Creating Characters Readers Will Love

Creating characters that your readers will fall in love with is an essential ingredient of compelling fiction. But how do you do this?

Try this simple exercise to learn how:

1. Describe your best friend.

2. Now describe a stranger that you saw today.  Maybe it was someone at the coffee shop or in line at the grocery store.

The difference between those two descriptions is the difference between a character a reader will fall in love with and a character that remains flat and lifeless on the page.



When you described your best friend you probably mentioned more than just her appearance. You told me about
her wild love of roller coasters, her three spoiled Dachshunds each named after a James Bond villain, and her enduring devotion to gardening despite the fact she kills every plant she touches.

But when you described the stranger you could only tell me their hair colour, what they were wearing and maybe what they were doing when you noticed them.

The stranger is not as interesting because you don’t know them.  You don’t know their likes and dislikes, their habits and quirks.  Their history.  Their hopes.  For a character to be real to a reader it must first be real to the writer.  But this doesn’t mean you should only write about friends and family.  It means you should take the time to get to know your characters, to build them not just on the outside but all the way in to their souls.  Then they’ll be real enough for your readers to fall in love with. 

Tip: Think about some characters from books that you love. Think about what made you care about them.