How do you create characters that resonate with readers, stirring their emotions and rousing their empathy? That's the goal we all share as writers, right? What if there were a way to combine psychology and writing to make your characters come alive on the page?

To build characters that strike a chord within readers, you need to craft someone who feels realistic, someone your readers can relate to because their motivations and behaviors are modeled on the way real people think and act.

As a writer, have you ever thought about using a sort of psychotherapy to develop your characters? Therapists who adopt this technique encourage the client to tell her own story, to examine it, recover the missing pieces, and to challenge it in a quest to discover how the narrative she tells herself affects different aspects of her experience. By changing the story, she opens the door to change in her life.

If you write fiction, you’re already using psychology to some extent. Psychology deals with analyzing and understanding why humans think, feel, and behave as they do. One way or another, writing does much the same. Psychology and writing go hand-in-hand.

A lot of this comes down to instinct and experience, but a knowledge of psychological theories and counseling ideas can help writers create compelling, well-rounded characters that come across as genuine and interesting.

Herein Lies the Difference

Here’s a funny little twist on the subject—therapists help clients work through their stories in an effort to resolve their issues, while writers who use the same technique do so with the aim of creating issues for their characters. At least, initially.

It’s part of our job to tease, cripple, and torment our characters, intensifying their inner flaws to an almost unbearable level before finally resolving them. Or at least putting our character on the path to resolution.

To get you started down the road of psychology and writing, I’ll touch on a couple of approaches used by therapists. Apply as much or as little of these techniques to your work as you see fit. Therapists generally settle on a couple of methods they find most comfortable and that works for writers, too. Use what makes sense, and throw away the rest.

Blame the Parents

Most of us, when we think of psychotherapy, harbor some vague image of a patient reclining on a couch while the note-taking doctor says, “Tell me about your mother.” Fair or not, parents get a lot of the blame—and credit—for how their children turn out.

The influences of our early years have an enormous impact on how we behave later in life, and it can work the same way for characters. In my own writing, I don’t implement a lot of in-depth character studies, but I do focus on character flaws, those mistaken ideas that motivate behavior, and the past events that helped form and solidify the flaw.

It’s important for writers to determine the kinds of early messages our characters were given in order to understand how they operate in the current setting of the story.

Transactional Analysis

I don’t want to get lost in the weeds here, but I do want to mention two types of influential messages our characters might have received during their formative years.

1. Injunctions

These are the negatives, the DON’Ts. They tell the character there’s something wrong with them, that they are not allowed to do or be something in particular. Please be aware that these messages are rarely intentionally given. They are delivered in subtle ways, through behavioral cues, and absorbed into the subconscious.

Here’s an example I came across in my own life. A friend of mine recently told me how she almost destroyed her relationship with her sister by sending one of these unintentional yet harmful messages.

Their brother was killed in a car crash while my friend’s sister was driving. For years, my friend told people her brother was killed, delivering the unspoken cue that her sister had killed him. Now, when the subject arises, my friend simply says he died.

Words convey messages, often beyond what we intend. Body language even more so, but that is a subject for another day.

Big Bad Whammies

These injunctions are a terrific source of insecurity for a character:

Don’t cry—emotions are shameful, keep them to yourself.

Don’t think—your opinions aren’t worth much. Or, boys don’t like smart girls.

Don’t be you—why can’t you be more like (fill in the blank)?

Don’t exist—I gave up my own hopes and dreams so I could take care of you.

Don’t belong—trying to fit in will only get you hurt.

Don’t be a child—grow up so you can look after me.

Don’t grow up—children are cute; teenagers are a drag.

Don’t be the sex you are—men are disgusting, cheating slobs. Or women are weak and fickle.

Don’t be important—you don’t deserve accolades or attention.

Don’t love—if you get attached, people will only hurt you.

A child deals with such injunctions on a subconscious level and may either accept the messages, which causes him to believe and behave as if something is wrong with him; or rebel against the message, developing inappropriate coping behaviors that are destined to make his life all the more difficult.

If you want to drill down further, Claire Newton, a psychologist blogger, has put together a very interesting three-part post on transactional analysis that includes more information about these injunctions. You can read Part I, The Masks We Wear; Part II, The Games We Play; and Part III, The Scripts We Follow.

2. Drivers

Drivers are the shiny, positive side of the coin, but they can be just as detrimental to a developing psyche. On the surface, they are more intentionally given, but often carry an unspoken backlash that stings.

These are the messages that drive us to achieve, and sometimes come across as conditional love—I will only love you if you live up to my expectations. A character may only feel good about herself as long as she fulfills the command:

Be perfect. Try harder. Please others. Hurry up. Be strong.

Put This to Good Use

You can build some great internal conflict by selecting a combination of injunctions and drivers that creates a kind of psychological tug-of-war within a character. Your hero may struggle to come to terms with these conflicting forces, or may try to meet the requirements of the messages in order to feel good about himself.

Here are a few examples:

I shouldn’t try to be important, but it’s okay as long as I’m perfect.

People will only care about me if I do all I can to please them.

I shouldn’t have feelings, but I do. So I have to hide them and be strong in order to be accepted.

Need to Know Only

Don’t be too “on the nose” with this information in your story. You may deliver all, part, or none of the information about messages received by your character as a child, but it should only come out on a need-to-know basis.

Don’t overburden the reader with TMI or be too obvious about pointing out the connections. Let your reader have the satisfaction of piecing it together.

Though only some fraction of your character’s past influences will come to light in the pages of your stories, your knowledge of these internal messages will help you tell your character’s story with more authenticity.

Let Your Character Arc

Your character’s journey involves learning about herself and finding ways to come to terms with her inner struggles. This internal conflict is what keeps her interesting to your reader and helps propel the story forward. She may or may not overcome, but she’ll almost certainly change over the course of your story.

In therapy, the objective is to help the client find a way to let go of the pain, guilt, or whatever is holding them back or making them miserable. Your character may achieve this happy goal, learning to deal with his past in healthy ways. Or he may not. Life is messy, and fiction can be, too.

Either way, the wrestle your character goes through within himself will make for an engaging read.

How about you? Have you seen evidence of such conflicting messages in stories you’ve read? Do you see any value in using these techniques to develop your own characters? Tell us about it in the comments section.