Realism is what I need to stress the most in the area of character development. Your character needs to be real, and not just to you. They need to be real to every single one of your readers. For example, if one of your readers sees someone tugging on his ear or something, they need to think, “Oh, Jason used to do that!” before they realize that Jason was your fictional character.
My first advice would be to create a character profile for every one of your major characters. I’m not just talking name and age. I’m saying everything from birthmarks to pet peeves. Is he/she a morning person or a night owl? Does he/she have any irrational fears? What is his/her family history? Half of the stuff may not even be in the story, but if anything, it will make the character more real to you. In order to know how your character will react to a situation, you must understand who they are. It will show, I promise to your readers.
Tip 2: Flaws
For the love of God people, please don’t make your characters perfect. You’ve been told by everyone from your parents to your history teacher that no one is perfect, and it is true. Don’t think for one second that fictional characters are any exception. If you want a character that your readers can relate to, then do not make them absolutely, stunningly beautiful, incredibly smart and talented, rich, and popular. No one is all of these, and if there is someone like that out there, then God bless them, but don’t let it be your character. Pick one of the above, two tops. But believe me, when someone clicks onto a story and finds that the person has six boys in love with her, makes guys drop dead when she bats eyes at them, and gets straight As, they are going to mutter “Jeez…” and hurry to that back button before you can even get the plot started.
Give them flaws. Maybe they have an inferiority complex or can’t seem to get up their math grade. Perhaps they have glasses, or maybe they get tongue-tied around their crush. Seriously people, I cannot stress realism enough. Realistically, people aren’t perfect. Nor do they want to read about people who are.
Tip 3: Mistakes
I completely understand how difficult this is, but you need to imagine your character as a separate entity from yourself. Your character is not you, so they may not do the same things you would do. Let them live their own life, and most of all let them make mistakes. Even if it is things you would never do, but you have to let your characters learn. For characters to develop, they have to have their own experiences. Even if you would never get drunk after a particularly bad breakup, maybe that is something your character would do, so let them. Consequently, let them learn that it is never the best way to deal with a breakup, especially if you end up in jail for table dancing or something. Maybe that is a bad example, but you get the idea. I know how difficult that is, but let your characters react the way they want to. Even if you need to move the plot along, do it in a way that will suit your characters personality. Eg: don’t have the shy, innocent librarian stand up to the bank robber. It all comes back to the realism concept. Realistically, if you found out the new kid in class is a vampire, you wouldn’t be all “Omg, really? That is so awesome! Can I be your girlfriend?” A normal person’s reaction would be “Holy sh*t! Get away from me!”
The thing to keep in mind is this: You cannot control your characters. The only thing you can control is everything out of their control.
Tip 4: Cause and Effect
This is something I see all the time on this site. There can be fifty chapters and by the end of it all, nothing about the character has changed. I’m not talking about some affection they may develop for some guy, but their personalities and characteristics are exactly the same. See, in life, all kinds of crap happens, some good and some bad, and people react to that. Sometimes it is life changing. But if there is one thing in life that is certain, is things do change.
Back to how this ties into the realism thing I keep mentioning. If, God forbid, your character was raped or something else terrible, they are not just going to shake it off as a “bad night last night”, and they sure as hell wouldn’t forgive the asshole who did it. Please, if you have something of that magnitude, don’t make it just a one-chapter event and never mention it again. In reality, something like that would impact someone’s life forever, more than likely change who they are as a person. Cause and effect, people. Think it over.
Tip 5: Side Characters
Now, don’t go thinking all this advice applies to your main character, because it doesn’t. All of your characters have to be realistic, and that includes the men of the story. Now, I can understand the warm fuzzies of giving your main character a sweet, perfect man, but let him have a say in it. Make sure there is some attraction for him too, and not that she is completely gorgeous. Give them a connection. They both love Beach Boys. She’s so irritating, but he just can’t get her off his mind. Men, in real life, do not normally take one look at a girl and say, “That’s the one. I’m going to marry her and we are going to live happily ever after.” Give them a little interaction first before you go plunging them into a relationship.
Likewise, people, I realize that, thanks to Stephanie Meyer, it is so much fun to fantasize about some vampire/werewolf walking into your classroom and immediately falling head over heals for your character. But realistically speaking, a vampire (not that they exist) would not sit there and go, “Hmnn, instead of eating that, I think I’ll marry it.” No. Please, stick with realism people.
