Characters are the heart of any story. Readers may be intrigued by your plot, setting, or writing style, but it's the characters they'll form emotional connections with. Creating complex, multi-dimensional characters who feel like real people is one of the most important skills any writer can develop. In this article, we'll explore techniques for creating characters that leap off the page and linger in readers' minds long after they've finished your book.
Beyond Character Sheets: Finding Your Character's Core
While character sheets and questionnaires can be helpful tools, truly complex characters aren't built solely by knowing their favorite color or what they eat for breakfast. To create genuinely compelling characters, you need to understand their core—the fundamental aspects that drive them and make them unique.
Start With Contradictions
Real people are full of contradictions, and your characters should be too. A brave character who's terrified of spiders, a cynical character who secretly collects romantic poetry, a ruthless businesswoman who volunteers at an animal shelter—these contradictions create tension and interest.
"The essence of a compelling character lies not in their consistency, but in the fascinating ways they contradict themselves."
Give Them Wounds and Wants
Every compelling character has both:
- Wounds: Past hurts or traumas that have shaped them
- Wants: Deep desires that drive their actions
The interplay between these elements creates internal conflict. Often, what a character consciously wants is in conflict with what they unconsciously need to heal their wounds.
The Character Arc: Growth and Change
Static characters remain essentially the same throughout a story. Complex characters change in response to the events they experience. This change can be:
- Positive: The character grows, overcomes flaws, or becomes a better person
- Negative: The character descends into darker behavior or fails to overcome their challenges
- Flat: The character doesn't fundamentally change but remains steadfast in their values despite extreme pressure (think Captain America or Atticus Finch)
The key is that this change (or steadfast resistance to change) should feel earned through the events of the story.
The Iceberg Theory of Character Development
Ernest Hemingway famously said that good writing is like an iceberg—only a small portion is visible above the surface, while the vast majority lies beneath. This applies perfectly to character development:
You should know far more about your characters than you ever explicitly state in your story. This hidden depth will infuse your writing with authenticity even if readers never see the full character bible you've created.
Techniques for Showing Character Complexity
1. Through Decisions Under Pressure
Characters reveal themselves most authentically when forced to make difficult choices. Put your characters in situations where:
- All options have serious consequences
- Their core values come into conflict
- They must sacrifice something important to them
2. Through Relationships
We are different people with different people. Show your character interacting with various people in their life to reveal different facets of their personality:
- How they treat those with power over them
- How they treat those they have power over
- Their behavior with loved ones versus strangers
3. Through Internal and External Conflicts
Complex characters should face both:
- External conflicts: Obstacles in the world around them
- Internal conflicts: Battles within themselves (desires vs. fears, values vs. temptations)
Exercise: The Character Immersion
To deepen your understanding of your character, try this exercise:
- Write a scene from your character's childhood that shaped who they became, even if it never appears in your actual story.
- Write a first-person journal entry from your character about their most embarrassing memory.
- Describe your character's living space in detail, focusing on the items that reveal aspects of their personality.
The more you understand your characters' depths, the more authentically they'll behave on the page, even in situations you hadn't planned for when you began writing.
Avoiding Common Character Pitfalls
The Mary Sue/Gary Stu
These are idealized characters without meaningful flaws who excel at everything important to the plot. To avoid this, ensure your characters:
- Have significant weaknesses that affect the story
- Make mistakes and face consequences
- Need help from others to succeed
Stereotypes and Stock Characters
These are characters reduced to a single trait or role. To avoid this:
- Give even minor characters specific, unique traits
- Subvert expectations about how a "type" of person would act
- Ensure every character has their own goals, not just serving the protagonist's journey
Creating truly complex characters takes time and deep thought, but the effort is worth it. When readers connect with your characters—when they care about what happens to them, argue about their choices, and miss them when the book is done—you've created something special that will stay with them long after they've forgotten clever plot twists or beautiful prose.
Having worked on numerous fiction manuscripts with authors like Sarah Spookychild and Cadence Marshall, I've seen firsthand how rich character development transforms a good story into an unforgettable one. If you'd like personalized feedback on your character development, consider reaching out for a sample edit. Together, we can add depth and complexity to your characters that will resonate with readers.