Create Good Personalities for Your Characters

You're on a plane to a distant country to visit some weird old relatives you are somehow related to. In your hands, you hold a book that your friend recommended. But wait...as you begin to read you realize that the characters are really boring! This is a typical scenario, probably familiar to a lot of readers out there. You, a writer, can help those readers by creating a story with likable, realistic characters! This step-by-step guide will give you pointers on developing great personalities for your characters.

Steps

Sample Character Descriptions

Doc:Fictional Character Description,Non Fiction Character Description,Male Anime Character Description

Creating Personalities for Your Own Characters

  1. Start with a simple profile including these categories: Name, Age, Gender, and Occupation. All of these categories will affect your character's choices. Fill it out, starting with the protagonist of your story. As an example, we'll use: Jack, 15 years, male, gang member. Jack's age, gender, and occupation all affect his personality. Notice how you quickly assume that he's a troublemaker who drinks and deals drugs and such.
  2. Choose a good name. Names can affect a character's personality, and Jack will probably have a nickname. Let's try Tweezer. How do you think Tweezer the gang-member compares with Jack the gang-member? For example, a fantasy story will sometimes have characters with names from Greek mythology, 'Demetrius' for example. Sci-Fi stories will have characters with techno names, such as the word 'Techno' itself. However, be creative and don't merely mimic the custom for the genre in which you're writing.
  3. Create a longer profile. Create a background for Tweezer, how long has he been in a gang? Why did he join the gang? What are his desires? What are his fears? What are his goals? Environment and events shape our personalities, using these tools will help shape a personality.
  4. Make a more developed personality. How has his background affected his personality? Has he lost a loved one, resulting in him joining the gang? Possibly he joined so that he could get tougher, and protect those he loves. Think up some major flaws that possibly came out because of his backstory. Use those flaws as you write. Memorable, unique, and relatable. Those are the key characteristics of a good character. This can be developed alongside the history/backstory.
  5. Add Tweezer into a plot. Think of a beginning, and an end. Think of an antagonist to go with Tweezer, and make him as similar as possible, with key differences. They could even be so similar as to have been friends, were they in the same gang. Develop more characters as you go. Make them as human as possible. The name of the game here is relatability.
  6. Continue developing characters until your story is finished. Keep going through this process until you've created, for example, Tweezers leader, best friend, a possible love interest, and other important members of the gang. Do so for any rival gangs, and other big characters such as Tweezer's parents. (Be less specific, the less important a character is).
    • Remember that character balance is important. Creating specific types of characters will show how Tweezer would interact with them and thus, change the overall tone of the story itself. Character balance also means not having specific characters in specific places or situations. And it also means taking one type of character and putting him in multiple scenarios. For example, a happy perky girl coming from a rich family, as opposed to a girl with the same personality coming from a poor family. Things like that help to contribute to the characters and thus, the story. Feel free to experiment with character balance and see what you can come up with.

Tips

  • Keep in mind to put in some wrong that the character did, like Tweezer might have killed somebody once and gotten away with it, sending an innocent person to jail. Nobody is perfectly good and nobody is perfectly evil, even the antagonists.
  • If you have trouble with creating personalities, the Astrological signs are very helpful. There are plenty of books and websites on Astrology. Also, the Jungian personality test(you know those ENFJ and whatnot personality types) can be a source of ideas. For basic characters, find a way to make each character stand out. Maybe he always ends a sentence with 'ya know?' or possibly has a tendency to cough or clear his throat right before he talks.
  • Pretend you're the character faced with the conflict of your story. How would you react? For example, if a rival gang member insults Tweezer, Tweezer will want to look good in front of his so-called friends and attack the rival.
  • Ask yourself questions about your characters and their actions to help move the novel along.
  • Names are extremely important, so try to make the name reflect something about the character. Write down dozens of names, say them out loud, ask your friends what your favorite names make them think of, ask them what their favorite name out of your list was.
  • Keep the characters true to themselves. Make sure that everything they do advances both the plot, and their own backstory. The story should be a result of the characters' actions, rather than the characters being a result of the story. They need to advance hand-in-hand.

Warnings

  • Don't copy off other characters in different, already well known books, such as Harry Potter. Otherwise, you could get in a lot of trouble.
  • Don't steal names, even if the character you make is completely different from the one whose name you're stealing. If people know the name, they'll still accuse you of copying and you can still get in trouble, not only with the readers, but maybe the law as well.

Things You'll Need

  • Pencil
  • Paper
  • Imagination
  • Internet (use if necessary)

Related Articles

  • Come Up with a Good Character Quickly
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