One of the most important aspects of crafting a good story is character development. You can write the best plot with the most unexpected twists and the greatest ending ever, but without authentic, believable characters, any story will fall flat.
Trevor Cobb is a Writing, Spanish, and Graphic Design major at Drury University. He has loved creating stories since a young age, and by the time he came to Drury he knew he wanted the crafting of stories to be part of his career. Cobb shares the five steps he has found effective to craft a believable fictional character.
1.) Figure out what you know
The easiest way to start the process of creating a believable character is to draw from your own life experiences. This doesn’t necessarily mean that every character you create has to be based on someone you know, but the closer your character’s feelings and reactions are to those of a real-life person, the more authentic they will seem to the reader.
“In order to create a well-rounded character, you’ll need to know all of the little details that make them up as a person,” Cobb says. “If you don’t have lots of experience with cancer patients in your real life, it will be much more difficult to write about a believable experience of one in a fictional setting.”
2.) Give them a reason to have their story told
Have you every read a story and found yourself rolling your eyes when a character did something ridiculous or unrealistic? If you’ve ever found yourself wondering, “Why is he risking his life for her? He met her, like, ten minutes ago!” the problem often lies in the fact that the character’s motivation is either illogical or nonexistent. A key part of character development is deciding what drives the character’s actions. What are their greatest hopes or deepest desires? These motivations should be the driving force behind your story.
“Why are you telling their story? Answering this question will hopefully help you develop a skeleton of what your story is going to look like,” Cobb says. “It will also give your character motives behind their actions.”
3.) Choose some important, defining details
This step is more important than you may think. Often it is the little details about a character – the funny way they dress, a special speech pattern, an important item they carry with them at all times – that cause readers to fall in love with them. Little details can also help the reader begin to visualize the character, making them seem more real and authentic.
These defining details “will be what makes your character special and different,” Cobb says.
“Maybe your character really likes dying their hair unnatural colors, or they eat eggs for breakfast every morning. Even if these don’t make it into the story, they still help you get to know your character better.”
4.) Don’t get caught up on every small detail
Even though visual details are important to character development, don’t feel like you have to describe every aspect of your character’s appearance.
“Characters can be well rounded without having every little detail planned out,” Cobb says. “Unless it’s one of your important, defining details from earlier, we don’t need to know that your character has long dark hair with bangs that parts down the middle that she wears in a braid on Sundays.”
So pick which details you think are the most important, and your reader will naturally fill in the rest.
5.) Put them in a world full of other people
Now that you know your character’s appearance and motivations, it’s time to put those traits to the test by making your character interact with other characters.
“Write some short scenes that you won’t necessarily use in the story to figure out how the character interacts with their friends, family, and enemies,” Cobb suggests.
Fictional characters are mirrors of real people, so getting to know your character is a lot like getting to know a new friend. The more you know about how your character relates to other people in their life, or how they would react in an unusual situation, the more real the character will seem to the reader.
