Character Development: The Heart of the Story

Once you have a plot set up and a general idea of where your action is going to take place, you have to fill it with people, believable characters.

Your main character, the side characters, the antagonist—a good story usually includes them all. But, like all aspects of writing, everything exists for a reason. Your characters might be fun to write, but their true purpose is to create the story. They drive the action. Who they are sets the tone.

1. The Necessity of Change (The Arc)

If you remember back, our story begins in the Normal World. It can be dystopian, it can be happy, or it can be strange—but for the hero, it is “normal.”

However, there is no story without change. Growth can be in the positive direction or the negative direction, but usually, for the main character, it is positive.

The Golden Rule: Change does not come without pain. We put our poor characters through pain because that is the whole point of leaving the real world. They are forced by an action to change. If we don’t include this struggle, our readers will wander away. Who wants to read about a hero who ends the book exactly in the same state they started?

2. Flaws & Complexity (Round vs. Flat)

Our characters are not one-dimensional. They have desires, they have fears, and there is usually something they need to work on.

• Our hero might be a coward.
• Our heroine might be afraid to change.
• They might be totally overwhelmed by the odds facing them.

You use their flaws and their actions to show who they are. When you are writing them, think of what somebody in real life would do. Everyone is unique, from their favorite flavor of bagel to their thoughts on God and death.

The Element of Surprise As much as you can, avoid using “Stock Characters” Humans are utterly unique, and your characters should be too.

3. The Antagonist (The Mirror)

Along with our heroes, we have the Antagonist. The antagonist should be a full character of their own. They must have a motivation for why they do the things they do. They are the hero of their own story.

The Gold Standard: Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling knew how to write an enemy. Over the course of her books, we learn exactly why the villains are the way they are—from the backstory of Voldemort to the incredible complexity of Snape. A good writer knows how to make the bullies sympathetic, interesting, and three-dimensional.

4. Side Characters & Sidekicks

There will be a time, for brevity’s sake, that you have to use “background” characters. But even then, try to add a detail so the reader’s eyes don’t skim over them.

The “Red Shirt” Problem I dislike reading a book where people are dying left and right, but it’s not treated as much as a tragedy as one of the major characters dying. Even for minor characters, who are the role equivalent of NPC’s, try to add something that makes them real. If you need inspiration, look at the VSS365 (Very Short Story) community on Twitter; they are masters of writing a whole story in a few words.

The Sidekick A sidekick is a character who acts as a plot tool to move the story along, in the story they can;

• Provide Insight: A rich hero meets a poor sidekick who teaches him what it is like to live without.
• Act as a Foil: Contrast the hero’s weakness with the sidekick’s strength.
• Complement Powers: Instead of the main character doing everything, the sidekick fills in the gaps (e.g., Ron and Hermione support Harry; they have their own purposes and growth).

5. Tools to Keep Track of It All

How do you keep track of all the details?

The D&D Character Sheet

For writing a complex character, try pulling up a Dungeons & Dragons character sheet and filling it out. It covers everything: Strength, Intelligence, Charisma, Equipment, and Backstory. It is a perfect reference sheet because it is easy to forget details mid-story.

The Interview Method

Some authors pretend they are in a room with their character. They imagine two chairs: the writer in one, the character in the other. Then, they interview them. “Why are you scared?” “What do you want?” It helps flesh them out before you type a single word of the plot.

Real Life Inspiration

We write what we know. Take a person you know in real life and blend a character based on them. You don’t have to “invent” their motivation or mannerisms because you already have their picture in your mind.

The character generator gives you a starting framework, but the details are what make a character believable, their fears, the small aspect of history, their wants and needs, those come from watching people and asking questions about what molds them. Use the generator to get a shape on the page and then fill it out with how you know people actually work.