Have you ever finished a book and wanted to spend more time with the characters? It is no secret that compelling characters are the heart of great storytelling. Your characters need to drive the narrative forward. Additionally, they leave a lasting impact long after the final page is turned. Mastering the art of character development is essential to writing stories that your readership can’t step away from. We’ll explore ten essential tips to help you breathe life into your characters and ensure they resonate with your readers.
Motivate your Characters
Every memorable character has clear motivations that drive their actions and decisions throughout the story. Understanding your character’s motivations is essential for creating depth and authenticity. Regardless of what motivates your character, It is the driving force for every decision they make in your story. This is why knowing their motivation is not optional. To clarify, think about your favorite character and what they wanted. In one of my favorite books, Pride and Prejudice, Lizzie starts out wanting nothing less than true love in a life partner.
Give them Dimensions
To avoid creating one-dimensional characters, give them a range of traits, flaws, and contradictions. Real people are complex, and your characters should be too. While your character’s biggest flaw is what they must overcome during your story, realistic characters need additional flaws . An excellent example is Shrek. He is a relatable character because he is riddled with flaws. These go beyond his main misbelief that he is better off alone. Other Shrek movies explore other misbeliefs he has.
Show, Don’t Tell
Real people are told to walk the walk when they talk a big game. You need to show who your characters are through their actions, dialogue, and interactions with others. Let readers draw their conclusions about who your characters are based on how they behave and the choices they make. As a result, you won’t have to tell the reader who they are, they simply will be. For example, As a reader, you know that Katniss from The Hunger Games would do anything for her family because she risks her life to take care of them. Suzanne Collins never had to say it explicitly in the book.
Give Each Character a Distinct Voice
Each character needs a unique voice that reflects their personality, background, and worldview. Utilize a variety of speech patterns, vocabulary, and mannerisms to ensure consistency and authenticity in their dialogue. To clarify, In the third ACOTAR installment, A Court of Wings and Ruin, you can easily distinguish between Feyre, Elain, and Nesta Archeron despite the three sisters growing up together. They have distinct personalities and mannerisms, and you can discern them by reading their dialogue .
Create Compelling Backstories
Delve into your character’s past to uncover formative experiences that have shaped who they are today. Use their backstory to add depth and complexity to their personality, motivations, and relationships with other characters. In Obsidian, the first book in the lux series by Jennifer L Armentrout, we find out that Daemon keeps pushing Katy away because of something tragic that happened in his past.
Develop Meaningful Relationships
Characters don’t exist in a vacuum—they interact with others in their world. Write your characters so they are both shaping and being shaped by their relationships. Explore the dynamics between your characters, from friendships and romances to rivalries and conflicts. This is one way to enrich your story and deepen your characters’ development. In the Throne of Glass for example, Celaena has intricate interpersonal relationships from the first chapter. Interpersonal relationships are tantamount to addicting your reader to your story because you have little conflict without them.
Challenge Your Characters
Conflict is the engine that drives your story forward and tests your characters’ resilience and growth. First, you need to set up your character so they are unhappy with their life. Then, you need an inciting incident to propel your character into action. These Internal and external conflicts force them to change while gripping your reader. In fact, these conflicts should absolutely correspond with their interpersonal relationships. This is the foundation of story, without conflict there’s little to write or read about.
Show Their Belly
Vulnerability is what makes characters relatable and empathetic to readers. Allow your characters to reveal their vulnerabilities, whether it’s through moments of doubt, weakness, or emotional honesty, to forge a deeper connection with your audience. While this could be something big and high stakes, it can be as simple as the infamous line, “If this is about my soul, take it. I don’t want it without you” from the Twilight film, New Moon.
Change Them (Slowly)
Characters should undergo meaningful arcs of growth and change over the course of your novel. Whether it’s overcoming obstacles, learning from mistakes, or embracing new perspectives, ensure that your characters evolve in response to the challenges they face. The best way to do this is by choosing a theme based off of one of your main characters flaws (or visa versa). Every story is about how a character changes. For instance, this can be seen clearly in The Very Hungry Caterpillar. This story is about a caterpillar that changes into a butterfly.
Leave Room for Mystery
While it’s essential to understand your characters inside and out, leave room for mystery and ambiguity. Refrain from explicitly spelling out every aspect of your character’s past, motivations, or personality. Allow readers to speculate and interpret, keeping them engaged and invested in your characters’ journeys even after they finish your book. The Giver by Lois Lowry ends ambiguously. Do they actually escape? If they do what happens next? or did Jonas die? By the way, The Giver is part of a quartet. My favorite book from the series is Gathering Blue.
By following these ten essential tips, you can breathe life into your characters and create memorable, multi-dimensional individuals that will resonate with readers long after they’ve finished your novel. So, roll up your sleeves, delve into the depths of your imagination, and let your characters take center stage in your storytelling journey.
Sources:
- Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway
- Creating Characters: How to Build Story People by Dwight V. Swain
- The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller by John Truby
I hope this list helps! What is your favorite tip? What’s your favorite of the examples I used? Do you have any better examples?
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