Three questions to ask to create compelling characters

Characters are the heart of your story. If readers don’t connect with them, there’s almost no better way to guarantee they put your book down and never pick it back up.

So how can we create characters that are compelling, yet believable? Likable, but realistic? It may seem like a lot of pressure, but there are three questions you can ask when crafting a character that will cut through the fluff questionnaires and show you the heart of your character.

What does your character want?

First, you need to figure out your character’s goal. At the end of the story, what are they hoping to gain? Maybe they want to escape their kidnapper. Maybe they want to be popular. Maybe they want to travel to new planets. Maybe they want to save the world. No matter what genre you’re writing, your character wants something, and this is the driving force of both the plot and your character’s arc.

What does your character actually need?

Just because your character wants a thing, doesn’t actually mean they need it. Maybe your character wants to be popular, but what they need is to realize they already have great friends and are perfect the way they are (yes, it’s cheesy, but you get the idea). Or maybe how they want to achieve something needs to change. If your character wants to save the world, it probably wouldn’t turn out so well if they decide what they actually need is a good nap (#relatable). But if they start out wanting to save it on their own because they think they’re strong enough and don’t need anybody else, they may need to realize that everyone is stronger when they receive help and work together. The world still gets saved, but the character grows and changes along the way.

Why do they need to change?

Figuring out what your character needs versus what they want will reveal the end of your story. But why do they need to change in the first place? What is the starting place that makes the character want one thing, when they need another? Maybe they want to be popular because they were teased as a kid, and so they need to learn to accept themselves. Maybe they don’t want to allow anyone help them save the world because they feel responsible for a friend’s death in some way and don’t want to harm anyone else, so they need to accept that it wasn’t their fault and learn how to let people in. We all have baggage, and so giving your character a relatable backstory that continues to affect them will bring them to life and cause the reader to sympathize with them.

It might take some time to wrestle out the answers to these questions. They may seem straightforward, but the answers should be interlocked with the plot and theme of your story to truly make it cohesive and compelling. Once you’ve got them figured out, your character should start seeming like a real person ready to carry the weight of the story.

Want to take your characters to the next level? Click here to sign up for a free, five-day course on building better characters. I’ll break down the most important aspects of creating a compelling character using detailed examples from movies and books to make sure your next character is unforgettable. And if you have any questions, I’ll only be an email away.

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Featured image by Eunice Lituañas