Write-Ready Characters: A Complete Guide on Character Development Before You Start Writing

A Comprehensive Guide on Pre-writing Character Development

When writing your story, there is nothing more important than the characters who inhabit it. You can write the most unique and exciting plot on the planet, but it will still bomb if readers can't connect with your characters.

Whether you are writing a novel, screenplay, or any other form of fiction, in-depth character development is a step that cannot be avoided. But how can you ensure that your characters are going to hit a cord with your readers?

There are many things that go into a great character in the developmental stage before you ever start writing your first scene, and that is what we are going to focus on in this post. If you want to read my tips for writing your character into the story, go to this post here.

Effectively Communicate Your Character

We are going to delve into the essential tips and strategies for creating the very best characters for your book. From establishing their motivations and goals to planning complex relationships and incorporating realistic flaws, each step will get you closer to astounding and memorable characters.

• Character Development: BEFORE You Write

• Establish Goals & Motivations

• Establish Values & Beliefs

• Create Conflict that is Internal & External

• Backstory: Why They are Who They Are

• Change & Transformation

• Tailor Made Obstacles

• Tailor Made Supporting Characters

• Create Complex Relationships

• Strengths & Flaws

• Personality

• Choose the Best POV to Complement Your Character

• Do Your Research

• The 4 Major Components of Character Development

So, without further ado, let's get right into how to write great characters to showcase in your novel.

Character Development: BEFORE You Write

Before sitting down to write, it's important that you first lay the foundations of a strong character and do some outlining. Don't skip this step or you risk your characters not being believable, relatable, or consistent.

You want them to be multidimensional and dynamic.

That requires that you carefully plan out their emotional reactions, motivations, values, and conflicts, both internal and external. This way readers will feel like the character is a whole person, not just a bunch of pieces strewn together because they served an immediate purpose or you thought they would be cool.

So, I'm going to go over the most important steps when outlining your character.

1. Establish Goals & Motivations

Establishing clear goals and motivations for your characters is essential for driving their actions and shaping their journey throughout the story.

Nobody wants to read a story about a person who doesn't want anything. Is going nowhere.

I had a boyfriend once who had no ambition, no goals, and was totally content with where he was in life (living in his buddy's basement). I left him.

Don't let your readers leave you for an upgrade by making sure your characters are motivated to achieve some goal. By defining their objectives, you give them purpose and provide a roadmap for their development.

Here are some things you need to consider when establishing their goals and motivations:

What type of person does your plot require?

You have, I assume, planned out a plot or at least have some idea of the main conflict and how it should be resolved. What type of character is required to resolve this plot? A hero? A bumbling idiot?

Understand that, and you have an idea of the type of person your protagonist needs to be. If your planning a lesser character, then what purpose do they serve in the plot? What goal can you give them that might lead them to fulfilling that purpose?

Define their overarching goal

Determine the main objective your character seeks to achieve. It could be a tangible goal, such as winning a competition or finding a lost treasure, or an intangible one, like finding love or inner peace.

This goal should be significant and meaningful, propelling the character forward. It has to be something that they would give everything for.

Drama is the lifeblood of storytelling. Don't be basic.

Explore their motivations

Not only must they have a goal, the must have a reason for wanting it.

Understand why your character is driven to pursue their goal. Dive into their desires, fears, past experiences, or personal values that fuel their actions. Motivations can stem from a need for validation, a desire for justice, or a quest for self-discovery. Delve deep into their emotional core to unearth what truly drives them.

Then give them a reason to accept the plot-resolving task:

• Does it align with their goals?

• Is it the result of not getting what they want?

• Do they risk losing something if they don't accept it?

Consider external and internal motivations

External motivations come from outside influences, such as societal expectations, familial pressure, or external rewards. Internal motivations stem from the character's own desires, beliefs, or personal growth.

Balancing both types of motivations adds depth and complexity to your character.

Connect goals and motivations to the plot

Sort of like what we talked about in the first, but taken to another degree.

