forum How do you develop characters well?

Started January 17, 2018 by @Bliess

tune

Hello! I'm trying to start a new story and I can never develop characters well so if you have any tips at all, I would love to hear them. Thank you!

Go really deep. You have to know everything about your character; even more than you know about yourself. From their worst fears to the weirdest quirk to specific memories. You need to know it all. Then, everything flows naturally. Also, if the reader is supposed to feel certain ways about certain characters, make sure someone excluded from the knowledge of the story reads it because then you get an honest opinion to what you did right and wrong. Remember, really probe your characters. Hope that helped.

Sometimes it's not just about knowing about the little quirks and traits your characters have, but also knowing how they act in certain situations or towards certain people. I frequently try to figure out how a character would act towards (1) their spouse/romantic partner, (2) best friend or friends, (3) general acquaintances, (4) inferiors, (5) superiors, (6) parents, (7) enemies, and so forth. This is important because, like real people, fully-fleshed characters won't act the same towards everyone they know.

They may treat their parents with utmost respect, but be loud and rude towards the people they're most comfortable with. It's frequently spouted that characters need to have a clear personality, but that's not always the case; having characters with conflicting traits (and more importantly, knowing in what situations and towards who those traits will show) will help your character seem more like a real person!

Hi!
Personally, I ALWAYS start with backstory. It helps you figure out everything from a character's motivations to their fears to their quirks to their prejudices. Really diving into a character's past is by far the best was to learn about them and develop them further.

Hope this helps!! :DD

Fist, think of what kind of characters would fit with your story. If you making a story taking place in today's world, you're probably not going to want a fairy princess or something like that in your story because it just wouldn't make sense!
Second, I try and start with personalities and what kind of character I want. After that, you can go for the looks. Because if you have your character be a model type, but she hates being the center of attention, that doesn't make any sense either.
Third, develop their backstory. This will help you with deeper character development later on down the road.
Fourth, I give them their flaws and quirks. It helps doing this after the backstory because if you character maybe had been a older sibling, maybe one of their quirks is going to be motherly.
Hope I helped! :D

Personally, I base characters off of people in my life, like friends, family, peers, or celebrities. I then sort of develop them from there, changing their looks to match their personality, giving them unique quirks, and crafting a backstory that puts them where they are today. For example, one of my characters was loosely based off of myself and Han Solo. He is no longer anything like other of them because I just sort of got creative and let them develop as I wrote them into my story.
There really is no formula to actually developing a character the 'right way'. I think it works better if you just let a character ebb and flow into something by continuously changing them.

Thank you all for the great advise! I will try it out!