Basics of Character Development Part 1

Nicolette Andrews is a romantic fantasy author of several works of fiction. She often has conversations with her characters, but that’s ok she’s a writer.

You have an idea for a story. You’ve created a cast of characters and you’ve even picked celebrities who will play your heroine or hero in the movie version. But how well do you know your character? Do you know what their childhood nickname was? Do you know about their favorite food? What’s there worst habit? These are things that are crucial to character development and to making characters that readers can relate to.

There’s more to a character than their hair and eye color.

Your characters are the life blood of the story. A main character that readers cannot relate to, will kill your story faster than anything. And here’s a secret: you cannot develop a real plot without knowing your character. Start with a great character and you’ll gain legions of fans who will follow you until the ends of the earth. (Ok that’s not a guarantee but this is a good place to start). But how does one create a relatable, sexy, powerful character?

First of all give up on the idea that your character is perfect!

Often times whether your realize it or not, our characters become idealize versions of ourselves. They’re smart, pretty, popular, witty, get all the sex (yeah I said it) and they are never wrong. This ladies and gentlemen is what we call a Mary Sue. The perfect character, everyone loves her including her enemies. Nothing ever goes wrong and everything is easy. And then there’s her cousin Anti-Sue, she’s ugly, unpopular and a total outcast. But guess what everything still works out for her!

A lack of conflict is at the center of this problem, and I will discuss conflict and why your story is suffering from a lack of it in another blog series.

Today, I am going to give you my best tips on creating the best character you can. As you may have realized this is a multi-part series. This is a basic guide for character building in later installments I’ll be covering, Kick-a** Heroines Who Don’t Need a Sword, Anti-Heroes and Villains You Love to Hate.

1.Backstory

First of all, do not take this to mean at the beginning of every book we need ten pages of backstory for your character. My best advice: DON’T include the backstory in your book, other than in tiny necessary chunks. The purpose of creating a backstory for your character is to make them into a real person. You need to think about your character as if they were your best friend. You should know everything about this person, from their weird shaped pinky toe to their biggest fear.

When you know more about who your character is, and how they think, it will make writing their dialogue easier to write, and the plot will flow better because you know how your character will react. Before you start your story sit down and have a conversation with your character. Treat it like you’re getting to know someone new. Ask bizarre questions that may never get added into the narrative. Don’t stop until you feel confident you know everything about your character.

At the bottom I’ve written some interview questions for easy reference.

2. Motivation

This is the number one problem I see in new writers and a critical flaw in many characters. They lack aspiration, opinion, and desire. The character becomes an empty vessel that gets tugged along through the plot without reason. They have no real reaction to the things around them and don’t seem to care when horrible things happen.

Say an old wizard shows up at your main characters house and tells them: You are the chosen one, take this flaming sword and save the world. Without hesitating your character takes on the challenge and goes off into certain danger without a second glance.

Now let’s pause this for a moment. And I want you to be one hundred percent honest. If a wizard showed up at your house, told you that you needed to risk your life to save the world and wield a fiery sword to do so. You’d probably take a second to think about, like the fact that you’ve never even held a sword before, let alone a fiery one. And wait you’re also likely to die? Your decision on whether or not you’d jump to save the world is your motivation. The things that are holding you back or are spurning you forward.

Your character’s motivations grow from their background. Maybe if your character thought he was destined for greatness, he’d jump at the chance to save the world. But let’s say your character is a shy girl, who is afraid to tell her best friend she doesn’t like her borrowing her clothes. These are two different characters and they are going to have different reactions to this scenario, and they are definitely going to have different reasons for going along with this cracked wizard.

For our uber-hero, perhaps he’s been training his whole life for this moment. So this is his chance to prove himself. That is his motivation. For the shy girl, she doesn’t know how to say no so she goes along with it because she feels she has no other choice. That is her motivation.

When your character is given a choice there must be a logical reason behind why they chose it. Give your character opinions. Don’t let them just go with the flow; that is boring. As in the example above, both characters have the potential for future conflict. Say uber-hero finds out saving the world isn’t it’s all cracked up to be. And shy-girl finally finds the chance to stand up for herself and maybe save the world in the process.

3. Flaws Earlier I mentioned, Mary Sue. She is without fault. Even her worst enemy cannot find anything negative to say about her. A character without flaws will alienate your reader. We all have our faults and our bad habits, so should your character. As in the example above: Uber-hero could easily be turned into a Gary Stu (Mary Sue’s twin brother). If he goes out to save the world and does it with ease, that is boring. When he has limitless strength, unlimited abilities, and the girl to boot, no one cares because there’s no challenge. What makes a story and character interesting is challenges.

So instead of letting Uber-hero be perfect, let’s say he’s incredibly arrogant. And the first time he goes to battle Big-Baddie (The guy trying to destroy the world) he fails miserably. And after the first time failing he quits, goes home and tells Wizard to find another hero. He cannot handle failure and that is relatable. Think back to times you’ve failed, you may have wanted to give up to. Well your reader may have felt the same thing. And seeing a character struggle the way they have (with possibly much more mundane problems but you never know you readers might be secret super heroes) they are going to much more endeared to Uber-hero.

Don’t be afraid to let your characters fail. Actually they should fail, and not just once. By having Uber-hero work to prove he’s the hero he believes himself to be, your reader can relate to him and they’ll become more emotionally invested in his journey. Let your characters grow into who you want them to be and readers are more likely to stick around for the journey to see how he overcomes those failures.

When you’re thinking about your character as a person, try to balance them for as many positive attributes you give them you need just as many negative attributes.

Character Interview:

Use all the questions or pick your favorites. The point of the list is to get into the mind of character beyond just their outward appearance. Pretend you’re sitting down to an interview with your character and you’re trying to get to know them better.

1. Where are you from?

2. What was your childhood like?

3. Is there a childhood memory that stands out to you?

4. What do you do for a living?

5. What is your favorite food?

6. What is your biggest pet peeve?

7. What would you say is your greatest strength?

8. What is your greatest weakness?

9. What is your relationship like with your parents?

10. How do you handle confrontation?

11. What is your favorite color?

12. What is your worst fear?

13. Do you have any hobbies?

14. What is your greatest aspiration?

15. Where do you see yourself in five years?

16. Who was your first love/first time?

17. What do you look for in a partner?

18. How do you feel about soul mates?

19. What’s your spirit animal?

20. What do you wear when you go to sleep?

21. Boxers or briefs?

22. Chocolate or Vanilla?

23. Who is your hero?

24. If you could bring one person back from the dead, who would it be?

25. Tell me about yourself (leave it open ended and just write until you run out of things to say.)

About Nicolette Andrews

Author of several romantic fantasy novels she lives in Southern California where she spends her time talking to her imaginary friends, her characters. She loves damaged flawed characters, and stories with a lot of drama and angst. When she’s not spinning out her epic tales, she enjoys camping and making crafts badly. You can find out more about Nicolette at her website.

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