Every author faces this hurdle: how to create lifelike characters who catch the reader’s interest. Here are a few tricks and tips you might be able to use:
- Pay attention! Great characters are great because they’re people you recognize. Great writers are the nosiest people you’ll ever meet, forever watching and listening to what other people are doing and saying. And it all goes into the story.
- Use your contacts. Characters are people too, and they’re going to act and speak like people you know. Model your favorite characters after your friends or enemies, your family and neighbors. Just change the names before you publish!
- Avoid Mary Sue (and Marty Stu)! People have faults. Nobody is super-special, and real people can’t bend the natural laws. Keep your characters realistic for your universe, and avoid the dreaded Mary Sue or her male counterpart. (If you’re one of the few people who has no idea what I’m talking about, just use your search engine and you’ll find more than you ever wanted to know)
- Torture them. Great characters have great conflicts. Keep your character from getting complacent (and boring) by giving them some sort of conflict to keep the tension ramped up in the story. This can be external (like an enemy or job stress) or internal (like low self-esteem or worries), but you need to give them something to make them more interesting.
- Pay attention again! Keep a character notebook and actually write down all those great conversations you “overhear” (while eavesdropping), all those interesting people you spot, and all those ideas that pop up while you’re out nosing around.
How do you come up with character ideas? Do you invent your characters first, or your plot?