Ensure that your character's goals and motivations are aligned with the main storyline. By this I mean that their journey should intertwine with the central conflicts and themes of the narrative.

This connection strengthens their relevance and impact on the overall story. By keeping everything on and attached to the main theme, you give the reader what I call a "single impression."

It ensures that when readers come away after reading your novel, they can sum up how it made them feel in a single word or sentence. This also means it lasts longer in their memory than a books that goes all over the place.

Allow goals to evolve

Main characters should not be static entities. As the story progresses, their goals and motivations may change or expand. This evolution adds layers to their development, as they adapt and respond to new challenges and epiphanies.

Just make sure that the change is caused by a believable catalyst. Nobody changes out of the blue and when they do we call them mentally unstable.

By establishing clear goals and motivations for your characters, you provide a strong foundation for their actions and create a sense of purpose that drives the narrative forward.

This depth of motivation will foster an emotional connection with your readers and keep them invested until the end.

2. Establish Values & Beliefs

The values and beliefs of your characters shape their worldview, guide their decisions, and add depth to their personalities. By developing these core aspects, you create more authentic and relatable characters.

Here's how to effectively establish their values and beliefs:

Define core values

Identify the fundamental principles that govern your character's behavior and choices. Consider integrity, justice, loyalty, God and other guiding beliefs that resonate with their personality.

Remember, characters must have reasons for everything they believe and do. Even villains can't do bad things just because they're "evil" or "black hats."

Consider background and upbringing

Explore how their upbringing, culture, and social environment have influenced their values. Show how different backgrounds shape the unique perspectives and responses of your characters.

Explore conflicting beliefs

Much of the what we do when developing characters is constantly finding areas to add more conflict and tension. This creates character depth and plain old interest (ie: keeps readers from being bored to tears).

Introduce internal conflicts arising from contrasting beliefs. These conflicts offer opportunities for growth and complexity. Especially if your character holds a false believe and his growth through the story involves him giving up this belief for a new, better one.

Especially if he is resistant to that change.

Reflect beliefs through actions

Demonstrate how their convictions guide their behavior and decisions consistently.

Keyword: Consistently. People act in accordance to their beliefs, when they don't it creates something called cognitive dissonance, but that is a long discussion so we will get into that another day. For now, just know that when people act against their own beliefs it causes symptoms like:

• Denial

• Avoidance

• Poor-self esteem

• Anger and lashing out

• Projection

• And all sorts of other bad stuff...

Allow growth and change but realize it comes at a cost

Characters can transform their values and beliefs throughout the story as they face challenges and overcome obstacles. But core values are deeply, deeply, ingrained. They require a lot of pain and torment to challenge.

They shake the whole bedrock of who someone is, and finding out who you are now is not fun or easy.

Connect values to story themes

Like we said in the last section, ensure everything, including beliefs and values, stay inline with the larger themes explored in your story.

Establishing values and beliefs adds depth and authenticity to your characters, creating relatable experiences for readers. By understanding their core principles, you can craft a more meaningful character too.

3. Create Conflict that is Internal & External

Conflict is the driving force behind engaging storytelling, pushing characters to their limits and captivating readers. By weaving both internal and external conflicts into your story, you create tension, suspense, and opportunities for character growth.

Here's how to effectively create and balance these types of conflict:

Internal Conflict

Develop inner turmoil within your character by pitting their desires, fears, or beliefs against each other. This can be emotional struggles, moral dilemmas, or conflicting goals. For instance, if your character's goals change throughout the story as he learns to become a better person, you can add internal conflict by making those wants opposed to each other in some way. He can't get one without giving up the other.

Internal conflict adds depth to characters, revealing their vulnerabilities and complexities.

External Conflict

Introduce external challenges that your character must face, such as antagonists, environmental obstacles, or societal pressures. These external conflicts create high-stakes situations and propel the plot forward.

They test your character's strengths, resilience, and resourcefulness.