Realism is what I need to stress the most in the area of character development. Your character needs to be real, and not just to you. They need to be real to every single one of your readers. For example, if one of your readers sees someone tugging on his ear or something, they need to think, “Oh, Jason used to do that!” before they realize that Jason was your fictional character.
My first advice would be to create a character profile for every one of your major characters. I’m not just talking name and age. I’m saying everything from birthmarks to pet peeves. Is he/she a morning person or a night owl? Does he/she have any irrational fears? What is his/her family history? Half of the stuff may not even be in the story, but if anything, it will make the character more real to you. In order to know how your character will react to a situation, you must understand who they are. It will show, I promise to your readers.
Tip 2: Flaws
For the love of God people, please don’t make your characters perfect. You’ve been told by everyone from your parents to your history teacher that no one is perfect, and it is true. Don’t think for one second that fictional characters are any exception. If you want a character that your readers can relate to, then do not make them absolutely, stunningly beautiful, incredibly smart and talented, rich, and popular. No one is all of these, and if there is someone like that out there, then God bless them, but don’t let it be your character. Pick one of the above, two tops. But believe me, when someone clicks onto a story and finds that the person has six boys in love with her, makes guys drop dead when she bats eyes at them, and gets straight As, they are going to mutter “Jeez…” and hurry to that back button before you can even get the plot started.
Give them flaws. Maybe they have an inferiority complex or can’t seem to get up their math grade. Perhaps they have glasses, or maybe they get tongue-tied around their crush. Seriously people, I cannot stress realism enough. Realistically, people aren’t perfect. Nor do they want to read about people who are.
Tip 3: Mistakes
I completely understand how difficult this is, but you need to imagine your character as a separate entity from yourself. Your character is not you, so they may not do the same things you would do. Let them live their own life, and most of all let them make mistakes. Even if it is things you would never do, but you have to let your characters learn. For characters to develop, they have to have their own experiences. Even if you would never get drunk after a particularly bad breakup, maybe that is something your character would do, so let them. Consequently, let them learn that it is never the best way to deal with a breakup, especially if you end up in jail for table dancing or something. Maybe that is a bad example, but you get the idea. I know how difficult that is, but let your characters react the way they want to. Even if you need to move the plot along, do it in a way that will suit your characters personality. Eg: don’t have the shy, innocent librarian stand up to the bank robber. It all comes back to the realism concept. Realistically, if you found out the new kid in class is a vampire, you wouldn’t be all “Omg, really? That is so awesome! Can I be your girlfriend?” A normal person’s reaction would be “Holy sh*t! Get away from me!”
The thing to keep in mind is this: You cannot control your characters. The only thing you can control is everything out of their control.
Tip 4: Cause and Effect
This is something I see all the time on this site. There can be fifty chapters and by the end of it all, nothing about the character has changed. I’m not talking about some affection they may develop for some guy, but their personalities and characteristics are exactly the same. See, in life, all kinds of crap happens, some good and some bad, and people react to that. Sometimes it is life changing. But if there is one thing in life that is certain, is things do change.
Back to how this ties into the realism thing I keep mentioning. If, God forbid, your character was raped or something else terrible, they are not just going to shake it off as a “bad night last night”, and they sure as hell wouldn’t forgive the asshole who did it. Please, if you have something of that magnitude, don’t make it just a one-chapter event and never mention it again. In reality, something like that would impact someone’s life forever, more than likely change who they are as a person. Cause and effect, people. Think it over.
Tip 5: Side Characters
Now, don’t go thinking all this advice applies to your main character, because it doesn’t. All of your characters have to be realistic, and that includes the men of the story. Now, I can understand the warm fuzzies of giving your main character a sweet, perfect man, but let him have a say in it. Make sure there is some attraction for him too, and not that she is completely gorgeous. Give them a connection. They both love Beach Boys. She’s so irritating, but he just can’t get her off his mind. Men, in real life, do not normally take one look at a girl and say, “That’s the one. I’m going to marry her and we are going to live happily ever after.” Give them a little interaction first before you go plunging them into a relationship.
Likewise, people, I realize that, thanks to Stephanie Meyer, it is so much fun to fantasize about some vampire/werewolf walking into your classroom and immediately falling head over heals for your character. But realistically speaking, a vampire (not that they exist) would not sit there and go, “Hmnn, instead of eating that, I think I’ll marry it.” No. Please, stick with realism people.