concentrate on that a bit.

There are many ways to create a character because a character is more than a figment of your imagination. As the creator, you want them to seem realistic and not cut into this perfect shape. By asking questions that challenge us, we can soon create characters that aren't cookie cutter shape, but rather, a real, person who has feelings, personality, and purpose that a reader is drawn to learning more about.

If you would like to learn more about character development, or have questions on how to build a character building sheet, here are some articles below that can help you with your writings. Warning: one of these links (the first link to be precise) may contain some curse words in it, but the content is good.

https://self-publishingschool.com/character-development/#background

https://blog.reedsy.com/character-development/

https://thinkwritten.com/character-development/