Jack Tuesday by F. Nelson Smith

Buy Now

Connect Internal and External Conflicts

Establish a relationship between the internal and external conflicts. Show how the internal struggles influence how your character approaches and overcomes external obstacles.

This connection creates a more cohesive and impactful story.

Raise the Stakes

Escalate the conflicts throughout the story to maintain tension and keep readers engaged.

Intensify the internal and external challenges your character faces, forcing them to confront their limitations and make difficult choices. These choices should get more and more difficult as the plot progresses, ending with a massive bang at the climax.

By incorporating both internal and external conflicts into your story, you create a rich and dynamic plot that will rope in readers. The interplay between these conflicts challenges your characters, drives the plot forward, and ultimately is what lies at the root of all good character arcs.

4. Backstory: Why They are Who They Are

A character's backstory holds the key to understanding their motivations, fears, and behaviors. By thoroughly planning the events in the character's past that shaped them, you can get a better understanding of their behaviors and decisions, whether you choose to reveal that information to the readers or not.

Here's how to effectively develop their backstory:

Uncover formative experiences

Explore significant events from your character's past that have shaped who they are now. Identify key moments, relationships, or traumas that have had a lasting impact on their development. These experiences can explain their strengths, weaknesses, and belief systems.

But maybe don't overdo it. You don't need to outline their whole life through childhood to adulthood. Pick one or maybe two events/reasons that are responsible for your character acting the way they do.

Make sure those reasons are inline with your overall theme, and you are good to go.

Reveal influential relationships

Consider the relationships your character has had throughout their life. Examine how their interactions with family, friends, or mentors have influenced their worldview and contributed to their personality traits.

These relationships can provide insights into their values, loyalties, and vulnerabilities.

Balance exposition and mystery

When outlining when to reveal the backstory, strike a balance between providing enough information for readers to understand the character and leaving room for imagination.

Avoid overwhelming people with excessive info-dumps, instead allowing the backstory to unfold organically throughout the scenes. Choose one thing to reveal in each scene or even less if you can get away with it without damaging the plot.

Dumping the Info-Dump

Connect backstory to present actions

Show how the character's past experiences influence their present actions and decisions.

Link their motivations, fears, or desires to specific elements of their backstory, creating a cause-and-effect relationship. This connection adds depth and coherence to their character development and allows your reader to easily connect the dots.

There is a balance to be stuck here. You want your character to be complex and have layers, but you what them to be the logical conclusion of their past experiences in order to not get lost in the weeds.

And I don't have to tell you again (but I will) that your book needs to be a whole "entity" that is greater than the sum of all it's parts.

Use backstory as a source of conflict

Here we go again, but hey, it's SUPER important.

Introduce conflicts or unresolved issues from the character's past that resurface in the present. These unresolved elements can create internal conflicts or become external obstacles that your character must confront and overcome, driving the narrative forward.

This can be the root source of your character's arc, but it's not mandatory (what is in fiction?).

By crafting a compelling backstory, you provide a rich foundation for your characters, and explaining why they think, feel, and act the way they do. This exploration of their past experiences adds layers to their personality and makes them more believable.

5. Change & Transformation

Change and transformation lie at the heart of character development, allowing your characters to evolve, overcome challenges, and undergo personal growth throughout the story.

Here's how to effectively incorporate change and transformation into your characters:

Establish initial state

Introduce your character's starting point, their beliefs, flaws, and limitations. Set the stage for their transformation by highlighting the areas where they need to grow.

At this point we are going to go back to the first tip I gave you about deciding who your plot requires to resolve it. You should have a good idea of who that person is.

To establish this initial state, you take that person and start your character as far away from that as possible (within reason.) You need to show that this person at least has the potential to become the hero you need by the end of the book.

Define the catalyst

Identify the event, realization, or conflict that acts as a catalyst for change. This catalyst disrupts the character's status quo, forcing them to reevaluate their beliefs and embark on a transformative journey.

This catalyst can happen in many parts, first in small bits then a few more that increase in importance as the book goes on. I don't want to talk about plotting in this post though (it's long enough, isn't it?).

