Creating Characters Your Audience Can Connect To

As writers, we know that having characters with a compelling personality, an intriguing backstory, and likeable traits is crucial to making a story worth the read. But it can often be difficult to create our own characters, especially with all of the pressure on us to create the next Harry Potter or Katniss Everdeen. 

In this article, I will present you with a guide to creating relatable, believable, and realistic characters that your audience will love. Who knows, maybe you will write the next fan favorite character!

If you're at the point where you've just gotten your story idea and you aren't yet sure where the story is heading, it may be a good idea to research character arcs and archetypes. Sometimes, if you're starting completely from scratch, knowing who you want your main character to be can help you decide where you want your story to go. 

Some examples of character arcs include the moral ascending character arc, the moral descending character arc, the transformational character arc, and the flat character arc (Smith). Each one of these serves a different purpose in a story, and knowing which one is most appealing to you can help you create the best-fitting character for your story. 

Some examples of character archetypes include The Hero, The Lover, The Orphan, The Ruler, and others (Landsborough). Each one of these archetypes are different, so reading about each of these and deciding which one appeals most to you and pairing the archetype of your choice with a character arc, will help you to kickstart the creation of your character!

Moving on to something a little less involved, obviously your character has to have an appearance. While many readers aren't fond of info-dumping descriptions where an author explains every detail about a character, they like to have some description so that they can visualize the character they are reading about. 

I suggest giving your character at least one significant feature; something they can be recognized by. Whether it's big hair, bright blue eyes, or a scar across their face, every character needs to have a feature that is unique to them. Usually, as long as your character has something that everyone recognizes them by, the rest of their appearance can be relatively overlooked, save for a few other details like hair and eye color. This also allows the reader to have imaginative freedom when visualizing your character. 

Moving on to personality, something that can be extremely helpful when trying to figure out who your character is, their motivations, tendencies, quirks, etc., is by figuring out what their Myers Briggs personality type is. Knowing if your character is introverted or extraverted, sensitive or intuitive, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving can be extremely helpful when writing scenes where your character has to make a decision (which is often). I suggest taking the 16Personalities quiz for your characters, answering each question from their perspective, because this will not only give you their personality type, but thinking from the mind of your character can help you to understand them more. Putting yourself in their shoes is one of the most beneficial things you can do when writing a scene, especially if you're stuck, because your characters carry a part of you. 

Lastly, but certainly not least, you must make sure to know your character's flaws. Every single character, especially your lead, has to have flaws or they simply will not be relatable to your audience. Having "perfect" characters makes the story unbelievable and hard to connect with. Readers want to read something that is realistic, so even if your story is set in a magical fantasy land or a dark dystopian future, your characters have to be relatable. 

Every single person has flaws, and giving your characters flaws makes them appear more human. Many readers enjoy being able to see themselves in the characters in the books they enjoy, and giving them flaws makes it that much easier to do so. 

So, don't be afraid to give your main character anger issues, or anxiety, or bad habits like chewing on their fingernails or cracking their knuckles all the time. The little things that make your character's personality unique will be the same things that make the reader fall in love with them. 

All in all, character building is an extremely important part in the process of writing your story. If you do not know your characters inside and out, how will you make them relatable to your audience? Make sure you know everything about your character, even if certain details will never be explicitly said in your story. You need to know your character's motivations, their flaws and quirks and why they think the way they do. 

So, go write your story, create the character you've been meaning to. Who knows, that character could become someone's favorite. 

Sources

Landsborough, Doug. “14 Common Character Archetypes You Should Know.” Dabble, Dabble, 2 Nov. 2021, www.dabblewriter.com/articles/character-archetypes.

Smith, Robert Reed. “What Is a Character Arc? The Four Types with Examples.” Dabble, Dabble, 9 Nov. 2021, www.dabblewriter.com/articles/what-is-a-character-arc-the-four-types-with-examples.