Author: avadel

Requester: _dzza_iris

Category: Writing Tips

Struggling with making strong, realistic characters? Here's six handy tips to help!

1. Do a Sketch

We're not talking about drawing (although you can do that too if you're feeling artistic). We're talking about figuring out the basics. What's this character's backstory? What do they look like? Where do they live? What's their family situation like? What's their job? What's important to them?

You don't have to nail everything down, but get a sense of the person you're talking about. You can fill in more as you go on.

2. Ask Questions

Think about the details you picked out in Step 1. Assuming those are the case, how would that affect your character? Try not to pull character traits out of nowhere or tack on backstory like a coat your character could shrug off and it make zero difference to the story. Your character should develop from their situation. Try to imagine growing up as your character—how would that have changed you? How did it change your character?

You can ask questions the opposite way too. It doesn't just have to be "x happened in their childhood, so they became y way." You can also say, "this character does/feels/says y. Why does that happen?" And then make up an answer x.

Using these two types of question and answer tactics will help you create a character grounded in their world. This character will have a history and a reason for being the way they are beyond arbitrary decisions. And if you want to make what at first seem like arbitrary decisions, find a real way to justify them.

Also, don't fear changing your mind about details you picked out in Step 1! That was just an outline. You're the author; everything is always changeable.

3. Interrogate Your Character

Now that you have a good understanding of where your character came from and how that has shaped them, throw every dumb question you can think of at them. What's their favorite dessert? What do they like to do on a rainy day? If they could have three wishes, what would those be?

There are lots of ways you can find good questions online: lists of icebreakers, personality quizzes, questions for the newlywed game, and (of course) character development questionnaires.

Fill out as much information as you can, even if it doesn't seem important and even if it will never come up in your story. The more you know about your character, the better you will be able to write them. Also, answering these questions will force you to come up with random pieces of the character's life that might have gone untouched otherwise.

Disclaimer: Don't go overboard and never actually sit down to write! That might be a tad counterproductive. (;
Just use your best judgement and answer questions even (and especially) when they're hard. 

4. Give Them Conflict

At this point, you might have already done this, and that's great! But we all know life isn't butterflies and rainbows. So, you need to figure out, what is your character struggling with? Problems with their family? Work? Themselves? Find out what your character wants in life and then find out what's blocking their way.

One good way to do this is to give your character flaws. No one's perfect, and it's usually our imperfections that make us interesting. What is your character bad at? How do they fall short in their own lives? How do they wish they were different? How do other people wish they were different?

5. Let Character Affect Their Actions

Now that you have a full-fleshed character, don't toss all that hard work out the window! 

Let who your character is drive the story. Their decisions should pull the narrative along. 

Let your characters be emotional. That doesn't mean they have to be hysteric all the time, but even cold and aloof characters have emotion, and those emotions affect their behavior. 

Let your characters be motivated. What they want (or don't want) should change how they act. They can be motivated by fear, desire, revenge, love or something so complex even they don't understand, but as the author, you should. Know what your characters are doing and why they're doing it. We're not saying overthink it; sometimes well-developed characters will act in ways that might take some analysis to understand why they did that. Just because you don't know at first doesn't mean it's the wrong move. What we are saying is think about it.

Lastly, let your characters be people. People are an emotional, contradictory, hypocritical bunch. No one ever acts the same way 100% of the time. So it's okay for your character to be inconsistent on occasion, and if they are, just make sure they are with a reason. That reason can be irrational, emotional, or hard to understand, but it needs to be there.

6. Write!

If you haven't already, you should be writing scenes with this character! You probably won't get it right the first time, and that's okay. Give yourself some time to get to know them. You'll figure out who they really are eventually by how they react in any given situation. If you 'mess it up,' you can always change it later. But practice and exposure is key.

Conclusion

We hope this helps as you're developing your characters! If you have any other tips, leave them in the comments or write us an article! We'd love to hear what you think.

Also, for your convenience, we've collected all the questions we asked you to answer during the article in a list below and copy-pasted them into the comments. Let us know if you end up using them! (=

Basic Character Development Questions
(full list pasted in-line)

• What do they look like? 

• Where do they live? 

• What's their family situation like? 

• What's their job? 

• What's important to them?

• In what way(s) did their background affect their personality, habits, decision-making, etc.?

• What's their favorite dessert? 

• What do they like to do on a rainy day? 

• If they could have three wishes, what would it be?

• What is your character struggling with? 

• What does your character want in life?

• What is in the way of them getting what they want?

• What is your character bad at? 

• How do they fall short in their own lives? 

• How do they wish they were different? 

• How do other people wish they were different?

• What emotions are your character motivated by?

Want to submit your own Tip? 
Comment in this book and email your entry to [email protected]. We'll review it, and if we think it's well-written and helpful to the Wattpad community, we'll post it! Your entry may be something you have written previously, even if it is published elsewhere. (=

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