I will soon though, so stay tuned or subscribe to the writer's cabin so you don't miss it.

Highlight internal struggles

Explore the internal conflicts and challenges the character faces during their transformation. This can involve overcoming self-doubt, confronting inner demons, or wrestling with conflicting desires. Internal struggles add complexity and emotional resonance.

Showcase external milestones

Alongside internal struggles, depict external milestones or events that mark significant turning points in the character's transformation. These milestones can be achievements, defeats, or encounters with influential characters.

Each milestone should push the character further along their path of change and naturally tie the internal and external struggles together for the wholeness we talked about.

Reflect change in relationships

Illustrate how the character's transformation impacts their relationships with other characters. Show how their growth and evolving perspectives affect their interactions, leading to new alliances, conflicts, or reconciliations.

This is an impactful tool and is going to be explained more below in section 7, Tailor Made Supporting Characters.

By incorporating change and transformation into your characters, you create dynamic arcs that captivate readers. The gradual progression, internal struggles, and external milestones add depth and authenticity to their development.

6. Tailor Made Obstacles

In order to facilitate meaningful character development and drive your story forward, it's crucial to present tailor-made obstacles that challenge your characters in the most engaging ways. These obstacles are carefully crafted to catalyze the exact change you desire from your character.

Here's how to create effective tailor-made obstacles:

Identify character weaknesses

Pinpoint the specific areas where your character needs to grow, change, or overcome their limitations. Understand their flaws, fears, or unresolved issues that can be targeted by the obstacles.

These obstacles need to be specifically crafted to challenge those weaknesses and force them to go through the change.

Connect obstacles to character goals

Ensure that the obstacles directly hinder your character's progress towards their goals. By presenting challenges that are in direct opposition to what your character desires, you create higher stakes and a sense of urgency.

Introduce variety

Offer a range of obstacles that test different aspects of your character's abilities, strengths, and vulnerabilities. Mix physical, emotional, intellectual, or moral challenges to keep give the plot variety.

Never show the reader the same scene twice. You can learn more about avoiding redundant scenes and repetitive writing in this post here.

The Writing Sin of Repetition

Gradual escalation

Begin with smaller obstacles and gradually increase their difficulty and impact. This allows your character to build resilience and develop the necessary skills to tackle more formidable challenges.

Reveal hidden obstacles

Unveil unexpected or hidden obstacles that the character must confront along their journey. These surprises keep readers on their toes.

Provide opportunities for growth

Each obstacle should present an opportunity for your character to learn, adapt, and develop new skills or perspectives.

After completing all the tests you have laid out for him, he should have acquired all the tools needed for the final test at the climax.

(Like getting Link through all the temple dungeons to gain the vows of all the sages before going to fight Ganondorf. Yes, I just did that, Tears of the Kingdom is amazing.)

The game currently keeping me from working as much as I should be

Consequences and setbacks

Make sure the obstacles have real consequences for your character. Include setbacks and failures that force them to reevaluate their approach, learn from mistakes, and push through.

By designing tailor-made obstacles, you create exciting and transformative challenges that push your characters to their limits. These obstacles not only propel the plot forward but also catalyze the desired change and growth in your characters.

Through their struggles and triumphs, readers become invested in their journey, rooting for their success and eagerly turning the pages to see how they can overcome each one.

7. Tailor Made Supporting Characters

Crafting well-developed supporting characters is crucial to enhancing the depth and complexity of your story. It's not just a one man, or one woman show. These characters are tailor-made to complement, challenge, and interact with the main character in ways that facilitate growth and change.

Here's how to create supporting characters tailored made for your protagonist:

Complementary traits

Develop supporting characters with traits, skills, or perspectives that complement and enhance the main character's. They should possess qualities that the main character lacks, filling in gaps and providing support where needed.

K.E. Barron has a great take on the "supporting cast" in her post on why we shouldn't dismiss the "Chosen One" trope, when it comes to the characters you build around your protagonist.

