Every novelist hopes to write a page-turner their readers can’t put down. One thing you need to create an irresistible story is interesting, engaging characters readers invest in emotionally.
Well-developed characters make fiction feel more real. When the people you’re writing about have clear motivations, convincing flaws, and well-established backstories, your readers can connect with them and will want to find out what happens to them.
So, what makes a character “engaging”? In this post, I’ll explore some of the ways you can make your characters jump off the page and capture your readers’ imaginations.
Understanding Character Development
Character development is the process of creating complex characters. While establishing their physical traits and personalities is important, you’ll also need to create more depth for your characters with elements such as:
- Motivations: Plot moves the story along, but unless readers understand why your characters are doing what they’re doing, they don’t have a reason to care about the events of your story.
- Flaws: No one is perfect. Characters without flaws don’t feel realistic. Even your hero has to have shortcomings.
- Backstory: You can’t dive into every little detail of your character’s life without boring your readers, but they do need some idea of where your character came from and how past events have shaped them.
- Relationship Dynamics: How a character interacts with other characters says a lot about them. Keep in mind that most people have variation in their relationship dynamics. How they interact with a younger sibling may be completely opposite to how they interact with their friends, coworkers, students, parents, etc.
Another important element to consider is your character’s arc or growth. Most (although not all!) characters undergo some kind of transformation over the course of the narrative. When planning your novel, ask yourself “how will my characters be different at the end of the story?”
Tips for Creating Engaging Characters
There are as many ways to craft characters as there are writers. That said, here are some tips and tools you might use to flesh out your protagonist and the rest of your cast:
- Write Character Profiles: A character profile is a summary of a character’s physical and psychological traits. You can format yours however you like, or search for templates online. There are plenty of worksheet-style character profiles to help get you started (including the one that comes with Scrivener, my favorite writing software).
- “Interview” Your Characters: Developing a character’s personality and motivations can be tricky! Some writers find it useful to write interview questions and then answer them as if they’re the character they’re trying to write. This can help you develop your character’s unique voice.
- Create Mood Boards: A mood board can help with creating your character’s look as well as representing their internal traits. Pinterest is a perfect tool for this. Don’t want to share your planning tools with the world? Just make the board private to keep it from prying eyes.
- Take Personality Tests: Cheesy as it may sound, it can be helpful to know your characters’ Myers-Briggs personality types or Enneagram profile. These personality frameworks strive to classify different ways people view the world. If you keep your characters’ personality types in mind while you’re writing, you may find it easier to figure out how they should react to certain situations.
- Track Characters in a Spreadsheet: Especially if you have a large cast, using a spreadsheet to track your characters’ traits can help you keep them organized. It will also prevent you from accidentally giving everyone in your book very similar physical characteristics.
You can use one or two of these tools, all of them together, or none of them at all! Remember that your writing process is up to you. Focus on the techniques that resonate with you.
Writing Diverse Characters
Representation in literature is important for giving readers a chance to see themselves reflected in media and also for making the world of your story feel realistic. The world is full of people with a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Incorporating people of different races, genders, sexual orientations, and abilities mirrors reality.
That said, it’s important to be mindful when writing outside your own experience. Avoid stereotyping and tokenism. Give all your characters the same level of attention to detail and depth. You should do as much if not more research on your characters who are different from you as you would do for the ones who share similarities with you.
Also, you should give a lot of consideration to writing about traumatic events in history that impact marginalized groups you’re not a part of. The Holocaust, slavery and systemic racism, the treatment of Indigenous Peoples, and countless other horrific events should be treated with the proper respect.
Many authors have profited off of the harm done to marginalized communities by writing about them and in some cases, doing a poor job of representing the people who were directly involved. It’s wise to ask yourself, “Am I the right person to tell this story?” and if you believe the answer if yes, you should be able to articulate why.
Strategies for Characterization in Writing
Alright, so you have a grasp on character development, you’ve used your preferred planning tools to map out your characters’ internal and external qualities, and you’ve given due consideration to how you’ll depict characters with experiences that a different from yours.
Now what?
As you’re writing your first draft (or your zero draft, if you prefer), look for opportunities to weave in details about your characters. It can be tempting to dump all of their physical details into one paragraph right at the beginning—after all, you want your readers to know who they’re dealing with! But trust them to be patient. Most people don’t stand around thinking about and listing all the minute details of their appearance. This tends to stick out and take readers out of the story.
Instead, reveal the details bit by bit in ways that are relevant to the plot. Maybe your story begins on a rainy day and your protagonist has to battle their frizzy hair. Perhaps they notice the color of their future love interest’s eyes as they lock gazes for the first time. There are infinite ways to show readers what your characters look like through small moments like this. If you do it right, they’ll start to see your characters come to life without even realizing you’ve been feeding them the information.
It can be even more challenging to demonstrate personality traits than physical ones. This is where the age old writing advice “show, don’t tell” comes into play. It’s way more impactful to show your characters’ personalities through their actions and dialogue than to tell readers that your protagonist is “confident” or “shy” or “snarky.”
Body language is a powerful vehicle for characterization. How does your character enter a room? How do they carry themself? Do they use their hands when they talk? Do they have any nervous habits?
Developing your character’s voice is also key to showcasing their personality through their dialogue. Everyone has unique speech patterns. Creating them for your characters will help make them “sound” distinct on the page.
Conclusion
Crafting engaging characters is key to drawing readers in and making them feel invested in your story. There are many different techniques you can use to plan your characters before you start writing and to show their unique traits through your writing.
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Featured Image Credit: Unsplash
Molly Tyler
Molly received her B.A. in English in 2016, and her M.F.A. in Creative Writing in 2019. She now works full time as a digital content marketer.