Piper Nuelle

To write compelling characters for your story you need to understand them and know them inside out, but some of the information you know about them, does not always need to be known by the reader. But how do you know what information about them is integral to the story and needs to be shared with the reader, or what needs to be kept back for just the author to know?

As you start to plan or to write your book it is good to do somethings to get to know your main character and any secondary characters and even antagonists if needed. Once you know everything you can about them, you can then decide what the reader needs to know, what you can imply in the story but maybe not tell, and what they don’t need to know at all.

Firstly you need to know who the main character is! You may write down some notes or ideas for your story and base it on one character, you may even start the first draft but you may find that something doesn’t feel quite right, or you don’t hear their voice as well when you write. You may find that one of the secondary characters is screaming the loudest, and so you may decide it is their story to be told and the other character may become secondary or disappear totally from your book and or world. Don’t feel guilty about this, sometimes this just happens.

Secondly you need to understand your chosen main character. What makes them tick? Why is it their story? What do they want? What is their story going to be and why? What makes them special? At this point you may in your mind see them and know what they look like, but you don’t need to focus too much on the external factors of maybe their hair colour, their height, their race, maybe even their gender until you have gotten to know all their internal factors.

How to get to know the internal them?

• What is their want or desire? To better their life? To find something? To find love? Exact revenge? Humans are complex in the fact they will want to do something to feel better about themselves. So look at their current situation, where are they? What are they doing? What does their want or desire have to do with the situation they are currently in? Expand on it, get to know all about them and their situation. Is where they live awful and dangerous, is their desire to move to a safer home? Is their job boring and soulless, do they want or desire a promotion or a new job? All these things can help secure the journey they must go on.
• What do they believe? Not just religion wise but that could be a factor of course. But what do they believe about themselves or the world around them? Is this belief a mis-belief and holding them back from their true purpose or potential? It could be about love, success etc, that they believe they are not worthy so therefore do not have it and cannot find it.
• Backstory, to see what made them have these beliefs about themselves and the world. Understanding the backstory and their beliefs and why they have them can help you to see the underlying reasons of why they desire what they desire. Were they abandoned as a child, had no loving people around them, so now struggle to love and believe they are loveless even though you as the writer know that is not true. Were they punished for being good at something, so now fear or do not believe that can be successful. If you struggle with the backstory sometimes it is good to free write it for a while, just write anything that comes to mind and fine tooth comb it afterwards, take what you need and leave what you don’t. Although never discard it all, you may find you need it for something else at a later date.

Once you have got to know them, it is then time to delve into the reason behind their story. Why must they go on a journey maybe emotionally or physically? What are the stakes to this journey? What may they lose if they fail? But what do they gain if they succeed?

To have a compelling character they must have something to lose. If the writer isn’t worried about them then why should they write about them? And if the reader isn’t worried about them then why should they read about them?

What stakes could they have?

• They could have personal stakes to lose. What is personal to them that they could lose by going on this journey. Could it be a part of them? Their soul, a part of their personality, part of their belief system, a trinket, a person, a job or a lover?
• They could have public stakes where they want to save face, they don’t want everyone to see them fail because if they do what will everyone say? What will people think?
• Then there is an ultimate stake, which could be their belief systems breaking down, their life or another persons life.

(I cannot remember where I heard about the three stakes but that is not my original idea, but if I ever come across the person who originally said about the stakes I will update, but I thought it was indeed useful to add in here)

Once you have identified the stakes, it is good to look back over some prompts that could change or alter the outcome, or have some form of detrimental effect on the stakes and journey at hand.

• Desires
• Beliefs
• Backstory

But to have stakes threaten the character or the journey you need challenges and obstacles to get in their way to make the story compelling, readable and worth it. Obstacles can come in many forms, but they need to intrude on the characters life somehow to force them to act and or change. What could forms of obstacles be?

• A person or another character
• An animal
• A threat to them or someone else they know or care about
• Knowledge based, they need to learn something
• Time or deadline
• Society
• Money, poverty, richness, job
• Emotions
• Physical, a fence, a gate, a path
• Love or romance
• Family
• Politics
• Morals and ideals
• Them self!

All these are obstacles the main character may have to overcome to go forth on their physical or mental journey. They may have more than one obstacle at a time, some may be smaller than others, there may be smaller obstacles that lead to a bigger one, the ultimate one to overcome. But how will your character solve these obstacles?

• Alone or with others
• Will they not, will they try to avoid them altogether which takes them down a different path
• Will they try to work around the obstacle, trying to incorporate it into their lives instead
• Will they confront it head on
• Will they externalise the obstacle, is it one they can physically see or do
• Will they internalise the obstacle, is it one they cannot see but must trust is there to do

Ultimately the obstacles are what helps the character to grow and to move on within the story. Without some form of obstacle the story will become a little boring, because there will be nothing for them to do. If they live a happy life where nothing happens and the story is just about their happy days, the reader will not be able to connect on a level with them, because all humans go through something, there is always something, big or small that a human must do or overcome. You want the reader to relate to the character on some level.

At the end of all of these things and the journey they have gone on, you must see some form of change in or for the character. That could be;

• A change in beliefs
• A change in lifestyle
• A change in romantic interests
• A change in morals
• A Change in success
• A change in place

There needs to be some form of change to make the story compelling and worth reading, there needs to be a change so the reader can see the character come out of it the other side. It doesn’t need to be a full 180 degree shift, you still want them to be them, but a change small enough for the reader to notice the journey has changed them… Hopefully for the better.

Basically to make compelling characters for readers to gel with and relate to and for them to enjoy reading and wanting to turn the page for more, you need to remember to;

• Decide who the main character is
• What is their desire, need, want or potential journey. Will it be emotional or physical?
• What do they believe and does that belief hinder them?
• Get to know their backstory, know everything about them to aid you with your writing
• What can they lose? What can they gain?
• What are the obstacles and challenges they may face along the way
• How have they changed?

All of these can help you to make a compelling character. There may be parts of it you enjoy writing for your characters and others but if there are parts you do not enjoy, leave it out. It doesn’t need to be a chore, it is just to help you on your writing journey. Take what you need and leave out all the rest.

Hope this helps with your character development when writing.

xo Piper xo