Last week, I overheard a conversation at a neighboring table where a woman said, “He’s always trying to prove himself. It makes him look less competent than he is.” I didn’t know the parties involved, but I grabbed a napkin and jotted it down. When I added it to my notebook, I realized characters with something to prove often undermine their own success. And those insecurities make for an amazing writing prompt.
Here’s the underlying principle: your characters are people. People are complicated; I suspect you might know a few. Characters are much the same way. Your reader will relate to them if they behave like people, and for characters to behave like people, they need to be built like people.
You need to know your characters like you do other humans, and these six prompts will help you pull that off.
Psychology and writing go hand-in-hand. Both are about understanding how people think and act, and why. But you don’t need a psychology degree to write a good story—just a curiosity about the people around you.
You’ve probably heard this one before: Your character must change throughout the course of your story. Characters need to transform.
I see a lot of confusion over this concept. Writers can normally nail the change (weak to strong; bad to good; cynical to optimistic) but it often comes from a weird place that doesn’t sit quite right with what we know about the protagonist. Or it’s too big of a change (or too much of a “fairy tale ending”) to be believable.
Writers think that great characters need drastic changes, but this isn’t always the case.
Let’s take a look at how writers should deal with character change, and how creating a character arc might make for a more interesting cast and plot.
As a writer, you know that a story can’t exist without characters. But have you ever wondered: “Why are characters important in a story?”
Perhaps you’ve questioned an even tougher problem: “When is a character important enough to keep in a story, and when does the narrative work better without them?”
In order for a side character—or any character—to matter in a story, they have to work as an essential character that impacts the protagonist, plot, setting, or another important aspect that shapes or moves a story forward.
In this article, you’ll learn four ways that determine if (1) the character is essential, and (2) how they contribute to a story. You’ll also learn the major types of characters and ways to determine if—for the characters who don’t qualify as essential—you’re better off revising their role, or cutting them from the plot.
Every great novel has great characters. Great characterization includes a background, flaws, habits, tics, and redeeming qualities. The characters have a life.
There are plenty of ways to get inside your character’s head. You can journal from their point of view, write a character study, or fill out questionnaires about your character. Those methods are awesome but can seem impersonal or just plain tedious at times.
If you need a quicker, more succinct way of getting inside your character’s head, you might consider writing their eulogy.
