3 Guidelines for Character Creation

Character creation? In Week 3?! Yes, indeed! Whether you realize that you need a character to fill in a gap in a gang of international thieves, or whether your main character is coming off a little flat, it’s never to late to think about what makes characters tick.

In this post, Young Writers Program Participant Katherine Liu gives some tips, tricks, and helpful resources to write more interesting characters: 

Interesting and dynamic characters in a story are essential to keeping your readers interested. If a character is flat, clichéd and clone-like, then it keeps your readers from flipping the page (or scrolling down online!) Here are some ways to help you with creating riveting characters:

Get to know your characters

I find personality tests like 16 Personalities/Myers Briggs extremely helpful. 

If you take the test in your character’s point of view, then you can learn a lot more about him/her by simply answering the questions. After the test, you can read about the strengths and weaknesses of that personality type, in addition to finding information about their friendship and romantic relationships. I also find the NaNoWriMo Character Questionnaire as something great that you can do in addition. 

Think about their greatest ambitions

Every character, whether they are major or minor, should have an aim in their life. For example, a henchman of the villain who makes an appearance during the climax shouldn’t just be working for the villain because he/she is simply evil. If the henchman is desperate to be paid money to feed his family, then his goal/aim would be “To support my family”.

If the henchman is being forced to work because the villain is threatening his family’s life, then his goal/aim would be “To save my family”. There can be many more reasons than the two possibilities that I have listed. “Want for absolute power” had been a commonly used goal in villains.

If it helps, you can think about what you want most in your life and incorporate it as your main character’s goal, e.g. An amazing adventure. It might not work for some plots but you can always choose to build the plot around the character or the other way around.

Avoid Character Clichés

Character clichés just makes me want to tear out my hair! They make your characters lack individuality. Here are some clichés that you can try to avoid:

No More Fiery Redheads: Not every redheaded character has to be feisty and outspoken to match their hair color, they can be shy and quiet too.No More Broody Men: Haven’t we had enough of surly, handsome men who show a soft side to their lover? What about a man who is bright and optimistic, and shows their soft side to everyone?No More Chosen Ones: The ~*prophecies*~ show that they will be the one to [insert plot thing here]… but that means they don’t have any real motivation. It’s much better if they want to do it themselves instead of having a prophecy telling them to.

This article by Now Novel can help you change your character cliché.

Good luck with creating your characters!

Apart from writing, Katherine enjoys sketching and painting with watercolors, especially if she’s drawing a scene/character from her own story. Often she can be found with her nose in a book, usually a romantic fantasy. Sometimes she attempts to write poems, though they turn up not so well.