Creating captivating and memorable characters is essential for writing a successful story and one of the most fun parts to boot. A great story may fascinate a reader, but if the characters aren't realistic and engaging, it's unlikely they'll stick around to see what happens. In fact, one might argue that character development is even more important than plot; if your characters are fascinating, their actions will carry weight and your readers will love to follow them almost whatever they do. How therefore can you develop characters that seem to be actual, living individuals as opposed to being props for effect?
Here are some tips for mastering the art of characterisation:
Really Know Your Character
To enable readers to connect with your characters, they must be complex, alive, breathing people. You must know them almost just as intimately as you know yourself. The easiest method to do this is by building a comprehensive character profile that can be referred to at any time. Hence, you can determine how a character could respond to each circumstance and how they might feel about the events that occur. You can do this by designating sections of your notebooks to a certain character and noting down things as they come to you. Alternatively, there are many tools you can use that help you define your characters.
Develop a Thorough Backstory
For your character to be believable, they must have a history that has formed who they are when the reader first encounters them. You are not required to tell it all at once or even reveal it all, in fact, it is often much more intriguing if you just hint at certain facts. But, context is essential for understanding the character's behaviour. It is also a highly effective technique for gradually revealing facts about a character to the reader during a novel.
Examine Your Character’s Personality
The background influences the personality of a character to a great extent. Also, it makes the personality more fluid, giving your characters reasons to act differently under various circumstances. Having a solid understanding of your character's nature will enable you to maintain consistency throughout the book and predict how events will have varying effects. Consider if your character is an introvert or extrovert. Will they be humorous, smart, compassionate, charming, or cowardly? What aspect of their personality would you aim to highlight in order to establish rapport with the reader?
Envision the Appearance of Your Characters
If you yourself don’t have a clear sense of what your characters look like, then it’ll be near impossible for the reader to imagine them. You don’t have to list every specific detail, but it’s also vital to the overall impression of the character to know how they dress. Do they dress mostly according to their job? How do they display themselves in public, casual or fashionable? Is there something they wear that is of significant symbolic importance? This will link into the character’s personality and provide the reader with greater insight into their mindset.
Give Your Character Flaws
No one is perfect, and your characters shouldn't be either. Flaws give characters depth and make them more relatable to readers. A character with flaws is also more interesting than a character who is always perfect. Plus it gives you a lot of opportunity to exploit these flaws to ignite conflict in your story.
Give Your Character Goals
Your characters must have motivations and goals that drive their actions. Give your characters distinct objectives that they are striving towards, whether they are personal or plot-related. This can be something as basic as advancing in one's job and impressing a girl or as complex as developing a new government or similar. This will help get the reader immersed in the path of the character and maintain their interest.
Let Your Characters Speak for Themselves
Letting your characters talk in their own voices is one of the most effective methods to develop them and making them more real in the reader's mind. Offer them distinctive phrases that represent their personality and history. Dialogue may also be an excellent technique to communicate information about your characters without directly stating it. Ultimately, characterisation is all about creating real people on your pages that serve you as characters and that readers care about, whether they love them or hate them. I truly hope that these hints and tips can be helpful to you while working on creating memorable characters that will stay with your readers long after they finish your book.
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