Defending the "Chosen One" Trope

Contrasting personalities

Introduce supporting characters with contrasting personalities, beliefs, or values to create conflict and tension. These differences challenge the main character's perspectives and beliefs, sparking growth and self-reflection.

Serve as foils

Use supporting characters as foils to highlight the main character's strengths, weaknesses, or internal struggles. Through these contrasting characteristics, the main character's growth and transformation become more apparent.

Learn more about creating effective contrast here.

The Art of Crafting Contrast

Catalysts for change

Design supporting characters who play a pivotal role in the main character's development. They can serve as mentors, allies, or adversaries who push the main character to confront their fears, overcome obstacles, or reconsider their beliefs.

Subplots and story arcs

Develop subplots and story arcs for supporting characters that weave through the main narrative. This allows them to have their own goals, challenges, and growth, enriching the overall storytelling experience.

Depending on the size of your book, this may or may not be possible, but even if the "subplot" is only the antagonist's actions, use it to contrast and interplay through your main characters'.

Balancing prominence while keeping them human

Ensure a balance between the main character and supporting characters' prominence in the story. While supporting characters should have significance, avoid overshadowing the main character's journey.

But that doesn't mean they can be NPCs either, supporting characters must have depth and emotion as well. They need to feel like real people.

Though they don't require the same level of effort, don't skimp on outlining them as well.

By carefully crafting tailor-made supporting characters, you create a diverse cast that adds depth, conflict, and growth to your story and each other. Each supporting character serves a purpose, pushing the main character towards transformation.

8. Create Complex Relationships

Complex and nuanced relationships between characters can add depth, tension, and emotion. By developing these connections, you create dynamics that enhance character development.

Here's how to create complex relationships:

Multidimensional interactions

Craft relationships that go beyond simple categorizations such as friends, enemies, or allies. Develop interactions that evolve and fluctuate, incorporating elements of trust, betrayal, loyalty, and conflict.

Even best friends piss each other off sometimes.

History and shared experiences

Build relationships based on shared history or significant experiences that have shaped the characters' connections. These shared moments create bonds, tensions, or unresolved issues that influence their present interactions.

Don't think these all need to happen "off stage" before the story starts either. Showing us these vital moments can work to get readers heavily invested in them.

Show, Don't Tell Series Part 1

Conflicting desires and goals

Introduce conflicting desires or goals within relationships, leading to tensions and challenges. This can create internal or external conflicts that test the characters' loyalties and force them to make difficult choices.

Emotional depth

Explore the emotional depth within relationships by showcasing vulnerability, intimacy, and emotional struggles. Allow characters to express a range of emotions, such as love, jealousy, resentment, or forgiveness, adding complexity and relatability to their interactions.

Power dynamics

Consider power imbalances, whether they are based on authority, social status, or personal strengths. These dynamics can shape the characters' interpersonal communication and the boundaries of a relationship.

Evolving connections

Allow relationships to evolve and change over time, reflecting the characters' growth. Show how shared experiences, conflicts, or personal development impact the dynamics between characters.

This is one of the best places to show us your character's evolution rather than tell us.

I've written an article that talks about bad romantic relationship development in the fantasy genre, but it applies to all genres equally. I cover a lot of these points in a bit more depth. Head over there if you want to learn how to write better romantic relationships.

Cringeworthy Romantic Storylines

These intricate connections provide opportunities for conflict, growth, and exploration of themes such as love, betrayal, friendship, or family. Through these complex relationships, readers become invested in the characters, eagerly following the twists and turns.

9. Strengths & Flaws

When developing your characters, it's important to strike a balance between their strengths and flaws to create well-rounded and relatable individuals who don't feel like 1950s superheroes.

Avoid making your characters too perfect, as flaws add depth, conflict, and opportunities for growth.

Here's how to approach fleshing out your character's strengths and flaws:

Identify strengths

Determine your character's unique abilities, skills, or qualities that make them exceptional. These strengths can be physical, intellectual, emotional, or interpersonal attributes that contribute to fulfilling their journey and goals.

