5 Tips for Writing Characters That Don’t Suck

If you don’t have a good main character, you don’t have a good book. Period!

Now good doesn’t mean likable; it just means well crafted. So before you pen a novel, craft a good character.

This is true even for plot-based stories. Even when plot reigns supreme and the characters aren’t the main focus, they still need to be written in a way that makes them seem real. They will just have less depth, arc, and motivations.

But they need to be people. They need to seem real. And they still have an arc, but the events are more important and the primary focus.

The character may be secondary, but if they aren’t well written, it will ruin the book. After all, if I’m reading or watching a thriller, the high action keeps me engaged. But if the characters feel shallow, it takes me out of the moment.

Take the movie Taken, for example. This is a plot-based movie. We don’t get deep into the characters’ heads much. But I know the type of guy Bryan Mills is. I can see what motivates him. I can feel his emotions. And his daughter, Kim? Well, she has some spoiled brat tendencies and is naive. These characters have traits unique to them.

They just aren’t as well-rounded or developed as they would be if the story were character-based.

So with that said, how does one create a good character?

Some of the below tips come with prompts.

As you answer the prompts:

• Never give a one-word answer to any prompt. If the prompt is whether they are pessimistic or optimistic, answer and then explain why and in what way.
• Pretend you’re interviewing the character.
  • How would they answer the question and in what way?
  • Would they share a story to explain their answer?
  • Would they get very detailed or give shorter descriptions?
  • Would they be insightful and chatty or give more concise shallow answers? Etc.

The prompts aren’t all-inclusive. So answer questions that I didn’t come up with that are important to your character.

We are who we are because of the life we have experienced. Our past shapes our worldview and our personality.

So make sure to give every important character a clear backstory, not just the main character. Any character the reader needs to know as a person needs a backstory.

This doesn’t mean their backstory will actually appear in the book. If it does, make sure it is interspersed throughout and that not every part of the backstory is shown, only what the reader must know. Check out my blog on How to Fix Info Dumping for more information on this.

To create a backstory for your character, use these prompts. Don’t answer all the questions for any given character. Pick the questions that are relevant to that character. This means you will use different questions for different characters.

• How many siblings do they have and where do they fall in the birth order?
• What was their economic status growing up?
• How did their parents treat them?
• What was their relationship like with their parents and siblings?
• What was their greatest achievement to date?
• What were they like as a child (whatever would be younger than their age at the start of the book)
• What is the most traumatic thing to have happened to them? (everyone has trauma whether mild or big)
• What was their first kiss like?
• What is the worst thing they did to someone they loved?
• What is the worst thing they have ever done?
• What do they regret?
• What were their childhood ambitions?
• What is their best and worst memory?
• How popular were they in school?
• What grades did they get in school? What were their favorite subjects?
• Who were their favorite teachers?
• What activities were they involved with in school?
• What was their biggest struggle as a child, as a teenager, as a young adult?
• What past jobs have they had? And how did they feel about those jobs?
• Have they ever been bullied or teased?
• What religion were they raised in, if any?

How did they view their religion?

Everyone has unique personality traits. Their past and their DNA have helped shape these traits. We are all made up of good and bad traits. So make sure your character has some bad traits. No one is perfect, and no one wants to read about a perfect character.

You’ll notice I don’t have any questions about physical appearance. This was intentional.

To be frank, most readers don’t care what eye color, hair color, height, etc. the character is unless it plays a role in the actual story (like Harry Potter’s scar).

A person’s looks were given to them, but their personality they developed themselves. If the character is obsessed with looks, they might comment on their appearance from time to time. If they have changed their looks in some way, this may be noted.

Otherwise, you don’t even have to describe the main character(s) physically. The only characters you should describe physically are the side characters and the characters that are just part of the environment. Not that you need to physically describe all of them. But giving some of them a description tells the reader information about the POV character in that scene. It shows what matters to them, what they notice, and why.

• What type of clothes do they wear?
• Are they in good health and do they have any disabilities?
• What words or phrases do they use a lot?
• Optimistic or pessimistic?
• Introverted or extroverted? (What traits of introversion or extrovertism do they have?)
• What bad habits do they have?
• How do they display affection?
• How do they want to be seen by others?
• How do they see themselves?
• How competitive are they?
• What would be their result on various personality tests? (Enneagram, Disc, Myers-Briggs, Color code, etc.)
• What are their strongest and greatest traits?
• What are their weakest traits?
• How do they react to praise, criticism, differences of opinion?
• What do they fear?
• What are their secrets?
• What is their philosophy of life?
• What makes them cry?
• What are their political views?
• How do they treat people they like? How do they treat people they don’t like?
• What do they value most in a friend?
• What is their most treasured possession?
• What are their pet peeves?
• How do they respond to a threat?
• How do they perceive strangers?
• How do they handle conflict with others?
• Are they more of a leader or a follower?
• What are their talents?
• What religious beliefs do they currently hold?
• What are their top values?
• What gets them out of bed?
• What is their moral code?
• What are their routines and habits?
• How do they keep their home?
• What is their favorite thing to do with friends? By themselves?
• What are their favorites? (animal, food, color, place to visit, song, book, movie, etc.)
• What is their idea of perfect happiness?

