Character 101: Your Guide for Creating Realistic & Interesting Fiction Characters

I’m sure we can all agree that an unrealistic, inconsistent character is one of the most annoying things you can find in a book. When I read or watch a story, I usually pay more attention to the characters’ actions, dialogue, and interactions with one another than I do to the plot itself, which is why I can usually recall the characters’ names and often a lot of their dialogue.

A strong plot is important to readers, but they also want to connect with the characters. That’s why making your characters interesting and relatable should be your top priority.

In this simple post, I will give you some tips and tricks on how to make your characters deeper and more human.

The Right Way to Make Interesting Characters

Start from Ground Zero:

Have you ever thought about your character as a kid? If not, you’d better start considering it because it’s essential to creating a complex character. Do you have any cool characters in mind for your story? It’s nice, but you will struggle to keep them consistent if you haven’t established their background. I was kidding about the kid thing, although that’s what I did with my protagonist, Dr. Scott. I know everything about his life, from childhood to adulthood. You don’t have to be paranoid like me, though. I’m just saying you should consider what your character’s life was like before the start of the story.

Interview your characters:

Before creating any characters, everyone should have access to this cool tool known as a character questionnaire. You’ve got to believe me, when I was writing my story, it was one of the most useful things I’ve discovered. They are widely available online, and I recommend you choose the ones that have numerous questions, such as this one.

Focus on the relationships between your characters:

At this stage, you should take inspiration from real life and study how people interact with one another and how their relationships develop. If you enjoy research, start reading articles and books on this topic to help you create flawless character interactions. Producing genuine relationships is a challenging task, but doing so can strengthen your plot and draw your readers into whatever you’re trying to convey with your characters.

Take on your character’s emotions.

Put a piece of your soul into your characters.

If you want to create a good character, you must be committed to your story, which means you must immerse your emotions in what you’re writing. For example, I put many of my personality traits and perspectives into my characters so that I could connect to them, but that doesn’t mean you should make your characters clones of yourself; rather, portray your characters in a way that you can relate to. This is an extremely powerful way to bring your narrative to life.

Question their motives:

To make a consistent character, you have to keep reminding yourself of their motives, and if what you are currently making of them matches their motives. Also, treat them as the things that the plot moves around rather than as plot devices who are only present to do this and that.

Show don’t tell

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

In 1986, Anton Chekov, a playwright, sent a letter to his brother, who had literary interests, saying: “In descriptions of nature, one must seize on small details, group them so that when the reader closes his eyes, he gets a picture.” For instance, you’ll have a moonlit night if you write that “on the mill dam, a piece of glass from a broken bottle glittered like a bright little star, and that the black shadow of a dog or a wolf rolled past like a ball.”

You might be thinking, “Come on, LD, what’s the point of this story?” You’ll understand, but allow me to elaborate. Every reader is interested in seeing the rules that Chekov gave us. Avoid describing your characters in great detail. Instead, you can describe the whole scene around your character to deliver the thing you want to tell your reader.

Let’s take this example:

Tell: “He was anxious about the exam.”

Show: “He became restless as soon as the papers were presented, looking left and right to his peers for that sliver of hope in knowing he wasn’t the only one feeling that way.”

Although this is a necessary tool that should be present in your story, you shouldn’t overdo it because it’ll negatively impact your writing. As they say, too much of anything is good for nothing.

Hopefully, I’ll expand on this golden rule in the future and how I used it in my writings because, to be honest, this topic needs books written about it, not just one headline.

Don’t do it like Marvel…

I’m not hating on the MCU, okay? I like a lot of Marvel characters, such as Spiderman, but to be completely honest, I don’t like how the characters are portrayed. Every time I watch an MCU film, I get the impression that the characters are too perfect and lack depth; all they care about in life is enforcing the law and defeating more powerful bad guys. And I am aware of that because Marvel movies are intended to achieve that. Superheroes! However, you must give your characters depth if you’re writing a thriller. Negative and positive traits must coexist in your character. You ought to convey a sense of threat to your character as well. To put it another way, make your characters human rather than cartoons.

Final Word

In summary, to make your characters consistent within the plot, you need to consider a few things:

• Consider giving them a background and knowing where they came from.
• Use character questionnaires to create a complete character.
• Pour your emotions into writing your characters.
• Your characters’ motives should align with the progression of your plot.
• Show don’t tell.
• Make a realistic character, don’t make them perfect.

That’s all I have for you for today, I hope you got the gist of how to create your characters. If you apply what’s mentioned above, I assure you that your story is going to have amazing characters.

If you have any questions or need writing advice, please contact me at bostonscribbles@gmail.com.

As always, have fun writing!