Here’s the truth about compelling characters: they’re neither good nor bad, perfect nor fundamentally flawed.
Instead, they’re all of these things.
Each character has a set of good, admirable qualities while also displaying frustrating or off-putting flaws. They have strengths and weaknesses in different areas, making them both skilled and inept at the same time. But that’s the point, isn’t it? The best characters have a mix of good and bad traits because they’re just like real people.
Character creation, when done well, is not an easy process. Too many flaws (or even the wrong flaws), and a character becomes unlikeable. Too many positive attributes, and they come across as unrealistic, unrelateable, or even (yawn) boring. So how do we achieve balance?
Understand What Shaped Your Character
Just like you and me, your character has a past. And while backstory pain should be exploited to create conflict and tension in the present, good will be mixed with the bad. In real life, beneficial experiences and relationships keep us going no matter how bad things get. So as you dig around in the character’s backstory, think about their positive and negative moments and past influencers. Understand what the character learned from them and how each lesson has encouraged certain traits to form, becoming part of their core identity.
Identify the Character’s Moral Center
Every character—even the antagonist—has a moral code. What beliefs does your character live by? What lines will they will not cross? Answers to questions about the “why” of your character’s moral choices will be embedded in their backstory and their resulting view of the world. Morals drive motivation and action, so dig deep to determine your character’s sense of right and wrong.
Prod the Wound to See What Hurts
In the wake of a wounding event, the character will embrace certain negative traits that are meant to keep the painful event from happening again. Those qualities act as emotional shielding meant to protect the character, but they end up creating more problems.
For example, a character who experienced rejection might adopt traits that will close them off from potential lovers so they won’t be rejected again. Traits like abrasiveness, arrogance, or dishonesty might do the trick.
Once you know your character’s wound, see what traits might emerge from it—traits that will keep that event from recurring but also create problems that will block the character from achieving their story goal. Then they’ll have to resolve those issues and turn toward healthier coping mechanisms to get what they want.
Give Everyone a Shot at Redemption
Every negative has a positive. No matter how dark or skewed a character’s view is, there will always be a flicker of light that can help him find his way back to completion and fulfillment. Whether it’s a pure goal, a vulnerable side, or the teeniest desire to be better, show that to readers. Let them see that redemption is at least possible, and they’ll stick with the character to see how their story ends.
Balancing your character’s positive and negative sides takes some deep brainstorming, but if you know where their traits come from, you’re on your way to fashioning a character who feels authentic and make sense. For more tips on character creation and building your story’s cast, check out The Negative and Positive Trait Thesauruses.
Other Posts in This Series
Dialogue Mechanics
Effective Dialogue Techniques
Semi-Colons and Other Tricky Punctuation Marks
Show-Don’t-Tell, Part 1
Show-Don’t-Tell, Part 2
Infodumps
Point of View Basics
Choosing the Right Details
Avoiding Purple Prose
Character Arc in a Nutshell
Story Structure Models that Work
Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.
Is there an app or anything else you have or could use to help with character creation instead of trying to memorize everything and hurt your brain? Also, maybe tips on how to fix a character that you can’t quite figure out why it’s off?
Hi, Christian. We’ve recently created a tool to help with character creation called the Character Builder. It’s at One Stop for Writers; we’ve posted a ten-minute tutorial on the home page there, so people can see what the tool can do.
Regarding fixing a broken character, I actually think the character builder works for this, too. Most of the time, a character doesn’t quite work because their important pieces don’t totally “fit.” Their outer and inner motivations, personality traits, emotional wound, fears, etc.——when all of these are connected, the character makes sense. And that’s what the character builder does——it ties all the important bits together.
I know this sounds like a plug, and I’m sorry for that, but I truly believe that this is the purpose of the character builder. So feel free to check out the video and see if it might be something you’re interested in. 🙂
I love everyone of these wonderful Thesaurues. You both are geniuses. Thanks so much for creating them and sharing your ideas.
http://www.sherislevy.com
Thanks so much, Shari!
This was a huge help! I am currently in the process and drawing up character charts for a new story I am working on, and I was so stuck on trying to make the main character have her admirable qualities while also being a bit insecure and mistrusting, but I was really skeptical about doing so. This helps me out a ton, especially with my antagonists.
Definitely bookmarked the page! I am going to return whenever I am stuck. It looks like you have a category for anything, so I will be using that to my advantage. 🙂
Very glad this helped! We definitely want to bring out the inner complexities of our protagonists…this is what makes them feel real to readers. 🙂
Well, I doubt that. I think that as long as we properly justify, or reveal, thought processes of the characters, they can be great. But then again, most of my antagonists are completely irredeemable, because writing a perfectly happy ending is hard work. And so are the antagonists in many famous stories.
Even in reality, every emotion doesn’t have a backstory. Yes, it leads to the characters being less likeable, but the balancing doesn’t always demand likeability, does it?
Emotional responses are tied to experiences, good and bad. And for us to feel something, we need context, so in that sense, every emotion comes from backstory experience. 😉
Antagonists may feel completely nonredeemable, but there should always be a seed, that if circumstances were different, if they experienced something that opened their mind, that the possibility for redemption is possible. 🙂
This is absolutely fanTAStic stuff, Angela! Oh, WHAT a surprise to find such incredibly useful info HERE of all places! 😉 Seriously—I haven’t gotten into really doing this in a deep way yet (still not focusing on the novels *sigh*), but oh, when I do, this will serve me so well! 😀 Thank you!
Hurray–so glad this strikes a cord with you. 🙂
I have a big background in personality theory, so I have a grasp of what the basic types of people have in their typical strengths and weaknesses, what motivates or drives them, and also what will push some qualities to the forefront. It also means I sometimes read characters who are plainly one type of personality who will suddenly do something out of character. Which is not to say they can’t ever do that, just that it won’t come naturally- it needs to be uncomfortable and usually makes them retreat into their old ways rather than embracing the new (think Scarlett O’Hara doing occasional deep thinking, but then retreating into her typical here and now way of dealing with problems). While not a be-all-end-all, it’s very handy when building characters.
This is good . I’m bookmarking this post to keep in my helpful info file. Thank you.
Great post, Angela.
Excellent post. You definitely need a good balance, sometimes the balance tipping to one side, but everyone has some good in them (and sinful at some point!). I always think of Snape as such an interesting character. He seemed so evil but really had the best of intentions!
Snape is such a good example. When you discover his true intentions, it’s practically too late, and it made me want to go back and see him in a new light, to get close to him on another level, to continue onward with him knowing who he truly is, but that is not to be. He was brilliantly written, as was his parting in the story.
This is great information. Thank you. I’m currently plotting and outlining, so perfect timing.
That’s great! I love the brainstorming point of writing, when we can tweak and make everything fit together before sitting down to write.
I’m sketching out my characters right now, so this is just what I was looking for! Thanks for the great post.
So very glad this will help!