This chapter is my personal understanding and elaboration of a concept I learned through a lecture series on writing by Brandon Sanderson.

A few key elements that can make your character interesting to read about includes their likability, proactivity, and competence. Each of these are on a sliding scale that may (and probably should) increase or decease throughout the story. Most of the time, finding ways to alter the levels of these attributes in your character help create a sense of motion in your story. In other words, it prevents things from feeling stagnant.

LIKABILITY
Likability refers to how much a reader can empathize and enjoy your character. Spiderman ranks highly on this scale due to his sense of humor, his goodness, and how relatable he is to a large audience.

Establishing empathy is the primary way to make your character likable. Throw difficult situations their way and show them being impacted yet not whining about it (because that can be quite unlikable).

Feel free to brainstorm other things that can boost your character up on this scale. However, remember that they don't have to be likable if you don't want them to be, especially at the start. Ebenezer Scrooge is not likable at first, but what makes A Christmas Carol enjoyable is seeing those dislikable traits change and improve by the end of the story.

PROACTIVITY
Proactivity refers to how active your character is. How willing they are to make change happen and achieve their goals or fight for their beliefs. Proactivity helps garner interest for your character even if they lack the other two elements because it is entertaining to watch someone act. Most of the time, it is more exciting to see a character run toward the action than to cower away from it (or to sit on their butt and complain). Joker from The Dark Knight is often regarded as one of the greatest villains in part because of his willingness to act on his beliefs.

To display proactivity in a character, you need to show them in action. Make them go out of their way to problem-solve, to self-improve, to face the conflict head-on. If you only suggest that the character is proactive without providing actual scenes that highlight it, your reader isn't going to feel the same impact and may not buy into it at all.

COMPETENCE
Competence is all about the character's capability to do things successfully. Watching a a character gain competence throughout the story can be just as entertaining as watching a character lose their competence and have to find a new way to come out on top (or just watching them lose disastrously).

Iconic characters like James Bond, Superman, and Sherlock Holmes tend to be so high in the competence scale that it is the main focus of the story. However, some of the most interesting versions of their stories can be when their competence is dragged down a notch.

To display competence (or incompetence) in a character, put them in circumstances where they can exercise their skills or lack thereof. A reader won't understand where the character lies on the scale unless you create scenes that make it clear.

SUMMARY
To reiterate, playing with the degrees of these three elements can keep your character entertaining to follow. They also give a basis for possible character arcs, and changing them in some way can provide a feeling of progress or movement within the story. Finally, be careful to not only allude that your character is one of these traits, but put your character into circumstances that will display some of these traits if you want your reader to actually buy into it.