All stories are character-driven. If you pick up a book about a young woman who struggles her first few months living in Jamestown, you will find yourself suddenly transported to a new place and a new time. While a dry text on colonial America might not interest you, a tightly written character narrative can draw you in.
Another example might be; that Star Trek wouldn’t be Star Trek without James T. Kirk. No one would tune in to watch the old series or any of the other series all these years later if they didn’t care about the characters. Captain Picard, Odo, Worf, and Tom Paris, these individuals drove the shows that made them what they are today.
It is the same thing that makes people read The Great Gatsby or Tom Sawyer; the characters hook them.
So how do you create believable characters that draw the readers in?
Start with the bare basics. I love filling out a character chart on my characters as I develop the story. I have interviews and sit down, asking them who they are and why their story matters.
My Favorite Character Charts
I stumbled upon these two eons ago, probably in the early 2000s, when I was in my suspense romance writing stage, and I loved both of them. I printed off copies and ran copies of those. Filling them out gave me a certain amount of joy as I learned more about the people who would inhabit my new worlds. These two charts have proven invaluable.
Last year I bought a book called The Only Character Workbook You’ll Ever Need by T.M. Holladay and I highly recommend picking up a copy. I bought mine on Amazon. It is a fantastic paperback book with different pages to fill out as you learn more about your characters.
What Do Authors Say About Character Development?
Jerry Jenkins, the best-selling author, has a website where he helps other writers become authors, he says on his site that “Spellbinding stories feature believable characters who feel knowable.” and that “memorable characters are larger than life they’re also universally human.”
Evelyn Waugh says, “All fictional characters are flat.” She argues it is up to the writer to give them dimension.
Which Characters Are You Developing?
In any story, you have at least two characters, the protagonist and the antagonist. Almost every story, though, has an entire cast of characters beyond the protagonist and antagonist. You have the best friend or sidekick, and the secondary characters. Each character that plays a pivotal role in your story should have their own back story and character chart or interview.
Using Online or Apps
I have been using Dabble to write my book and Plottr for my outline. Plottr has a section for character development, along with several character outlines, depending on how in-depth you want to go into developing each character. Plottr also helps if you want to figure out when a character appears in the story and what role they will play when perhaps they are just a minor secondary character.
Read the Experts
If you really want to get hands on learning for character development, though you need to read the books by the experts, Margret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind), George R. R. Martin, Tolstoy, Faulkner, J. K. Rowling just to name a few. Read your favorite writers too, see what makes them enjoyable to read, and you might find it is the characters.
One of my favorite authors is Katherine Center. Her books are amazing. To me though it is her characters stick out. The first book I read was How to Walk Away, and it was the main character and the narration that made me finish the book in a day and a half, and then go out and buy all of Center’s other books. If you have a favorite author, study what they do.