All your main characters need to have clear objectives. Otherwise, they are wandering without a clear direction, and it is harder for your readers to feel invested.

Ask: “What does my character want above all else and why?”

Of course, we have lots of wants and desires, but these wants add up to one bigger thing. Try to get to that big thing.

Get to the ultimate objective, the bigger thing.

I may want to

• Communicate better with my kids
• Market my products better and get more sales
• Think more positively

But ultimately what these all add up to is the desire to be and feel successful. So that is the overall objective.

Once you have the ultimate objective, ask, “What does my character want in this scene?” They should have a clear motivation and goal for each scene. These are the little wants and desires that lead to the bigger motivation.

The character may not consciously be aware of their objective, but they have them. All people have objectives. So make sure you’re clear and the reader is clear on what the character wants.

To make it clear to the reader, reveal the character(s) objectives through internal thoughts, actions, and dialogue. This doesn’t mean explicitly spelling it out. We can read between the lines.

Characters do not exist in a vacuum. They are aware of and react to their environment as well as those around them.

They shouldn’t enter every scene and immediately start talking. Some scenes, sure. But others, they should enter the scene and have a reaction to the environment and people around them.

Think about it. When you watch a movie, an actor doesn’t just act when they’re delivering their lines. They are acting the entire time in the scene because they’re reacting.

Reacting to the

• words the other character is saying
• physical environment around them
• emotions of the other characters
• events that happen to them

Now, you don’t want to overdo it and show your character reacting to everything. This would make for a very long novel—and a boring one at that. They will not react to every word, to every setting, to every emotion, etc.

Pick the moments to show their reactions. But make sure you have some reactions, or your characters will not feel real.

These reactions don’t just come in the form of feelings. Sure, you can show how a character feels about the words of other characters, the environment around them, etc. And you should. Feelings are a great way to get to know a character.

If they feel scared when they get into a car, that says something about them.

If they feel confident when they step onto a stage with a large audience, that says something about them.

If they react negatively to their mom saying “I love you,” that says something about them.

But you can show them reacting in other ways. What do they notice about their environment? What do they hear, smell, taste, touch, and see? Whether we are conscious of it or not, we taste, smell, and touch our environment. So don’t forget to use the other senses.

No two people will describe an environment the same way. Show how your character views it in that moment. Notice I said in that moment because how one views their environment can change based on their current state of mind.

While all the previous tips apply to some extent to plot-based books (not to the full depth, but to some extent), this one may not apply at all to plot-based novels.

All your main characters should be dynamic in two ways: have agency and undergo growth.

In a character-based story, your main characters need to make things happen. Things can’t just be done to them.

Your scenes will feel much more dynamic if your main character takes action to achieve their objective and advance the plot. They may take the wrong action sometimes; I mean, everyone is flawed. But they are still taking action.

Through this act of choosing and dealing with the consequences of this choice, the character becomes real and engaging.

Their objectives drive their agency. So use what they want to inform realistic choices the character would make in any given situation.

Notice I said “realistic” choices, not perfect choices. We don’t always make perfect choices, but we make choices that are true to ourselves at that moment—our objective, thoughts, worldview, feelings, etc.

A reader can tell when a character makes a choice just because that is the choice they need to make for the plot to go the way the author wants it to go versus making a choice that is true to them.

If the reader can’t tell, then you have a huge characterization issue because your reader doesn’t know your character.

But if they do, they will sense the falseness of a wrong choice. Not wrong, as in bad, but wrong as in not aligned with that character.

Before you start writing you should know where you want your character to end up. You might not know the middle, but you should know the beginning and the end.

Your main characters should end differently than the way they began. And this doesn’t always mean a positive change. Growth is any type of change, whether positive or negative.

Maybe at the start they are insecure, but by the end, they are confident.

Maybe at the start they are kind, but they get jaded, and by the end, they are rude to others.

If your character doesn’t change in some way, your story feels flat (unless it is a plot-based story). In a thriller, I don’t necessarily care how the victim or the villain changes from the event. I want to know about the event. About the evil act. How they did it. How they were discovered. The dynamic life comes from the power of the event itself.

But that isn’t true for a non-plot-based story.

To have rich, engaging characters that keep readers glued to the pages, give them backstories, unique personality traits, and clear objectives.

Then make sure they react and are affected by the environment, have agency, and grow in some way.

Your main character(s) can make or break your book, so it is worth the time to get it right.