Three Steps to Create Realistic Characters

Trying to define a character for a novel is tricky business, as is selecting which traits of your own to portray in memoir, or of other people in creative nonfiction. There’s often the backstory aspect to capture. And as the German poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, wrote centuries ago, “character [develops] in the full current of human life.”

Despite the challenges, it’s essential to flesh out key characters so readers care about the messages an author wants to convey through stories. Here are three approaches to creating memorable characters, with some of the suggestions drawn from a Writer's League of Texas authors’ panel in fall 2024 about fully realized characters.

When to Define Character Details

Writers can chose to define characters at different stages (image by Freepik.com)

You can find online guides about what character traits to consider, such as this, more physically focused one, this one that prioritizes characters’ internal traits, and is designed for novelists, and these wide-ranging ones. A broader choice to think about is whether you’ll develop all characters at once, or focus on some at different times.

Fiction-and-nonfiction author and panelist Alex Temblador tends to “pants” some characters, including main ones, for a few early chapters. She shared last fall that once she’s got a general feel for them, she fills out a psychological form on them to move forward with. Sherri L. Smith, author of many fiction and nonfiction works, treats main characters similarly. She noted wanting to get to know them first, as that fed the storyline: “it propped up the tent and allowed the characters to perform.”

Meanwhile, if you prefer to try the all-at-once approach, a forward-thinking version recommended by Fiction University’s Janice Hardy is to develop your primary characters first, and move on down the line to mid-level and minor characters from there (I cover how to think of the different levels of characters in a related post). This approach, Hardy shares in a reference book, allows you to consider developing lesser characters in a way that either supports the main ones, or conflicts with main characters’ tendencies (presumably to add story tension).  

Among Hardy’s other tips are to be sure characters are multidimensional, such as having flaws as well as virtues, and that they have contradictory aspects. For instance, a successful businesswoman may have a car that’s known as the “roach mobile” because its rotting floor boards let vermin in to enjoy the fast food remnants there.

How Much Detail to Deliver

More prominent characters will typically be described in greater detail than minor ones. But what specific level of detail should you give round, square, and flat characters? To decide, you can study authors in your genre as a guide.

If you don’t know yet who your main character is, sussing this out can involve looking at factors such as who would drive the main point home the best, or could undergo the biggest change, by book’s end. The latter review often focuses on a character’s emotional arc of change, as readers tend to gravitate towards characters with the most at stake emotionally.

The more fully realized characters then can be revisited for motivations and such, Smith noted last fall. “ ‘What do you want’ is such an important question to ask your characters,” she said, adding that writers have to realize that what characters think they want may not be what they need (circling back to adding in tension that establishes narrative drive as a main benefit of all this character development work).

Main characters and some mid-level characters will need more of their personal details, and potentially backstory, defined (image by Freepik.com)

Other elements to consider deepening include what emotions a main character feels the most, what they tend to think about, what beliefs they’ve developed over time, or inherited from parents and others, and what motivates them to try to keep their world the way it is, and compels them to overcome that tendency.

It also helps, once you’ve got a complete cast in full swing, to compare their actions, voice, and other traits, to ensure each one has some unique aspects.

Developing Realistic Diverse Characters

The world provides a diversity of models to develop characters from, but pegging peoples’ traits successfully on the page is tricky business. In part, as panelist and author Meg Vondriska noted, “Most writers will be writing characters that are not their identity, or at least have one trait that is not like their background.”

Pre-writing steps

The background elements to consider for your characters – and to take into account how you’ll portray – include gender, the languages spoken, what kind of relationship history they’ve had, emotionally, physically, and otherwise, financial status, age, and physical and mental matters.

But how do you know where your blind spots may be when it comes to representing other backgrounds realistically? As a starting point, consider mapping out your identity related to privilege. To do so, you can use the power wheel from the Canadian Council for Refugees, where those who are closer to the inside of the circle are more likely to have cultural power. The wheel covers ten factors of relevance.

Advance work can also include familiarizing yourself generally with diverse perspectives, including Vondriska recommendation “to have a diverse bookshelf” that takes you outside your own

Image from Freepik.com

background. That might involve reading works by writers of color, nonbinary writers, and those from different nations or religious/spiritual backgrounds. Conducting specific research might also be pre-writing step related to authenticity development. Smith wrote a book with a Japanese character from a small town, for instance, where she read up on the history of a nearby town first.

Checking authenticity while drafting

Some authors will also take a close look at diversity aspects after a draft is done. In Smith’s case for the book The Blossom and The Firefly about Japanese teens in WWII, she traveled overseas with her draft to query Japanese citizens of a similar age about knowledge holes in it. Meanwhile, Vondriska prefers to develop fully rendered, diverse characters during the editing stage.

Post-draft feedback

You could instead turn to writer friends or readers you know from a particular background to give feedback on a character or concept shared, as Smith has done. Hiring book coaches, editors, and/or professional or other beta readers from a particular background is another avenue for reality checking the realism of a character, a religious concept, or something else outside your lived experiences.

Regardless of what support route you go, Smith shared that a fundamental consideration is avoiding stereotyped behaviors and such. This is about being more nuanced in your writings, while veering away from presenting something like having all the Chinese and other Asian-American students in a YA book about middle school relationships effortlessly get good grades and be rule-followers.

Someone still might call you out for using language that is perceived as diminishing others – which Smith called inevitable. “No matter how careful you are today, if the book lives long enough, it will offend somebody,” she said, because mores change. She added that everyone involved should be willing to be in discussion and “show good faith” toward each other. Or, as Vondriska observed, “you … acknowledge that you’re not perfect.”

By Barbra A. Rodriguez

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To learn more about developing diverse characters, consider Alex Temblador’s work, Writing an Identity Not Your Own: A Guide for Creative Writers, and Meg Vondriska’s book, A Tail of Two Titties: A Writer’s Guide to Conquering the Most Sexist Tropes in Literary History.