How to Create Believable Characters
62Your characters are the most important of your story. Without them your story could not exist, so it would make sense to make sure your characters seem like real people to your audience. If your characters are well rounded and believable to the point where your audience can relate with them on a personal level, your story can have success even if the plot is not so good. On the other hand, if your characters are poorly developed the readers may lose interest in the story before they even finish no matter how well it is plotted out.
The first step in creating a believable character is for you to get to know your character on a personal level as if he/she were a real person. An easy way to do this is by developing a character profile for each character in your story. Keep in mind that you don’t want to overload your story with too many characters. This can get confusing. Only use characters that are absolutely necessary to the story.
Character Profile
Name:
Your character’s name says a lot about your character. You should choose his/her name carefully. Sometimes it is better to wait until you have fully developed your character before choosing the name, that way you already have an idea of the kind of person he/she is and can choose a suitable name. Also you don’t want to make a character’s name too complicated or hard to pronounce as this will slow the reader’s pace. If you have trouble finding a name for your character you can always check out some baby name books or visit these sites online:
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php
Sex:
Age:
If you’re writing for a certain age group, make sure the age of your character is in the same age range as your target audience.
Physical Appearance:
What is your character’s body type?
What color is his/her eyes? hair?
Describe facial features.
How does he/she dress?
Positive traits:
Is your character caring, optimistic, kind, cunning, etc.?
Negative traits:
Is your character greedy, self-absorbed, cruel, etc.?
Note: Remember that no one is perfect and your character should not be neither. Don’t overload your “good” characters with too many positive traits and your “bad” character’s with too many negative traits. Also give your character noticeable habitual traits such as biting fingernails or tapping fingers.
Personality:
How does your character see him/herself?
Does he/she like the way she looks?
What are your characters dreams or goals?
What are his/her fears?
Does he/she have a sense of humor?
What are his/her morals or values?
What kind of attitude does he/she have?
What drives or motivates your character?
What are his/her likes/dislikes?
Background:
What was his/her childhood like?
Where did he/she grow up?
What was his/her lifestyle growing up and what is it now?
What is/was his/her relationship to parents and siblings?
Does he/she have many friends? Who are they?
What kind of education does he/she have?
What are his/her hobbies or interests?
Is he/she married or attached?
What is his/her relationship with the SO?
Does he/she have children?
What is his/her relationship with them?
What are his/her beliefs?
What is his/her occupation?
Remember that the information in your character profile is for you only. You may or may not use all this information in your story. It’s just here to help you get to know your character better. The better you know your characters, the better you will be able to portray them and make them seem real to the reader.
Developing your character
Creating your character is the easy part. Now you have to make that character come alive within the story. First thing to remember is you don’t have to tell everything about your character at the beginning of the story. Let your reader discover new things about your character as the story progresses. You can introduce your character gradually to your audience through description, dialogue, action, reaction and effect.
Being descriptive does not mean you have to “tell” you reader about your character. Showing them your character using descriptive words makes the story more interesting and helps it flow better. For instance, don’t tell your reader’s that Johnny has long brown hair. Instead you could write:
Johnny walked confidently into the room flipping his long brown hair from one side to the other.
In this way your showing the reader that he has long brown hair and that he is, at least at this moment, a confident person.
Using dialogue is also a very effective way to describe your character to your readers. For instance instead of writing:
Johnny’s mother hated his long brown hair and wished he would cut if off.
You could write:
“I’m not going to tell you again. Either you cut that brown mop you call hair or I’m going to cut it for you,” Johnny’s mother told him.
You get the idea of how she’s feels about his hair through her words and you also learn that his hair is long and brown from her referring to it as a “brown mop”.
Probably the best way to show your character’s personality traits and feelings is through action or reaction. Action is how your character responds in situations and reaction shows how your character responds to other characters and situations. For example if Johnny was a greedy person instead of telling the readers that he is greedy you could show it with his actions:
Johnny considered sharing the information he had found with his friends, but if he did that it would mean less money for him, so he kept it to himself.
Or if Johnny didn’t like a certain girl that kept bugging him rather than just stating the fact you could show his reaction to her:
Marie waved to Johnny as he entered the room and he cringed. He had been spotted. Even though everything in him was telling him to just turn around and walk out, he waved back politely. Then he broke off eye contact hoping she would leave him alone.
Another way to show your readers the kind of person your character is, is to show the kind of effect they have on other characters in your story. If your character has an abusive personality, instead of telling the readers that he is abusive from the beginning, you can show other character’s being wary of him/her, avoiding eye contact, being submissive, etc. throughout the story.
Some other things to consider while writing your story is don’t ever make minor character’s seem more interesting than the main character. This takes the focus off your main character and that can throw off your whole story. Make the things that happen to your character in the story more interesting than in real life. People deal with real life situations everyday and are more entertained by extraordinary events. Also make sure your character experiences some sort of growth by the end of the story. If your character is still the same person and hasn’t changed throughout the story it’ll leave your readers wondering what the point was.
The most important thing to remember while developing your character throughout the story is that you want to create a character that you can feel something for; whether you like them or hate them. You should be able to trigger some kind of emotional response from your reader. Leave your audience feeling as if they know your characters as well as they know their own friends and enemies.
Bibliography:
1) The Writer’s Digest Guide to Good Writing; Edited by Thomas Clark, Bruce Woods, Peter Blocksom and Angela Terez; Writer’s Digest Books 1994
2) Writing for Children and Teenagers; written by Lee Wyndham; revised by Arnold Madison; Writer’s Digest Books 1989
3) Successful Scriptwriting; written by Jurgen Wolf and Kerry Cox; Writer’s Digest Book 1988
4) Screenwriting Workshop, Writer’s Digest School 1998
Copyright © 2001 Naya Lionsong