Remember, these strengths need to be the ones required for resolving your plot.

Introduce flaws

Give your characters realistic and relatable flaws that humanize them and create challenges. Flaws can manifest as personality traits, weaknesses, insecurities, or unresolved issues.

These imperfections make your characters more relatable and enable readers to connect with their struggles. Many newbie writers make the mistake of giving their protagonist amazing skills and forget to give them flaws.

This makes for a totally flat character. How can they grow if they're already perfect?

Flaws as obstacles

Utilize your character's flaws as obstacles that they must overcome throughout the story. These challenges provide opportunities for growth, self-reflection, and character development. By confronting their flaws, your characters can learn valuable lessons and undergo transformation.

Such is the foundation of a good character arc.

Complex motivations

Explore how strengths and flaws interact to influence your character's motivations and actions. Flaws can hinder their progress or lead them astray, while strengths can drive their determination and decision-making.

Sometimes characters can lean on their strengths and try to hide their flaws. This can be a great source of internal conflict and external conflict if facing those flaws is exactly what they need to do to win the day.

By developing strengths and flaws in your characters, you provide opportunities for growth and conflict. Flaws make characters more human, relatable, and engaging, while strengths showcase their potential and highlight their unique qualities. Balancing these aspects creates well-rounded characters that readers can root for.

10. Personality

Developing a distinctive and compelling personality adds depth, relatability, and uniqueness to your characters. A character's personality is really the product of everything that we have discussed so far, and accumulation of their beliefs, experiences, strengths, and flaws.

Here's how to further define your character's personality:

Core traits

Determine the core traits that define your character's personality. These traits can include qualities like courage, humor, intelligence, kindness, or ambition. Select a combination of traits that dramatize their goals, background, and role in the story.

Consistency and authenticity

Ensure consistency in your character's behavior and decision-making, aligning them with their established personality traits. Meaning that in every scene, the behaviors and decisions made by your character make sense with who they are.

This authenticity helps readers connect with the character and believe in their actions and choices. And it'll keep a little bit of red pen off your manuscript once you give it to the editor.

Complex emotions

Give your character a range of emotions that reflect their personality. Explore how they express joy, anger, sadness, fear, or love, allowing readers to empathize with their emotional journey.

Hint: Your character is NOT going to react to situations like you would. They have a different personality and different perspective based off different lived experiences. This is a big problem I notice a lot when I'm editing manuscripts.

A character cries or lashes out with this big dramatic burst even though they'd been developed as in control and demure, or something similar. It really pulls the reader out of your story.

Quirks and habits

Infuse your character with quirks, mannerisms, or habits that make them memorable and unique. These idiosyncrasies can provide insights into their personality, background, or thought processes.

Plan out what these will be and think of interesting ways to insert them into scenes when you begin writing.

By carefully developing your character's personality, you create individuals who resonate with readers. Their distinct traits, emotions, quirks, and growth make them relatable, memorable, and capable of driving the plot forward with authenticity. Something required by every good story.

11. Choose the Best POV to Complement Your Character

The choice of point of view (POV) in your storytelling can significantly impact how readers connect with your character. Selecting the most effective POV enhances character development and allows readers to immerse themselves in their experiences.

Part 2 of my series on Show, don't Tell was all about POV, where I give examples to help you understand POV's role in emotional resonance. You can read that here.

'Show, Don't Tell' Part 2

But for now, consider the following when choosing the best POV:

First-person POV

This perspective allows readers to experience the story through the character's eyes, providing an intimate and immediate connection. It offers deep insight into the character's thoughts, emotions, and perceptions, fostering a strong bond between readers and the protagonist.

Third-person limited POV

With this POV, the story is narrated from an external perspective but focuses primarily on the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of a single character. It allows readers to form a close connection with the main character while also providing some narrative distance for broader storytelling.

Third-person omniscient POV

This viewpoint grants the narrator full access to the thoughts, feelings, and perspectives of multiple characters. It offers a broader scope, enabling readers to gain insights into various characters' experiences. However, it's important to ensure that the main character's development remains central to the narrative.

And it's also important to then develop your narrator as it if were it's own character. This is not only an omniscient POV trick, but something that should be integrated into all POVs. I go into how to do this here.

Deep POV: Write Better Narrators

Multiple POV

Using multiple perspectives can provide a comprehensive view of the story, allowing readers to see events through the eyes of different characters. This approach offers the opportunity to explore contrasting viewpoints, deepen characterization, and showcase the complexity of relationships.

Consider character growth & narrative goals

Select a POV that aligns with your character's growth and transformation throughout the story. The chosen POV should allow readers to witness their development and understand their inner journey while also allowing for the level of plot complexity you desire.

Choosing the most suitable POV ensures that readers connect deeply with your character, understand their motivations, and experience their growth. By carefully considering the narrative impact and the character's development, you can select the POV that enhances the the emotional impact of their journey and engages readers in a meaningful way.

12. Do Your Research

Thorough research is a crucial component of character development. By deep-diving into the various aspects of your character's background, interests, and experiences, you can add depth and authenticity to their portrayal.

Consider the following when conducting research:

Cultural and historical context

Research the cultural and historical influences that shape your character's identity. Explore the customs, traditions, and societal norms relevant to their background, ensuring accuracy.

Professions and skills

Gain insight into the professions, skills, or hobbies relevant to your character. Understanding the intricacies of their field or interests adds credibility and allows you to depict their expertise convincingly.

At some point your book will come across a reader in that profession and you don't want to look like a fool.

Psychological aspects

Research psychological aspects such as personality traits, behavioral patterns, or mental health conditions that may be relevant to your character. This helps you develop realistic and nuanced portrayals, avoiding stereotypes or misconceptions.

I am going to be writing an entire series/category on the writer's cabin that is geared toward teaching psychology theory to writers for the purpose of developing realistic characters. Look for that soon or subscribe so you don't miss it.

Settings and locations

If your story is set in a specific place or time, research the setting extensively. Familiarize yourself with the geography, architecture, local customs, and landmarks to create an immersive and real-feeling backdrop for your character.

And research the city that they came from thoroughly. What specific traits do people from that town possess, what meaning and experiences do they share?

Tapping Into Shared Meaning

Interviews and firsthand accounts

Seek out interviews, personal anecdotes, or firsthand accounts from individuals who have experiences similar to your character. This firsthand knowledge can provide valuable insights and help you capture the nuances of their experiences.

For instance, our Author Rachael Llewellyn is a researcher in trauma and memory in folklore. Her horror collection Human Beings shows this knowledge with unrivaled authenticity, and makes each story impactful and important.

Sensory details

Research sensory details related to your character's experiences or environment. Understanding how things look, sound, smell, taste, or feel can enrich your descriptions and immerse readers in the story.

This attention to detail enhances their authenticity and allows readers to connect with their experiences on a deeper level. The knowledge gained through research empowers you to portray characters with accuracy and realism.

The 4 Major Components of Character Development

Crafting compelling fictional characters is an art that requires attention to detail and imagination. Throughout this guide, we've explored key aspects of character development that need to happen before you start writing, from motivations and backstories and consistency.

By taking you time with planning your characters and giving them depth, you can captivate readers and create an unforgettable story.

But I do want to leave you with a few key take aways from this post because you may not have noticed a pattern here. These are the 4 main things to keep in mind when developing your character:

• Conflict

• Cohesion

• Layers

and

• Growth

Each step of character development involves these 4 things. Every attribute, goal, backstory, whatever, needs to create opportunities for further conflict, add to the greater whole (the single impression), add a layer to the complexity of your character, and allow them to grow or highlight their growth.

Keep these 4 things in mind and you will be well on your way to a great character that is ready to write onto the page.

Until next time, keep writing.